The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Will The Iran War Ever Be Over?

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Mondays with Dr. Janice Stein are always a learning experience, and it sure has been since the end of February, with the war in Iran. And in spite of alleged "peace deals," we're still wondering if the conflict will ever end. It's complicated and that's why Dr. Stein is with us again this week. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello there, Peter Manspers here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. It's Monday. It's Monday of our last few days before the summer break starts. But it's still Monday. That means Dr. Janice Stein. And she's coming right up. Yes, that's right.

You're getting me kicking and screaming, dragging my way to Wednesday, which is our last day before the summer break here at the bridge. Looking forward to a little bit of a high. We'll be back a couple of times during the summer for special broadcast of good talk. That's in July and one in August as well. But for the most part, it's time for a break. Mondays has been special all year round because Dr. Janice Steinstein from the Monk's School at the University of Toronto has been here.

And she has kept us, it's not a question of being up to date. It's a question of being informed and thoughtful about the stories we're seeing in our changing world. And my gosh, is our world changing or what? It just seems that each year, the Janus has been with us three years now. It's just been from one interesting topic to another. Right now, of course, and for the last four months, we've been confronted with the Iran War. and what that's done to the world, to all of us. It's impacted all of us in different ways,

but all of us have felt some impact from the war in Iran. And we're not happy about it. But Janice has been great in keeping us, you know, thinking. I guess that's the main way of looking at it. So on today's program, we'll talk a little. bit more about Iran. We'll talk a little bit more about Ukraine. But then I wanted Janice to spend some time, things we're not going to really hear about her unless all hell breaks loose. We won't hear again from Janice until September. I wanted to ask her what we should be thinking

about this summer and what we should be watching for this summer. She'll do that in this conversation as well. A couple of things about the rest of the week. There is no question of the week, because there is no your turn on Thursday of this week. We're into a different schedule starting on Thursday because at that point the bridge is on a hiatus. But we have a program tomorrow. It's a more but's conversation. And as I've told you before, we always record the more buts conversations on a weekend. It's the only time I can get these two guys together, and they're both extremely busy. So the idea of having a conversation with them, which is usually about kind of what really goes on in the background of the stories we talk about, based on their experience,

one is a top senior advisor, and two as a former cabinet minister. So it's James Moore and Gerald Butts. They'll be with us tomorrow. And we're going to look at this issue of how MPs, especially political leaders, make decisions about when it's time to leave. In other words, how hard is it to quit?

So we're going to talk about that. That's kind of the main issue, but there are other things as well that we're going to talk about tomorrow. But that's the more but's conversation is tomorrow. Wednesday haven't really decided yet what the final program of this season will be, but it will be on Wednesday. And so you'll see then. It may be some version of an N-Bits program will see.

I'm holding the possibilities open. So there you go. That's a sense of what's coming up right here on the bridge. But let's get now to today's conversation with the one and only Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. Here it is. This week's conversation with Dr. Stein. So Janice, I spent the week. I'm still in Scotland.

So I spent the weekend in the York, New Orleans. Have you ever been to the Yorkneys? Have you been to the Yorknese? Oh, lucky you. They are gorgeous. They are gorgeous. And it was a gorgeous weekend, which the weather has been on short supply here lately. But it was gorgeous this weekend and both the ferry ride over and back was spectacular and in the islands themselves.

But, you know, Orkney is a lesson to one who wants to understand how long it can take to end a war. And the frustrations that exist with that as we watch what's going on Iran. but you go back more than 100 years ago to 1919 and while the negotiators and Margaret Millen of course wrote a fantastic book on this but while the negotiators were trying to figure out what the final deal would look like the German Navy had been you know it surrendered and was sent to the Orkneys look to sit there in you know scapeflow etc So it's sitting there, but the German sailors and their captains just were frustrated. This is taking too long.

We want to get out of here. This is no good. They're never going to come up with a deal. And what did they do? They scuttled their ships. And here, you know, that was 1919. So here, you know, well over 100 years after, some of those ships are still sitting there half submerged. and you just look at it and you go, man, they were frustrated.

