The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Diplomacy with Iran and a Democratic socialist stuns New York City

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Rudyard and Janice start today's show unpacking the intelligence information about the effectiveness of America's attack on Iran's nuclear sites. While centrifuges at Fordo have been rendered inoperable, a significant amount of enriched uranium has been moved from the site to an unknown location. A diplomatic solution should be explored to prevent Iran from rebuilding their nuclear program, but will Iran trust the US and move towards non-enrichment, or go the way of North Korea and secretly sprint towards a bomb? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to the surprising Democratic mayoral primary in New York City where Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani upset former NY governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani's affordability message resonated with voters and showed that Trump and MAGA do not have a monopoly on the public's growing frustration with economic inequality. This crushing defeat of an established politician reflects a powerful desire for change that party elites - on both sides of the aisle - ignore at their peril.     Thank you to this week's Munk Curators and Supporters. Your contribution supports our efforts to bring back civil and substantive dialogue to the public square. Curators: Dixi LVincent CFrederic GBill M     Supporters: Mary GJames HCynthia SMaria Jose MAshvini DTheodora PTim CJacob KJoslyn BEugene TAlexander PHannah WVictor Nstefan SKevin BKristin ESarah CUlrike HKurt JSeth BDan WChristine BJesse BBen RTilanthi JChris BTrevor WAna RMichael CNeil MJim BJordan GFrances AEric PKaren BJOSE A ALawrence CLuke ANatasha MRobert CGintare MErin FJOSIE WJoe WRick CSuzanne HJay Nflorence MSimon JPaola LSylvia AJonathan WCharles LKatrina LDan BJake SSebastian TJulia NMark ANouri CMadeleine SNathaniel JThomas GMichelle GJohn LRichard CRyan LBraxley LPatrice TAviva RAlexis KCathy GMatt MKevin JJocelyn NBen PMike LDavid LArin KJordan HElena TStephanie HDarren KWilliam KRon BAndy DArvind SJulie PPatrick HJuliane SOmri GJohn MColin HJulie CLinda AMichael H To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by The Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk Debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website. in just a few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website. Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the

full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to Friday Focus for the 27th of June 2025. I'm Roger Griffiths, Chair of the Monk Debates. I'm joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director. of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Hey, Janice. Good to be with you, Redyard.

And I am still waiting for my first uneventful week, even though it's officially summer. I know it's officially summer, but boy, here in the least Central Canada, we've got rain on the way. We're back to the teens after a big heat wave earlier in the week. I don't know. It feels like a crazy summer.

It kind of feels like the world. Everything's up and dead. and up and down. What to make of it all. Right. Before we begin, Janice, just want to thank a whole bunch of new fellows that have come on the program.

And in fact, there's so many of them this week that I really can't do justice to it all. So I'm going to ask Ricky Gerwitz, our senior producer, to pace them into the show notes. So we're going to take care of it that way because literally they're done. upon dozens of names here, and you and I are going to use up most of the half hour reading

them out. So I hope people will allow me this week on the basis of this amazing response from our community, our appeal to donate to support civil and substantive debate and discussion that will stick those names in the show notes on your favorite podcast app. And again, thank you so much for your generous support. Janice, let's start with the week that was the fallout of the ceasefire that came into effect that we talked about this week on our special editions of the roundtable. Thank you again for all the positive emails that we received and the friendly feedback. Really appreciated. What do you make of what you're seeing the last, let's say 72 hours in terms of the last time we talked, which was just on the heels of

the big ceasefire announcement? We certainly know a lot more. Redger's and we did when we last talk, and the preponderance of intelligence information, which is coming not only from the United States, but from the IAEA, which is a really credible source. First of all, it does look like the centrifuges at Fardo are inoperable, not because bombs necessarily destroyed them, but because the vibrations from the bomb would interfere with these very, very delicate electricity systems that are fundamental to the operation of the centrifuges. So I think that's a credible source that I take seriously. What we also, I think, know is that a significant amount of enriched uranium, how much we don't know was moved prior to the attack by,

Iranians. We talked about that briefly, but trucks had pulled up to Fardo. And the only people that know where this is, is Iran. I will say that Iran is so penetrated now that I think it's going to be difficult over the long term to hide it. But right now, that enriched uranium is accounted for. And what do you make, Janice, of the reports in the last 24 hours or so that the Iranian parliament and then the kind of high council, which is basically the clerical body that, I presume, represents the will of the Ayatollah has effectively banned the atomic agency, the international agency, from its previous role of providing surveillance and intelligence on Iran's stockpiles, where they are, what shape they're in, what condition they're in.

