you always have to distinguish between what donald trump tweets and what donald trump does. up till now what he has done successfully is highlighted the laws of the deal could he has brought along, i think, our european allies to the notion that the deal needs fixing, that it needs additions or amendment amendments. the question really is what happened on may 12 which is the decision point in the next waivers that he has to make for iran sanctions. is he in or out? >> if he decides that he doesn't do anything this time around, does that mean the deal is formally done when it comes to the united states? >> have to do something. no matter what happens we are doing something. we either will do the waivers which keep us in compliance with our obligations under this agreement where we don't do the waivers in which case united states is no longer in compliance with its application. there's no such thing as leaving the deal. it's not a treaty, it's an executive agreement that's

what president obama chose to make it. >> welcome to the heritage foundation and douglas and sarah allison auditorium. we welcome those who join us on our heritage.org website on all of these occasions for in-house gas we asked that courtesy to see that our mobile devices have been silenced and turned off as we prepared to begin and for those watching online as well as in the future you are welcome to send questions or comments at any time, simply e-mail the speaker at heritage.org. hosting our program this afternoon is jane philip, senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs. he is a veteran foreign policy affairs specialist, he's written widely on terrorism since joining us here in 1979. he has authored dozens of papers on iran, the nuclear program and use of terrorism and has testified before congress on iran's nuclear program as well as other middle east security issues paid please join me in

welcoming jim. >> thank you welcome to heritage foundation. we are approaching a key inflection point in the evolution of the reagan trump administration iran policy. president trump last january set a deadline of may 12 to either and/or amend the iran nuclear agreement and negotiations are ongoing between the u.s., britain, france and germany. they want to address some of the flaws of the deal including the sunset of key restrictions on uranium enrichment, runs advancing missile program which should be considered in the context of the nuclear program, and the inadequate verification measures included in the deal. it's unclear whether a satisfactory arrangement or agreement between the u.s. and

britain, france and germany can be reached by the president deadline. more importantly, it's unclear what the broader strategy is for the administration going forward on iran's nuclear issues. the president has hinted that he may be open to negotiating stronger deal directly with iran but there's no clear path for doing that. on monday the plot thickens win is really prime minister benjamin yet and yahoo gave a dramatic presentation revealing stolen documents from iran's nuclear program that confirmed long-term and suspicions about iran's nuclear ambitions. secretary of state mike pompeo confirmed these documents are authentic and said it showed that iran, the iran nuclear deal was built on iran's lies on the issue.

at a minimum the revelations will increase pressure for stronger inspections and verification measures and perhaps even a precise target for iaea, but the revelations also make it much more likely that the administration will scrap the nuclear deal entirely. given the crumbling foundations of this agreement, should the u.s. walk away or should they try to fix the agreement? to answer these and other questions for we are fortunate to have with us today a panel of distinguished experts including richard goldberg, a foundation of defensive democracies and élan berman of the american foreign policy council. i will introduce them each in turn, but our first speaker is michael rubin. he is a resident scholar of

the american enterprise institute and a former iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense. he's a senior lecturer at the naval postgraduate school department of state affairs and a foreign studies office. in addition to his policy work he has authored a number of books, academic articles and encyclopedia entries about iran. michael. >> thank you very much. let me just be upfront, there are certain things we now know that we didn't know before. while a lot of the press has focused on whether or not that tremendous trove that benjamin netanyahu presented represent a new material or not, let me talk about some of the other issues that we now know to be true. number one, mohammed, the iran foreign minister lied. he had said repeatedly that

iran never really had a nuclear program, that it was a figment of western imagination. 100,000 documents suggest he is a liar. being able to speak english to the american secretary of state is not a magic formula that proves someone's sincerity. we been in a situation with him before in 2003 when we were conducting secret negotiations ahead of the operation iraqi freedom and then iran's un ambassador promise that iran wouldn't interfere and will send other militiamen in and yet according to the iranian press , as soon as it went up that's exactly what they did. there are two possibilities at the time. either mohammed lied and knew he was lying or he was being sincere but didn't have any control over the revolutionary guard corps. whatever it was, it would be a bad situation and counterproductive to trust someone like that, but in this case he's also lied with

