Seize fire in Iran. President Trump finds an off-ramp to the five-week war. But at what cost? And can the U.S. and Iran make a long-term deal? Tonight on Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points. President Trump began the week threatening Iran, warning its quote, whole civilization will die unless the Strait of Hormuz was reopened by his deadline. But when Pakistan presented a plan to temporarily halt hostilities, the president embraced it. U.S. and Iran call it a ceasefire. Vice President J.D. Vance called it a fragile truce. The president's critics say he blinked. Whatever you call it, it was an off-ramp. And the president took it. Joining us now to talk about this, Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Dana Stroll is the director of research at the Washington Institute of Near East Peace and a former Defense Department official. Ray Take is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former official on the National Security Council staff. And Alex Vatanca is a senior fellow at the Mid-East Institute. Thank you all very much and welcome back, all of you, to Compass Points. This week we heard declarations of victory from both Washington and Tehran. Let's start with the U.S. Secretary Hegseth called this a capital V military victory. Dana, did the U.S. win? I think it's very hard for any of us to say whether we've won or not because we don't really know what the president's goals were. This is the problem. The military says that its goals were obvious, right? So there's no question that we have, and I think we're using this word accurately, decimated much of Iran's defense industrial complex. Missiles, drones, drones, Navy, Air Force, I'd say that generously to the Iranians. Absolutely. We've hit their command and control very hard. We have selectively hit some of their nuclear sites and some of their nuclear infrastructure. We've taken out the defensive emplacements around Harj Island. Inside the strait that Iran uses to export 90% of it as well. Exactly. Harj Island is their single point of failure economically. So we've done all of those things. If you are General Reyes and Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and stuff, you're going to say, yeah, we did it. Good job. The question is, the military is a tool to achieve something, and the president has thrown some straws in the wind, but he's never really sat down and said, A, nuclear, B, missile, C, terrorism, D, human rights, in that simple, nice way that I just did. Donald Trump, if you hear me, please do that. And so you can't say, V for victory when you don't know what those four points are. If you don't know the points, Dana, can you declare victory? Well I think what's important about what Reyes and Kane and also the Senkham commander, Brad Cooper, have talked about is the military objectives. And by how they defined the military objectives of the American campaign, they did achieve them. They pushed back Iran's ability to threaten the region with the missiles, with the drones. The nuclear program was damaged for sure last summer during the 12-day war. And again, with this campaign, we know that the terrorist network was degraded before this war. Proxies, Hamas, all of that. But those bigger questions, regime change, Trump actually said we did have regime change. I am really concerned it's for the worse because now we have an IRGC takeover of Tehran. Did we change the regime's behavior less than its commitment to the nuclear program, to misuse missiles, to supporting terrorism? No. And actually I worry that Iran, in this case the regime, actually discovered a fourth pillar of power projection, which is maintaining control and menacing a strategic choke point the Strait of Hormuz. So that brings us to did Tehran win? So Ray, I'll let you begin. Does Iran, as Dana just said, have more leverage today than it did before the war? Can Iran declare victory? For Iran, I suspect the war, they always saw it in existential terms because their survival was contingent on some kind of a success, some narrative of success, both in terms of their approach to the international community and more critically domestic audiences that were aggressive. From their definition, they have come out, they have absorbed all the hits by superior military powers. They're still standing. They're negotiating with the United States. They have declared their points of negotiations, the 10-point plan, which is an absurdity, but they have been bold enough to suggest it. They're talking about the fact that the ceasefire has to be declared in the Levant before they accept it. And they have, in essence, I think, as Dana suggested, have a security guarantee now. The security guarantee is that they can manage the strategic waterways and impede global commerce when they don't like something that's happening somewhere else, whether it's Lebanon, whether it's the United States doing something. And they have demonstrated they can do that with primitive technologies. That tells you something about perhaps mediation of power in 21st century because obviously the American and Israeli security forces are far more significant. But the Iranians have proven their point. If this war ends with the Gulf security being unpredictable, then honestly, I don't see how the United States can suggest it won the war. Alex? No, I agree. I tend to agree with that. I mean, the Gulf states were against this war to begin with. They weren't consulted. At first, although after it started, they wanted it to be seen through. And they're still not in a position to shape where this is going. I mean, if you're Iran right now, what I would watch out for is the threat of being overconfident. I hope they don't become overconfident. This is a regime that oftentimes misreads the situation, believes in its own slogans. As somebody who remembers the Iran-Iraq war, that was a war where Iran was overconfident. And it caused the country of Iran, the people of Iran, dearly. And