How significant is that development? That is also very important, Reddard. Look, there's no substitute for eyes on the ground for inspectors. Yes, occasionally they miss things. And yes, they are not able to do surprise inspections. So the argument about them always is that a clever government will manage to hide. And certainly Fardo was developed for quite a while before American intelligence discovered it. That having been said, it is the inspectors who would be most likely to document that how much of that enriched uranium is missing.

They would be able to go to all known sites and assess the damage. And I think the bigger picture here, Rudyard, is that there is going to have to be a diplomatic agreement in order to resolve this problem. It is far from my deal to go back every two years, roughly, and have to do this kind of operation. the only way you get that done is with IAEA inspectors in Iran on the ground. Any concern, Janice, that this might be an early move, a sign that Iran is going to say, well, look, you maybe be a little sympathetic to the Iranian point of view here for once. Yeah. You know, we were in negotiations with you.

Maybe we weren't being good faith negotiators. We'll leave that to others to decide. But you bombed us during these negotiations. And you're now calling us back to the proverbial table to talk about our atomic program. But why should we? I mean, how are you a good faith negotiator yourself? I mean, are we seeing the beginnings here of maybe a more worrying path that Iran might choose to go the root of, let's say, in North Korea, a regime that said, you know what, sorry, but we're not

going to play along. We are going to go about and create a bomb and test it and show the world that we are a nuclear power. I don't know, Janice, could this be read as an early sign that Iran maybe headed in that direction? It certainly could be read that way, Roger. I think it would be foolish to dismiss that possibility. Look, let's again put this in context. There was an agreement in place. Trump called it the worst deal of the century and unilaterally broke it and walked away from it. So there's a history here, right? And as you just said, there were ongoing diplomatic negotiations when Israel preempted those negotiations and bombed. And then 10 days later, 11 days later, Trump bombed these nuclear installations from the air. So there's a compelling

case here. Now, just to, you know, to qualify that case for a moment, I assume that U.S. intelligence saw those same pictures of trucks pulling up to that plant that we who watched public satellite pictures saw. If they saw that, there would have been some urgency to do this sooner rather than later. And clearly, you don't want to telegraph advanced warning. But there's no question if you listen to what Iranians are saying in their media and the commentaries and the comment today released on video

from Ayatollah Khamani. They feel betrayed. They feel tricked by the United States. And that's the groundwork for pulling out and away from the IAEA. So what are we to look forward in terms of understanding where this would go? Again, you don't know what always to make

of the president's tweets, but he seems to be indicating that there could be negotiations starting soon. Next week, you sense. Next week. Next week. So I guess that'll be one test. Do those negotiations happen? Are they out in the open?

And at this point, what would there be to negotiate over? There is a big price here, right here. And there's one domestic development in Iran, which is worth drawing attention to. In this last two, three weeks as the crisis escalated, it seems likely that clerical rule has diminished and military, both the regular Iranian military, but even more important, the Revolutionary Guards have become more important. What's the big price here, Rutgers, lifting those sanctions? That is what the president of Iran, a moderate ran on and was elected on. That is a huge prize for Iran. What's the quid pro quo for getting those sanctions lifted, allowing regular inspections

and making a commitment not to enrich to engage in some sort of shared enrichment plan? That would be a game changer for Iran, for the economy, for the guards for this president. Do they have the weight to make that happen? Indeed. And I guess you just, we are seeming to hear, though, Janice, at the same time, you know, from the Ayatollah himself that Iran's ability to enrich is under the nonproliferation treaty and elsewhere is guaranteed an international law. one, you know, it will do so that this is a matter of national pride. Again, you have to wonder why they're so hung up on this one thing in national pride. Is it really about something bigger?

