Page 4 - Ken Pollack News Today

Israel. what do you think that tells us? >> its not clear exactly what the israelis are doing. we should hope what they are doing is simply trying to play bad cop to get the best deal possible. prime minister netanyahus rhetoric has been so far off to the other side that it raises the question that perhaps he is trying to blow up the negotiations. perhaps he doesnt want a deal. that would be enormously damaging. if at the end of the day we dont get a deal between the international community and ...

The last. were very, very close. they come back again in ten days, i expect well get a deal very soon. >> ken, are you as optimistic? >> i certainly share joes hope that this deal can be brought about. and i share both of your hope or expectation that this is a good deal. i think the problems that have a rarisen is that -- these are things that howled be dealt with in a final status agreement between the two of them. its not really clear why the french decided to make an issue of this now. that ...

Proposing relief of very small kinds. the argument is that iran should make significant concessions, but that the west should make none at all. thats not negotiations, thats a requirement that the other side surrender. which makes one wonder. do the critics of this negotiating process want a better deal? or do they really want no deal at all? so that it opens up another path to deal with the problem, which is war. in that case, the danger for those critics was not that the geneva negotiations we...

Foreign minister as part of the seven year effort to curb irans nuclear program. this will be the highest level talks with iran in three decades but they can be trusted? back on the show is middle east expert and former cia intel analyst ken pollack. ken, in relationship that has not known trust in about 30 years, how do we assess whether or not rowhani is any different from ahmadinejad? he says he has the heir of the supreme leader and has control of their nuclear as pieration. what are the act...

Is, have u.n. inspectors go in in the middle of the civil war. find it, verify it, destroy it. >> this is a great question. look back to the iraq example. it worked in iraq. we have to remember that. we did get iraquis, get saddam give up weapons of mass destruction. it took years. >> during 90s, before george w. bush. >> it took years to do, took years to get saddam to agree. maybe bashar will be smarter than saddam. as you point out, we werent trying to do it in the middle of a civil war. tryi...

Brookings institution center for middle east policy. his new book "unthinkable iran: the bomb and american strategy" com comes out on tuesday. ken, ayman was talking about the impact of a strike on syria on iran. you write extensively about the country and to what ayman was saying in his report. >> well, i think that obviously -- look, weve got to recognize there is the potential for some form of retaliation. by the same token, when you look at the main actors who would want to retaliate, iran, ...

Publicly what it intends on doing, but in recent weeks, some of the comments that have come out from the organizations most senior leader have indicated that the organization is willing to defend the syrian regime by any means necessary. now, that has not been explicitly clarified. by many analysts and experts assessments, it could include the possibility of hezbollah fighting on behalf of the syrian regime, either in syria or attacking syrias enemies like israel in the region. obviously, that h...

Americans are willing to strike the syrians, theyre nothing, but theyd never do the same thing to us. >> if we failed to strike, wouldnt they definitely draw the lesson that if theyre so much more powerful than syria, if were not even willing to strike syria, surely when were talking to them our word doesnt mean anything. >> possibly, but they could also interpret is the exact opposite way. they could say, the americans dont care about syria, its not really that important. us, they care about. w...

Triggering nerves across the region in cooperation with the pentagon. joining me are bloomberg view columnists and ken pollack, senior fellow at the brookings institution, former white house official and the middle east policy and the author of "unthinkable iran, the bomb." its september. your book is coming out, ken. >> it is. >> we look forward to reading that. >> i need a longer bio. >> your tweets are enough and funny. >> thank you. >> so here we have israel has been on the sidelines for the...

>> ken, weve talked about how the gulf state leaders, how the saudis and others view whats been happening in washington. how does the ayatollah view it? just at the point where we were beginning to talk about bilateral negotiations with iran. >> i think this is a critical issue and i think we have to start by saying, we dont have a clue. we dont know whats going on in his head. one of the things we do know about the iranians, they think they are far more important and far more power full than th...