strategy using or all the instruments of national power, and that includes pressure. so if we want to get them back the negotiating table in a meaningful way, we need to more fully enforce u.n. resolutions and u.s. law. there's a lot of misperceptions and mischaracterizations of sanctions on north korea. president obama said it's the most heavily sanctioned, the most cut-off nation on earth. he's wrong. the u.s. has sanctioned other nations more firmly than north korea. it was only last year that we had finally cumulatively sanctioned as many north korean entities as we had been sanctioning those of sudan and zimbabwe. >> host: let's go to calls, our first call from nashville, tennessee. richard, you're on with our guest. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. my question is, and then i have a quick comment, when you look at the borders of north korea, china, russia, you know, those are your three big players -- >> cato institute, and i want to thank you all for coming out today. this is a capitol hill briefing

entitled the iran nuclear deal: assessing the impact of decertification. first, if you're watching via c-span2 or our live stream, we'd love to hear from you. please tweet us at @catofp as in foreign policy. further, we will be accepting questions from facebook live, so you may post there as well. this bring the cato institute released the eighth edition of the handbook for policymakers, copies were available on the table as you came in, and there are well over a dozen chapters covering a libertarian approach to various aspects of foreign policy. if you'd like more copies, please contact me after the program. and meanwhile, the entire 80-chapter volume are available at cato.org. also on your chairs is "unforced error: the risk of confrontation with iran." as many are aware, by sunday,

october 15th, the president will have an opportunity to certify or not the joint comprehensive plan of action otherwise known as the iran nuclear deal, and the white house has announced a press conference for thursday where he is expected to publicly formalize and justify his solution. but all signs to pointing for decertification. for congress, this could mean a 60-day window to reinstate sanctions. for some quarters, this is meant to be a critique that the executive branch is foisting its responsibilities onto the legislative branch, but we see the possibilities more broadly than that, the full range of implications have not been adequately examined. to explore these likely they weres, i brought two scholars from cato who have been examining the options closely and have each co-authored the paper i mentioned on your chairs. first up welcome back emma ashford -- first up will be emma ashford focusing on the politics

and foreign policies of petrol states, particularly russia and various other middle eastern countries. her dissertation includes ongoing wars in yemen, ukraine and syria. research examines the extent to which international sanctions imposed on russia have been effective as well as their impact on u.s. and european businesses. her work has been established in "the new york times", los angeles times, foreign policy and many others, and she has been a frequent guest on television and radio. ashford holds a ph.d. in foreign affairs from the university of virginia and an m.a. from american university school of international service. then john glaeser, his research interests include basing posture, u.s. foreign policy in the middle east, the rise of china, prestige motivations in international politics. he's been a guest on a varian tiff to -- variety of television and radio programs and has work published in the national interest, cnn, time, "newsweek,"

the guardian among many others. he earned a master of arts at the sharp school of policy and government at george mason university, and we will leave time for q&a at the end, but for now, let's please welcome emma ashford. [applause] >> more clapping, more clapping. [applause] >> thank you. no, please, if you don't have a seat at the back, please feel free to come and sit near the front. there's plenty of seats up here. so thanks to everyone for coming and attending this talk today. this paper concerns an issue that john and i are both very concerned about, many of our colleagues are very concerned about, and that is the question of what the trump administration is going to do about iran. and in the short term, that is the question of what they intend to do about the jcpoa, the iranian nuclear deal, or the joint comprehensive plan of action, and over the longer term we think that includes the question of the trump administration's approach to iran more broadly.

so if, as we all expect, donald trump announces later this week that he does not want to remain in the nuclear deal, that he's going to decertify iran, we wanted the look at what happens next. so this report effectively examines the alternative. we came up with four alternatives; sanctions, pushing back against iran in the region, so-called regime change from within and then direct military action as alternatives that the trump administration could pursue to the jcpoa. and as you'll hear both mist and then john talk about this amp, there are serious problems with all of these options. and we think that these options should be discussed now, up front, before congress actually weighs in on the jcpoa, presumably in the next 60-75 days. so donald trump has been hostile towards the iranian nuclear deal since he, since during the

campaign. he made a number of statements on the campaign trail about tearing up what he referred to as a bad deal, a disastrous deal, the worst deal ever made. he never really issued any concrete criticisms of the deal, but he was always very clear that one of the earliest things he would do when he got into the white house was withdraw the u.s. from this deal. and in many ways it was actually somewhat surprising when trump, upon entering into the white house, did not, in fact, withdraw from the deal. his administration's actually issued two certifications to congress stating that iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal. and this actually fits with the facts of the case. iran is in compliance with the deal. the international atomic energy agency has certified a number of times that iran is in compliance. the u.s. intelligence community agrees that iran is in compliance. even inside the white house a number of the president's own

