BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in London. I'm Tim Franks. We always approach our programmes, our editions of NewsHour, with the simple question, what is going on? We ask out whatever the stories are. But my goodness, given the last 24 hours, that question feels all the more necessary. From President Trump's warning that he was about to destroy Iranian civilisation, to the announcement of a two-week ceasefire, is this really going to be the end of the US-Israeli war in Iran? Can the current, and it seems utterly divergent American and Iranian views of an acceptable long-term deal, be resolved? What will be the political fallout for Mr Trump in the US? On what basis can global shipping resume through the Strait of Hormuz? Will it, in fact, resume? What about Israel continuing to pound Lebanon? Is that going to carry on? So lots of questions we'll try to answer in the course of the programme. Let's begin though with how some of the key protagonists are trying to frame events. First to the lectern today was the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Haggceth. President Trump forged this moment. Iran begged for this ceasefire, and we all know it. By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come. You see, in less than 40 days, one of our combatant commands, Central Command, Cent Com, using less than 10% of America's total combat power, dismantled one of the world's largest militaries. The world's leading state sponsor of terrorism proved utterly incapable of defending itself, its people, or its territory. And speaking in the past couple of hours, the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt outlined how the deal had been done. The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that is false. With the President's deadline fast approaching and the United States military completely decimating Iran with each passing hour, the regime acknowledged reality to the negotiating team. They put forward a more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the President and his team. President Trump and the team determined the new modified plan was a workable basis on which to negotiate and to align it with our own 15-point proposal. The President's red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed. And the idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd. Caroline Levitt also said that despite Iranian insistence otherwise, Israel's current offensive in Lebanon, aimed at the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia, was not covered by the terms of the U.S.'s ceasefire with Iran. Israel has launched a particularly intense wave of airstrikes on Lebanon today. We'll have more on that in just over 10 minutes. But speaking this evening, Israel Time, the Prime Minister Bin Ibn Netanyahu, had this warning for Iran. We have more goals to achieve, and we will achieve by agreement or by renewal of the fighting. We are ready to return to fight every moment. The finger is on the trigger. And talking about warnings on social media, the Iranian Foreign Minister Syed Abbas Arakchi has written that the U.S. must choose between a ceasefire or a continued war, as he put Israel. And just within the last few minutes, the U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who's going to be a key figure in the forthcoming negotiations with Iran, has said that if Iran wants negotiations to fall apart over Israel's actions in Lebanon, it's their choice. The BBC State Department correspondent is Tom Bateman. What does he think is the view from inside the Trump administration on, as to how far this is job done? Well, I think from what we're hearing, and I was in that briefing room in the Pentagon where Pete Hexeth was giving this, you know, pretty chest thumping, triumphalist description of what they'd achieved, as you heard from some of that there, I think they're trying to say everything they can to really hold this together at the moment, because looking at this two-week truce that's supposedly been agreed, I mean, this is looking increasingly tenuous, where you have a situation now where, you know, President Trump had said that this was now a ceasefire for this fortnight duration, a group of the Iranians. The mediator Pakistan, having said that that included the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranians appearing to say that was the case too, and now we're in a situation where the White House is saying, no, that was not the agreement, that there is not a ceasefire covering Lebanon at a time where there's also been, you know, an extraordinary level of Israeli attacks into that country. So, you know, there's already one sort of major problem with this ceasefire that was agreed, it felt to me extremely hastily, without some of the normal kind of practices that you would put into making sure a ceasefire was agreed in a timely way that you could prevent against violations of the ceasefire and that those could be monitored and verified. So, it feels like a very, very shaky moment, you know, just less than 24 hours into this agreement. What do we know about the negotiations then that are due to start in Islamabad? I mean, from the Washington end, how heavyweight is the negotiating team? Well, it's heavyweight. I mean, the White House has just confirmed