we just tried to put forth solutions and see if we can find an agreement with different countries. so we took an initiative this summer to make a proposal, a technical one. i got the reaction from iran who president zarif visits on friday morning. after the conclusion of the g-7 dinner on saturday evening, i thought that it was very clear about where we can go together. so the day after i decided to invite, as friends, minister zarif. so i informed, before making it, i informed president trump that it was my idea, not to involve the united states, not to say this is on behalf of you. but to say as friends i think it would be a good idea to ask him to go back and try to negotiate
he s a shell, he s a grifter. this is the sort of step by the united states that shows he s illegitimate. julie: behnam ben taleblu joins us, he s a research fellow at the defense of democracy pete is also tested on capitol hill regarding iranian policy. thank you for talking to us. great to be with you, julie. julie: is this a good move by the trump administration, do you believe? i think it s a wise move and defenses were at the fiction, as bolton was just saying. but iran s former minister zarif is like any other. he doesn t have the portfolio powers like most foreign ministers do. high-level national security decision-making is made elsewhere in tehran, but never has one man with so little power been able to do so much. what he has done is present a change in style by iran, a change in substance. he has been able to lift sanction relief, and win friends and the west because a change in sale. julie: they said they would restart activities at every
absolutely. you ve seen the administration say they would negotiate with no preconditions and you saw that senator rand paul was sort of offering himself as sort of an intermediary. what was interesting about the offer from minister zarif, is he was basically saying that iran would accelerate a commitment that it wouldn t have to fulfill until 2023 to allow the iaea, the international ought tommic energy agency to conduct very kbr kbrusive inspections that they would sign an agreement to do that in return for the lifting of the sanctions that they found most onerous. the administration immediately rejected this and said it s not enough and certainly, i think, that mr. zarif knew it wouldn t be enough. but it would at least be a way to get the discussion going. and getting inspectors to go every has been one of the complaints you ve seen on president trump s twitter account is that the inspectors
it certainly took a lot of attention and scrambling on behalf on the part of secretary kerry, people in the white house right before the state of the union from this accidental intrusion. give us some insight into what was going on in these frantic calls with zarif. as we ve heard, secretary kerry was with secretary ash carter of the pentagon at the time that he heard about this. he left the meeting with senior philippine officials to call zarif, the foreign minister of iran. he had several conversations with him before the state of the union address. he made it clear that this was an accident. that no one was entirely clear what had occurred here. minister zarif gave assurances they would be released quickly. that happened our time about 3:30 this morning or so. they wanted to wait until the daybreak took place in farsi
the major sticking points? minister zarif, do you think it can be done by june? i certainly believe that it can be done otherwise i wouldn t be wasting my time. i have said very clearly that all sanctions need to be terminated and i believe that will be the final outcome when we get to that. from iranian point of view sanctions must all go. under attack al shabab strikes again inside kenya. this time it s a university dorm and now at least 15 are dead. gunshot around sleeping it was around 5:00 and guys starting jumping up and down running for their lives. and the fix is in indiana s legislature moves to make its controversial religious freedom law more inclusive. let every hoosier know that we value you, gay, straight black, white, religious, nonreligious, we value each and