advisers are very much opposed the withdrawing from this deal because they believe, as john and i both do, that iran is in compliance with the deal. the voices against certification, the voices calling for the president to withdraw from the nuclear deal often state that they have very specific concerns about the deal; small technicalities, areas where they're not 100% sure if it's working out. and if any of you have any questions on those, i'm happy to talk about them in the q&a. but rather than actually talk in depth about the deal and its pros and cons right now, i want to move to the next step and talk a little about why the deal is still the best alternative for dealing with iran. and the debeat that has happened -- debate that has happened inside the trump administration and with a number of outside voices in many ways echoes the debate that we saw in the mid 2000s when the bush

administration was considering what to do about iran. it is many of the same voices, people like john bolton who was george w. bush's u.n. ambassador who are arguing in fave of favor of -- in favor of removing the u.s. from the nuclear deal, taking a harder line against iran and in many cases, seeking to actually overthrough the iranian regime. so this debate about the jcpoa is not happening in a vacuum. what the trump administration doesn't seem the a clear follow on, we have seen the sentiments stated that they intend to decertify, to kick this back the congress, but thus far the indications are that the president may not even advocate that congress reimpose sanctions. the problem is that if we do start down this road, one of the options are very good. and i'm going to start with the first option that i mentioned which is sanctions. and this is the one that most directly impacts congress, because congress is going to be asked to debate after the

president decertifies whether to reimpose the nuclear sanctions. the if we do impose, reimpose the nuclear sanctions, we will violate the jcpoa, effectively withdrawing the u.s. from the deal. it is possible that iran and a group of european states and perhaps russia and china will remain in some similar configuration even if it's not technically legally the jcpoa, but america will be the one that has withdrawn from the deal. and this leads me to the biggest problem with sanctions which is the fact that our european allies are not happy about this at all. they are not likely to go along with reimposed sanctions. they are not likely to be helpful when we ask them to police their own companies that are doing business in iran, and all of this renders the sanctions on iran far less effective. if we go back to before the nuclear deal was initiated, what we see is a very wide,

multi-national, multilateral set of sanctions, some of them through the u.n. security council, some of them from the u.s., some of them from the european union including an embargo on iranian oil import into the european union, all of which was very detrimental for the rain grab economy. if sanctions -- iranian economy. if sanctions were to be reimposed, we would not have that level of support for them, so it is likely they would be far less effective even than the sanctions that brought us to today's deal. the other problem with sanctions, and i think something that we really don't talk about enough, is the fact that sanctions rarely work to produce policy change. the jcpoa is actually itself a very unusual case where we see sanctions actually succeeding in getting a country to come to the negotiating table. far too often as academic stus have shown -- studies have shown, as many, many cases have shown sanctions don't work. the cuban embargo, the sanctions on iran that we have had for the

last 35 or 40 years, sanctions that we've placed on various countries in relation to human rights abuses, sanctions that we've placed on saddam hussein's regime in the 1990s. most sanctions fail to actually achievement and policy change -- achieve policy change. if we rip up the deal, we have no guarantee that new sanctions will produce a better result. it's far more likely that they won't. let me move on to the second option that we examine in the paper. and this is the idea of regional pushback against iran. so for those who haven't seen the report, when president trump makes his speech later in the week, he's going to talk more broadly about the u.s. approach to iran. and one of the things that he may bring up is this idea of pushing back against iranian proxies in the middle east whether it's hezbollah, whether it's iranian-sponsored groups inside iraq, whether it's the houthis in yemen, and the idea

being that the u.s. should work with friendly forces in the region or, indeed, use u.s. troops to actually engage with these and fight them on the ground. sometimes it's described as rolling back iranian gains in the middle east. again in the report we lay out that this is a very costly and very risky strategy. for the first part, there's no coherent opposition to iran in the region. as we've seen recently with the gulf state crisis where saudi arabia and a number of other states split with qatar, there isn't really a coherent set of states that are currently to opposing iran, so there's no easy way to back them in this. there aren't very many good groups on the ground either. if we look at the syrian civil war, the lack of any group that is the u.s. could trust or work with prevented us from being involved in that conflict for many years. if you look at iraq, some of the groups that we have been most