they could repeat that mistake because to the point about who is running Iran, the first generation revolution regards people, people like Mohsen Rizai and I can give you names of people in their early 70s now who've been in this regime for 50 years are still in the driver's seat. I hope and pray they learn the lessons from what they got wrong during the Iran-Iraq war and that they actually don't overplay what they have. They, to raise point, they didn't, they weren't toppled. We can declare that a victory. But if they overreach, then who knows? It's not just going to be another round of conflict. It could be another round of conflict with the United States backed by others, which was missing because the United States never really sold this idea of war with Iran in this round we just had. But that could change. If you have a country that wants to take over the Strait of Hormuz and essentially take the global economy hostage, you're not just going to get the Gulf states on board. You're going to get the Europeans. It's East Asians. And that's something Iran needs to watch out for. Well, Ray, on that point, you said actually a little bit of the opposite to a colleague of mine. You suggested that, as we've talked about here before, the Israelis see a real mission, a goal in reducing Iran's abilities. I mean, full stop, right? Iran has less abilities than it did 35 days ago. But the concern there is that you have to be willing and able to keep going back. And you were suggesting that maybe actually this war creates the possibility that we are less able to do that. But the Israelis have the strategy everybody has heard at mowing the lawns. Well, sometimes when... And just to explain that, right? The idea is you go in, you cut off whether it's Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran. The grass will grow back. You go in and you cut it again. Well, it's even more provocative than that because the idea that the Israelis have is you attack Iran when there's no nuclear urgency, that their conventional military capabilities, if they're resurrected, behind it a nuclear program will eventually lurk. So essentially you attacking Iran when there is no urgent nuclear issue. That is doctrine that makes perfect sense from their perspective. And they understood, I think better than the Americans did, that this is not a war in and of itself but the point on a larger continuum. And the intervals between one campaign and the other campaign are determined by how great Iranian capabilities are and also how quickly they can be built back. So it's dynamic. I'm not sure if the United States will go back to mowing the lawns. And if it doesn't, I don't see how Israelis can. A middle-sized power like Israel cannot impose these costs on the global economy without superpower benefactors. And I don't think successors to Donald Trump, whether the Democratic Party, which is wholesale against this war, the Republican Party, which has strong isolationist sentiment and its standard bearer, prospectively JD Vance, is against this war. And even Donald Trump, it may be that everybody chewed off more than they can swallow, and now you're going to see some sort of a retreat from that position. So paradoxically, Iran could come out of this war, wage for disarmament, on a path towards some kind of a rearmament. So, Danny, what about that idea? The idea that, well, if you just kept going back into Iran every six or nine months, then you would maintain this low level of defensive ability, but has this war actually made that less possible? I don't think it was ever possible. You know, I mean, when we talk about Lebanon, when we talk about Syria, when we talk about the West Bank and Gaza, we are talking about places that are either right next to or contiguous with Israel. So that makes life much easier. But one thing that I think is hugely important that you underscore, and this is a point for the Islamic Republic, for the regime, is that they have shown their ability to accept the abstract, enormous economic costs in a way that I don't think was fully anticipated. And while I think the Israelis, had they thought about it, might have seen this, you are absolutely right. If for the Israelis to just keep coming and come out and have the Iranians extract those costs on a regular basis, yeah, no, that's not a thing. But it's funny, listening to everybody talk about this, it's hard not to be caught up in the moment by moment, especially when we have a president who lives in the moment, but also expresses himself this way. But I think if you pull back for a second, and I wonder whether the president is going to consider these factors, if you pull back for a second, what you are looking at is two extraordinarily important and radically different outcomes for the United States. You mean that's possible moving forward? Right. If, one, this succeeds beyond our wildest dreams, and I think there's, look, it can, for sure, we do have an ally on the ground, we do have the Iranian people who hate this regime, they are limited in their capacity, but they are definitely a tool. If, let's just say, if we succeed beyond our wildest dreams, and this regime is gone, that's certainly my wildest dream. You are looking at the transformation of the Middle East. That's certainly what the president suggested was possible through this war. Iran has dominated for 47 years, and it is the shaping power inside the Middle East. Right? Hasballah, the Houthis, the popular mobilization forces, Assad, Hamas, everything. They have their fingers in every pie. We get rid of them, we can finally pivot to Asia. If we lose, right, if we are taken down by these tin pot mollus, right, and their craptastic weaponry. Careful, it's PBS, we gotta be fancier to our language. I think I can say that. I think I can say that. Believe me, it wasn't the word that came to mind immediately. But if we are taken down by them, you are China, right, Xi Jinping, you are Russia, you