regard to the idea that iran wasn't really fighting in syria and yet the news agency had acknowledged in may 2016 that the irg c had already lost 1000 fighters inside syria. as soon as he had said this a major general was killed fighting in syria. the point of this is, there is a track record and we need to be very careful about any agreements when we are relying on the personal trust of someone like him. one of the other things that haven't been brought up is ayatollah, president obama cited this as proof that the iranians were sincere about resolving the nuclear program. they said they found that nuclear weapons were illegal, that iran would never build them and yet all these documents show that's exactly what iran was doing, and therefore, the idea that we

put our faith in around on something that was never written down or revealed in any format, it suggests that was just one big propaganda play. the last thing we need to recognize is that the 2007 national intelligence estimate was flat-out wrong. this is a problem with the u.s. intelligence community. in 2003 there is a finding that iran was developing nuclear weapons. in 2007, too much public debate, the and ie released a new national intelligence consensus document and finding of the u.s. intelligence community finding that iran had stopped its nuclear program in 2003 or 2004. the international atomic energy agency, in defending itself, after prime minister netanyahu revealed these documents said they had no evidence that iran had been

experimenting with nuclear weapons designer anything like that since 2009 which means, in 2007 the consensus document of the u.s. intelligence community was wrong and we haven't had any introspection about the mistakes which were made in that account. unfortunately, it seems that our new national security adviser john bolton was right when he said that the 2007 estimate was crafted in a way to constrain rather it was really be the pinnacle. when it comes to nuclear weapons, you can think of this in terms of a non-technical aspect, there's three major components. one is the ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade and this was the thing that was most controversial because it changed the definition to basically say that such enrichment wasn't proof or wasn't a component of a military program. now we know it's no secret that iran has the ability to enrich uranium. they have the technology to do

so. the second component is the warhead design. that's what these documents showed beyond any reasonable doubt and the third component is a delivery platform, ballistic missiles and so forth, and this is something that unfortunately john kerry gave the iranians a free pass on. what would happen if trump walked away from the deal? frankly, despite the hyperbole in the public debate, not much of anything. the fact of the matter is, when it comes to unilateral sanction sanctions, the administration which has been toughest on iran over the years has been bill clinton's administration. if you go back to 19941995 with the executive orders, for bidding investments and going to extra territory aspects, for bidding european subsidiaries or partners to last, and then you have the iran libya sanctions act in 1996 which was willing to sanction european companies

that were doing this, yes the europeans complained a lot but no matter what their president or prime minister might say, if you are the chairman of the european business and you're worried about the bottom line, you don't want to become edible not a football. you don't want to take the risk of the united states slapping your country with fines and sanctions and therefore we need to stop paying attention so much to what the european leaders say and recognize there is a precedent to unilateral sanctions and european countries tend to play ball. the danger always is, when european governments give the loan guarantees and european taxpayers are on the hook, but that's a different issue. i also want to say that regardless of what donald trump decides to do, joint conference plan of action was never meant to be a get out of jail free card when it came to

iran and iran's work on ballistic missiles and their work on terrorism. while the press was paying attention to anything benjamin netanyahu was saying, something really interesting happened. the moroccans roped diplomatic relations and why is that? the reason was they had caught the iranians red-handed smuggling missiles in algeria. this is an indication that iran is acting on behalf of ideology and it isn't an issue that's the key to bringing iran back into the fold. we also have lots of terrorism in yemen, i spent about five months in yemen and i've actually visited arms markets in yemen and i can tell you, i saw lots of weaponry in those arms market but i never saw anti- ship missiles. the tribesmen aren't known for

