“I’m here on this Saturday as we break down all of your top stories and live events from across the country and across the world. And of course, the big story that we are following at this hour. Take a look on the right hand side of your screen. That is a live look at this hour over Islamabad over in Pakistan.
I’m going to take that full for you to give you a better look. As you can see, it’s all quiet now. We only have this aerial view. We are not getting a look on the ground just yet. But despite President Trump sending his US delegation to Pakistan, Iranian officials are still claiming that there are no planned peace talks with Americans directly, at least not at the moment.
The president announced Friday that he would send Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad this weekend for a potential second round of discussions amid that very, very fragile ceasefire. Iran’s foreign minister arriving in Islamabad on Friday as he also says that he plans to visit Oman and Russia. And we actually got this update coming in a short time ago with a photo.
This is from an official there in Pakistan who said that the prime minister received the Iran foreign minister today over at the prime minister house and the meeting lasted about 2 hours. Now along with the prime minister there, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister senator who’s the one who posted this here and the chief of army staff and chief of defense forces, interior minister and other senior officials were also present in that meeting.
The prime minister emphasizing the importance of dialogue and diplomacy for the peace and stability in the region and beyond. Again, not quite clear when we are going to see Jared Kushner and Steve Wickoff arrive there in Islamabad. However, we also know from the White House that Vice President JD Vance is essentially on call, so to speak, to be brought over there to Pakistan if those talks are able to happen.
As we discuss really what this all means and what’s going to happen next, I do want to bring in Jonathan Sai with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He’s an expert here who joins us quite a bit. Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.”
Jonathan:
“Hi Josh, it’s great to be with you again.”
Josh:
“Thank you. And first off, I want to ask you here the significance of Jared Kushner, Steve Whitoff heading over to Islamabad and essentially, as I mentioned, Vice President JD Vance being on call, so to speak, to possibly go out there as well as Iran’s foreign minister is already on the ground.”
Jonathan:
“What’s notable this time around is number one, the Islamic Republic’s officials were reluctant to actually come to Islamabad last week, which was when the second round of talks were scheduled, and that’s why the president effectively re-extended the ceasefire without getting any information coming from Tehran.
So, the Islamic Republic officials have not yet even weighed in as to whether they approve or reject the ceasefire and they didn’t even show up for the first round. And looking at some other reports, we’re hearing more and more that there is friction amongst different regime officials on how they’re supposed to proceed, what their red lines are, what they’re supposed to be negotiating over.
And that is not a new phenomenon. There’s always disagreements between different pillars of the regime. That said, the notable difference here is that there is no supreme authority that could effectively harmonize the relationship here, which is why we might be seeing contradictory messages coming from the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, that is Tehran’s strategy to delay as much as they can. But the difference here is time is not on their side given the blockade and that has been an effective countermeasure to ensure that should Tehran waste time, they would be the first to face the repercussions. As to what could happen this evening or the next few days comes down to whether Iran actually wants to give concessions or not.
Haven’t been tracking this for years now. I yet to really see a difference between this wave versus the negotiations in May 2025 before the 12-day war. The same themes are reappearing. So, we just have to wait and see. But so far, no difference, at least from the outside.”
Josh:
“And you kind of touched on this already, but I want to get your take here because a question that’s been asked time and time again is related to leadership there in Iran. Who is actually leading the Iranian regime? Do we have an understanding of who that is? Is it even clear to them in Iran?”
Jonathan:
“Yes and no. Before mentioning any names I would highlight this key point about how the regime conducts itself during times of crisis and it comes to two main themes that they have to address.
On one hand, they want to ensure that they can exert enough political costs against their adversary by waging war. That’s external. And internally, they want to ensure that they repress as much as they can so they don’t project an image of weakness amongst dissident given how illegitimate and unstable the situation is internally.
So, whoever is leading Iran or whatever team or set of individuals that are at this point the heads of the Islamic Republic need to ensure these two things. So whoever is in charge is on one hand making sure they exert enough economic cost against the United States and they’re making sure that they effectively execute as many political dissident as they can.
I would say it comes down to maybe five main people. The head of the parliament and a former IRGC official who’s been leading the negotiations, the head of the Supreme National Security Council, the head of the IRGC, the head of the police and the judiciary chief. These five men are effectively the ones that are in charge.