that it will include the Vice President, J.D. Vance, who will travel there, along with Mr. Trump's envoys, Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner. Those two had been involved in the nuclear negotiations with the Iranians, with Abbas Arachi, the foreign minister before the war began. So, you know, it's the sort of already tried and tested team, although you might argue that that team didn't achieve what it was what they'd hoped for diplomatically, of course. But I think the appearance of J.D. Vance is significant. You know, he has been a skeptic internally in the administration about this war. He is said to have been quite heavily involved in the agreement to get the two-week ceasefire, which it appears also involved the Chinese because they're in a unique position to press the Iranians to use their leverage on Tehran. So, I think you have an emerging channel there, which is significant. And the fact that, you know, the White House is saying he's now involved in Islamabad, I think that brings some heft to these discussions. But what it doesn't do is solve the fact that we're now, you know, the gap between the two sides is very significant. There has again been a lot of confusion and lack of clarity about what exactly the proposals are that are going to be discussed in Islamabad, with Tehran saying something completely different to what the White House seems to be thinking this plan involves. So far from certain, even if the ceasefire survives, that this sort of two-week period of talks can make much progress. And that was the BBC State Department correspondent Tom Bateman. A little later in the program, we'll hear from a former senior official in the Trump administration who dealt with the Iran brief on where he thinks things stand after six weeks of war. Before him, one of the president's opponents, the Democratic Congressman, Johnny Olszewski, sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. What's his view of the ceasefire? I welcome the ceasefire that's just been announced. I'm relieved that service members and civilians in the region have been spared from the outrageous threat of President Trump. But I find myself asking both what's been accomplished and at what cost. President Trump will agree to ending the bombing of Iran in order to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was opened before we started bombing Iran. They still have nuclear material. Their regime is more hard-line than ever. It's a bit presumptuous, isn't it, to say that they're more hard-line than ever. We'll see how these negotiations go. Well, we do know that the Ayatollah son, who's been named the new supreme leader, is much more associated with the revolutionary guard and more extreme elements of Iran. The information I've been able to come across suggests that, at best, it is not any more or less extreme, but it is likely the case that we are putting in place a more extreme regime through our actions. One of the results of the actions of the last six weeks or so, whether you think that it was right to go to war or not, was that the Iranian military has pretty much been smashed. Is that not a welcome outcome for the United States? Well, the Iranian regime is certainly extreme. They are brutally repressive. So anything we can do to weaken their ability to inflict damage on their own people or others around the world is a welcomed change. But this is a president you have to keep in mind who has failed to even have one public hearing before us in the Public Affairs Committee to articulate any real strategy or plan. I think the fact that the president doesn't have those answers or hasn't been able to articulate it is why you see the end game of this war continually changing. Do you think if at the end of two weeks of negotiations, this two-week ceasefire, the U.S. has not reaped the sort of rewards and indeed assurances that it needs, do you think it would be right for American forces who will remain in the region to go back into conflict? The truth to that question is I don't know because even in classified settings, this administration has been very vague and has not provided any real significant information about either the conduct of the war or the status of what's happening on the ground. We know that just recently Israel and the president had said that the ceasefire would apply to Lebanon. Pakistan and Iran says yes. Iran just halted traffic. Do you think it should apply to Lebanon? I do, but we know that Iran just halted traffic again in the straight because of Israel's continued attacks against Lebanon. Can I ask you just a further question about Israel, which is a longer term question, which is lots of people have been saying that particularly among Democratic Party supporters in the country, the support for Israel in the longer term has really significantly declined. I just wonder what you think the direction of travel is and whether you and your colleagues, your Democratic colleagues in Congress, are talking about a reappraisal of the U.S. relationship with Israel? I view my support of Israel not unlike my support of the United States. I think that we can and should be supporters of Israel, but also we need to be critical of the actions of a leadership Prime Minister Netanyahu who has taken, I think, actions