closely working with -- the kurdish forces -- are not particularly interested in this. so it would be very difficult to use local groups in this kind of regional military strategy. which means the burden would end up falling more heavily on u.s. forces which risks not just pulling the u.s. into larger scale conflicts in the middle east than we already are involved in today, it also risks blowback to troops on bases in iraq, in syria and elsewhere in the region. if the u.s. engages in this kind of strategy, it is likely that iranian proxies will take asymmetric action against u.s. troops in the region, putting them in danger. finish so the strategy of regional pushback is likely to be more costly than the current strategy towards iran. and i think perhaps most importantly -- and this really needs to be emphasized -- a strategy of regional pushback does nothing to solve the nuclear problem. it does not in any way address

iran's nuclear program in the way that the jcpoa currently does. so both of these first two options are more risky, which is to say they stand less of a chance of working than the current deal, and they're also far less likely to produce a result that we can be happy with. so with that, i will turn it over to john who go through the remaining two options. >> thank you, emma. thank you, peter. thank you all for coming. i want to start by just reiterating some of the material that emma opened with. i think it's really important for emphasis that i do so. and i want to be really clear about this. there's essentially a consensus that iran is complying with this deal, okay? the international atomic energy agency has confirmed eight separate times in details reports that iran is complying

with the deal. all of our european allies agree that iran is complying with the deal. the russians agree with, the chinese agree, much of trump's own cabinet agrees that iran is complying. james mattis testified to congress the other day that not only is iran complying, but that it would do dangerous and harmful to u.s. interests to back out or do anything to undermine it. general james dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, one of the highest military officials in the country, said that iran is complying and that we ought to stay in the deal. hyten high ten, just strategic command, said a similar message at the hudson institute a few weeks ago. one of the main point is the that it will damage our credibility and trustworthiness in the community if we can't be seen to uphold the agreements we ourselves designed and and signed. secretary of state rex tillerson has also repeatedly conceded that iran is in technical

compliance with this deal. he, under some pressure from president trump, he's alleged that they're violating the spirit of the deal, although not the letter. to tell you the truth, i've read the text of this agreement, i've looked around for its spirit. i can find it nowhere. [laughter] what i do know is by complying with the letter of the deal, iran has given up 98% of its stockpile of enriched uranium, they've dismantled two-thirds of their operating centrifuges, right? they've converted a number of their enrichment facilities to peaceful research centers. they've given up, they've limited themselves to first generation, unsophisticated centrifuges of only a certain number for ten years. they've limited their uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms, nowhere near enough for a bomb, and at the lowest enrichment threshold of 3.75 for 15 years. there are other elements of the deal that restrict them for 20 and 25 years, right?

and, of course, throughout all this they've submitted themselves to what the head of the iaea and a whole host of non-proliferation experts have said is the most intrusive inspections regime ever voluntarily agreed to by any party, okay? so what you might have heard about sunset clauses, the fact that, yes, indeed, some elements of this deal expire anywhere from 10-25 years from now, that's somewhat misleading because it's also true that iran agreed to ratify the additional protocols of the nonproliferation treaty which provides for expanded inspections, and that concession is permanent. doesn't go away. so if trump decides to decertify this week, he'll be doing so in defiance of the international community, in defiance of his own intelligence community, in defiance of his military advisers, in defiance of many members of his own cabinet, in defiance of some prominent members of his own party here in congress, senator rand paul,

senator jeff flake, representative ed royce who's chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, right? crucially, if he does so is and it does undermine the deal, all it will do is incentivize iran to drive its nuclear program back into the shadows where it was before the jcpoa. and we'll forfit all of the transparency and all of the visibility that we have as a result of this deal. forfeit. so this is not just -- you know, it's one thing to look a gift horse in the mouth, it's another thing to ask the horse to turn around, face the other direction and deliberately kick us in the sternum with both back hooves. this is the creation of a national security risk that does not currently exist. and if you have any doubt about that, look no further than what bob corker said to the new "thek times" on the record this week which is that the daily task of trump's national security team is to try to contain the negative impact he can have by

flying off the handle and tweeting. okay. the only hope, by the way, of mitigating the negative ramifications of decertification is if congress decides not to reimpose nuclear-related sanctions in the 60-day window that they'll be provided with in the case of decertification. so let me get to the other two policy options that we explore in the paper. emma talked about sanctions, why those aren't likely to be all that useful to us, pushing back iran in the region essentially just a recipe for us to get bogged down in endless low-level conflict in the region. i'm going to talk about the policy supported by some of supporting iranian opposition groups in the hopes that they could foment unrest in the country and possibly overthrow the regime. this is really a hopelessly infeasible project. the history of u.s. regime change operations is not, is not very confidence-building. they usually fail, and in the