And a lot of people are frustrated right now trying to, I mean, I don't want to compare the two wars. But nevertheless, a lot of people are frustrated to this one never seems. Every time you think it's over, it's not over. You're making a really important point, Peter. And, you know, if we say this over and over, it's so easy to start a war. But the plan doesn't last past the first day. And once you're in, it's so difficult to end them. And that's almost always true.

You can stop the guns from firing. You can stop the German shift, you know, bolts from firing. But then that agonizing process in this calculation, who has leverage? How do you translate whatever leverage you got out of the war? How do you translate that into real games at the negotiating table? It is an excruciating process. Look at the Margaret's book on, you know, the peace at Versailles. A year more of complicated negotiations.

And that was when it was an unambiguous defeat of the Germans. So it is tough. And lots of people are very frustrated right now. But beyond that, there's not even a consensus that the fighting won't resume. What do you make of the fact that J.D. Vance is sort of, I guess, heading up the American delegation. He must be. I mean, he's the vice president. But he's there.

Rubio's not there. Vance has a you know the track record ain't great here what do you make of the fact he's at the table you know oh my God it's honestly

what I say right I mean first of all you can understand this as some nasty plan by Donald Trump to offload to J.D. Matt the blame, which he is, he is taking an incredible amount of heat from the mega Republicans.

And he literally said it, as he does, Donald Trump. He said, well, if we do well, I'll take the credit. And if we don't do well, JD will take the blame. And, you know, so often he says what he thinks, and I think that is partly what he thinks. The other way, and so there's spin to this story on all sides, Peter. The other way you can understand this, J.D. Vance was a single opponent in the narrow team around the present before they started with a little bit of Susie Wiles thrown in there, but she doesn't have weight when it comes to these issues. So he's sending to these negotiations. it's a political signal to the Iranians.

Well, I'm sending the person who was opposed to this war, I'm really serious about trying to end it because there's a huge trust problem. The Iranians do, and they have good reason the Iranians, not to trust the Trump administration. They were attacked twice in the middle of a negotiating process. So I think it's to that. But the really worrying thing here is these negotiations are technical.

You really need the technical expertise. There's no way you can get through this without having people who understand the ins and outs of international shipping, who understand the ins and outs of global energy markets, and people who understand the ins and outs of nuclear issues. The Iranians have those people. They're very, very skilled, and they rely on technical experts, and they're patient. They're patient negotiators, which is such a valuable asset, always.

this administration, judging news, technical experts, often doesn't ask them, they're shut out of the conversation, and this is the most impatient president we've ever had. He has absolutely no patience.

So just on the, if you look at that, you can see the advantage that the Iranians have, leave aside the ambiguous results of the war. But just by the way they've configured their negotiating teams, the Iranians have, are much better able, let me appreciate this way, much better able to convert any gains they made

to actual results in the outcome than the Americans are. You know, it's hard to know what to believe in terms of the way these things are going. the negotiations because one hour looks like they're close to a deal, next hour they're not. But it's a, all that spins usually coming from the American side. The Iranians, as you say, I've got lots of patience. They're not, you know, they'd like a deal, but they're not, you know, desperate to have one tomorrow.

What they're desperate for is to get the billions of dollars. Yeah. The Trump has already indicated he will release from money that's been held back from the Iranians for past sales. But I mean, that looks so bad considering all the stuff he said about Obama. It does. It does. So look, I think there's three different sources of money, well, that the Iranians could get from this negotiation. And they're getting mixed up in even by Chady Vance, who gave an interview, who got a podcast interview when I read it and I said myself, he doesn't understand the difference between these three pools of money.

One are frozen Iranian assets, right? That's money that was Iranian that was deposited in different banks all around the world. And they were frozen when the United States put sanctions on Iran, very much like Russian pros and assets, right? But it's Iranian money. It's nobody else's money. The second pool is this $300 billion worth of investment that Donald Trump talked about. That is such a long shot, Peter.