getting their hands on anti- ship missiles. that is until recently when the iranians started providing them. this is a real problem. in conclusion, admittedly i'm a historian so i get paid to predict the past. admittedly i only get that right about half the time, but a few things i would like to note, iran isn't the first country that entered into negotiations to give up a controversial or covert nuclear program. of course cap next and, belarus and ukraine gave up their legacy programs. in 1991 you had south africa decide they were going to come in from the cold and they decided to work with international atomic energy agency and even though you had a fully compliant government, it took the iaea 19 years to certified south africa as clean, and yet they are willing to turn a blind eye to iran's program and let them self test. it's like letting the new england patriots do their own

controls on whether or not the deflating footballs or using steroids or anything like that. the fact of the matter is, it wouldn't fly anywhere except iaea and admittedly they were tremendous pressure and allow themselves to politicize and completely soil their own reputation. they have a lot of accounting to do. remember between 1980 and 1991, the international atomic energy already has one major fail when it turned out that we found saddam hussein's son-in-law defecte defected and said they really did have a nuclear weapons program. now, this isn't the first time iran has engaged in such a strategy. the national security adviser between 1998 and 2008, i'm

sorry between 1988 and 2008. [inaudible] he had entered into negotiations with europeans and agreed to suspend uranium enrichment. later on when he was defending himself against some of his own domestic critics, he said the reason i agreed to do this was because we needed to focus on other elements of our special projects. therefore we needed to stop the centrifuge from spinning so we could install more and we were able to basically control our own timeframe. when he was stepping down on february 9, 2005, he gave a speech at the university in which he outlined all the various times and he said our

strategy is clear, we engage in a doctrine of surprise where we get complacency with dialogue and then we deliver the knockout blow and unfortunately, fully once, only twice, let's hope were not fooled a third time. with that let me turn the floor over. >> our next beac speaker is richard goldberg he is the senior advisor at the foundation for defense of democracies, he's a former senior senate aide and was a lead author and negotiator of the toughest sanctions leveled against iran from 2011 to 2013. richard worked for years on ballistic missile defense cooperation with israel to defend against iranian missiles and lead efforts to impose sanctions on iran for the regime's abuse of human rights. separately, he is a navy reserve intel officer with service on the joint staff and in afghanistan. >> thank you so much for having me. it's an honor to be here with my fellow panelists.

heading is important moving forward to look backwards just a couple years because all too often in washington, it's what's right in front of us and the debate in politics gets wrapped up in it. when we talk about whether or not the president should leave the deal, weather is really intelligent signings mean, it's important to step back and understand how we got here to begin with. i'm not a historian, but i lived through this history and all of you did as well. it started in 2013. up until then we had what appeared to americanize to be a crazy man in tehran and it was very easy to understand the threat of iran because he vocalized it. he said exactly what their intentions were everyday. and then suddenly, the obama administration sold us on a narrative that a new president had come to iran.

this was a moderate president. this was a reformist. this was somebody who was really going to take iran in a new direction and we had to be ready to embrace the opportunity. this could be the moment if we negotiate some sort of framework that iran would come into the community of nations. it could be the start of something magical for terrorism goes away from this state sponsor of terrorism, where missiles are no longer used as threats, where would not expand throughout the region in the various ways to intimidate our allies, and where one day our own unilateral sanctions would go away and we would either have normalization of tide and trade. what have we learned since then? to take one step back, because of that narrative we decided to reverse long-standing precedent from the united nations security council with regard to two very important

things. one was the enrichment of uranium, to was allowing iran to keep and control equipment facilities and capabilities that could be used in the production of nuclear weapons. for long time, we consider the entirety of iran stick the program absolutely elicit, we can't control it or trust them until the denuclearization inside iran. based on this idea that we could trust iran, that they would come clean on any sort of path toward their nuclear program, we even let them talk to the iaea and will have the director issue a report. as long as that report comes back with no worries, that there is no current intention to build nuclear weapons, and sanctions relief a go forward, we will allow iran to maintain its capabilities to produce nuclear weapons under our international monitoring. that is the jcp away today.