rare circumstances in which we are successful in overthrowing the current regime and establishing a new one in its place, it doesn't improve relations between the intervener and the country that we have just overthrown. right? it usually worsens such relations. a number of conservative and hawkish voices in washington have argued for supporting the mek, they've done quite a good job in reap years of lobbying -- in recent years of lobbying to try to depict themselves as liberal democrats. problem with that is they have no support base inside iran at all, okay? also worth noting is that they're on the state department's official designation of terrorist organizations until 2012. that's not a viable group for us to be supporting in the middle east. one of the other groups that is frequently pointed to is the green movement. this is the sort of moderate

reformist group that was, that rose up in the context of the 2009 contested presidential elections in iran. the reason we can't support them in the hopes of regime change is because they have articulated no desire to overthrow the iranian regime. in fact, they want to work inside the political system. and any whiff of support from the united states would quickly evaporate their domestic support base. so they're not a viable candidate. we really don't have any viable candidates inside iran to try to support and overthrow the regime. so then there's direct military action. perhaps the most dramatic and drastic option. hopefully, the trump administration's not actively pursuing this approach at this moment, but the first problem here is that a strike against iran would be illegal, right?

in both international and domestic law. i don't really -- i'm not, i try not to predict things about washington anymore, but i doubt that congress is prepared to provide trump with legal authorization the attack iran -- to attack iran. and, of course, in the context of international law, you need either the justification for self-defense which isn't present or a u.n. security council resolution which we won't get. so it would be illegal. second, let's not delude ourselves into thinking that direct military action could be a minor strike with limited consequences of the kind that trump took without congressional authorization, i might add, in syria earlier this year. the pinprick strike in this case, escalation is essentially inevitable. urn bombardment from the world's -- under bombardment from the world's most powerful military, iran would be likely to engage in retaliatory strikes. their ballistic missiles can

reach all the bases we have in the region, and they're very likely the engage in some asymmetric conflict with us via their proxies, etc. the pentagon ran a war game in 2012, as they do throughout the region, to explore various contingencies, and they found that even limited strikes would lead to a broader regional war that would cost american lives and enormous resources. right? and nothing would persuade iran of the need to obtain a nuclear deterrent more than a u.s. military attack, right? not a viable option. finally, think about the signal that we're sending to other countries, particularly north korea, right? so we go and overthrow saddam hussein in iraq -- which, by the way, the iaea was telling us at the time that iraq had no weapons of maas destruction -- mass destruction, so why don't we not ignore them again, that'd be a good thing. how about libya?

we engage in negotiations with the gadhafi regime to get him to give up his nascent nuclear weapons program, and he does, and a few years later we go in and overthrow him with the help of rebels on the ground, right? and now if we engage in this long, orderrous process of -- arduous to process of negotiating concessions out of iran to get them to roll back the nuclear program, and then we have a new administration and he says i'm going to run rip up the deal, what country in the world, what potential newark lahr proliferater -- nuclear proliferater is going to believe that the united states can be trusted to uphold the commitments we make, to negotiate back any nuclear weapons program they might have or want? so look, as things stand, it looks as if trump is going to decertify this week. and then this is kind of cute, encourage congress and his

members of the republican party not to reimpose nuclear-related sanctions as is their option after he decertifies which, essentially, amounts to being able to channel and broadcast that he opposes this deal but not violate it internationally. but i'm a little worried at how likely that is. iran has said that so long -- even if the united states backs out, so long as the europeans, the russians and the chinese stay in this deal, then they'll stay in this deal. but that is risky. it's politically not all that tenuous if the united states decided to take a more hawkish and hostile approach outside of the deal, it's going to be very difficult for the moderates in iran to continue to maintain that and stay by the deal. so i suppose we'll just go to questions now. thank you. >> thank you, john. some thoughtful commentary on

our facebook feed. the first is about no-go zones. are there zones in iran now that the deal just doesn't cover, and what should we do about that? is there a way for them to develop nukes apart from the jcpoa in. >> okay. so i think what that question is referring to is this, this idea of inspections under section two that have come up lately, particularly in some conservative publications. and the way it's often phrased is that we only have access to, you know, a few sites in iran, there are loads of other sites the rape grabs could be doing -- iranians could be doing proliferation of those, we can't see them. this is both a vast oversimplification and not entirely true. so the section in question, section t, primarily covers nuclear-related or nuclear weapons-related technology, development that isn't related