I wouldn't hold my breath. And it's not even on the table now. That's when there's a deal after a deal. It's very similar to the, to the pictures of Gaza that Donald Trump showed everybody and what do we look like. I put that second pot of money in that second category. The third is how much money Iran makes from two sources, one from simply resuming the export of its oil,

which Donald Trump wants them to do because of oil prices, but they're not going to have to sell at a discounted price the way they did before. You know, we sell our oil into the U.S. market in Canada at a discounted price because there were refineries along the Gulf of Mexico configured for our oil. It was convenient. We didn't mind. But when we sell across the Pacific Ocean to Asian markets,

we don't sell at a discounted price. We sell it full price in the oil market. Iran has been forced to say. sell it a discounted price because it was sanctioned. So the Chinese got a huge discount. Anybody else who bought their oil got a huge discount? That's gone. They're going to be able to sell now at full market price. So just selling their oil will be hundreds of millions of dollars a week, frankly. That will be different. And then the other big unknown, and this is, I think, down the road, are they going to charge fees?

They've set up something called the Persian Gulf Administration Authority, and they've said they won't for 60 days, but no, but they haven't said what they will do after the 60 days. They could get a sustained flow of income from charging ships that go through the straight. So where's the two big gains they're getting right away? They're going to get some of their frozen assets, and they're going to be able to sell their oil at full market price. You mentioned the straight of form of ours, because obviously it's central to a lot of what's going on right now.

I want to ask you this, because I'm a little confused on this situation. I mean, if, you know, before the war, we all knew it was there, we all knew what part it could play, where we all except Donald Trump appeared to know what part it could play. But we never sort of said it belongs to Iran. Because it doesn't. It doesn't belong to Iran. I mean, you know, part of it is in, technically is in the international waters of Iran. most of it is in the international waters of Oman,

and the maritime, whatever they're called, law people, say it's international waters. Yes. But we have the impression right now that they control it, that Iran control it. If they don't own it, they control it. So how should we be looking at this? So you're absolutely right, the law of the sea,

which is the state, which is the, big convention that we all sign, Iran as well, these are international waters. And why does this matter so much, first of all, because 25% of the world's energy goes through this one narrow choke point. But it matters because there are other choke points like this around the world and everybody's watching this. The Taiwan straight, the big one. And if Iran can do this, well so can China the Straits of Malacca there are these chalk points that are so important to international trade peter so much of it is container shipping that goes through far more important even than the straight of far moves so if iran can charge tolls to exercise because it's not only the tolls once you agree that they have the authority because they're in business, you know, they're exercising it, they're asserting it, and they're threatening shipping. That's where they're getting it from. They're not getting it from any legal

means, but once you agree to that and you say, okay, charged tolls, that's a terrible precedent for global trade everywhere. Because the largest country that borders these choke points, the Straits of Malacca and Taiwan, which could simply do the same thing. And then there's no more international trade that flows through narrow choke points. So the Europeans and the Europeans are, have been opposed to this war from day one.

Europeans are adamant that there cannot be the Persian Gulf authority. All the Gulf states are, adamant. You know, the Asians are opposed to this. This is going to be one of the big sticky points. You know why I keep raising this, of course, because the potential exists that one of those future checkpoints is right in our territory. Yes. What we claim to be ours, the Northwest Passage. We say it's sovereign territory in the Northwest Passage, right? We are the only country in the world that considers the Northwest Passage Canadian waters.

Everybody else says this international waters. Look, if we started to charge tolls on the Northwest Passage, there'd be an uproar. Peter, the United States always look the other way. It said, you know, we're moving ahead on plants despite our differences. We're going to agree to disagree. But if we started to assert meaningful authority that way, all the Nordics would be furious. The United States would be furious.

Russian China would be up in arms for all these reasons. So this is really a big one to watch. And there is no agreement between Iran and the United States on this issue. The MOU doesn't cover it. The Iranis, the minute that MOU was signed have said, this is what we're going to do. and the arts and Donald Trump blester, no, you're not. Well, if the war has proved anything, is that they do have control of it.

