The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump abandons his red lines for a deal with Iran

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

This is now the 38th time President Trump has proclaimed a “great deal” with Iran. Is this one finally real? And if so, does it vindicate his strategy of escalating tensions to force Tehran back to the negotiating table?Based on the details leaked so far, the proposed agreement amounts to a 60-day ceasefire designed to create space for further negotiations. Yet the benefits for Iran appear to come first: sanctions relief and access to frozen assets before any final agreement on uranium enrichment or the nuclear program is reached. If that proves accurate, it is difficult to see where the Trump administration can claim victory. The deal risks looking less like a breakthrough and more like an agreement to reward Iran in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.Has Trump abandoned his own red lines? And if the end result resembles the framework negotiated under Obama, what exactly has changed? Finally, where does Israel fit into this agreement—and what could derail it before the ink is even dry?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.

It's hard to see how the Trump administration claims any victory when there will be funds transferred to Iran in exchange for what? For unblocking the street. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 12th of June, 2026. I'm Roger Griffith's chair of the Monk Debates, joined by my co-host, Janice Gross Stein, the Monk School of Global Affairs. Hey, Janice. Hey, my dear. How are you this week? Oh, yeah.

Well, forget about me. The president of the United States in the last 24 hours for, I believe, the 38th time in the last 100 days, has announced that the war with Iran is imminently over. It's not over. It's close. It's a matter of days. Maybe there's a signing ceremony in Geneva. We don't know. So, Janice, let's dedicate this show to this because it seems like a bit of a milestone in.

this saga. Before we get to some of the leaked elements of the supposed deal that's firming up, what did you make of the week that was? It did seem to follow a very predictable pattern, at least from the president, in terms of some heavy rhetoric, some big threats. And then, of course, just before the market closed yesterday, the 38th time, he is announcing now a great deal with the government of Iran, whoever that is, and I guess we'll just have to see. Are we lucky 38 times? You know, off the top, Frederick, it looks like this line is real because there are leaks coming from the Iranian side, not only from the U.S. side. But if you look at the choreography of this week to answer your question, you get escalation,

first of all, and look where the United States bombed. It bombed just along the periphery of Ron's coastline along the street. So the United States is going after missiles that are embedded in some of the cases. along the straits and that's an effort to limit their capacity. The worrying thing here right now is I could just imagine the rhetoric and the conclusions that will follow from this. There's a well-known strategy broadly by people who are ready about these problems called escalate to de-escalate.

It's a classic Russian strategy actually. but when you face an impasse at negotiating table, you're off the ladder, you increase the costs, and then the other party comes to the table. I'll bet you anything that the Trump administration claims

that that's what they did to get over the line a memorandum that has been negotiated for the last several weeks, frankly. But if that's the conclusion they walk away from, this is not going to be much of a learning opportunity.

Let's go through some of the, again, these are leaked elements of this 14-point proposal, because I'm struggling a little bit, Janice, to see where the president is going to be able to claim any kind of victory if these points are indeed what are featured in the, I guess, guess an agreement, Janice, maybe we should start there. That's not really a solution or a resolution to the war. It's basically, I guess if you want to be realistic, Janet, it's a kind of an extension of the ceasefire on more favorable terms to negotiate the toughest issue of all, which would remain unresolved, according to these 14 points, which is Iran's nuclear program. Is that how you're seeing this? Because, again, I think we want to be careful for our-

listeners and viewers to try to separate the rhetoric here versus the reality. So when we talk about a deal and the president talks about an end to the war, I don't know. I think, I feel like the cup is definitely half full. So I think it is an act of fighting help between the United States and Iran. But that's all it is. It's a more. stable ceasefire. That's really what it is. And the way to look at this based on leaks,

and both of us are saying that over and over, we won't know until we see some kind of text. But this is 60-day window to get the negotiations done. But the rewards to Iran, frankly, are at the front of it, right? They're faced in and they're at the front of it. there is some relief from sanctions. There is release of Iranian funds that have been blocked by the United States. Some of that happens 30 days in, in other words, halfway through.