to end richment. so it's not about enriching uranium, it's not about plutonium, it's the part where you would be, like, design ising a weapon. and so this is in an appendix part of the deal, and it is in there primarily to say if we catch iran working on any of these things, then that will be a violation of the deal. however, it doesn't have any inspections provisions. and as one arms control expert put it, it doesn't have verification provisions because it would be effectively impossible to verify. so this, for example, would include a requirement to look at every computer in country that was capable of doing the mathematics that would allow you to research weapons on it. so this isn't feasible, it's primarily in the deal so that if we catch iran doing something inappropriate, we can do something about it, we can raise it at the u.n. security council, and we can do something about it. in terms of where we can

inspect, the deal covers a number of iranian nuclear sites at any of which the international atomic energy agency can do inspections. the deal also includes provisions that allow us to present evidence of iranian wrongdoing if our intelligence community figures out that iran is working on something inappropriate at another site. we can present that evidence to the iaea, they can demand access into it. if iran denies access, they have 24 days in which to deny or grant access, and if they deny it, that's where we start to kick everything back to the u.n. security council, that's where we enter that whole snapback of sanctions discussion. so the deal has built-in provisions for if we have concerns about sites that are outside the deal. however, the trump administration has not in any way presented any concerns that would rise to that level which is why iran has not been asked to open up other sites.

we simply don't have evidence, we don't believe right now -- the intelligence community doesn't believe that iran is actually doing anything outside of those sites. >> yeah. just in terms of visibility in general, i mean, i think there's somewhere between 30 and 40 sites in iran that the iaea has access to. since the deal they've conducted, i think, on the order of 450 inspections in the country. and, again, we've been able to clear it. so this is some concern among some conservatives that in military sites where they might be doing research and cheating on the deal, doing it outside iaea eyes, you know, we don't have visibility visibility on t, but we have more visibility now than we had prior to the deal, and it'd be a bad route to want to inspect iran's country more by backing out of a deal that allows us at least the ability to conduct the most intrusive

inspections regime to date. >> thank you. and i'll open it up to the audience now. yes, you in the back. >> [inaudible] what incentives does iran have not to begin proliferations anew? >> so the -- what you're referring to here is the idea that there are various provisions in the deal that sunset after ten years, fifteen years, twenty, twenty-five years. so different provisions expire at different times. the soonest of those is around a decade from now when iran gets permission to start using some more advanced centrifuges.

>> but after the deal and, i ran as committed to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, including its additional protocols which provides for inspections of the nuclear facilities. these are the same inspections that of the countries go through and have civilian nuclear power and so in effect iran is committed itself to abide by the jcpoa for the next ten, 15 years, and then to act as a member of the international community that has nuclear power but doesn't want to weaponizing it. it's not at all clear what iran since and this would be at that point to try to proliferate again. we would be back in the situation we were at that point prior to 2014 when the international community would be concerned about iran's weaponization and we would probably see positioned at sanctions and other steps.

despite what you might hear there is no date upon which this deal just expires and iran is allowed to possess nuclear weapons. >> two quick points of this. first of all, granting it's a legitimate concern that once the deal that certain provisions that expire we have to think about what to do next. clearly, it's a good policy to come so long as iran is complying, they continue to implement it and not deliberately back out. a cousin goes want to delay tht prospect as long as possible. the second thing about what our iran's intention with this deal ends, that's hard to say precisely but it seems to me that iran has made a decision here. they've decided they value opening up trade with the west, improve relations with europe and the united states, compared to under the state that they could possibly pursue which is to obtain a nuclear deterrent as a rogue regime with no allies and be aggressively sanctioned

by the entire world the way north korea is. those are the two options that it has here at it is decided to take the former and not the latter. that could always change. doesn't mean we have to give up, doesn't mean we should let up on sanctions and so on. we could contain depth robust inspection that we should recognize that it's not necessary the case they are in pursuit of nuclear weapons. >> over here. >> what does it mean in regards to, in the '90s there was a similar deal with north korea where their nuclear program was going to be scaled back, frozen, and they were secretly and now admittedly still pursuing their nuclear weapons, to wear today a future generations later about 20, 25 years, now i am dealing with this where i met today. how is the jcpoa different in the sense that in ten or 15, 20 years from now we are not now

going to the same thing with on a rant that my data hundreds of nukes but might have 20 to 50 nuclear weapons were my kid to have to deal with that issue, maybe with not the option to mention today but maybe like with one, the one where coming closer to with north korea? >> and 94 agreed framework, to call it similar to this deal is really generous. what it did was only focus on plutonium, not on uranium enrichment, and it was pretty limited. it was a decent enough deal to start with as talks progressed, as they did after the signing of the agreed framework. but it's nowhere near as invasive and as intrusive and as cover hits a vast jcpoa. that's point. the second point is our behavior, , post-1994, is a good test case for iran. there is allegations by