that are detrimental not only to the Israeli people, but to the stability of the region and has impacted our relationship. So certainly- But I wonder, and forgive me for interrupting, I wonder if some of your natural constituency think that it's not just about Netanyahu. They actually think it's about the imbalance in the relationship with Israel. They look at what Israel is doing not just in these wars, but also perhaps in the way in which it's treating Palestinians in the West Bank as not to mention Gaza, and they think about the amount of money America gives to Israel, and they wonder actually, do we need to reappraise our relationship with Israel in a much more fundamental way that goes beyond whether Netanyahu remains in office? Well, certainly issues like the settler violence, I think, does demand a response from the United States, and if that is part of the relationship, sure, but I view it more in the context of the actions that are taken and America's responsibility to provide that moral leadership. The Democratic Congressman Johnny Olszewski speaking to me from Baltimore, we've got plenty more reflections on where this ceasefire leaves the region, leaves the world, coming up here on News Air. We'll also be stepping away a couple of times to look at other stories, including the growing appeal of power chair football. Every person needs to have some sort of sport in their life. I don't have a weekend anymore to see it's my weekend. These are incredibly talented players, highly skillful, and it's not easy. The appeal of power chair football, and indeed what power chair football is, more on that in just over 10 minutes. Main headline from the BBC Newsroom this hour, Lebanon's civil defense agency says that Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 250 people in the most intense bombardment. Since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah resumed, Israel insists the ceasefire agreed by the US and Iran doesn't apply to the conflict. We'll have more on that in just a moment. This is the BBC World Service and live from London News Hour. From a ceasefire in Iran to the intensification of conflict in Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force said today that it had launched its largest wave of strikes inside its northern neighbors since the end of February when it began its air assault not just on Iran as it did alongside the US, but also on what it said were targets linked to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon. Hezbollah for its part, despite a hammering it received from Israel in a recent year long conflict, had still managed to launch some missiles into northern Israel in solidarity with Tehran six weeks ago. Today the Lebanese health ministry said that 250 people, more than 250 people, had been killed, hundreds more wounded. Explosions were reported in residential areas across the southern half of the country all the way up to the capital Beirut. Dr. Najat Alun Saliba is an independent Lebanese member of parliament and this is what she had to tell the BBC earlier today. As far as air strikes are concerned, we just had over 100 strikes in less than 10 minutes all over Beirut, the south and the Bekaa and it's devastating because all the hospitals are now calling for support and blood and calling their staffs to join the hospitals. So right now we're still understanding the aftermath of these 100 strikes. Dr. Tien Minh Dinh is an emergency doctor in Jabal Amal Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. She described the scene before her there. There have been Lebanese families who have made their way back down south to check their homes after thinking that the south was now safe and it's clear that it is not. We've had a family arrive after their home was bombed only a few hours after they had returned. There were sisters who we treated whose bodies have been riddled with shrapnel. There was a seven-year-old girl who was cold crying, wailing, calling out for her mum and dad as she had gaping wounds in her face, her eye and her scalp. And this afternoon bombs have continued to fall around us to rattle the walls of the hospitals that we support and the bodies have continued to inundate the hospital. Israel's then is continuing to pound targets across Lebanon indicating that the offensive isn't going to stop anytime soon. Dor Harlap is a member of the Central Committee of Israel's main governing party Le Côte. We'll discuss the strategy in Lebanon in a moment. Before that, does he support President Trump's decision to agree to a two-week ceasefire with Iran? It's not a matter if I specifically support his decision, okay? He makes decisions and I totally understand that he sees the things from the perspective of the people of the United States and the things that are on his own table. But we, the people of Israel here, we cannot stay and tolerate what's happening with Iran until today and we will not be able to tolerate that for the future. So I believe that if in those two weeks President Trump will not be able to gain those achievements that are so important for the future of the western civilization, okay? So I believe that we, together with the military of the United States of America, will continue this operation. Last June, Bin Amin Netanyahu said