So the benefits to Iran are staged, but they come before any final agreement. is reached allegedly at the end of 60 days. And the reason it's done to that way is because these issues are going to be so tough, very unlikely that there will be any agreement whatsoever at the end of 60 days. So I agree with you. It's hard to see how the Trump administration claims any victory

when there will be funds transferred to Iran in exchange for what? For unblocking the street. Yeah. So we're going to get to the terms as they're leaked right now in a moment. But before we do that, Jen, one more thing to explore listeners and viewers, which is, in addition to the nuclear question being unresolved, if this 14-point plan that is being leaked this morning is accurate, the Straits of Hermos are also, in a sense, unresolved. They would be unblocked, arguably, for the duration of this agreement. But the sovereignty, the control, the management of the Straits, this is, this is, I postponed, delayed, deferred, and the Iranians continue to draw a line in the last 12 hours in the media that they are not accepting in any way, shape, or form.

you know, American involvement, governance, control of the strait. So that seems like, I guess what I'm scratching my head a bit about Janice. How is what the Trump administration is accepting now different than what it was roundly criticized for, and the president seemed to back off on two weeks ago right after the Monk debate on foreign wars, when Pompeo, Mike Pompeo, our debater, Ted Cruz, other kind of grandees in the Republican Party in the so-called neocon wing lashed out at the White House for what they thought was a bad deal. The president reacted to that. I think we agree.

He's very sensitive to that type of criticism and postponed it. But what's different now two weeks later than the deal he could have accepted then? Yeah. So let's separate out two issues, Roger, the straight of home moves and the nuclear problem. What Trump balked over last time, and it was in response to criticism by that wing of the Republican Party, was the wording that Iran used to can recommit, this has been a 20-year commitment, if not longer, by the Iranianism, not to acquire a nuclear weapon, not to develop a nuclear weapon. and the negotiators pushed in the conversations after the person was criticized.

Well, would you commit never to buy? I mean, Janice, that is a ridiculous semantic distinction of no serious substance. The Iranian government already had a fatwa by Khomeini, who was assassinated by the strike that opened this war on the development of a nuclear weapon. Yeah, but what the Trump administration came under criticism for, and by these guys, by Pompeo, Cruz and others, was, yeah, they wouldn't develop, but they would buy. Okay. Who's selling? Who's selling? Well, there are sellers. There's one famous seller. Well, I don't think Pakistan is going to sell nuclear weapon to Iran.

That would be so good for their foreign aid budget, which is overwhelmingly funded by the United States. States. You know, they have transferred nuclear technology before, is all I'll say. But beyond that, this agreement, allegedly, but then let's list, takes us part for a moment, this agreement, allegedly Trump claims includes that commitment, but we're not getting to that. Let's see what the text of the Iranian commitment is when we actually get it. Right. But, Janice, I thought the president's red line was he, he wanted the uranium out. He wanted the 400 kilos of enriched uranium.

He wanted it delivered to the United States. The United States would dispose of it or the United States would go in there and remove it itself. And now we have some, again, I just think, you just can't take that too seriously. Oh, well, now they're going to add that they're not going to buy it because the shopping mall for nuclear weapons, you know, is so good. And you can wide and you can order these things off the shelf from Uber. And, you know, I mean, this is, anyway, let's, let's go through some of these 14 points here.