pyongyang that we were cheating. we didn't give him some of the benefits we promised provided that they complied and then on the other side there were some allegations that north korea was violating the spirit of the deal, not the latter by engaging some uranium enrichment. that was the least the claim of use intelligence community at the time. the agreed framework remain as the basis for negotiations and talks improve relations even as there were problems with it all the way up until president george w. bush put north korea in the axis of evil in 2002. only a few years later north korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test. so again if you want to describe our adversaries as implacably evil and sort of hit that we might one day come to blows, and that diplomacy is not a priority for you, you might be engendering really negative reaction on the part of the adversary, indeed, you might. but we don't need to do it that way. we can approach this on an

incentive-based approach and incentivize iran to act in good faith, and that's, it doesn't have to end up like north korea et al. >> plus i think a better parallel venue north korean issue might actually be some of the arms control treaties that were negotiated the end of the cold war. if you look at the intervening forces take, the s.t.a.r.t. treaty, salt, these are treaties we negotiated with an opponent, soviet union, that we felt we couldn't trust. we knew we couldn't trust. the agreements are set up to include verification measures so that both sides could learn to trust one another. and those treaties, those negotiations actually worked out fairly well in most cases. the jcpoa is more analogous to those that it is to the failed north korean process. [inaudible]

>> i would hope we'll be able to agree the major concern is iranian behavior in the region, which is driven the focus of the president. not so much the jcpoa. now, you threw out three very distinct and potentially serious actions by the administration. what is aggressively using military forces that are suggested to roll back all the proxies, something i've never heard discussed. number two, considering military action against iran, a direct military action. another thing i've never heard discussed in the administration. or third, the idea that he would be a regime was it that which is ludicrous and is never been discussed in the administration up through july when i departed there. now, that aside, what is a serious consideration for putting pressure on the proxies and on iran is designating the irgc writ large as as a terrort

organization, which was passed by congress and which was very likely to be part of the thursday decision announced by the president. so if that happens that's putting pressure on, will it impact a significant part of the economy which will cause a reinstatement of sanctions across wide sectors of that economy. now that's not genetic. it's pressure and it should get our allies supported if we were to take a method where they're concerned about iranian behavior, terrorism and ballistic missiles -- kinetic. >> you can go and then i can go. >> yes. i let john handle the parts of that come what might be actually under discussion. but in terms of regional push back, in other things we should be concerned about, iran's missiles, iran's behavior in the region. the question is whether the jcpoa is part of the same

problem. the obama administration when it negotiated was very clear the jcpoa isn't arms-control agreement. it is not designed to solve every problem in the u.s. iranian relationship. it is designed to act as a brake on a ranch nuclear program and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. the question of whether ripping at the jcpoa, therefore, would improve iran's behavior in the region is rather a strange one. the jcpoa solves that one problem, the question we need to ask ourselves is would we prefer and iran like today, that is, not has nuclear program but it is hobbled by the jcpoa but does things in the region that were not comfortable with? aro would would like an event that does things in the region where not comfortable with and also have a nuclear weapons program? that's the choice. it's not a choice between getting rid of the jcpoa, fixing all of our regional problems. it's a choice between a nuclear

iran does the things it does today and a nonnuclear iran. >> that was a sufficient answer. i suppose i will punt on the question of whether or not these are being discussed. you can read our report. most of the time were arguing against what people have proposed and it's not with administration has proposed explicitly. it's a part of what other elected officials, former elected officials that have the administrations here, think tanks in the town that it made these proposals, arguing against a whole constellation of people that it made the arguments. but yeah, look, there's a chance that people do really angry about iran's other negative behaviors will be so angry about those behaviors that they blow up the nuclear deal in an attempt to get them to stop those behaviors, which is not going to happen. those behaviors will only be exacerbated if we show iran that when it interest in diplomacy and that we can't uphold our

commitments. [inaudible] >> -- not a just of the nuclear program in iran, because iran has signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, but the history of the nuclear weapons program in iran. when is the last year that there are strong, you know, there is strong evidence that there was actual weapons activity? >> the use intelligence community has basically stated, pasted in 2003 that they believe that iran had weapon styled weapons program not not aware of any update to that position. >> in 2007 they came up with an estimate this a 2003 was the last. >> thank you. so yes. so as of 2003, figure the u.s. went to war in iraq, iran had vowed that its nuclear weapons