that Israel had achieved a historic victory. This is after the 12-day war in Iran. Had achieved a historic victory that would stand for generations. It didn't last a year, did it? You know, I don't want to give grades to those politicians about how accurate are those. Well, he's the leader of your party. Yes, yes, yes, definitely and I support him. I definitely support him and I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the only one that is able to bring us to this specific time. But you know, also Netanyahu, Netanyahu is not just a normal politician here in Israel, which is having, you know, one term or two terms. Now he has few months before our next elections in October 2026, okay, to show what he's able to bring for the future of the Jewish people, okay? Is he able to finish with Iran's regime this way or another with consent or with war? Is he able to destroy Hezbollah? And also it's very important for everybody, okay? We want the people of Lebanon to have safe and sovereignty on their own country. Well, I want to come to Lebanon. I mean, on that point, we have pushed Hezbollah decades back. We've destroyed most of their rockets and missiles. We've diminished their terror infrastructure across our border. That was Benjamin Netanyahu speaking just after the end of the last war with Hezbollah at the end of 2024. Again, it's not true. He's had to go back to war again. And indeed, this is a war that continues. So I just, I mean, the first issue is, should you believe what the Prime Minister has to say? The second thing is whether... You're taking one sentence. You're taking one sentence. I'm not taking one sentence. I'm taking what he said at the end of the war, which was that we've smashed them for decades. I do believe that we smashed them for decades, but still, they are a very, very radical terror organization, Hezbollah. They can rehabilitate themselves very quick. Now, I... Which suggests that the war approach militarily isn't working. So, look, okay, I definitely believe that we didn't finish their job and we have to do so. And this isn't Prime Minister Netanyahu's and President Trump. That's on their plate. What they will do in the next two weeks and in the next few months, this will be what will be the vision of their own career. They need to finish the job. If they will not finish the job, I agree with you. This is terrible. And would you also agree that the opinion polling, the most recent opinion polling in Israel suggests that fewer and fewer members of the public think that actually the job, as you put it, is going to be finished? You know, Israel is a very democratic country. We have many people with many different point of views about many things. And even the Likud is the biggest democratic party in Israel. Okay. But many times, the polls and the elections results are not aligned 100 percent because the polls are very taking picture of a very singular point of time and elections takes well, it's said the collapse in the collapse in support in the belief that Iran can be hammered militarily alone. That has declined. I mean, I'm talking about so it's not just, you know, whether people are coming from the left or the right. It's just the movement in terms of people's belief that Hezbollah can be defeated militarily. We are 63 percent of the Jewish public believes that the IDF chief of staff was right to warn that the many missions imposed on the IDF across different arenas could cause the army to collapse into itself. So I don't know the specific poll and also the way that you have brought the words of our chief of staff are not accurate as far as I read them. But I want to say we hear the people of Israel after 40 days, a very harsh war. We have many people who have been dying. Also, it's important to understand that we don't see, okay, the achievements right now. And we understand that. Now, I want to believe that we will take those two weeks, okay, to make sure that President Trump will change the fate of the future world will make sure that the interest of all those who are in favor in life against those who in favor of death and terror. Okay, I believe in him. I believe in his legacy. I believe in prime minister, Netanyahu, that they will do the job. They will finish the job in continuing the war. I'm pretty sure about that. Okay, I don't know why people believe that President Trump will let himself walk around the world in the next two years as a clown, okay, as someone who has declared many declarations. And now he's not standing behind them. President Trump is a serious person. He have made big changes to the world. And I believe that he will fall through in this. And that was Dore Halap, a member of the Central Committee of Israel's main governing party, Likud, the party that the prime minister bin Him in Netanyahu leads. Much more to come on this war, on the ceasefire in the next 30 minutes. Stay with us if you can. Welcome back to News Hour. We're going to move briefly away from the war in the Middle East to one of the fastest growing disability sports around the world, power chair football. It's a version of the game designed for people who use electric wheelchairs. The governing body for the sport in England has said that many more people could be playing at an elite level if only they