And the disagreement is really amongst them. And that now the key challenge here is that the supreme leader was killed and his son Khamenei Jr. at this point is nowhere to be seen. Reports say that he’s severely wounded and is not really capacitated to be even to even talk. So now you have these five individuals.
Some are ideologically devoted, some are less, but ultimately they’re advancing the same agenda. And I will end it with this Josh. No matter what they disagree on, they are aligned on one main theme, which is they do not want to give up the regime’s enrichment capabilities. They do want to maintain some capacity that should they want to fast track towards a bomb, they possess the centrifuges to do so.”
Josh:
“And something that’s been coming in here over the past, I would say several hours that we’re still kind of trying to get a grasp on, we have Iran’s president who has now issued a statement saying that Iranians need to quote unquote ‘conserve energy.’ Do we have any idea what the significance of that would be overall? Because we know obviously that Americans, Israelis, they have targeted some of that energy infrastructure in Iran. Is that likely connected there? Could there be more to it?”
Jonathan:
“To be more precise as to what Israelis and Americans have targeted, it was mostly petrochemical facilities. So, it was not electric power grids, at least not yet. And that’s what the president was effectively threatening within the last few weeks saying that should talks fail the United States is ready to escalate and he mentioned the power grid.
And why that is crucial is because Iran suffers from power outages frequently especially during summertime so remember it’s summer before and the summer prior to that because the country gets even more hot than it even used to be there’s a strain on the power grid. Now the other of course challenge is that because of the corruption they have not been able to rebuild some of its energy infrastructure.
And at the same time Iran also prioritizes exporting electricity and natural gas that could be again transformed into electricity to neighboring countries so the elite can enrich themselves. So because of that there’s a lot of power challenges inside Iran.
But more importantly that’s indicative of Washington’s mindset. Meaning should they want to re-escalate this war against the regime they’re trying to differentiate it from the first wave. And in this context it would be somehow leading to so much internal chaos that either the regime would collapse on itself or they would feel so weakened and threatened that they might make concessions.
And that’s why the power grid angle is so crucial should the United States actually want to head the war toward that direction.”
Josh:
“And I do want to show you a live look here. This is from Marine Traffic over on the left hand side of your screen. That’s a live look over the Strait of Hormuz. And a lot of people have been asking about the different colors there. And essentially those are just different types of vessels. But what you can see overall is that they’ve come to a standstill. We’re not seeing anything kind of moving around in that area. So it’s a good kind of indication showing the current status of the Strait of Hormuz.
Can you explain for folks out there one thing that we’ve heard from Iranian officials is that they claim they maintain that they essentially own the Strait of Hormuz that they are in charge of it. Can you explain to folks out there if we know who’s really in charge so to speak of the Strait of Hormuz?”
Jonathan:
“First, we need to talk about what it means for it to be opened or closed and whether it’s a black and white concept. And it’s not quite like that because of the regime’s mostly drone capabilities, but some missiles, but they usually use drones from Iranian coastlines to target vessels of their choosing, which means they get to have a say, unfortunately, as to what vessels can pass.
So, the idea that there is somehow the strait is closed doesn’t mean they’re physically blocking it off. They’re selecting set of depending on what ship it is and what flag they have for them to pass. For the most part, the regime does want to entirely block the supply chain flow through the strait just to inflict economic cost against the United States. So that has been their strategy.
But the other challenge there is because of the IRGC’s boat mines that they’re increasingly even putting more and more and that’s what the president threatened as well. That means the challenge with this trade is not going to necessarily be resolved overnight either because actually mine sweeping that area would take quite some time.
But the way to tackle this I think flipping the script on Tehran was the strategy and that’s what the president is doing. So what’s interesting is that on one hand the Islamic Republic blocks the Strait of Hormuz and once the United States responds to that with the naval blockade all of a sudden the Islamic Republic is retaliating to a retaliation against themselves.
So it’s turned into this cycle where the Islamic Republic doesn’t really follow it rationally and now they are stopping even more and more vessels because of the naval blockade. But what we do know about the maritime blockade restrictions imposed by the United States is that they’re going after Iranian vessels as far as Malaysia.
