The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump needs to make a decision on Iran and AI has come for the laptop class

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Will the US go to war with Iran? Donald Trump is being taunted: if he backs down on his demand that Iran restrict its ballistic missiles program he will lose face in the Middle East. Janice believes that if Iran agrees to a deal that pauses its nuclear weapons program indefinitely Trump should take it and claim a big win. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to the big finance news of the week, specifically the mass selloff in software stocks that wiped one trillion dollars from the stock market due to the release of new AI bots that can automate legal and financial services. How can software companies survive in this environment? Why was the market response to these AI bots so severe? This is a signal to how new technologies are coming for white collar jobs in a way that we can't even imagine. Are policymakers working on a response to how radical this job dislocation will be to our economy?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.

This is consequential. This is going to have a massive effect on white collar and plight. We might disagree a little bit about the pace, but we agree on the fundamentals here. And I don't think we're prepared at all. Big meetings underway in Oman. Will the United States go to war with Iran? That almost rhymes. Janice Gross Stein joins me.

The founder of the Monk School of Global Affairs and my co-host here. on Friday Focus. Well, Janice, let's dive right in. What do you make of these meetings? How close are we to the proverbial 11th hour in these negotiations? I think we are at the 11th hour, Richard. Donald Trump has boxed himself in at this point. Either he gets a deal at the negotiating table,

And then there's just one or two ways forward. One is to go to war, as you tragically just said, and the second is to back down. And he is being taunted, frankly, by countries like Saudi Arabia, that if you back down, you will lose faiths in the Middle East. So his options have really narrowed, and there is no obvious deal right now at the table. There was seemingly a bit of backdown already, though, Janice, wasn't there? There had been a demand from the United States that these negotiations take place in Ankara, Turkey, that they include Iran's ballistic program, its support for proxy groups in the region. Iran said no. We're not going to Turkey. We're not going to Ankara. If this is going to happen at all, it's going to happen in Muscat, in Amman. And according to the Iranians, we're here only to discuss nuclear enrichment. We're not going to discuss our ballistic program and we're not discussing our proxies. What do you make of that? And what do you make of the Trump administration in a sense agreeing to take the Oman meeting?

Are they also now possibly, Janice, going to leave off the table their demands on the ballistic missile program and support for proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and, you know, all the fine folk that the Iranians seem to hang out with in the Middle East? The militias inside Iraq as well, Roger. Look, it just tells you how trapped, frankly, Trump feels that demand to deal with the proxies in the Middle East. You know, who supported that? Because who wanted to go to that meeting? The Saudis wanted to go. The Qataris, a little more likely to be. Emirates for sure wanted to go.

And this is taking place in the middle of a deepening rift inside the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. which will probably reshape the region and they are upping each other's game. But the reason they wanted that meeting in Turkey was so that the support for proxies was on the table. Because those proxies often are in their own countries. No deal. That's where Iran drew the line. And that's why we're having the meeting in Oman today. On that one issue of nuclear enrichment, but there is.

a possible deal. Because what would the deal look like? It looks a lot like the deal that Donald Trump walked away from in 2016 with one big exception in it, that exception really matters. The deal in 2016 was time limited. It would have expired. The deal that is currently being discussed would not expire. And what's the deal? Hand over all your stockpiles of enriched uranium to somewhat. The Ayatoll has asked that Putin received that Uyrieged in Rhen. Do not enrich above a level of above 15%, which is sufficiently low that you can't break out and race to a nuclear weapon and allow the inspectors or some verification regime back into the country. I don't want to minimize that deal record. It is a significant.

deal in and of itself if it diverts Iran from any possible pathway to a nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future. That is something. What it doesn't do, and that's where Iran drew the law on the sand. What it doesn't do is rain in its ballistic missile program. And from the Iranian perspective, that is their only remaining defense now. They have nothing else. They will given up their nuclear weapons. All their proxswain, all their proxswain. have been, for the moment, defeated. So this is their only defense. So why not take the bird in the hand instead of the two in the bush?

Like, why not accept the enrichment deal and, I don't know, creates a window dressing about future discussions around proxies and the ballistic missile program? Why is the ballistic missile program in particular being stressed by the U.S. administration? and is that because this is a key demand of Israel, and Israel itself is threatening to take out Iran's ballistic missile program or at least set it back again. I note that it is mainly having been rebuilt by the Chinese who provided the rocket fuel, the chemical compounds

and other things for these solid state rockets. China's new trading partner is Canada. We have a new strategic relationship. I love. I love the 3D game of international chess. But let's go right to that question. Bird in the hand or try to go for the two in the bush? You know, I'm going to give you my own opinion here, Richard.

And then we can speculate just what the Trump people will do. I think that bird in the hand is a very valuable bird. And I was opposed to Trump walking away from that deal. The deal he would get now would be better. and I think a deal that rules out a nuclear weapon for Iran is a significant deal and take the win, celebrate the win. You got a better deal than John Kerry did under President Obama. Again, let me say this is significant.