knew that the sport existed. The power chair football World Cup is taking place in Argentina later this year with England one of the favourites, the BBC's disability correspondent, Nikki Foxx, has this report. Every person needs to have some sort of sport in their life. I don't have a weekend anymore, this is my weekend. These are incredibly talented players, highly skillful and it's not easy. Fast, competitive and technical, this is a sport that enables people who use powered wheelchairs to play football at a very high level. I've represented my country, I've won a European championship, been to Australia to come and sit on the World Cup. There's no other feeling in any other part of my life that you get from scoring a much changing goal, you know that euphoria, I don't think there's anywhere else where I'd feel that. For many of these players, other types of disability sport aren't an option. I've always loved sport, like a young age, but I never could quite really get involved with it. I get to competing in sport that I actually want to be in without any other carer or assistant to help with me. I can't imagine my life without it. It started out as an improvised game back in the 80s, now there's a championship and a premiership where all the big clubs compete at weekends like this one in Nottingham. When I first started playing we were playing in everyday chairs that had been adapted for the sport and we had like a rubber bumper on the front. It did the job but it wasn't as good as the chairs we're playing now. I've heard that you are one of the most, well you are the most decorated player? Female player, yeah, in England, well, Europe, yeah. I've got a similar disability to a lot of these players and find it hard to play any kind of sport, so I was not expecting to be training with an England head coach. This is so like sensitive, oh my goodness. Absolutely. Try and get as nice and close to the cones as you can but not hit the cones. Good, go Nikki, go. Wow. I'm probably not going to be scouted any time soon but when it comes to internationals England are on top. We're one of the best powerchair teams in the world. We have that high level of expectation, quality of players, we're trying to win Europeans and obviously World Cups later on this year. Wes Brown spent most of his career playing for Manchester United and he's a big supporter of the club's foundation. He's joined the players at their weekly training session. In my head it looks very easy but the movement of the, obviously the chairs and the stick can have different sensitivities on it. I put mine at the top straight away, stupid, but these guys are playing the highest, the quickest, the gang go. So exciting. There are many opportunities that come with powerchair football but as the players will tell you, it's the winning accounts. And that was Nikki Fox reporting on the surge in popularity in powerchair football. You're with NewsHour, it's coming to you live from the BBC World Service. I'm Tim Franks. We've heard some views from the US and from Israel about where the ceasefire leaves the major players and what comes next. What about Iran? Late this evening Tehran time, the revolutionary guard call warned that it would deliver what it would, what it called a regret inducing response should Israel not stop its strikes against Lebanon and pro-government demonstrators have taken to the streets of Tehran. The sound of a pro-government rally in central Tehran tonight. We know especially from the other demonstrations that we saw earlier this year that there's also wide opposition to the Iranian authorities. This message was sent to the BBC News Persian by somebody who says they are inside Iran. The message has been voiced by a colleague. I hate the Islamic Republic to the core of my bones. I hate them. But I still don't understand how the violation of the motherland can be justified. Until now, we've been falling into a dark well. Now we have reached the bottom of the well. A tall cold wall surrounds us. We must climb up it. There's light up there but these walls are far higher than our dreams. Abbas Aslani is a political analyst at the centre of a Middle East strategic studies in Tehran and as such is sympathetic to the Iranian government. With Iran's 10 point plan just being billed as a starting point for negotiations, indeed one that the White House is already saying has been pretty much ditched. My new colleague James Menendez asked Abbas if he thinks there's any chance that the US will agree to one of Tehran's key requests to lift sanctions. They have been described as the framework that the future talks can take place. To what extent they can agree on the lifting of the sanctions remains to be seen. But the point is that this is somehow different from previously the United States had proposed. But I think they will try to secure the lifting of the sanctions in a way that they can benefit because the country will need a reconstruction and it has been under the sanctions. So to make sure that they will have enough revenue to reconstruct is also the question. So that's why I think they will insist on lifting of the sanctions. Yeah, interesting. You talk about revenue. Do you think any agreement will see Iran saying, look, we reserve the right to control the flow