President Donald Trump, in between closing the Strait of Hormuz and publishing blasphemous images of an AI posing as Jesus, claims he still wants to make a deal with the Iranian government to end the current conflict, reopen the Strait, and curtail the country’s nuclear program.
So far, he hasn’t succeeded – and in his first term in office, he scrapped the original US-Iran nuclear deal, negotiated under Barack Obama in 2015.
To find out how the US and Iran got there last time – and why they’re not under Trump – Today, It’s Explained co-host Noel King spoke with former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who led the Obama administration team that secured the Iran nuclear deal.
The following is part of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more throughout the episode, so tune in Today, It’s Explained wherever you find podcasts, incl Apple Podcasts, Pandoraand Spotify.
What do you think it would take for the US to get a new deal with Iran right now?
It depends on what the goals are for the president and Iran. Right now, President Trump wants to make sure Iran does not have nuclear weapons. He wants to open the Strait of Hormuz, he wants to prevent Iran from funding allies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen, because he thinks they pose a threat to Israel, which is our partner and all the countries in the Gulf region.
Iran, on the other hand, has control over the Strait of Hormuz, so they look to maintain that status because it allows them to project power in the region. They want to make sure that they maintain the right to get rich and they want to be able to continue to have a relationship with Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis.
There is a big gap and it is interesting, because the negotiation team on our side is very small. The negotiating team on their part includes people like Abbas Araghchi, who was my partner during the 2015 negotiations. Now he is the minister of foreign affairs and knows every detail of the deal.
Back when you were negotiating with Iran, there were moments in retrospect when you thought, This won’t just happen?
Absolutely. There were many points along the way where I told my colleagues, “If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”
We thought we were very close to a set of criteria and the great leader at that time gave a speech and set a new set of criteria that I think surprised even his foreign minister.
We had to think about how we could get out of where we were, something that we thought was in our plan, so now we have to think about what the great leader said in public.
We know, in part because President Trump said this early and often, that there were Americans who thought we could get a better deal with Iran. What do you hear as the main complaints and what do you say to those critics?
“All of this has cost ordinary, everyday Americans more out of their pocketbooks.”
The critics say that the strongest part of the agreement lasted only 15 years. They wanted it to last forever. We said that it gave us what is known as a one-year timeline so that we would have a year – if somehow we found out Iran was cheating, which we thought was highly unlikely – to do something about it.
I think some critics wanted to go to war. They thought they could create a change of government. We said repeatedly to the United States Congress, if we risk war, it could close the Strait of Hormuz, it could raise gas prices, it could bring down the global economy, it could mean the lives of our military and great costs to our economy and to American citizens.
Are the right people at the negotiating table?
I find it hard to believe that Vice President Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner can succeed in two weeks. I suspect that the talks will go on for more than two weeks if they get any traction.
I think part of the reason the vice president is there is because Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who has no official position in the administration, have no credibility with Iran because twice before when they were negotiating with Iran, we attacked.
It is hard to believe that someone will continue to have a conversation with you if, twice, they have attacked you in the middle of the conversation.
Is there a danger at this time that the United States will come out weak and Iran will come out stronger?
I think it is very difficult to be reductive. There are parts of Iran that are more vulnerable. They don’t have the navy they used to have. They don’t have the missile programs they had before. They don’t have the nuclear plans they had before.
They can rebuild all that and if they get millions of dollars in tariffs and sanctions relief from the United States, they will be able to rebuild all that capacity much faster. But for now they have been pushed back.
The United States, in my opinion, has gone backwards. We have spent billions of dollars. We have narrowed down our list of weapons that we may need for other movies. We have undermined our unions. We have put Russia and China in stronger positions. We have removed the oil embargo from Russia and the oil embargo from Iran, ready to put money in their coffers, and give Russia more money so they can prosecute their horrible and illegal war against Ukraine.
All of this has cost the average American every day more out of their pocketbooks. The regime in Iran now is tougher than the previous one, if you can believe it, and may decide it must have a nuclear weapon to prevent future attacks.
If Iran decides it wants a nuclear weapon, I guarantee you many other countries, even some of our closest friends around the world, will think they need a nuclear weapon too.
