might think they have for strike advantages. helping iran launch hard on ballistic missile cycles to make sure they are survivable so this would be a costly strategy requiring major commitments and it's not like iran would have nuclear weapons for one day. this is a strategy that would need to remain in place for decades as long as iran had nuclear weapons and was hostile to united states. i think even with that strategy we couldn't deal with many threats posed by a nuclear-armed iran. i think if the containment strategy we could deter iran from starting a nuclear war. i think we could deter them from purposely transferring to terrorist groups but i think many of the threats we couldn't deal with. i think it's likely iran would transfer sensitive technology and would we be willing to fight a nuclear war with iran because enrichment technology. iran's leaders don't understand

that. we couldn't deter iran from being emboldened. and by definition we can't deter inadvertent nuclear war and the high-stakes crisis. president bush and president obama didn't agree on a lot in foreign policy but they both agreed a nuclear-armed iran is unacceptable. if that's the case for nuclear-armed iran is unacceptable and diplomacy fails that leaves us with one option the military option. in the book i talk about the military option in the military option isn't a good option either. there are many risks to the military option. the question is it worse or better than deterrence and containment if diplomacy fails? first i talk about the israeli option. many people may think of the military option think israel would do it and not the united states. the problem with the israeli military option is they don't have the capabilities to destroy

iran's key nuclear facilities. there are four key facilities to aboveground israel could destroy those in two facilities below ground. even with those bombs there's no way i ran to get the facility at home. it's under 295 feet of rock. the israeli option is not a good option and i think it's one thing hawks and doves in the united states agree on the israeli military option is not a good one. the u.s. military option is much better simply because united states does have the capability to destroy iran's facilities. this would set iran's nuclear program back. it's difficult to estimate how much time we are buying. most estimates use the range from three to seven years but this is a worst-case estimate. these are estimates assuming iran decides immediately rebuild and doesn't encounter significant obstacles.

if you start asem politics and geopolitics happened the timeline becomes longer. one of the things i talk about in the book is a look at the four countries historically who have had nuclear facilities attacked in nazi germany during world war ii iran had its nuclear facilities attacked iraq at its facilities attacked and the israelis followed up with a strike of their own in the united states and the coalition followed up with tricks of their own. in 2007 had its nuclear reactor attack from israel. one of the things i point out is in all those cases the countries conducting the attack thought they had limited amount of time but in every case of unforeseen events that were completely unimaginable at the time came to pass that prevented them from developing nuclear weapons and of those countries have a nuclear weapon today. at a minimum the strike would buy a few years but i think it's much more likely that politics and geopolitics would happen and iran wouldn't acquire nuclear weapons.

there are risks to military action most notably retaliation but it's important not to exaggerate those. many people argue it would lead to world war iii or broader war. as i talk about in the book it's hard to imagine how that would play out. first you need to focus on iranian capabilities and iran doesn't have conventional military to speak of. rather they been investigating asymmetric capabilities. they have been investigating ballistic missiles ties with proxy groups and then maybe they could use to cause problems in the persian gulf and potentially close the strait of hormuz. that is what iran could do to conduct ballistic missile attacks and it could harass and attack ships in the persian gulf. we also have to ask what would iran do. put yourself in the shoes of iran's current leader. you wake up one morning in your facilities have been destroyed by your countries and pack your military is intact is attacked or foremost objective is to

protect your theocratic regime. what do you do? on one hand you don't have to strike back. you would look like a wimp if you didn't strike back. on the other hand he would want to pick a full scale war with united states. the one country on earth that could ensure your military is destroyed and your shame comes to an end. most iranian analysts assess that iran's supreme leader would aim for response to try to strike back but not too hard. so i think we could play on iran's fears in the book i talk about a strategy the united states could use to mitigate some of the negative consequences of the strike. one of the things i talk about is we could issue a threat to iran's leaders and make it clear that if tickets to this point we are interested in destroying the nuclear facilities and not overthrowing the regime. if iran strikes back too hard if it poses the strait of hormuz or conducts a major terrorist