program and after that point the program was civilian. the obama administration's contention and the george w. bush is contention is the difference between a civilian if a program with so many centrifuges and a weapons program is largely intent. that's why the jcpoa focuses primarily on limiting iran's ability to enrich enough uranium for a weapon. focus on their ability for technology necessary to do so. it doesn't so much address the question of whether they actually want a nuclear weapon or not. [inaudible] -- specifically iran's relationship with saudi arabia and israel? >> so if the president chooses to decertify iran, that step doesn't necessarily actually torpedo the jcpoa. that would happen if and when congress decided to reimpose

sanctions. and that would have reverberations that were felt in europe, in the middle east, but it would primarily be about u.s. and our european allies trying to figure out what kind of sanction the u.s. will be reimpose a can whether european countries can push back against those or not. countries in the middle east even those that are used allies, saudi arabia, israel and others, were not officially involved in the drafting of nuclear agreements. i have no doubt that they gave their ambassadors give formal advice but there were not officially involved in a process, and they wouldn't be officially involved in any attempt to do with this fallout of it. however, those countries could will be repercussions if iran decides to retaliate in the region. so it's not at all out of the possibility that the u.s. we sanctions iran that we see

further action by the irgc, we see increased funding to hezbollah, other actions we don't want to see that these would impact u.s. partners and allies in the region. >> just one less point of that. for those who are justly concerned about israel's security, it's quite clear netanyahu, the prime minister, spoke in a very vociferously against this deal. but if you take the word of the former head of israel's internal security organization and netanyahu was former national security adviser, away they characterize the israeli military intelligence establishment, they say we are supportive of it on the whole. so if netanyahu and some political people who are opposed to it, but the intelligence and military and security apparatus in israel is supportive of this do for obvious reasons, because states off iranian nuclear

weapons. >> they make similar arguments that use national security which is that israel's national security benefits from having iran in the nuclear deal even if it doesn't solve every problem that is your house with iran. [inaudible] >> how great is if you were iran blocks international specter some military sites and continues to limit the missile system? >> so that's a good question. i think the question really is what is possible? is a deal possible which iran gives up every notion of national sovereignty where we would be provided with international inspectors, u.s. officials maybe and all of iran's sensitive military sites can all of iran's intelligence sites, right? this assumes iran has no legitimacy concerns of its own, which it obvious does for dangers -- it's a dangerous

region and it assumes any country would give up that much of its own notions of national sovereignty. the deal as is is the most intrusive inspections regime ever voluntarily agreed to buy any country. that's according to nonproliferation experts. that's according to a letter signed by more than 80 nonproliferation experts a few weeks ago. that's according to the head of the international atomic energy agency. so it's not perfect but in life you don't get perfect choices. you get least bad options, and the jcpoa is very clearly one of those. >> with regard to that question, i also want to add the fact that it doesn't cover missiles was one of the key concerns the time this deal was negotiated. and i think given iran's

continuing task that remains a concern. but as we argue in report that if you get a chance look to it you see we argue the best way to do with the problem may actually be increased cooperation,, increased engagement with iran on these issues. rouhani was reelected in a landslide not that long ago turkish signaled a willingness to talk to the u.s., to talk to our european allies about further issues that concern us. it seems to me it seems to us that build on the success of the jcpoa to talk about these other issues, things like missiles, things like a ranch region behavior, is far more likely to be constructive and to actually produce good results and going back to where we were before we didn't even talk to iran. >> is there any signal that european countries and the other signatories to the iran deal are

willing to talk to iran to resolve the problems they have with the ballistic missiles while addressing iranian national security, the grievances that iran has, to come to some sort of an agreement. >> was absolutely. the european union has already engage with counterpart and iran on a number of these issues get europeans have effectively started this process talking to iran and seeing what the next steps in building a more constructive relationship would be. backing from the u.s. would actually make this and much more fruitful process and would throw some way towards reassuring that range that we're not just going to walk away from the deal. [inaudible]

watch are not americans lead to go in and inspect these facilities? why we excluded from these inspections. that seems to me an easy, and look see for yourself, and then that right there. >> the way the deal was negotiated, basically put the inspections in the hands of the international atomic energy agency, to some extent this was a concession. this is iran iran did want just the u.s. doing inspections. it wanted this to be a multilateral process. it wanted this to be many states that it was to do with not just one. the negotiations were actually set out the way. we often talk as if the jcpoa was a u.s. armenia bilateral relationship. it is in. it was negotiated by the p5+1. p5+1. that's a permanent members of the u.s. security council plus germany working with iran to achieve this do. and so the way it was negotiated basically these inspections in