what did we see in the last couple years? not only did they get to retain all of their capabilities to one day build a nuclear weapon if that's what they so chose, but also took advantage of the sanctions relief, our toughest sanctions being taken off the government to expand throughout the regent, to double down in syria and protect their ally during the civil war, to expand to support rebels who are basically now hezbollah seized in yemen and now launch missile attacks against saudi arabia. all that comes from the jcp away. and so we entered into, over the last several months, a fixed negotiation as it's called with our european allies to see if we could stay within the premise of this deal, stay within the core elements that allow iran to maintain its nuclear capabilities, that allow iran to maintain an ability to enrich on its own soil but fix

it around the edges to make present trump more comfortable with it since he doesn't seem to like the deal. and so, the three pillars of this negotiation were in some ways flawed from the start because our european allies that we were negotiating with had a different intention. their intention wasn't to see behavioral change, their intention was to preserve a deal that allows them to increase trade with iran. unlike the united states, they have companies who, for many years since our own unilateral sanctions went into effect many years ago, they have had trading relations with iran. they like making money on iran. their companies see a market they can do business in. so long as they could come up with parameters that kept the united states in the deal, cap the united states secondary sanctions that apply to their companies and their banks, then that trade conten continue. what were the three

parameters? number one, we would talk about limiting or curtailing or posing some sort of sanctions to stop iran from developing longer-range missiles. note the term longer-range missiles. late last year we learned from the supreme leader in the irg see commander that iran had declared, similar letter would never development of the weapons, that they would limit the range of their missiles to 2000 climbers. guess where the negotiation with europeans came on ballistic missiles. anything over a 2000, or missile test, a missile that's capable of traveling 2000 kilometers, that would win international sanctions, anything in their existing arsenal would not. ron gets to keep the delivery mechanisms that michael just told you about. with regard to inspections, one of the key concerns that the trump ha trump and ministration has raised over and over again is that there

is an impossibility to truly verify this agreement without access to military site sites. in addition to the sites that are currently under surveillance. iran has declared it will never allow single inspector into a military site. what do the european say? they say we agree with you. we should strongly urge and encourage and pressure the iaea to inspect military sites. but unfortunately, the iaea could do that today if they wanted to. they could've done that for the past couple years. from tradition and a fear of breaking down the deal, those requests don't happen because they know the iranians will say no. that dynamic will change based on the six that was being negotiated. as we also learned last week, on a simple warehouse that apparently was housing the entire nuclear weapons archive of around, we don't always know what we don't know and certainly the iaea doesn't know what it doesn't know.

the final piece was on the issue of sunsets and when the deal could expire on certain key provisions that restrict iran on the enrichment side and centrifuges and delivery and import of arms. this was a key issue for the trump administration and it's a key issue for iran and the europeans because they don't want to trigger and in rainy and exit from the deal which would collapse their trading relations because u.s. sanctions would come back. this was a key part that was really looking like it was on the ropes and the current negotiations because e3 could never agree to eliminate these for fear of uranian exit or accusation of violation of the deal and so they were trying to work around it. what could be something that looks like they could sell to present trump, but when we get

down to it in 2025 we will have a discussion about what they're really doing and maybe sanctions will come back, maybe not. something we could sell to the iranians at the same time as selling its present trump. that was the state of the fixed negotiation as of a couple weeks ago. it was already looking like it was on life support. i think what we learned from the intelligence information that was revealed by israeli intelligence is that we have been negotiating over the wrong things. the idea that we can trust iran, that they've given up their nuclear weapons intentions, that they're not looking to one day say to us no matter whether there is a sunset or not, we have our own built-in sunset to this deal, it's called a time of our choosing. we have the capabilities, we have the intent, we have the infrastructure and

