Glenn, John, Alexander On Negotiations; Iran: Return To Sender

Very good discussion by the dynamic trio on the state of negotiations with Russia. They’re saying basically what we’ve been saying here. Russia is in charge, and it’s hard to figure what Trump thinks he’s accomplishing with empty threats of tariffs and sanctions. As I was saying the other day, Putin has concluded after two decades of trying that the American political culture makes America an unreliable partner when it comes to lasting agreements. All the incentives for Russia are on the side of continuing the war. Again, as I wrote, the Russians will be more than happy to talk and talk and to accept concessions, but there won’t be a ceasefire until there’s a surrender. It’s hard to understand what part of “no ceasefire” Trump doesn’t understand. Lastly, as I’ve tried to emphasize, Putin owes Trump absolutely nothing. Mearsheimer appears to get that. Putin may play along for a while to get concessions, but he won’t give an inch on anything he has already laid down.

Anyway, here’s a transcript of what I regard as the core part of the discussion, beginning around the 34:00 mark:

The US Push for Peace & Europe Panics - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

GD: I was also wondering what the two of you think about Russia's likely approach because--on one hand--I'm very convinced that, if they can get a peace deal which can reshape the relationship with the Americans, given how profound that would be in terms of reorganizing the world, having some great power reset and restructuring the whole international system away from the unipolar to some kind of a great power compromise, I think in this context they would prefer a peace which they can agree on, a settlement with the Americans, but also--on the other hand--if if they can just win this whole war and dictate their own terms, how great is this temptation? I know that if the Americans are pushing a ceasefire then, yeah, definitely [the Russians are] going to do the latter [continue the war], but how where do you think the Russians are going to lean on this one?

JM: Well I think it's quite clear the Russians will not accept the ceasefire. They've made it unequivocably clear--we never listen to them--but they've made it unequivocably clear. You laid out the logic, Glenn, as to why it would be foolish for them to do so. But just in terms of what a peace agreement looks like, I think from the Russian point of view you have to take into account the fact that the United States is a wild and crazy country. First of all, you just look at Trump. He says one thing one day and another thing the next day. He's now talking about getting tough with sanctions on Russia if they don't do X and Y. Who knows? If you look at what he's doing with tariffs--they're on, they're off, they're on--who knows? And furthermore, Trump is not forever. It could be that things go spectacularly wrong for Trump. Who knows what the economic consequences are of his policies, and we get Joe Biden II or Joe Biden the second or somebody like him in 2028.

All of that means the Russians have a window of opportunity here to take lots of territory and to put Ukraine in a position where it can never join NATO and where it's not anywhere near being an offensive threat to Russia down the road. So I think American behavior--and European behavior, for sure!--incentivizes the Russians to take as much as they can, especially now that they have a window of opportunity, given where the balance of power is at. So I don't see the Russians being in a generous mood in the negotiations with the Americans. Certainly if I was playing their hand I would be driving a really hard bargain. And the other dimension to this--which we were talking about five minutes ago--is that Trump doesn't have a lot of options here. He's committed himself to peace with Russia and that means he's got to make huge concessions, because it's very difficult for him to walk away. It would have all sorts of political repercussions and furthermore the war would just go on. So, in a funny way, Trump is boxed in. And, when you marry that to the fact that the Russians have powerful incentives to drive a hard bargain, I don't think you're going to get anything that looks like a sweetheart deal from the West's perspective.

My disagreement with what Alexander is about to say is simply that, by the time Trump returned to office, Russia was completely in the driver’s seat. Trump really had no choice. Alexander’s point would make sense in a more balanced situation, but here Trump is, in Mearsheimer’s words, “boxed in.” Alexander implicitly accepts that when he says, the Russians know how strong their position is.

AM: I completely agree. I have to say the one big mistake that Trump made is that, by insisting that he wanted peace quickly, he communicated to the Russians that he's very eager to make peace and so that gives the Russians leverage over him. For the great dealmaker that he imagines himself to be, I was surprised that he did that. I would have thought a much more conventional approach to negotiations would have perhaps worked better for him, but the Russians know the how strong their position is and you only have to look at what they're saying--which, of course, nobody does, exactly as John says. I mean, the Europeans, you listen to Macron, you listen to Starmer, they're still paying no attention to what the Russians are saying. But the Russians are being absolutely clear that, on the points that Putin made in his speech on the 14th of June last year to the Russian foreign Ministry, they are not prepared to budge an inch. And why would they? Why would they agree to ceasefires, to pauses in the conflicts, to any of the things which would ultimately weaken their own position?

In this next paragraph Alexander adopts a position I’ve been advocating. Since the Russians have so much leverage with regard to the actual war, Trump should be looking to do propose some extra deal that the Russians might be willing to make concessions for. The obvious possibility, to me, is in the area of arms control.