of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and demand payment for ships going through. Is that what Iran wants out of this? Well, we are witnessing a new status quo in the region, including the Strait of Hormuz. And that's why Iran insisted that the US needed to recognize the new realities on the ground. One of them is the new protocols or regime in the Strait of Hormuz. And this will be controlled in a manner that could be safe and free passage for the other ships, but with new, let's say, arrangements in place. And I think one of the issues for Iran could be to compensate the losses which happened in the recent war. Iran now know that this is an asset or a tool or leverage the country can use. Iran also can make sure that you can use this in order to make sure that there will be no future attacks or if there's any that will be costly for the other sides. I mean, for that reason, I mean, the US and indeed its allies in the Gulf, I mean, they're not likely to accept that Iran has that leverage in the months and years to come. Are they? Well, this might seem a surprise to many, but this was a term which was mentioned by the plan Iran proposed and the US President said that seemed to be a workable framework. So this in the case that there could be maybe progress in this regard, this was not the case before the aggression. Iran takes this issue very seriously and I think they will proceed with the idea of new protocol and regime in the Strait. It seems something non-negotiable from the Iranian perspective. Well, it may have survived, but I mean, you wouldn't disagree that the regime has been severely weakened given four weeks of enormous bombardment by the US and Israel, a huge blow to the economy which was already very weakened and presumably those people who are opposed to the regime will see that weakness and at some point those street protests that we saw at the beginning of the year will begin again. How Tehran sees the recent developments is like rising up again and it is like the wound or injury that doesn't kill you will strengthen you and this is bringing a new self-confidence back into Iran that they can somehow turn the immediate threat into long-term strategic interests and opportunities. And that was Abbas Slani, political analyst at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran. He was speaking to my new colleague, James Menendez. Elliot Abrams is a former Special Envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration. He's now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He supported the president's decision to start this war. What do you think has been achieved out of the conflict? I think the president has done enormous damage to Iran's nuclear weapons program to its ballistic missile program to its air force and its navy and the war has also made a deep, deep chasm between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors. All of those are good results. The president early on in this campaign said that nothing short of unconditional surrender would do for him. He's gone from that to saying that Iran's 10-point plan is a workable basis on which to proceed. Those 10 points, I mean, none of them, none of them surely is acceptable to the US. Can you explain to me how you think the president is going to square that circle? Well, if he is thinking of the same 10 points, then I agree. You can't square that circle. And I'm inclined to think that these talks at the end of two weeks will be extended and that, in fact, we will end up with a ceasefire and almost nothing more. A ceasefire and almost nothing more meaning what? I mean, meaning how far do you think that the president will have achieved his objectives of, for example, while he said back in June last year that Iran's nuclear program had been obliterated. I mean, he then said just a few days ago that Iran was on the doorstep of creating a nuclear weapon. Let's take that. I mean, how far do you think he will gain reassurance that Iran's nuclear ambitions have been curtailed? Well, I think Iran's nuclear program in a physical sense had been greatly, greatly damaged and sent back by a number of years, maybe five, maybe 10. Iran's nuclear ambitions will not change until the regime changes. And I think the way to police it, frankly, is that if they do start to rebuild, I think you will see Israel or the United States a year from now or two years from now bombing again, because there really is an intention that they not ever get a nuclear weapon. Right. I mean, that sounds like the US is really lining itself up for endless entanglements with Iran, because I mean, one could also see that as far as the Iranian regime is concerned, it may have all the greater logic now that they try and race for a nuclear weapon because, I mean, they still have 470 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, but also it would presumably be the best defense against any possible future attack. Well, having nuclear weapons and many, many of them has not spared Russia tremendous attacks, even today. It's spared North Korea. It has, but it is not a panacea. Look, I do think that Iran under this regime will seek a nuclear weapon. I just think that the United States now under five presidents has said we won't permit them to get it. And they