are North Korea, you are every other crummy dictator, and you look at us and think you're not serious. Alex, the president says there's been regime change, has there been? No, there hasn't really been regime change. There's been a change of personality at the top, but when you look at the about a dozen or so key individuals that are senior members of the Revolutionary Guards, they've been there since pretty much 1979. There were young men in the early 20s when they joined this Khomeini's revolution. They went through the Iraq war and all the years since. And the big question isn't so much whether you have new personalities. The big question, which I'm not sure which way they're gonna go, but the big question is did they take a lesson from this war that says we can't repeat this again? And if we need to make adjustments, then we should. That includes their position on the United States, their position on Israel. This whole idea of forward defense and relying on Arab militias around the region, because the Arab militias were not able to prevent war coming to the skies of Tehran. They have a population in Iran that never experienced anything like this, never anticipated anything like this. This is not the Iran-Iraq war, where the war was fought along the borders 500 miles away from the capital. This happened in the Iranian capital, 10 million people. This impacted lives across the board. The regime has to take that into account. And Dana, I see you're shaking your head, but I want to bring us back to why the president accepted this ceasefire, or according to officials I talked to who actually pushed Pakistan to offer the ceasefire so the U.S. could accept the ceasefire. And I want to take us back to early in the week, because that's why I think we really have to not forget about this, and some of the president's rhetoric. So on Easter Sunday, the president writes this, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the expletive straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell, just watch. Praise to be to Allah. And then on Tuesday, he wrote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. In retrospect, Dana, what was the impact of those threats? I think the Iranian sniff desperation from President Trump. And I'm going to couch my response in some of the conversation earlier about the best case and the worst case scenario. I think we're going to end up somewhere in the middle, because the Israelis have only been able to mow the grass against Iran's proxies, because they've benefited from a platform of U.S. military support in the Middle East for decades. And what was built up from January, which was all about defending the Iranian people to enable these huge operations over the past six weeks, was the U.S. military buildup, two aircraft carriers, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, ground forces, the Special Forces, more fighter squadrons than the Middle East has seen maybe since the height of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars or even more, and the expenditure of munitions of missile interceptors. The United States cannot do this every three to four years. I think the region understands that. Let alone every six months. Let alone every six months. So not only is the United States not going to mow the grass, it cannot enable Israel to mow the grass in this manner every three to four years, and the costs the American people are only beginning to understand what the financial costs were, the impact on the American taxpayer. That debate is coming, and at a terrible time for Trump ahead of the midterms. Well, Daniel, on that point, I mean, the president seems to have escalated to de-escalate in some ways, but that last point that they made also, did the president read the room so to speak and realize that, oh, the gas prices were really a big deal for Americans, and they just didn't see the point of continuing the war, and therefore he felt like he needed an offer. I don't think so. It's become very difficult to know what is actually happening in the president's mind, not because the president is not verbose and willing to share at all times with much worse language than I used earlier, I should add. But we're also in the midst of a very serious disinformation campaign from inside the administration, which makes life very difficult because not everybody is on board with what the president has chosen to do. So we're getting told by very authoritative people, very near the president, things that the president believes that the president doesn't believe. And so it's really hard for people like us, but I would say for almost anyone, to actually make a judgment. Why did he read the economic costs as being something that meant that he had to immediately move to an off-ramp? No, I don't think so. I think the president believes that he has put in place a very tough, a very resilient, and a very positive economy. Now, I don't happen to agree about all elements of that, but that is what he thinks, and he believes that we will recover very quickly from the oil shock that happened with this invasion. Is there a way, Ray, to go back to February 27th, to get back to the point where at least it wasn't so clear that Iran could close the strait so easily and that gas prices were frankly lower for the average American or has that ship passed, so to speak? Not if the Gulf traffic remains hostage to Iranian whims because that has all kinds of impact on market psychology and prices and so forth. The most important audience for this war is not in the region, is not in the Middle East, is not in Europe, are the American people, and today, two to one, they're against it. And if that perception... Well, the president's base is about 70 percent plus in support. Yes, but the country is bigger than the president's base. And if that perception congeals, then you're going to have a situation like the aftermath of Iraq, an America who's hesitant when sometimes it should be