And I guess that bigger thing, Janice, is they've just been bombed. They've lost control. They've demonstrated they can completely lose control of their own airspace over their capital city, Tehran. I mean, if there ever was a reason for them to try to sprint to a bomb, surely the last 12 days, or at least the 12 days of the war gave them that reason that without it they are in a sense at the whim of israel the united states at any point in the future on any issue maybe maybe the conversation will move from from their atomic program to their ballistic missile program to their support for proxies in the region i mean who's who who's to say that when they're in such a weakened position with so little credible deterrence that your opponents don't you know erase one red line and draw another one. That's a very legitimate fear on the part of the Iranians. And how does the United States leave Israel aside for a moment?

But how does the United States respond to that? It goes the other way as quickly as possible. It puts an offer on the table that in exchange for agreeing to some regional enrichment center, which could be on Iranian soil. would save the honor of Iran. The United States undertakes to lift all sanctions, had to persuade the Europeans to do the same. You put the most tempting offer on the table early on.

Now, I'm sure you're going to ask whether, would Israel go along with that? It would be a very hard sell. But Donald Trump will never have more leverage over Bibi Netanyahu than he has right now. So if he truly wants a deal and he truly wants a Nobel Prize, you go for it now

and don't wait. I guess, again, I'm no fan of the Iranian regime, and I think it's awful what's going on with what reports are of a brutal crackdown on democracy activists, other people being, you know, just rounded up and roped into, you know,

the paranoia. that is infecting this regime right now. But would you say, Janice, that the problem will remain for Iran, even if they made an agreement? And let's say they know that Israel doesn't like it. What stops Israel from saying, you know, 12 months, two years from now? Oh, we don't really like the way this regional enrichment facility is looking. We, you know, we don't have credibility or faith in the,

the inspectors, etc. We're going to fly in and bomb you all over again. I mean, I guess it goes back to a conversation. You and I have had a lot over the last couple of years regarding Russia, Ukraine, regarding Israel, Hezbollah Hamas, the horrible events of October 7th. You know, deterrence matters. And can large nations like Iran, like Russia, like Israel, live in the absence of credible deterrence. Like what does your study of international relations say about that?

I mean, can large nation states, regional powers exist and operate without credible deterrence vis-a-vis their opponents? You know, it's very difficult. You're right, and that's why reputation is so important. But let's just, again, follow the path here as to what would happen. if there were some sort of regional arrangement for enrichment, of which the United States would be a participating party. Can you imagine Israel challenging the United States as being duped, sold out, incompetent in that enrichment agreement, and sacrificing entirely its strategic relationship with the United States. That is, it seems to me, a real stretch. The second thing that's going to matter here, and for Iran, I think this is important.

Once those sanctions get lifted, sanctions are not that hard to put in place. They're extremely sticky. They're hard to lift. Once these sanctions get lifted, it will be a long time, and there would have to be a massive provocation by Iran. in order for those sanctions to be snapped back on. And I think that's something that Iranian leaders are aware of. So it may under those conditions be worth the gamble. You know, the United States is going to have to roll the dice.

Iran is going to have to roll the dice. Otherwise, frankly, Richard, I think we're back at this in two years. Yeah. And they know it. talking about back at it let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners thank you so much again for tuning into the first half of the show if you want to get full-length editions of each and every episode of friday focus you can do that by becoming a month donor and joining the literally almost a hundred or so people this week who've signed on to support our efforts to bring more civility and substance to the public square you can do that right now at triple w the monk debates.com. Janice, back on the other side of this short break to talk to our donors about a election while primary in New York City that has reverberated across the United States and talks a lot,

I think, about some interesting trends in our politics and maybe also a new kind of style of politics that is emerging, which is potent and powerful. We're going to get into that right after this short break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast. To get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program, simply go to our website, www.w. The monkdebates.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site.

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