Well, possession is nine-tenths of the law, as we've always said, right? So they do, and look, there's a really big international discussion going on now. How do countries, make the straight less important because nobody really wants to be held hostage by Iran going forward. And you saw what they did on Saturday. So Flera put fighting in Lebanon, the first thing the Iranians did was announce the strait was closed. So that's the leverage they have coming out of

this. And you're in the UK right now, the single most important institution in determining The future of shipping is in London, and it's Lloyds of London. They hear a comment, the straits are closed, they're going to up the insurance rates, and it's the market here that is really going to matter. So the question becomes, okay, what do we do about this? So the Saudis are building a new pipeline already. The Emirates have one, and they're building a second one, so that their tankers don't have to go through this trade of removes,

but where are they going to go, Peter, to the Red Sea? Well, the Iranian missiles will reach the Red Sea. The hoody missiles already do reach the Red Sea. So this is, I think we are going to see the most astonishing push to renewal energy, which the Chinese, the Chinese have already gone down that road in a big way, even though they're big burners of coal. But this is going to do for renewables, this one issue is going to do more than all the climate advocacy that has gone on for 30 years.

More change is going to come as a result of this. Okay. Final question on this war and the attempts to end it. Does Netanyahu listen to anything that Trump says? Yes. He's so squeezed, Peter. He's squeezed right now. He's between a rock and a hot place for the first time in his career.

He really is. Trump is ruthless in the way. This is no Joe Biden who gives you a big hug, right, and says this is a wise thing to do, so I think you should do it. That would never work for the Netanyahu. Trump is absolutely ruthless in why he talks to him, but there is an election coming. And Netanyahu has a base, just like Trump has a base,

and they are up in arms about this MOU. So how do we know that Trump can squeeze Nizanahu? He's done it three times. He once picked up the phone in, June, you know, in that 12-day war, and told Netanyahu to call back fighter aircraft that were already airborne on their way. Netanyahu did it. He told the head of the Air Force made those planes turn around mid-flight. Netanyahu fought this MOU with Trump and lost.

And lost. And you, you know, I think everybody knows the kind of language that was going on. It was, Trump was furious and made no bones about it. And even over the weekend, there was a flare-up of fighting, you know, and who starts what between Hisbalah? And it's often difficult to know exactly in the moment. By Sunday, again, Trump spoke to Netanyahu. and there's an announcement that, yes, Israel will respect the ceasefire. That is because Netanyahu is twisting,

and Trump is twisting Netanyahu's arm's sword that is close to breaking, frankly. Well, I guess we'll see. I mean, it just seems to me that any time that Nathia who can leave the impression that, you know, Hezbollah has attacked Israel, whether they have or they haven't, Yeah. He's going to respond.

Yeah. Aggressively. Well, you know, again, as I said, we are probably three months away from an election. And this is the soft underbelly of this ceasefire, frankly. Right. This is the big weaknesses. If you're going to ask me, does this agreement hold over the summer? It's going to be driven in large part by whether the United,

when Trump continues to rain. in Netanyahu, but the other side of this, too. Iran has to reign in Hisbalah. It is their chief supporter. It is still the place that Hisbalah gets arms from.

And you have a prime minister of Lebanon and a president of Lebanon working with the French Macon who want the Lebanese army to disarm Islam.

So Iranian support is absolutely critical, and the Iranians have the leverage during his blood, just like Donald Trump has to leverage terrain. Donald Trump, are they going to do it? Okay. We've got to take our break, and then I want to come back and talk about what you see as things we should be watching for over the summer.

But before I get there, I need an answer from you on Russia, Ukraine because Ukraine seems to be getting bolder and bolder by the day now talking about they want Crimea back yeah which was off the table yeah before yeah so what do you make of that there's no let me say two things there's no doubt that Ukraine has turned the tide and they've turned the tide because they were able to build a domestic defense industry at home And that's how they got out from under the pressure that the United States and the Europeans could impose on them. There was a message there for Canada. What you can build at home is what stands in tougher times.

There's a risk, though, because there was a big explosion in Moscow this past week, right outside Moscow. a big plumes of stroke. It could have been a Russian anti-aircraft missile. We don't know exactly. But the war is coming home to Moscow Heights, right to the core of Russia. So what does Putin do in a rational world? He'd signal that he'd like some sort of face-saving way

to restart negotiations. But you know, there was one other time, Peter. And we know this now because some of the Biden administration officials have both talked and written about it in public. There was a tough moment in October 2022 when Russian generals thought the Ukrainian forces were going to break through the highway in their counter-offensive and turned toward Crimea.