ought to take that seriously, I think. We have shown the determination now that we will prevent it. And I really do believe we will. Under this regime, they will seek a nuclear weapon, you just said. I mean, that again seems to undercut the president's insistence that he's affected regime change in Iran. Right. Well, he says that about Venezuela as well, and it is equally false in both cases. But look at their actions. I mean, he's not, he appears not to have the same set of problems in Venezuela that he clearly still has in Iran. In fact, you could argue that things in Iran are far worse as far as the president is concerned. Look, for example, at what's happened with the Strait of Hormuz. That wasn't a problem before the 28th of February. The one thing that the president cannot solve merely by getting a ceasefire is the Strait of Hormuz. And he has said many different things about it. But if, let's say, three months from now, six months from now, Iran is fully in charge and is actually charging tolls, that can be held to the president's account. And he will never be able to explain it or defend it. Can I just pick you up on one other thing that you said right at the start of the interview, which was that Iran has opened a chasm with its allies. You can argue exactly the same thing has happened with the United States, that these Gulf Arab countries will be looking at the U.S. and thinking, A, can you really protect us? And B, my goodness me, do we need to diversify away from our alliance on the United States towards, for example, a country such as China? No, that won't do them any good. I mean, the fact is that the United States was willing to fight here. And what we saw in the 12-day war last year and in this war is Russia and China being willing to do next to nothing for its friends in Tehran. They simply watched. I think what you will find among the Gulf Arabs is a desire to buy more excellent air defense weaponry from the United States. And for that matter, from Ukraine, I do not think you will see them turning away from the United States as they face an enemy whose viciousness they were probably not fully aware of. But whose viciousness, if that's the word you want to use, was unleashed as a result of this war of choice that President Trump decided to start? No, no, no. I really disagree with that. We saw today, for example, that water facilities, desalination facilities were attacked in Kuwait after the ceasefire was declared. Given what you've said about your distaste about that, what was your thought this time yesterday when you heard the President give his warning that Iran's civilization was about to die, that he was going to be hitting every single power plant, every single bridge inside Iran? My thought was that he would never do it, that like many of his remarks, it was meant for for effect and that it was meant to scare the Iranians into a ceasefire. It may have worked, actually. Doesn't it debase the American presidency? I think it does debase the presidency. I think, for example, to use foul four letter words in a public message on Easter Sunday, debases him and debases the presidency. And that was the former Special Envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration, Elliot Abrams, just one other possible reaction to what has been happening today has come according to the Wall Street Journal from the President, President Trump, when it comes to his NATO partners, he's the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration is considering a plan to punish those members of the NATO alliance. It believes were unhelpful during the Iran War. The proposal would involve moving US troops out of those countries. This is New-Zar. This is New-Zar from the BBC and back to our main story now, the ceasefire between the US and Iran. Negotiations between the two sides are due to begin shortly in Pakistan. But lots of insiders and observers are warning that the ceasefire looks shaky. What's the view in Gulf Arab countries, which have been hit over the last six weeks by Iranian missiles and drones? The BBC's Chief International, of course, one of the least is said has been speaking to Anwar Gargash, diplomatic advisor to the president of the UAE. How confident is he that this conflict at least is over? A lot of the details are not very clear. There are different statements coming out of Iran from Washington and from the Pakistani mediator. So we need to reconcile the details of these statements and understand exactly what is the way forward. Today, Kuwait was targeted, we were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones. So our air defenses are active. So clearly, there are a lot of questions that have to be answered. The foreign minister has made it clear that they will open the straight but that Iran will continue to exercise its control. Is that acceptable to the UAE and other Gulf states whose economies depend on that straight? I think it's a precedent that many countries will not accept. If an act of hostile piracy will actually change the status here, should we actually look at changes also in Gibraltar? Should we look at straights that are extremely essential in the Far East? This is an aspirational claim by Iran to benefit from the war. Iran is already working with the Gulf state of