Yeah. But just to come back to the street for one day, there is no arrangement. There is no arrangement of the street because there never was. It's a, you know, the position of the Europeans, everybody else who's not involved in this, the Strait of Toronto's an international waterway. So anybody goes through and there's not really any governance. arrangement here except for repairs. What are you doing in the event of an emergency? So the way I think about this, this is just a restoration of the state of the state of the war broke out. So after

all this, we're returning to the situation in the street that existed before the war. Iran made no gains there. And the United States made no gains. We're back to where we start. Are we, Janice, because the Iranians are saying that they will have a role in the governance and use of the state with their new partners, Oman. They are not playing back language that it's a return to the pre-war status quo. And that is not featured in these 14 points. There is no explicit acknowledgement by either party that Straits or Fremuz reverts to its pre-war status as an open international waterway. Well, so they don't use that language, but when they say

the Straits of Tehran will be open, that's cold for that, frankly. Well, okay, you seem more bullish on this agreement than I do. I think that just means that it's open for a period of time where these negotiations will happen. Iran is not giving up. What it claims is its ability now to command these territorial waters in their view and their international waters, but they're asserting that these are territorial waters, and that they will, you know, have a system in place, whether that involves tolls or not, who knows. But it's clearly, they see this as a major win for them in the war, a new tool for strategic deterrence against future attacks. And they're certainly not saying that we're back to status quo ante, you know, prior to this 100-day conflicts.

No, but they never would. So in any kind of agreement like this, right, that's why you choose a word like re-open or open, because here's how you craft these kinds of agreements, both sides can claim a win. And it doesn't really matter what they say. What really matters is, and by the way, it's not that easy to open because you have to remove any mines that may be there. There's all sorts of technicalities. But when tankers start to go through, we'll see in the 60 days, do the Iranians stop the tankers and demand any kind of tolls? I would bet you not.

No, they probably won't do that, but they're saying, you know, we'll open within 30 days, quote, this is in the agreement. supposedly with Iranian arrangements. And again, you could read a lot into this. And I get an agreement has to work and there has to be safe-safing, space saving on either side. But one of the negotiating parties here, Janice, last time I looked was supposedly the world's most powerful military, economic, diplomatic,

and technological nation in the history of humanity. And the other is a, you know, serial sanctioned, sanctioned regime with a destroyed economy, a fractured civil society, basically a terror state committed to literally months ago the murder of tens of thousands of its citizens. And I don't know. It just stepped back for a moment. Look at this agreement. I mean, this suggests, I would say not even an agreement of equals, Janice.

If these 14 points are true, would you not say that this is a technical win for Iran? A boxing referee would call it a TKO. Yeah, I agree. I absolutely agree with you because restoring, let's even grant my interpretation for a moment of the words. It doesn't matter. It's simply restoring the status. quo you don't go to war and expend the kind of resources and political capital that the United States did here in order to restore the status quo so whether or not this is a TKO for

Iran or for the United States is going to depend on one issue which is a nuclear issue and that's kicked down the road now so by the way is sanctions so if you look at the And we'll come to that right now. But if you look at the terms, there are some sanctions relief, but not all. There are some release of Iranian frozen funds, but not all. So what this is designed to do is, you know, give Iran enough now so that the fighting stops. And that is, to me, the big objective. And if the, once the fighting is stopped, the reward structure will be.

Look, I think this is a great deal for Iran. I just, another supposed element of the deal is U.S. and allies draw up a reconstruction plan for Iran worth at least $30 billion. More, more a year. So, I think more. It's remarkable. They're going to get $25 billion in unfreezed funds, $12 billion up front. Again, that was supposed to be a deal breaker two weeks ago. I guess it's not now.

they're going to get potentially some massive reconstruction fund. I guess the Gulf states are going to pay for that. I don't know who's paying the $300 billion. I expect it won't be the United States. Maybe that Qatari plane that they gave Mr. Trump is going to end up being a rather expensive gift. There's a supposed complete cessation of all fronts, including Lebanon and today we continue to have Israel bombing southern Lebanon and Israeli forces are north of the Latani line.