And that's when that thing, so here we are with Crimea. And that's when that famous conversation occurred, the head of the Russian, you know, their chiefs of defense forces, talked about using a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia's out of options to escalate conventionally. It's out. There's not much more it can do. So that's one of the things to keep your eye on. And it's, you know, you can lose the peace, Peter, if you win the war.

There's a risk that if Zelensky targets Crimea that way, he can push. too hard and and Putin runs out of options. People are writing about Iran from the same perspective, right? Iran comes out of this war with huge strategic leverage. Does it push too hard and lose the peace? So that's one thing for everybody to watch in both cases over the summer months. That's good insight and good advice for what we should be watching. Okay, we'll take our break, come back and see what else we should be watching over this summer of 2026.

We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode, and that means Dr. Janice Stein from the Muck School, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167 Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us. Well, not yet. Maybe then the fall. we'll do YouTube with with Janice

it's just a simple matter of getting logistics in place okay what else should let's go through this we've got a few minutes what else should we be watching over the summer months it's not like the world

is no that there's nothing going on outside of Iran and Ukraine so at the top of my last Peter of course is Kuzma July the 1st is the official date for renewal. Nobody's going to honor that date.

But negotiations are going to start. There are going to be technical negotiations. They are tough. We have a tough road ahead here. Mexico and the United States are already rolling. We're not. So there's a gap in the pacing. this is the highest stakes for Canada.

Despite everything the Prime Minister said about diversification and rupture, there's no getting around that the trading relationship with the United States dwarfs everything else for this country. So listen, we should have a much better idea in September whether these technical talks have started, whether we're seeing any daylight.

And what happens to these sectoral tariffs? That's really the killer here on automobiles, steel, and aluminum, which is really inflicting serious, serious damage on the auto sector. So I can't take my eyes off that one, practically, because it's so important. Well, and we have a great team there. You shouldn't take your eyes off it. And I would just tell you I saw our chief negotiators, very familiar to many Canadians, Jan Shorette. We have a constant joke about our first names, who's number one and who's number two, right?

But I asked her what, unless she would give to Canadians. And she said, stay calm. Stay calm. There's going to be turbulence here. but above all, stay calm and don't get distracted by all the noise you're going to hear. And I think that's really good advice from that, Janice. Stay calm. Stay calm.

Carry on. And carry on. Very British advice. Absolutely. Okay. So Kuzma, what next? Yeah. Okay.

I'm thinking about our neighborhood, really. Okay. Greenland, which everybody thinks has gone away. but it hasn't gone away. And it's interesting what's happened on Greenland. There are now technical talks, which is it. So that tells you there's more serious negotiation and there with Denmark and the United States

and the professional negotiators are at the table. And the Americans are doing what they should have done in the beginning, which is talking about a huge increase in their presence and expansion of bases. That wasn't obvious, without causing all the controversy. But their demands, apparently, are large. And they're getting pushed back from Greenlanders, who are now alert in a way that they weren't before.

What does that tell me? Trump has not given up, Peter. He's not given up. But are they... I mean, I'm not sure what we know about what's going on in these negotiations, but is it beyond, you know, extending their basis? I mean, they had a, they used to have a lot of bases. That's right.

You know, a dozen and a half or so. And now it's being reduced to one or two by them, by the Americans, not by Greenland. Right. So is it now simply a question of trying to up the number of bases and the number of Americans, you know, military who were on Greenland? it's all within the framework of bases, but it's back to that, you know, a very large number of bases

that could cover a very large part of Greenland with a significant increase in the number of Americans that would be deployed on those bases. So they're playing in the rules, but the demands within those rules are very, very significant. And Greenlanders are now looking at us in a very different way. but he doesn't give up. You know, they used to have bases in Canada's Arctic as well.

And not just the Arctic, but obviously, you know, they had bases in Newfoundland. Yeah, that's right. And Labrador. They had bases in Northern Manitoba and Churchill. That's right. Has there been any sniffing around to get back in that game? No, but you know, there's a sequence here, right? If you look at all of this.