So this is a really rigorously enforced at least so far. So we have to wait and see whether it feels the repercussions of the blockade immediately and would that change their behavior or not. I’m pessimistic to get behavior change from the regime, but that has to be a strategy nonetheless.”
Josh:
“As we continue to kind of watch all of this play out, we’re hearing a lot about the Strait of Hormuz as we just talked about. So, what kind of aspects of this are still related to a nuclear weapon overall? Because we’re not hearing as much about that versus the situation with the Strait of Hormuz.”
Jonathan:
“Josh, you’re right to point out how so many of these different issues are intertwined. And that again is kind of Tehran’s way of either dragging it out as much as they can or having maximalist demand. Because once the ceasefire was announced, the Islamic Republic perceived that as a short-term victory and that emboldened them.
Because of that, they’re putting even more demands on the table than they used to. So initially the nuclear talks as you and I used to talk about last year if you remember, it was strictly about centrifuges and in response it was about sanctions.
Really all of a sudden now we hear about new components being proposed by Tehran that are not only nuclear related, they’re going about the Strait of Hormuz who owns it, where they’re putting tolls there, and now they’re even throwing other components there such as a ceasefire with Tehran also blocking Israel’s ability to strike the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Again I don’t know how they’re trying to link and solidify their influence across the Middle East in a potential agreement. But that is indicative of their ambitious mindset. They think they can put more demands on the table and they’re under the impression that on one hand the Trump administration might accept it. That would be a win for them.
On the other hand, if Trump were not to accept this, they think they can drag this out even longer because they thought they absorbed the first round. So hopefully the main calculus and game changer would be the blockade that would prevent the cash flow from them financing and supplying their own personnel that could lead to internal fractions.
Now if that were to be paired with another round of escalations, it would be detrimental to the regime in Tehran. But really it’s about having that objective as the core strategy and not just trying to build a leverage for another concession within a framework of a deal.”
Josh:
“One thing that we heard from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth when he was talking yesterday, he called Iran’s Navy essentially pirates. He actually used the word pirates. And then we heard from Iran’s military just a few hours ago as they referred to Americans as pirates. What do you make of all of that kind of back and forth with the term pirate being thrown around?”
Jonathan:
“Before we get into I guess the semantics of it, that is a major theme. When the United States designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s ideological and military apparatus as a terrorist organization, Tehran immediately responded by designating Centcom as a terror group in their own way. So that’s their tit-for-tat measure.
But as to the term pirate to be referred to the IRGC vessels, that’s how they behave. So when we think of a core characteristic of a pirate is that they have less advanced ships and their only aim is to come and to extort different vessels that are going through, either try to blow them up if they don’t pay and just go about it in a very unconventional way simply to extort to make money and not operate within the international norms.
And that’s how the IRGC’s navy operates. What they either try to bomb and or attach some sort of an explosive device next to some of these vessels. They used to do that as far as frankly even before 2019. They’re doing it again now. They’re laying mines.
On top of that, because of the nature of these small boats, their strategy is to overpower bigger vessels with just having numbers. So, what they do is they just surround a certain vessel. They harass it to the point that they can either have the vessel dock and pull over or they’ll just open fire or sometimes even attack the people inside.
And that is no different than the pirate behavior that we see let’s say in Somalia or in other parts of the world. And the bizarre reaction here is that this is technically from a nation-state. It is not some sort of a malign just random actor such as a terror group. Of course, the Islamic Republic does behave like a terrorist regime because that’s what it is, it’s the largest sponsor of terrorism.
But the term unfortunately fits here when we refer to them as pirates. I think Hegseth was quite spot on.”
Josh:
“And of course, this is one of the posts I was talking about. This is from this morning. It’s Iran International English saying that Iran’s headquarters there warned that the US would face a response if it continues what it described as a blockade, banditry, and piracy in the region.
In a statement, the command said that US forces would meet quote ‘a reaction from Iran’s powerful armed forces’ if such actions persist. It added Iran is ready to monitor movements in the region and maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz and would inflict heavier losses in case of further attacks. Now, Jonathan, what are you going to be watching for as the days, really the hours here at this point continue to progress?”