Oman. They seem to have come up with an arrangement that they will share the responsibility for patrolling and then also to share the the tolls that Iran now said to be charging two million dollars a tanker. That seems to be Iran's new red line. It will never go back. You talked about it again. This is totally unacceptable. Because if you create that precedent, then you will have many, many vital choke points in the globe with some aspiring regional power trying to change facts because of events. I think this is going to be extremely dangerous and I don't think at the end of the day it will fly. Is your message then to President Trump that he should not end this war until the street of Hormuz is open? I mean our message was always not to go to war. We choose to defend ourselves because we had to. We had to prepare. This was a worst case scenario for us in our sort of planning of an Iranian sustained attack against the UAE. We've proven that we can defend ourselves. But of course we don't want to be in the state. We think that this is the time to address many of the issues that have been at the core of instability in the Gulf. Dr. Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE speaking to our chief international correspondent said, I spoke to Lisa a little earlier. First off, he was talking about the straight of Hormuz was the diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE. What's the latest on the state of the straight? Well, we started this, what was reported to be a ceasefire agreement with an announcement that Iran had agreed to open the straight of Hormuz and Iran then clarified that it would open the straight of Hormuz but only under its military control. And then we had some movement of tankers into that waterway, through that narrow waterway earlier in the day. And some of them were being stopped according to the reports because they weren't coordinating with the Iranian authorities, the guards who are now on the straight. And then when Israel then kept attacking Lebanon and his opposition, which Iran said was part of the deal, Pakistan indeed who announced the ceasefire said that it was but Israel the US said it's not. Then Iran, according to the last reports, has now closed the straight of Hormuz. So even in this, this so-called ceasefire is not yet 24 hours old and it's already being significantly tested and on the brink of failure. It's very, very difficult to know where this is all going to head over the next weeks and months. I mean, is it fair to say though, Lise, and you know the region far better than pretty much anybody of the BBC, that this is a region that has been shaken and it's unlikely to emerge in the same sort of shape that it was even a couple of months ago. The past is a different region. Iran is different. The region is different. The strategic calculations of the entire region are now different. The United States, of course, is under a very different kind of administration. Let's start by looking at Iran. President Trump keeps talking about regime change, saying that the new leaders who are still standing after the series of assassinations of top commanders and clerics are more reasonable, are smarter, but the reality is very different. A new generation of the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are now moving into these positions. They are seeing that they've been able to escalate this conflict horizontally by weaponizing the straight of Hormuz. They are going to be, they've always criticized in the past when Iran seemed to make concessions, when they didn't hit back very hard, they would put pressure on the moderates. Now they're in the driving seat and Iran is going to drive a very hard bargain. And you heard there from the other side of the Gulf from the UAE and there's a similar anger of feeling a betrayal among leaders across the Gulf. And if and when those talks begin serious talks, they are going to put new issues on the table in the same way that Iran will put new issues on the table before this war. Iran refused to discuss its ballistic missiles program. The Gulf states are not going to allow that to be kept off the table. And Iran will make sure the straight of Hormuz is one of the main issues. So this war, which is now being widely regarded as a war of choice, is now a war of necessity. And ending it is going to be even more difficult than before the war started. And briefly, Lise, I mean, the other war that has not finished hasn't there hasn't even been a ceasefire is the one that Israel is currently prosecuting inside Lebanon and particularly for issues attacks today. This is a huge challenge to Iran. It cannot be seen to abandon its closest ally in its so-called axis of resistance. Hezbollah joined this war to support Iran. And that is why Iran is playing hard ball. And that was our Chief International Correspondent, Lise, to set. This is a story, well, we may have a ceasefire, but as you heard from Lise and from plenty of other people, this is a story which has many, many loose ends. We'll be keeping across it here, of course, on News Hour also on the live page, which is still running on our website, BBC.com, forward slash news. But from this edition of News Hour, from me, Tim Franks, and the team here in London, thank you very much for your company.