Iranian oil sanctions suspended so they get immediately billions of dollars of oil and energy sales. Their ports are reopened. Janice, I mean, what is there not to like in here if you're an Iranian official? No, no. listen I think the first of all the reason

that the Iranians have come back to the table like this because they also promised their domestic public that they would never agree to any kind of deal like this is the economic pressure inside Iran

is unrelenting at this point and even friends of Iran are saying that Iran cannot continue this way from what than a few more months. So the clock was ticking. And for the Iranians, what's not great for them, frankly, in this whole thing, although it's heavily in favor, there's no question in the first face of Iran. But what's not great for them is that the bulk of the sanctions relief, the numbers you just gave, Roger, those funds are in Qatar. They're not in the United States.

And almost all of that funding is to be used for humanitarian relief in something. lies. That's not going to do much. It'll do something for the Iranian people, but it's not going to do much for the Iranian economy. Bring down food inflation and stop the regime having to deal with the potential of another uprising. Well, yes and all, because there's terrible electricity shortages. There are terrible water shortages. This is a population of 90 million people already. This is not going to go very far. And the rest of the financial relief is phased in and is tied to exceptions on the nuclear problem. But Iran was getting none of this before the war. The point is that they were under extreme sanctions. They were getting any of these

frozen funds. They were not getting promised $300 billion to rebuild a country as a result of, again, by international law standards, I'm no fan of the Iranian regime. It was an illegal war on Iran, a unilateral attack without an imminent threat either to the United States or Israel. So who knows? Maybe they're entitled to the 300 billion. It just, if these points are true. Just to make one point before the war, Iran was enriching. And they were weeks away from the capacity to make a bomb.

We don't know that, though, Janice. No intelligence agency has definitively declared that, including U.S. agencies whose own information, frankly, I think, contradicts that narrative. Now, maybe that is true. But again, it's a known unknown. I don't think there's a certainty or fact that Iran was a matter of days or weeks for breaking out and having a functional nuclear weapon. I think those points are important. You don't need very much in which you are going to make one bomb. And there's no question, even somebody like Raphael Grossey,

not a U.S. intelligence agency or anybody else, but probably the most impartial in the system, at the top of his list is inspection of undeclared site that they have identified in which there is likely a repository of some H.E.U. Highly in reassuring. So that, there's no question that's on pause. now. And that's the trade-off here that's been made. Whether or not they get firm commitments and the kind of commitments that really matter are the inspectors going to be able to go back.

Is Iran committed to a longer period where it engages in no enrichment. There has been bargaining across the table. Apparently, the Iranis have agreed to 10 years. The United States asking for 20, who knows what will come out of all of this. And I can imagine any number of factors disrupting this deal, but that's what this is at all. This is about tying sanctions, really, to progress on the new question. I guess I go back to the fundamental rhetorical point of this president, arguably maybe the very thing that led to this war in the first place,

was his tearing up of Obama's, deal, which was set to expire and would have had to have been renewed. But that aside, his constant rhetoric was that the Obama deal was awful. It was the worst deal that the Americans had ever made, and that he was going to, I guess, have this war and come back with a better deal. And if these 14 points are the basis of what leads to now and extent, or deepening of this ceasefire, one, there's nothing in them that suggests that any of this is better than anything that the Obama administration negotiated.

And as you say, the key issue of enrichment and the future of Iran's nuclear program, all of that punted to the future. It doesn't even factor in these 14 points. And then the icing on the cake is that Obama had not turned. the Straits of Hermuz into a credible tool for the Iranian regime to protect, project force and achieve greater strategic deterrence in the region and greater global prominence and influence internationally because he didn't wage a war against Iran. Yeah, look, absolutely no.

There's no basis, just, again, to focus on Trump's claims when he walked away from the Obamadio, which long proceeds as four-rejected. How can he claim that he is a better deal on a wrong nuclear program when there is no deal yet? That remains to be negotiated. So what do I expect if we get to a signing ceremony, Ginnyville, which I have to say, I very much hope I would give to him.