Jonathan:
“I’m looking out for two things. The most important one is Trump’s strategy with the blockade. Is the idea that we’re just going to buy time because the time is not on Tehran’s side or whether he wants this to be rather rapid, try to get some sort of a weakened Islamic Republic that he could impose a better deal on. The latter is looking increasingly as less likely.
And the key thing with any blockade, whether it’s any financial enforcement, whether it’s a blockade or if it’s sanctions, is persistence and rigorous enforcement. So, I’m looking out to see whether the administration is going to maintain its rigorous enforcement and if it’s going to be persistent with this blockade.
And two, I’m looking at Europeans and our other allies in the Persian Gulf region, how they’re going to react, whether there’s any appetite, and I know we’re not very optimistic on this, but if there’s any appetite for Europe to develop its own separate strategy.
Because another likely scenario is for the Trump administration to simply claim that this is no longer the United States’ main issue. Trump can easily declare victory against Iran’s military and simply pull out from this operation. And that would leave Europeans to tackle this of course in cooperation with Israel and the Persian Gulf states.
And if they’re going to develop a strategy, whether it’s under NATO or EU or some sort of coalition, that would be interesting to see, but so far we’ve seen nothing but appeasement coming from Europeans.”
Josh:
“All right, Jonathan S. with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thank you so much for taking the time as always to be here. Anything we missed that you want to make sure to point out or add before I let you go?”
Jonathan:
“We covered all the main themes. I would say the main one that we maybe didn’t talk about would be the internal angle here. The regime is increasingly deploying non-Iranian proxies throughout Iran. Checkpoints have increased. Now they’re publicly hanging dissidents. So this is by no means signs of a regime that is content with its domestic support.
It knows for a fact it’s increasingly losing the Iranian public, which is why it is important for American messaging to win them over instead. So as we’re negotiating with the Islamic Republic, I think we need to have a separate channel of communication with ordinary Iranians saying they were not forgotten.
And this goes beyond just a human rights issue. It is us losing the main leverage and the only existential threat against the Islamic Republic. So communication is key as we’re engaging the regime diplomatically.”
Josh:
“And sorry, one more question kind of playing off what you just said because it popped into my mind is the executions. We heard from President Trump earlier this week, just a few days ago, that essentially the executions of eight different protesters, eight women were stopped. They were not happening and that some of the women were being released there from custody.
So, it sounds as though those executions are still happening though. You are still seeing political prisoners and executions taking place, some of them publicly.”
Jonathan:
“We unfortunately are. And it’s a similar situation as post-January protest wave when there was a bit of the contradiction. Tehran was trying to reassure Trump saying the executions have stopped whereas in reality they were not and they’re ongoing. And we’re seeing it here again.
I’m sure the Islamic Republic is using some back channel to communicate or appease Washington on the human rights front. But unfortunately that is quite far from reality. I would put it this way Josh, March signified the ancient Persian New Year, that holiday that goes back thousands of years.
And the Islamic Republic celebrated that the night of by publicly hanging political dissidents as a clear not only intimidation tactic but in clear disdain of Iranian culture. The regime itself knows how much of a counterweight Iranian nationalism can be to its Islamist version and its Islamist project.
Because of that, they’re cracking down even more. And going back to the main thing that we’re talking about earlier about the five men that are leading Iran, at least three of them—IRGC, judiciary, and police chief—have been even more vocal lately. We see more arrests. We see political dissidents get executed on the daily and most of them were actually arrested in January.
So if you look at all the signs, the regime, the more threatened it feels, the more it wants to project strength. Unfortunately, we see executions rise up. So if someone was able to actually survive that 40,000 massacre that occurred within 48 hours they were arrested, the regime is ensuring that they’re going to be killed as well.
So the situation is looking quite dim. I would end it with this by saying should we not somehow either get regime collapse or not get behavior change from the regime, the version of the Islamic Republic that you’re going to see in the region is not going to be comparable to the past. It would be—it would surpass North Korea.
The combination of authoritarianism and Islamism in this paranoid context would be devastating to the anti-regime morale unfortunately.”
Josh:
“All right, Jonathan Sier, thank you so much for taking the time to join us as always. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me.”