And lactase is the third place that's in our neighborhood. Cuba. Right. Cuba has to come to a boil one way or the other over the summer because of the huge shortage of fuel. There's functionally an oil embargo on Cuba. They can't last, you know, 23 hours of blackout a day in the summer. No air conditioners, no anything.

tough to cook, frankly, when you don't have power. So I don't think, I can't believe that this will not come to a while in these next too much. One way or the other. They're looking for their Dulcee Rodriguez in Cuba. Yeah. Do they have one? I mean, you never know. I mean, they're Dalsi Rodriguez in Cuba.

Iran was going to be Akhmadinjad of all people. Yeah. So who knows who they're picking Cuba? Yeah. And we didn't know who Delci Rodriguez. We didn't know if she was Delci Rodriguez until the Americans told us she was Delci Rodriguez. So we won't know. But that's clearly what they're doing now.

And that would be the most peaceful way this could end. So that's all right around Canada. Right. One way or the other. Anything in Canada you're looking at? It was international connections or foreign connections? Yes. So there's going to be a referendum on a referendum.

Boy, I was in the province of Quebec for both of the earlier referendums on referendum, and the temperature heats up. It's amazing how quickly it gets hot. The difference between then and now is the degree of foreign interference in those two earlier referenda in Quebec was different because it was pre-digital, right? Those two. The last one was in 96. There is a lot of... 95.

95. That's right. There's a lot of foreign interference already going on. Peter. And what we do about it really matters, whether we call it out, how we call it out. And some of it is from our neighbor to the south. So just think about managing through that when you're involved in these negotiations at the table with the United States. What do you mean by interference? Are we talking money? We're talking things that are being said? Are we talking about advice?

What are we talking about? So it's all of it. Okay. I was afraid you say that. Yeah. There's money for sure because it's easy, right? To finance groups that are in favor of a referendum. It's not hard.

We're next door neighbors across the border. It's not hard. That's number one. there is digital interference, foreign interference, right? And that's all we see. You do it through chatbots and you can flood the zone, frankly. And they're not yet flooding the zone, but there's enough there now that it can only grow, frankly.

So that's monitored all the time. And, you know, we did have a mechanism in our last federal election that if there was for an interference, the clerk of the Privy Council was authorized on his own to call it out. And the reason he was given that authority, he didn't need the approval of prime minister or any minister because you don't want it to be political, right? And so the clerk, who's our most senior civil servant,

can call it out and say, hey, folks, beware. When you're seeing this, you need to know where it's coming from. We probably need a mechanism like that in the summer and the fall, something like that. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there are, I mean, if there are some that cross the border and are not physically around, because it's so easy to do. Because it's clear that a yes vote would be an easy way for the Trump administration. There's a big, powerful, important province in Canada, the heart of the energy industry that doesn't want to really be part of Canada anymore. Wouldn't they love to join us?

Now, that doesn't follow from the vote, but that's what they would say. So that's a big one. It is. All right. We're going to leave it at that for now. I mean, there's lots there for us to think about, both current and possible in the near future.

So that is what we'll do. I think we both deserve a holiday. But I got to put you on notice. If the world blows up, Janice, I'll find you wherever you are to talk about it and we'll figure some way to get that on the air. But have a great summer. You too. I hope you don't have to find me.

Yes. Peter, that's what we both hope. I know. But whatever the case, we'll see you back in September. And I hope you get back to the Orkneys at least once more in the summer. I'm going to go back in the fall, I think. It's great. It was a great trip. Really enjoyed it.

All right, Janice, thanks so much. We'll see you in September. See you in September. You know, it's hard. hard to imagine what Mondays for the next of the while are going to be like without Janice. But there's a lot to chew on out of that last hour, so I'm sure you will.

Thanks to Janice Stein, Mug School University of Toronto. You learn so much every time we talk. All right. I gave you a sense of, tomorrow. It's a more buts conversation. We recorded it on Sunday. It's pretty interesting too. And Wednesday, as I said, I'm not sure what we'll do, but that'll be the last program before the summer hiatus begins for the bridge. There will be the, every Wednesday, there'll be an

encore edition. And as I said, twice during the summer, there will be special summer good talks once in July, once in August. Okay, that'll do it for today. Look forward to talk to tomorrow. Don't miss it. More butts conversation. Tomorrow, right here on the bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in less than 24 hours. Bye for now.