the hands of the international atomic energy agency to make their impartial assessment that comes with iran felt comfortable with this. that being said i think we would all be foolish to assume that the u.s. intelligence community is not doing its own assessments of these issues. and everything that has been publicly stated about this suggests that use intelligence community please iran is in compliance. we are not just the words of the international atomic energy agency on this. we also use our own resources to figure out if iran is in compliance. >> i should note they are both available to you or your bosses to go for in depth in a private setting. where have do-gooder offices and talking to whatever you want. do you have a question? [inaudible] united states large response from iran. what kind of response do you guys think that could be and do you guys think iran's claims

that it will respond in such a manner are credible? >> so this is a mix because what iran has said is that so long as the of the parties to the agreement remain in the deal, so will it. even if the united states backs out. you might be referring to some comments which had been reported in the media iranian officials who say look, if you destroy the deal we will start to build an enriched uranium. we'll be unburdened from the restrictions of the deal, et cetera and we will do that. others have said i've ballistic missiles can reach all of the u.s. spaces in the region. these things are true but they are not offensive descriptions of policy. they are defensive. the book, is go south, like you guys would take a more hostile approach, we have options. >> down the path of it trump decides to certify but or decertify but not as congress to

renew sanctions in 60 days, what does that look like? what happens next if that's the path? >> technically we don't violate the deal unless we reimpose sanctions. this is purely a result of the piece of legislation that was passed in the aftermath of the sign of the jcpoa, and we don't formally sort of abrogate our involvement with the deal until congress reimpose a sanctions. so could very well be the case that if trump he certifies to broadcast his distaste for the deal, but worked with congress to encourage republicans is better not to reimpose sanctions, that could be fined. the deal would not be as strong as it is now, but it could still survive. >> doesn't does it basically tat of the process without -- >> no, not technically. it is basically a presidential statement. >> so that he would not have to sign it again in another 90 days? >> there have been reports that

the administration and rex tillerson will work with congress to try to amend or alter or revise the corporate amendment that obligates the president every 90 days certify or decertify, but every 90 days at this point will have to maybe confront this issue. >> this is a question of u.s. law versus the jcpoa that is an international agreement. certification process is nearly linked to that legislation that was passed in order to approve the nuclear deal. it doesn't actually withdraw some nuclear deal as john says until and unless congress has more sanctions. this is why sanctions or if this issue comes up again in 90 days for the future, this debate congress will have is extremely important here because it is what will determine if the u.s. continues to hold the deal or if we withdraw from the deal and effectively say to the world that we are not willing to

continue to participate in this process even all the other states are in compliance. [inaudible] can you talk a bit about -- how congress could -- [inaudible] that there's really no action that iran would warn the decertification. so what is the basis upon which congress would be acting to step back the sanctions? then could you please talk about how the actual process works? the way i understand it works, expedited process would be limited and that essentially the majority would build a a push t through very, very quickly. >> the way the legislation is written there's no parliamentary tomfoolery that can go on, no filibuster, no cloture. it goes through strict majority vote, and so given that the

balance of the party in the senate right now, that's i would go. so very quickly expedited. what is it, the leadership in the course of ten days doesn't -- >> is the relevant committees as laid out in the legislation which i think is tanking, ways and means, the mighty one other, but the relevant committees don't advance legislation within today's then it's up to the leaders of the house to advance legislation that would basically the an up or down vote on the imposing nuclear sanctions. in terms of the justification for it, or two parts of the corporate legislation. one is that the president is supposed to certify whether or not iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal. the other is whether the deal is in the national security interest of the u.s., and though certainly with legislation knows this often appears a lot national security bills and

apparently that is said that is what trump is going to do pick is going to say not necessarily that iran is not in compliance, but he's going to state the deal is not the nationals could interest of the united states. [inaudible] >> congress would be, yes, congress would be basing their decision on basically the broader question, on whether they think iran is in compliance, whether they agree with the white house edits in the nationals could interest of the u.s. to remain in the deal, but no, there is not a specific reason why congress, consider this in the absence of any concrete evidence of iranian -- [inaudible] >> yes. >> all right. anymore? all right, john, emma, thank

you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> in about one hour, national security advisor h. r. mcmaster on the history and impact of the national security council on its 75th anniversary. he will be joined by three of his predecessors including henry kissinger at an event hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. you can see that live at 5:30 5:30 p.m. eastern on c-span2. later a debate between the candidates for new jersey governor. >> all this week booktv is in

prime time on c-span2. tonight at eight eastern, cyber warfare and security with fred kaplan.

>> former governor will be our guest on the blustering "washington journal" starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern. join us thursday for the entire "washington journal" starting at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now the third and final debate in the virginia governors race the republican ed gillespie and democrat ralph northam yesterday discussed education issues, jobs and opioid abuse. this is one hour.