Inside the Quiet Rooms: How a U.S.-Iran Deal Could Shift Global Power

a negotiated agreement to end the war with iran is suddenly on the table but this isn't about peace it's about politics and the main political beneficiary could be donald trump in episode one fifty we tracked the big visible power shifts today we're looking at the deal that happens in the quiet rooms the one that trades long term stability for short term relief richard haas and carolyn kassane just laid it out in foreign affairs the thinking in washington goes like this end the war and you stop the economic bleeding energy prices drop that provides immediate relief in the united states and across the world for a president that's a win any criticism would be drowned out

by the sound of a global sigh of relief trump could sell it to his supporters and plenty of others as a resounding success but here's what nobody is saying out loud at the press conferences the deal doesn't solve the problem it just defers it the nuclear file iran's regional aggression all the other thorny issues they get quietly set aside for some future negotiation and in the meantime the countries that actually live in the middle east have to contend with a newly empowered iran one that feels it won one that will have more resources and more leverage the deal isn't a solution it's a timeout and the clock is only paused for one side as the old saying goes the dogs bark but the caravan moves on right now washington is focused on the barking they're ignoring where the caravan is headed while america contemplates a deal with its rival its allies are making moves of their own they aren't waiting for permission look at japan prime minister sunei takayichi just stood up at the united

nations and demanded they remove the enemy states clause from the un charter that's a seventy year old reference to the defeated powers of world war two a historical footnote right wrong china and russia just started weaponizing that exact clause they're using it to put diplomatic pressure on tokyo specifically to protest japan's plans to ramp up its own defense spending so japan is pushing back it's a signal we are not a defeated power from a past war we are a current power in a new one and look at the european union they just struck what they're calling a substantial free trade agreement with the philippines why the philippines and why now because persistent geopolitical shocks and

tariffs read from china and maybe a future america are forcing brussels to find new partners to build new supply chains this isn't just about trade it's about resilience it's about creating a global network that can't be held hostage by one or two powerful players it's a quiet deliberate decoupling each of these moves tokyo's demand the eu's deal is a piece of a larger puzzle the old postwar order is fracturing and the middle powers are no longer waiting for the superpowers to tell them what comes next they're building it themselves then there's turkey a nation caught between worlds and a nation under immense pressure on tuesday an assailant opened fire and injured 11 students near a

high school the same day turkey's stock exchange the borsa istanbul announced it was replacing more than a quarter of the companies in its main bist one hundred index that's not a rebalance that is an emergency intervention to contain a liquidity crisis a sell off in investment funds is threatening to spiral so the exchange is ripping up its own index to stop the bleeding and on that same tuesday president erdogan gave a speech condemning what he called global gender neutralization policies saying they were a campaign targeting families and children see the pattern an economy in crisis a society shaken by violence and a leader who responds by pointing to external foreign threats to the nation's culture when the numbers at home are bad you find an enemy abroad it's the oldest move in the book turkey is trying to contain a financial fire while its leader tries to start a cultural one this is what a nation under strain looks like it's turning inward becoming more brittle and looking for someone to blame that makes it

an unpredictable actor on the world stage and an unpredictable nato ally is something no one in brussels or washington wants to see so while diplomats chase short term deals and politicians fight cultural battles where is the real power shifting andrew mcafee has a grim warning for europe he notes that yes the continent is prosperous with strong institutions and talented people but entrepreneurs face massive barriers they can't scale their businesses they can't attract the world's best risk capital the new growth engines the companies that will define the next fifty years are not being built in europe as things currently stand they will be built elsewhere brussels he says does not have the luxury of time this

is the real balance of power it's not just about who has the most tanks or the cleverest diplomats it's about who is building the future the eu can sign a trade deal with the philippines but if it's not building its own global tech champions it's just managing its own decline the caravan is moving on and europe may not be in it