And that's partly why I welcome this, even as to stop that measure. But if he gets there, there will be leaks from both sides about what they have or have not agreed to on the nuclear program, because that's a fundamental issue. But he can't go out. I'd say the American public or anybody else. I got a better deal because he doesn't have a deal, any deal at all, on the nuclear program.

Let's wrap up the show with a quick discussion of the situation that Israel and Benjamin Nanyahu finds itself in. He was not seemingly privy to yesterday's announcement, as I mentioned earlier. on the show, Israeli troops are deep into southern Lebanon. They are talking about creating a permanent security zone to the Latani River, but troops are now advancing beyond that, and there are ongoing airstrikes even today into various cities and targets. Over 3,000, ostensibly, according to reports from the Lebanese government, over 3,000 civilians have been killed in Lebanon over the last 100 days. Where does Israel find itself heading into consequential elections in a matter of months? Well, let's look the big strategic picture. Israel's been

cut out of these negotiations for the last two months. And contrary to the stories at the beginning of this that Israel was the puppet master and Trump was the puppet again and again and again. We have story after story which has been confirmed that they are not even in loop. One or two conversations recently that Trump has had with the time you have been acrimonious is too polite a word for what's gone on and Trump has said it openly. Israel doesn't call the shots. We call the shots and they will do what I tell them to do. So I think that is a very, very, very different story than the story that was circulating right after this war started.

And clearly from an Israeli perspective, that is a massive strategic defeat for the government of Israel, a Netanyang to find himself excluded. There was a call. Again, after all these leaks, there was a call again yesterday, and it was a more civil call, but that was because the Senate would just agree to accept these terms,

regardless of what he and elements in his right-wing government think about it. The big unknown here is Lebanon included in this deal or not. The Iranians say yes, the Americans say no, we won't know. If you look at this text, there's not really an explicit rep. The leaked text that we're seeing, Roger GEO and I, there's not really an explicit reference.

And that can blow this up within days, frankly, of the signing ceremony, as it did before. So we're not out of the woods yet. Yeah. Hezbollah in the last 12 hours indicating that they assert that this, this deal will cover the conflict, and that is a necessity of prerequisite for their de-escalating their conflict with Israel. As we wrap up the show, I'll give you last word, but before I do, I don't know, Janice, as you just said, I think there are so many things that could derail this. And maybe my takeaway is, again, the 38th time that the president has announced that a peace deal, and this is not a peace deal, is imminent with Iran.

Maybe this one allows the parties to do something that they both need to do, which is to each in their own way, refresh, reset the decks, and try to extract from each other. and, you know, the types of concessions that are going to allow them both to live to fight another day. For the president, this takes some pressure off the midterms, possibly. We just saw inflation at the United States this month running at over 4 percent, year over year. Prices under Trump are now up 5 percent. That's the Consumer Price Index since he was elected. And then, as you say, that the Obama deal, took years to negotiate.

18 months. And now we have something that's even more complicated that makes that look like checkers. And this, something like 3D chess with not only the nuclear program involved, but the Straits of Hermose and all kinds of issues around sanction release, frozen funds, reconstruction fund. And I wouldn't be surprised if we are either into some kind of long, extended, pretend negotiation that both parties accept for as long as they're willing to accept it, maybe for the president's case, it's up until the midterms.

And for Iran's case, it's probably for as long as they can continue to get some relief for their economy in terms of reopen ports, sales of Iranian oil, which also shares that bizarre kind of similarity that that's exactly what Trump wants to bring down global oil prices, to bring down oil prices at the pump in the United States. So there's lots of little spaces where I think their common interests align. I just think on the big questions, they're still miles away. And I'll wrap up and throw it back to you for the last word. we saw two weeks ago that this president is very sensitive to criticism. And I would be surprised

if these are the terms, as we've discussed today, I would be very surprised in the coming days and weeks if he is not subject to a lot of sharp criticism. Well, I think there's going to be, just to talk about your last point, first and then to go to the big picture. I think it would be a torrent of criticism from some within the Republican parties about how much has left open-ended here. I suspect this time the president is going to he's thin skin as we know, but I suspect