architecture and we've used all this time to develop more advanced precise missiles, we've been doing a lot of research and development on advance center futures and were ready to go on those and we can figure by the international inspectors and we will have nuclear weapons and it will happen quickly. we now know that is their intention which is what critics of the jcp away have said from the very beginning of the deal. in that iran broke its fundamental commitment that they will never pursue nuclear weapons. the precondition of sanctions relief under the deal, that they would come clean on their past military dimensions and anything they're keeping, right now it could be used to build nuclear weapons. that means we have to go back to formula on this and any other agreement. that's why, if you look at secretary pompeo statement from monday night it's very clear and very important what

he says, the intelligence shows us the extent of iranian lies and deceptions and that must force us to call into question whether iran can be trusted to in rich and keep nuclear materials. that is a fundamental reset of the thinking of the jcp away. it is going back in time to long-standing international president and commitments and calls on iran to halt its entire nuclear program. if you think about it, and the time when this administration is negotiating or about to enter negotiations with the north koreans, the standard for north korea is maximum pressure in place and never leaving until north korea has taken the steps to verifiably and reversibly denuclearize. that should be the same standard for iran.

that is exactly where hopefully the trump administration is going now. they have a decision in front of them on the 12th and i'll leave you with this and turnover the day after other issues, may 12 is coming up. it's important to remember that may 12 is not a deadline to report congress, it's not a deadline that automatically the entire deal collapses and sanctions come back, it is a deadline for renewal of one waiver on one law governing one piece of the sanctions architecture that was in place in iran. it's a big one, the central bank of iran and this has to do with locking down their assets overseas and requirements to reduce imports of iranian crude, if you do business with iran through the central bank for the import of such oil so, it's big and it comes back automatically, congress doesn't get a say, but it's not the only thing if

you're truly exiting the deal. people have to have their assets frozen. there needs to be a comprehensive strategy in place. there is a lot we can talk about that and we look forward to your questions cleanup speaker is the senior vice president of the american foreign policy council based in washington, he's a expert on regional security in the middle east, asia and russia, he has consulted for the cia and the u.s. department of defense and provides his assistance on foreign policy and national security issues

to arrange of congressional offices. he's also been called one of america's leading experts on the middle east in iran a cnn. >> thank you. it's always great to be back here and it's always great to have a public conversation about something that so fast-moving and so potentially dramatic in terms of implications. rich is right, i sort of want to focus not on where we been, i think michael and rich have done a masterful job at laying this out, i want to build spend both of my time talking about what happens now and what happens next because that's really where the conversation is going. i am a big fan of playing the field including the pinnacle field as it lies in my spider senses telling me that the administration is now

committed to an exit from the deal. the only question is how they plan to exit and will talk about this in a second. first of all, i'm pretty convinced is the case because personnel is policy and so over the past year you have had trump administration that has been pretty evenly divided between folks who wanted to fix the deal and folks who wanted to nix it. folks thought it was possible to retain with improvement on the margins and folks who believed fundamentally that the deal was flawed. i think the pendulum has swung in the direction of the next there's with the incoming national security advisor, the advent of the national security adviser john bolton with the recent confirmation of mike pompeo as secretary of state. we are looking at a critical mass of folks who are deeply skeptical of the around the 30th

and willing to take pretty resolute action in order to move beyond it. in this context, i think it's necessary to talk about where jim started which is the revelation that we heard earlier this week from the prime minister and am if you have spent any time at all on social media in the last few days, what you see is this heated debate between folks who are deeply ideological committed to preserving the deal and folks were technical experts in thermodynamics. we don't exactly know how much because we haven't read everything so it's always useful to read the information before you jump to conclusions. if you are political worldview is imbricated in a certain stance, it sort of makes you jump the gun a little bit and i think that's what you're seeing on social media. the reality is, if you get down to the core of what the prime ministers said, the goal wasn't to reveal a completely new set of facts, the goal was to remind audiences, in