Why the ballistic missiles? Well, because the ballistic missiles are a concern for Israel, but they are concerned for Saudi Arabia. concern for any Arab country that has a U.S. base in the region, which is in firing reach of these missiles. You just made the strongest possible case why this is going nowhere, the discussion on batting ballistic missiles. Iran could rebuild within a year. and what is it? It's just a recipe for permanent war

that every year or two Israel will go to war when Iran to take out of its ballistic missile missile program only to see if rebuilt again. I think once you remove the nuclear threat from the region that prevents the Saudis or the Egyptians or anybody else from going down the road

and you get at the underlying issues. So I would say take the deal, but I've been wrong in the past, but take this deal. My bet is that Trump tackos, that it's too close to the midterms. We've already seen a run up in energy and gas prices as a result of U.S. deployment into the region. And yeah, his approval ratings are now skirting below 40%, and the last thing he needs is a big inflationary pulse, you know, with, let's say, the Straits of Hermuz close for three months as Iran, you know, threatens to rocket ships and basically takes what the Houthis were doing. and, you know, it puts it on proverbial steroids. So I give this a low chance, a low incident that the United States is going to go to war with Iran. And if that's the case, Janice, I don't know, I guess we take our small wins where we can get them.

Roger, first of all, you know, let me just share one tweet-based story. So I'm saying that right out of the day. But there was a story late last night that members of the Trump administration are consulting with Iranians who are out of the country as to who should succeed how many if the remains, you know, if the regime falls. Now, that can be a very doledly orchestrated tweet. You can see where that would be designed to increase the pressure on the Iranians as they come to the table. But you can never roll this out. You can never rule it out. So I would agree with you that if the Iranians really make a deal that eliminates,

and prospect of racing toward a nuclear weapon. Trump should take it and claim a big win and tell the world how much better he is than Obama and claim the genuine right to a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, Obama thought it, I could just write the script. So could you. But there's no saying that that's actually what he'll do. Yeah, I just think there's a through line of the last year. You know, China threatens America on rare earths and critical minerals and the Americans' back down. Europe threatens probably the U.S. bond market on Trump's musings about taking over Greenland and, you know, he tackos. The Iranians threatened to walk away from the Turkey talks. And what happens? You know, we're meeting in Iran. America is an incredibly powerful

country, the world's largest military, incredible technological prowess. But it is, its vulnerabilities are financial, and its vulnerabilities relate, and those financial vulnerabilities relate back to U.S. politics and to voter perceptions about, is my life today better than it was a year ago? And for many Americans, the answer to that question is no. And I think the world is starting to wake up to the fact that this is a certain kind of colossus in the Trump administration in the United States. It's a highly indebted colossus. It's a colossus that, you know, is operating on, you know, permanent deficits of, you know, five to six percent of GDP.

Just think of that year after year. It's issuing a trillion dollars in debt in the next hundred days that, you know, it's counting on the rest of the world to soak up and purchase. I think the Chinese were first, the Europeans were second, the Iranians are third. And I don't know, I'll leave you the last word, but this kind of in the broad sweep of of history, I think it's called the Ferguson rule after Neil Ferguson. When your debt payments become larger than your military expenditures, that is a sign of your tipping point, of your fundamental decline as a great power. And I wonder if in these various incidents, China, Europe, and now Iran,

we're not seeing the Ferguson rule play out in, you know, example after example. Boy, the Ferguson rule is a good rule, Roger. And what really mattered in Europe at Davos that week when those discussions, those intense discussions were going on over Greenland, was the Norway sold off U.S. treasuries from its sovereign wealth fund. It is a big holder of U.S. treasuries that influence the bond market. And you tell me who the American policymaker was who said, if I die, I would want to come back.

Oh, James Carville. It was James Carvel who said. I want to come back as the bond market. I want to come back as the bond market. But there's truth to that, right? So let's just look for the case for a second. What a China have a choke hold on critical minerals, which could shut down.

U.S. manufacturing. What are they, you know, what are the big investors, the big holders and treasury bills, which were sacrosaned. That's where you fled when the world got dicey. Now, when the world gets dicey, what are some of the big treasury holders doing? They're selling them. And that, those are significant levers. So we'll have to see, in this case, Iran doesn't world treasuries.

No, but it holds the straits of her moves. if it wants to. That's a less powerful instrument. I agree with James Carville. It's a less powerful instrument than the bond market. So we'll see what they do. You know, there is Venezuela record, and there was the attack on Fardo. It's not a completely straight-through line, because if it worse, most countries would not be

paying attention to Donald Trump. We will continue to debate it, Janice. Look forward to that. Let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. We're going to join our monk donors on the other side of this short break. Monk donors get the second half of our weekly show on geopolitics. First, premium access for 72 hours. The rest of you can catch the back half of the show on Monday.

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