attack in the united states or the other things we could live with them we would be willing to escalate the conflict. i think in that way we can play on what many people believe is the supreme leader's inclination anyway and trade iran's nuclear program with president obama's leading security challenges to the country for calibrated iranian retaliation. so that's not a good option and we are we are still dealing with taking military action. what i do in the book is the chapter compares the side-by-side. there are many ways to do this in the way i do it is identifying 12 of america's mo most -- the united states wants to protect the homeland in the united states want to prevent nuclear proliferation and combat terror some protect their alli allies. 12 of these entries. then i go through and compared these scenarios of military strike on iran or containing a

nuclear armed iran. one of the things i show this there are several interests that are better protected by a strike. a nuclear proliferation for example is clearly better protected. there are many interested seem to be pure tossups. it's unclear which option better protected interest. a strike is clearly worse for stability in the short-term taking military action against another country in retaliation but there's a good argument to be made that over the long term acquiescing would be worse for regional stability as iran becomes emboldened and leads to a nuclear arms race so it's hard to say which option is better for protecting regional stability. what becomes clear is there is clearly not a single interest is better protected in the short-term and the long-term by

acquiescing to a nuclear iran. in fact i tell a story about when i was working as an adviser on iran policy and i did a major briefing on this issue. two senior defense and civilian and military leaders at the pentagon. defense officials like to receive information and power point slides of the file is presentation was a chart showing very centrist. options interests i'm sorry that were improved in a various scenario and interests there remained roughly the same and the couple were neutral or yellow and interest harm to the scenario were orange or red depending on the levels of severity. two things stood out to everybody. first there was a lot of green. a lot of orange and red. the second thing is that everybody in the ram was a nuclear-armed iran was noticeably darker.

the military strike the risk of a military strike peeled in comparison literally in this case to the risks of a nuclear-armed iran. in fact at the end of the briefing the four briefing the foremost seniormost official in a room looks me straight in the eye and said if you are right it's a no-brainer. i think that's correct. i think these are bad options and we should try to solve this diplomatically but but if it gets to the point of choosing conducting a limited strike on key nuclear facilities is less bad than living with the threat posed by nuclear-armed iran. when the obama administration makes a statement that a nuclear-armed iran is unacceptable i don't think it's just bluster. i think it's what is in the best interest of the country. i will finish up by telling a short story. in 2006 i was in singapore for conference scenario planning conference. there were policymakers from asia and europe the united states and this conference we considered various scenarios and

the idea was to think creatively to have insights and stress and strain our sentience about the way the world work and take these back to our day jobs. one of the scenarios centered around global financial crisis. remember this is 2006 that we had all these educated people in the room all these people who follow the international economy international politics and the session was a complete bust. everybody in the room said this is just impossible. we haven't had a crisis like this since the great depression. they were willing to stretch their minds that this was going too far. then of course global financial crisis hit the next year. i fear that the expert committee and the general public are in danger of being similarly pollyanna-ish about nuclear war. i have decided to spend the

first 10 years of my academic career studying nuclear proliferation because i do believe it poses a grave threat to international peace and security. i look at the cold war and don't say deterrence works. are we really willing to bet the security of the international system, the security of the country on the argument that something has to happen in several years and therefore what happen again? i for for one of someone who spent time thinking about nuclear weapons would be surprised if nuclear weapons aren't used sometime in my lifetime. if iran acquires nuclear weapons it could be one of the prime candidates for the next nuclear war potentially even one that could result in an attack on the united states. we often say it poses one of the greatest threats the united states that we have to be willing to do what it takes to stop it in an principle military

strikes on nuclear facilities or proliferating states has to be one of the tools in our toolbox. i think if it gets to the point that the united states must take tough action against iran it would be consistent with america's approach to internet security over the past century. the united states has often been called upon to take tough action to deal with threats to international security and the result i think has been general international stability and prosperity for much of the international system and i think dealing with the iranian nuclear challenges in a different and now is not the time to shirk our responsibility so thank you. [applause]