particular one audience member who absorbs information visually that this is a regime that can be trusted. there are things that iran has been doing that they countered to both the spirit and the letter of the jcp away. it wasn't intended to convince the president as a much as it was intended to reinforce the direction that he's headed in. and that is sort of a good frame to think about is sort of what comes next because first of all there are different ways of leaving the deal. there is always the possibility that when president trump makes a decision about the iran nuclear deal he decides to go for a big splash and say the deal is now defunct in the united states has moved away from the deal. there's also a way in which you bridge the two sides, in which you talk about both fixing and mixing at the same time, a supplementary agreement that is so robust

and so powerful that iran is the one that walks away from this coalition. including new restrictions on ballistic missile of element and new expanded access to international inspectors, things that iran has signaled that clearly they are not willing to accept. at the end of the day we concert of have a debate about which way would be better, but i think the overall direction of where heading is this. the operative question is what comes next? what should be be thinking about. this is something that's been occupying the u.s. government and various agencies for quite a while now. i would argue that state department, pentagon, national security council really need to be focusing on at least three major problems that a comprehensive strategy toward iran will need to address on the day after the jcp away. the first is military.

it is not an exaggeration to say that over the last half decade iran has erected something resembling an imperial project in the middle east. you have iranian officials who have boasted publicly about the fact that there regime now controls for separate capitals in the middle east in addition to tehran. now it's yemen and baghdad in iraq and syria. if you look on a map, we don't have one here but if you are watching a home and you go to your computer and you google, you could see publicly available maps that show the zone of territorial control that iran now enjoys with stretches from the territory of the republic all the way to the eastern mediterranean because of the fragility of the iraqi government, because there are shiite militia that are beholden to iran that are now part of the ministry of iraq because they control the ground in the battle space and

because iran controls by proxy the south of lebanon because of its deep and intimate relationship with the shiite militia and has black. this project is a matter of intense concern and even more so for our allies in the region that aren't separated from the rounds expansion by geography that around expansion by geography. the israelis are very concerned that this project has brought iran much closer to their territorial boundaries. the second problem that were looking at, we are looking at a new foreign allegiance. iran has two armies. there is a standing conventional force that fought the iraqis and it has a

clerical army knowing as the revolutionary guard corps and for lack of a better explanation this is the varsity. these are the guys that control the ballistic missile arsenal, the nuclear arsenal, terrorist acts abroad, things like that. the revolutionary guard has been instrumental in establishing a third foreign legion for the iranians, made up of shiites from afghanistan, shiites from pakistan and syria, that they have deployed into the syrian space and the scope of this legion varies, the u.s. intelligence community estimates that it is roughly 40000, the israelis estimated about double that at 80 or 82 foreign fighters but however you stack, you have to understand this is a very significant threat and force

multiplier. it is something that will need to be addressed by the u.s. military and our allies as we begin to think strategically about this. >> the second big-ticket item that we need to think about is economic. there is immediate action that can be taken and there's follow-up action that can be taken. the center of gravity for iran is the islamic revolutionary guard corps which is much more than simply a military or clerical force. it's an economic powerhouse within the republic itself. by calculation ci rgc controls a third or more of the economy which means that targeting them through economic pressure will have a dramatic effect both on the overall economic health of iran and also on the ability of the islamic republic to do a lot of the

strategy is pursuing. there are ways to do that very simply, you could take a look at eye rgc links commercial actors, for example the iranian national air carrier which was d designated as part of the negotiations over the jcp away and which has now become the critical component of that foreign allegiance which is the air bridge and there's evidence of this that has devoted much time and resources to bringing those shiite foreign fighters on behalf of uranian regime. you could also do things like rich mentioned, you can think more strategically about iran's central bank and its intimate connections not only with international terrorism but also directly with the eye rgc and use an existing law

and new authorities, you could really reach out and touch a critical component of the islamic republic in a very critical way. here i would point out that the metric of success for our renewed economic pressure on iran is to follow the money. it's a strategy that the adversary also gets the vote so it's actually been very interesting to watch how over the last several months the iranians have begun thinking deeply about how to sanction proof of their economy to a much greater extent that they have done up until now. iran has changed its tune on its formal approach to crypto currency, they have historically been a very big skeptic of things like that coin and instead they now have a national plan to develop their own national crypto currency as a way, very explicitly as a way of moving assets into the digital domain and making them more difficult for the united states and