bold. And I fear, given the fact that the president has not been able to offer a coherent justification for this war because of the evolving objectives and his message on Easter Day, I mean, that was a real experience because the United States of America was condemned on Easter by the Pope. The American Pope? Well, they can take comfort in that. He's not a foreigner. So that perception of congeals, and I think it has, and I don't see this administration being interversed, that creates restraint in the system among all actors, perhaps beyond the president's base. And of course, the president tapped into that restraint that existed 10 years ago, and we thought he would actually keep going. Alex, let me ask about the Strait a little bit more and Iran's perception of it. And I want to bring up some of the president's options or some of the president's suggestions. He's suggested at times that maybe other countries should deal with the Strait. I want to ask about that. But then he also said this to ABC's John Carl, who tweeted this, quoting the president, we're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people, suggesting somehow that Iran and the United States would toll ships together leaving the Strait. When Iran sees that, what do they think? And is that even remotely the realm of possibility? To be honest, I think at this point, the Iranians just think the American president is playing with them. I think that's what they're going to take away from that, because there's nothing else in the big picture that suggests that that's where the United States is going in terms of the grand strategy what to do with the Islamic Republic. It's just the one off. This is what we can do. Did anybody actually think about what this means, the ramifications? It's not the Iranian side. The U.S. businesses have potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of investment is on the southern side in the Gulf countries. So what are you doing? What sort of message are you sending to those Gulf countries, U.S. allies? What message does the Gulf have today, Dana? Well, leading up to the ceasefire, I think the message from a lot of the Gulf countries is we're not asking for a ceasefire right now, because you have not fundamentally enough shifted back the threats that are facing us. And in fact, in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire, the Gulf countries continue to be hit. Although as you know better than me, the Emiratis, the Saudis, they're not all on the same page as to whether to continue the war. The Gulf cooperation council countries are not a monolith. But what there were indications of was that this regime, the nature of the regime and the fact that the regime became more hardline over the course of the war leaves us in a terrible security situation. And if you leave this regime intact with even some of the toys, that's terrible for the security positioning of the Gulf. And right now this looks like what it is. And the Gulf countries don't have a seat at the table when these talks take place in Pakistan, at least immediately. It's unclear who's representing Gulf interests. And they absorbed more blows in Iran's retaliation than Israel. Yeah. And so we don't know where these negotiations will go right now as we sit here. But Danny, how interested do you think the U.S. is in making a deal and making a long term deal with Iran? Look, the president loves to make deals. I mean, he tells us that every five minutes. So I think he would very much like to. And one thing we ignore with this administration is that they do spend quite a lot of time before they act seemingly sort of without hesitation on negotiation efforts, on diplomatic efforts. We did that with Venezuela. We're doing that with Cuba right now. And I've been told, unlike in the first term, the president is actually quite close to Steve Wittkopf and Jared going into the details before they start. Right. I agree with that. And we did try with the Iranians. I think they tried actually pretty assiduously and didn't get anywhere. So does he in principle want a deal? Yes. The issue is that he has painted himself into a corner. And this is really sort of a trend line that we haven't talked about that much. But this escalation that you put on the screen that the president articulated in one day and then the next day with increasingly intemperate language looks a little bit like desperation. Frustration in some cases to some ears. But it also represents frustration on his part at what we've been able to get the Iranians to do. Or to point not be able to get to us. Right. But if that's the case, how does he accept less from them in negotiations in Pakistan? How does he accept them saying, well, you know, we'll bring in the IAEA at some point, you know, JCPOA style? I think the president is really good at adjusting himself and adjusting his narrative. That's too much of an adjustment. And just quickly, because we only have 30 seconds left, Alex to get the last word, how interested is Iran in that long term? I don't know. I mean, Danny was talking about wildcars before. I really don't know which way they're going to go. They can double down on the path that, you know, Ali Khamenei laid down from 36, 7 years of just ideological pursuits of policies that really brought Iran to this point of disaster. Or they can try and use this window of opportunity, new leadership, if they take the lesson from this word the right way and take the country in a different direction. That would be the easiest thing for the rest of the world to want to see over the best thing that could happen. People of Iran benefit, the rest of the world benefit. But this is me being very wishful thinking in terms of my analysis. I think it's a good way to end, right? Wishful thinking. So Dana, Alex, Ray and Danny, thank you so much. And thank you for being with us. I'm Nick Scherfer and that's all the time we have. We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.