>> if you would please identify yourself and your organization. >> my name is andrew and i'm with the freedom for sudan committee. i also have a free baluchistan facebook group. i appreciate your nondefeatist and nonappeasement presentation,

but other than the military option or the leave it alone option to the tune you spelled out mayor dagon, who ran anti-iran covert operations came to washington to prevent -- present a third option. an option which briefly came to the white house first and try to convince them. as frustrated and went on "60 minutes" and presented is what i call the dagon option empowering the pro-freedom forces in sudan. a page for your buck and you refer to tangentially supporting the opposition and dementia dimension covert operations in a regime change. really the full idea of empowering people fighting to be free is something we in the united states have not been good at and i think in our culture are military state department or cia culture and i think this is

the third option i would like to throw at you. one time we tried it with congress and the grassroots revolted against the cia's portrayal of the afghan resistance in the 1980s which i was involved in that. we won. and that led to six wars. that's exactly what it needs. i thought i would just throw that you and get your comment on it. thank you. >> good question. i talk a little bit in the book about the iranian -- and 99. as you were called this is one,

to the jet was elected and he was running against this green movement and must be and many iranians thought that the green had won the election so many iranians turned out in the street protests. at that time the administration's position was to keep a low profile because when the obama administration came in they wanted to try this. they have this dual-track approach as i talk about in the book pressure and engagement and i started out on engagement. i thought by reaching out to iran and showing they were different than the bush of willing to cooperate and engage in diplomacy that i would convince iran. so the election 2009 the green movement takes to the streets and the obama administration's first inclination was that stays silent on this. we need the government as a

partner and we don't want to embarrass them. i think that was a mistake. i think they should have stood up for a more open movement. we lost our opportunity. after 2009 the green movement was demoralized and many of them moved overseas or were in pris prison. we saw in 2013 i think what the election in 2013 last summer shows is a reigning regime is as strong as ever from the regime's point of view so hassan rouhani was elected it was granted more moderate with iran's theocratic system but he's still a regime insider. he was still on the slate of candidates preapproved by the supreme leader so power pass without controversy and without protest to a hand-picked candidate of the supreme leader. i think what the election shows is the current government is even stronger than it was in 2009. i think united states is doing something to encourage

democracy. in iran there've been reports about the ad states in providing information technology that would allow opposition movements in iran to communicate and organize so i think there are some steps in that direction. and potentially we could do more but i think we still have the same problem i talked about in my opening remarks which is that the current government is strong enough now that it's hard for me to see how they fall in time for it to solve the nuclear problem for us. we are engaged in these negotiations and the deadline for the next to get this conference a deal is july 20 with the possibility of extension to january 20 and it's hard for me to see how the regime falls in that timeframe. they do i think that would be great but i think it's unlikely. >> my name is sam thompson i used to work at the state department with gary by the way

on nonproliferation. i was disturbed by the title of your book and then was more encouraged as you progressed and indicated that you were favorably disposed in diplomatic efforts but then as i listen to you you are pretty cynical about the diplomatic efforts and you say even if we proceed down that path

i think that's a huge disadvantage. >> thank you very much. first you said that i pooh-poohed the diplomatic option. to be absolutely clear i do think the diplomatic option is the best option but i think we have to be realistic.

there's a good chance we won't get a conference a deal because president obama says less than 50/50 and as i said if we get a deal there's a possibility it might unravel so better chance for diplomacy won't solve the problem but that's the case i think we should pursue it. one of the advantages of a military strike as it buys time but diplomacy also buys time. as long as this interim deal is in place iran is not making the final -- to a nuclear weapon and if you get a conference a deal it's going to mean the international community needs to maintain laser focus on iran essentially forever to make sure it's not responding to any attempt to break out and so i think it's fragile but again as long as we can keep that in place we are delaying iran's nuclear capability and i think that's a good thing. again i think it's the best way forward and i think we have to be realistic that it's probably not a permanent solution but we

can use it to buy time and should use it to buy time. second on north korea i think the main difference between iran and north korea is that north korea is too late. north korea's estimated at between six and a dozen nuclear weapons but we don't know where they are so we don't have any military option there. we did have a military option in 1994. the united states and president clinton seriously considered a strike in 1994. many people advocated for it and some of those people who abdicated for it have said recently that we should've taken action in 1994 that north korea has led to many problems over the past 10 years and if we have taken action we wouldn't have to deal with those. north korea's transfer nuclear technology and helped syria build a nuclear reactor. north korea has been our aggressive and it has attacked south korea and a south korean warship. it shelled a south korean island. north korea is engaged in