he's going to resist going back to fighting because of all the reasons that you mentioned, we're in the countdown now to the midterms. He wants the price of oil to go down. This does that and that's whether he has no problem with selling Iranian

oil. But I'd be equally surprised if the Iranian And I've been saying this for weeks that we've had, frankly, generally in the media, an unbalanced view because it didn't pay enough attention to the enormous pressure on the Iranian regime from inside the country, given the god-awful shape that the Iranian economy is in now. And all the interviews, you know, that come through and posts on social media by Iranians are talking about the desperation of the public. This government is, the Iranian government has a limited period of time to get some relief into the economy. But that's not weeks. That's months. And so it does give both sides.

time to negotiate an agreement, some agreement on the nuclear, on Iran's nuclear programs. So from my perspective, overall, this is a good thing. Yeah, returning to war is always a bad thing. Yes, but in this case it is. Yeah, I just think the consequences of this for American power, for the people of Taiwan, for the people of Ukraine. There are a lot of knock-on effects here to see the world's hyperpower, great power, in the United States, end up with a deal. And I'll put the word deal in air quotes of this nature with the regime of Iran's nature and with the disproportionate power, stature, and standing between these two parties. And again, it's just hard to read these deal terms if they are correct and not assume that.

Iran has gotten the better hand of this president, the better hand of the United States in terms of the opening concessions, and in terms of the extent to which the major issues are deferred, and some of the original issues of the war like the ballistic missile program, which they've rebuilt very quickly, and the proxies aren't even mentioned, aren't even part of the negotiations that will go forward. So the war aims, obviously, were not achieved, but to see, again, a country that I think we all want to see succeed for our own self-interest, for a world of freer trade, of open seaways, of, you know, a nation that was responsible in a sense for much of the globalization of the last 50 years that Boyd International prosperity and progress, like a few other events in human history. It's hard not to see Janice that this isn't a bit of a hinge moment. Well, I'm not to miss it. I need a script. And again, let me just look back really quickly.

Vietnam, do you remember there was declineist literature through the route? It was not correct. Iraq, that was a massive defeat for the United States. It said it didn't decline after that one. The shambolic retreat from Afghanistan, we've already forgotten that one. one the start of the Biden president. Oh my goodness. That was the end of the United States as a hyperpower. Not correct. So I think we tend to over exaggerate in the moment the damage that comes from any particular incident. I look at the fundamentals. Empires also end. When you're

spending $100 trillion every hundred days on your debt, servicing costs. That's a definition. Because of needless wars like this that have deeply damaged your economy and significant. further underwrote in your fiscal capacity? All these things are connected. Yeah, but it doesn't come, and I think it doesn't not come from any particular defeat, tactical defeat.

No, so you kill the effects of all this, of mismanagement and misallocation and resources. I think it has to do with structural fundamentals, like the state of the U.S. economy, the quality of the U.S. military, those are not going away. Okay, Janice, we'll leave it there. great to catch up with you today.

Thanks for our listeners and viewers for tuning in. We'll do this all again next Friday and then take a much-deserved break over this summer. So just a heads up to Friday-focused listeners that's starting in July and August. We will be offering you the best of the Monk debates featuring snapbacks and lookbacks to some of our most important main stage debates. So the last 15 years of this series, we'll be profiling those exclusively for you each and every Friday. July and August. And news to say, if a big event lands, we will be back with some immediate analysis and reaction vis-a-vis Friday focus on Fridays or an emergency podcast if necessary. So we got you covered for the summer, but we appreciate you giving us a little bit of downtime

to enjoy the halcyon days that are so rare and infrequent here in Canada, but we do get them in July and August. Janice, I'll sign off there. Talk to again soon. Bye-bye. Talk to you. Bye-bye. The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.