What I think the Americans perhaps ought to do is to accept that there's not going to be a cease fire, to try to get the negotiations with the Russians going, to negotiate themselves--perhaps in parallel to whatever negotiations the Ukrainians get up to--and perhaps to say whether, as part of that negotiating process over the course of the give and take that takes place in negotiations, the Americans can perhaps find some ways to maybe not share the Russian position but to get things from the Russians in return for other things that the Americans might be prepared to give in other respects. But it it's going to be very, very difficult and, to repeat a point that not just I but several other people are now making, the Russians are very formidable negotiators. They come to negotiations extremely well prepared. This is not the Gorbachev and Yeltsin era. It's more like how the Russians used to negotiate before, and now they negotiate in the same way again. They will come very prepared, they'll be very thorough in their preparations, they will have everything at their fingertips, and I wonder whether the Americans are prepared in the same way.

JM: Just very quickly before I turn it over to Glenn. It's always important to remember that from the Russian perspective what's going on in Ukraine is an existential threat. Many in the West refuse to accept that, but from the Russian point of view this is an existential threat, and you do come seriously prepared for the negotiations when you're dealing with an existential threat.

…

AM: [The Russians] know perfectly well that the next Administration might have a completely different, much more conventional view of foreign policy than the Trump Administration does. I think the Russians will say to themselves, ‘We’ve got this extraordinary individual in the White House at the moment, let's see what we can achieve with him whilst he is there, but let's not at the same time give anything away that we might regret doing in a few years time.’ So that's something that the Russians know. In fact, it's not a mystery, because they talk about it with each other. If you go to the Russian media you will see that they talk about this all the time. The Russians are about as transparent as you can get, in my opinion. I realize it's heresy to say that in the West, but Putin says what he believes, Lavrov says what he believes. They're all basically on the same page and anybody who's taken a course in strategy 101 knows that what they're saying does make sense. You might not like it, but it does make sense. So I think reading the Russians is not that difficult.

---

Readers will recall that yesterday we spent some time on the reports that Trump had sent Iran’s Supreme Leader—I think that’s what the Ayatollah is called—a letter in an attempt to get negotiations started. According to Trump, he made all sorts of threats about what would happen to Iran if Iran didn’t do a deal with him:

Trump Sends Letter To Ayatollah Urging Fresh Nuclear Negotiations

Trump himself revealed the overture in a Friday interview with Fox Business, a first such significant engagement of the administration with Tehran, which is somewhat surprising given Trump's tone regarding Iran has been hawkish, especially on the prior campaign trail. Wide-ranging sanctions are still on the banking, energy, and defense sectors - and have been for years.

"I’ve written them a letter saying I hope you negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them," Trump confirmed to Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo.

…

Trump has recently brought back 'maximum pressure' on Iran, and has even this week advanced the possibility of cracking down on sanctions-busting Iranian oil exports on the high seas, using naval intervention. Clearly this is part of the big stick package of actions meant to push Tehran to the table.

Today Iran said they never received the letter but, in any case, they aren’t interested.

Iran Rejects New Nuclear Negotiations, Denies Receiving Letter From Trump

President Trump announced Friday that the day prior he sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking the reopening of new nuclear negotiations, while floating the potential that longtime sanctions could be dropped.

Tehran has responded by saying it never received a letter, and also by dismissing the possibility of opening new talks, after the US already years ago abandoned the Obama-brokered JCPOA nuclear deal. Lost in the mail?...

…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told AFP on Friday, "If America wants to return to a new nuclear agreement with Iran, naturally it should observe the conditions of a fair and just negotiation, and we have proven that we will not answer the language of pressure and threat but will respond to the language of respect and dignity as we did in the past."

…

An earlier Fox News interview in February marked the point at which Trump first laid out that Iran has two choices. "Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them," Trump had said at the time while discussing potential Israeli military action against Tehran.

"I would prefer that not happen. I'd much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it," the president continued.

That's when he made one of the more provocative and threatening comments: "There's two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper," he had previously said. But so far Tehran is viewing talks with the Trump admin as a dead end, and is clearly not moving toward the negotiating table.

You can imagine what the Iranians are thinking. They did a nuclear deal with Obama and they adhered to the terms to the letter. Then along comes Trump who throws the deal in the trash bin, because the Israel Lobby paid him to do so. The Iranians know that as well as anyone else—probably better than most. Now Trump gets elected again and he’s saying, ‘Hey, do a nuclear deal with me or I’ll help Israel bomb the sh*t out of you!’ The Iranian reaction is that if Trump wants a nuclear deal he should have stuck with the one he had. That’s not unreasonable. And they clearly know that Trump’s military threats are almost certainly totally empty.

The Houthis, by the way, are saying that they will renew their blockade of the Red Sea if Israel doesn’t end its blockade of humanitarian shipments to Gaza in four days. Trump 2.0 has declared the Houthis to be a terrorist organization. I’m not sure whether that means that we’ll be arming and training them, like we’ve done with al Qaeda and ISIS.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the Anglo-Zionist-Turkish supported ISIS offshoot, HTS, is conducting massacres of Christians and Alawites. Crickets.