nuclear threats against our allies and even engaged in threats against us. i remember last year a threat to los angeles and austin texas of all places and a few other things. if iran acquires nuclear weapons these are things we would have to worry about. iran would likely transfer nuclear technology and become more aggressive potentially attacking instant neighbors and we haven't seen the full range of consequences. it's only been less than 10 years. 2006 was their first step so we can still have a nuclear war involving north korean nuclear weapons. i think these are all things which aware that with iran and that name -- main difference is it isn't too late for iran. it's too late for korea and we can do something about iran. in terms of the cost there are a lot of costs and we only have 30 minutes here and i go into that their costs in the book so i would encourage you to look at that. he said if there's any doubt

iran would build nuclear weapons presently a strike would convince him to go all the way. many people make that argument. what i argue in the book is iran has made the decision. there's no way to explain their behavior over the past two years except if they decide to build a nuclear weapon. the supreme leader has been building up its program for decades. it's naïve for us to assume he hasn't thought long and hard about what he is doing and what he intends to do. the second thing i point out in the book is if that's a concern that can be mitigated completely by a timely strike so if we strike tomorrow night and there's a danger that if they are somewhat on the fence that would change their mind. what argument book as we said -- the time it with what the red lines are. that is when we should take military action. if iran is emerging to 90% and kicked out inspectors at that point it'll be clear and if we don't do anything they will

build nuclear weapons of taking action will be the only thing that creates the possibility of a nonnuclear outcome. uniting the iranian people. i think that's almost certain the short term it would create a rally around the flag effect. the other thing we know about it is they tend to be relatively short-lived and many people understand avesta policy much better than me from a u.s. military strategy and national security strategy point of view that those who know domestic politics very well say the long-term it will create opportunities for operation figures to criticize the government for mismanaging the problem to this point that led to an armed attack on the country that led to iran having its nuclear program destroyed and the other thing i would point out is we can't just look at the cost on one side the cost someone stuck a village or the other. we have to compare them so one of the things said in the book is say what does acquiring

nuclear weapons due to domestic politics? it allows them to differ for an attack and make the argument to domestic publics that they steer the ship of state in the international crisis maintain a nuclear program and one of only 10 states honored to become a nuclear power and that would be loved and potentially longer because there is only than one country that will have nuclear weapons. difficult issues here but my own view taking all these issues into account is a strike is less bad than acquiescing. >> my name is steve davis and i'm on the council here for some years. i live in a house that was built in 1954. we have been in a state of belligerence with the iranian people or are the iranian

government since that time. much of it instigated by the united states primarily by the overthrow of the democratically-elected president. the iranians have a point of view. the iranians ostensibly like other countries have a right to self-determination. we talk about them as though they are but a pawn on her chessboard. i would like our diplomacy to wipe out an include and respect for other people's history and how they view us. we are not innocent in the wor world. i would like your comments on that. >> well thanks. first in terms of respect for iranian history or culture it's something i talk about in the book. an amazing civilization in history and a lot of respect there so i have no problem with the iranian people. i think most people in the u.s.

government on either. the problem is the sponsorship of terrorism and the nuclear program so what -- that is what poses a direct threat to the united states. iran has a point of view and i completely agree with that. i think given iran's stated goals to the turf for an act of being the most out of state in the region that acquiring nuclear weapons makes sense from the iranian point of view. if i were an iranian adviser given those goals acquire nuclear weapons makes sense. the problem is it's an anarchic civil government. countries do things that they think is in their own interest and that ends up threatening other states. iran acquiring nuclear weapons might be good for a rant but it's bad for u.s. in

>> let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> at a recent senate transportation hearing on the trucking industry and public safety, the outgoing administrator of the federal motor carrier safety administration stressed the need to limit the amount of time a truck driver can be on the road. safety experts and advocates also testified. senator risch ard blumenthal -- richard or blumenthal chairs while senator roy blunt is ranking member. this is just under two hours. >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm going to call the hearing to order an