MEF Chief Strategist spoke to Jesse Watters on FOX about the state of play in the Gulf and whether it can lead to a deal with Iran.
Transcript:
FOX: Jim Hanson’s a former Army Special Forces and President of World Strat. Jim, I feel like it’s you and I at the beginning of every week talking about the Iran deal.
What’s your latest take?
HANSON: Well, I mean, here we go. We’re at the final rounds, you know, and this may go to the judges. It may be a TKO. But the bottom line, President Trump’s not going to give away any of the big three. He may not get them all in this first bit, but no nukes, no missiles, no proxies is what this is going to end up being.
And how we force the Mullahs to do that is the last piece of this. They can’t hold out much longer. Everybody wants to pretend, like you said, that President Trump’s the one who’s under the gun here. President Trump’s under political pressure. They are under absolute economic regime collapse pressure.
And I know who I’m betting on.
FOX: Yeah, the latest, I’d call it a tit for tat, mostly more tat. I guess we caught some guys laying mines in the straight and that didn’t go over too well.
Do you expect more of that as this negotiation throttles forward?
HANSON: I think that was an, “excuse me, can I have your attention for a moment were those your boats? Oh, I’m sorry.”
But then you’ve got Israel rolling heavy into Lebanon. You know, and one of the things that the Iranians have made a sticking point is, oh, this has to cover all of it. And so no more fighting in Lebanon. Well, now we can look at them and say, oh, you want us to talk to Bibi. Well, guess what? I need something from you.
So I don’t think that was anything but calculated. You know, Israel needed to do it anyhow. But now it’s another bargaining chip for President Trump.
So I think if none of this goes right, the next step should involve maybe pruning a few links off their chain of command with some dynamic disassembly, and some involuntary retirements of IRGC leaders. Because at this point, either they’re going to negotiate in good faith or they’re going to have problems that return them to ambient temperature.
FOX: All right. And the Israel situation. I guess the Abraham Accords is the grand bargain. I mean, that’s basically Trump’s Moon shot. That’s peace in the Middle East. You get all these guys kind of respecting each other and treating each other as equals, but it’s kind of an anti-Iranian alliance. Is that how you see it?
HANSON: 100%. I mean, from the start of his first overseas trip when he went to sea, the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris, the deal was you guys back the play when it becomes necessary against Iran. I’ll talk to Bibi and we’ll get Gaza at least put on the back burner for now.
But eventually you guys need to take care of your own neighborhood. We want this to be one bad guy removed and the rest of you at least playing nice enough together to have a little bit of prosperity, a little security.
FOX: Right. Like if we’re going to take out the bully, you guys better get along afterwards. We don’t have to come back and spank everybody again.
The I guess this new protocol for the destruction of the uranium is very interesting. At first, Trump was like, bring it home. We’ll destroy it. They wanted to move it to Moscow. Now it looks like it could be destroyed under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Committee.
Do you see that making a difference which way it goes?
HANSON: Not one single bit. As long as it’s destroyed and they no longer have it to make bombs, who cares where?
FOX: As long as we can verify it. I would agree. And we have Space Force watching every little inch of those busted up mountains. Jim, I’m sure I’ll see you on Monday. Well, hopefully we’re talking about a deal then. Have a good week.