international partners to access. this is a crucial point because our sanctions need to move to where the money is, increasingly. >> the last point and my final point is that we need to focus on the human train. it's something that we really haven't done to a series extent for a very long time. the protest that broke out in iran in the last days of 2017 that had continued up until the present day may be less large, but they are more sustained than the protest we saw in the middle of 2009. they suggest the fundamental rupture between the reigning people and the repressive regime that controls them. our question, our thinking should be how we can best exploit this to increase america's credibility and decrease the legitimacy of the islamic republic. we've begun to do that. during the protest in january or february administration officials including hr

mcmaster spent a lot of time on u.s. government airwave indicating with uranian people. the presidents message which was issued in march 20 of last month was very strong and vocal denunciation of the degradations of the islamic republic. i would argue this is just the start, if we want to sustain public diplomacy effort that's intended to convince the reigning people, we have to do a whole lot of other things, including systematic reform of the tools by which we reach out to these people, to these populations abroad. that is reform of the voice of america and radio for europe, this is now happening and it's a silver lining in the conversation.

it's now happening organically within the administration and it needs to be fed and continued and nurtured as a way of improving our outreach. ultimately, all of these things won't be effective if we don't know what we want to say to the reigning people. and this gets us to the zone of danger that were in right now. we know that a fable decision is coming. we don't know whether will happen on may 12 or several weeks past but we understand is a moment of inflection that's underway. we don't know what our comprehensive strategy tool is yet, even other president announced the formation of a conference of strategy back in october of last year, the really hasn't been much meat put on the bones, at least publicly. but there's an urgency to do so because for the first time we've seen direct military confrontation between the state of israel and iran in syrian airspace, even in is really airspace, and this we hope should not be a thing to

come but it's quite clear that iran's expansion and the growing capabilities has made it increasingly dangerous and urgent for us to marshal a comprehensive strategy. i would just end with this observation, this month in may is going to be the locus of not one decision but at least two, and the second has to do with the meeting that the president is supposed to have later in the month with the north korean leader and it's quite clear, at least previously that the north koreans had watched very closely the negotiations over the jcp away and watched them reap tremendous benefits as a result of those negotiations. up until now i think it's fair to say that north koreans were eager to assume they could do the same as a result of a new deal hammered out with the trump administration. so what we decide on iran and

what we decide soon is going to have tremendous implications for the course of the success, and the expectations that we see surrounding the nuclear negotiations that are likely to emerge. thank you. >> before i open it up to questions from the audience, i would like to ask the first question that was partially touched on, but i would like to maybe ask intern the other panelists as well, i know there's been a lot of ink spilled on the issue of linkages or perceived links between the iran nuclear issue and the north korean issue which some people say walking away from the iran deal would undermine u.s. leverage with north korea, others say it's evidence looking back in history that the axis of evil is still alive and wellin

their strong reason to suspect both and their allies of convenience. i would ask each of you in order, what linkages, if any, do you see between these two issues and how should the administration proceed going forward in view of these linkages. >> whenever they saw someone getting greater benefits they would play the one about me. there's also a path in which the u.s. they are getting away with actively cheating. in 1992 there was a

denuclearization agreement in which they agreed. of course, after 1994, it was also clear that north korea cheated and continued to cheat upwards of 1998 and 2000 and the u.s. response was clear and so some people say the united states can't pull away from this agreement. by the way, there's a reason why our founding fathers had a ratification process for a treaty rather than simply. willie consistently seek to calibrate our national security strategy.

the fact that they're willing to walk away from a plan of action but north koreans but they might start to take the trump administration more seriously. >> i think that's well said, there has been a lot written about the history of the relationship between iran and north korea. in missile that's pretty obvious if you look at several of their missiles in comparison, in the nuclear workaround, we don't know as much publicly, there's a lot of allegations, sightings of officials and nuclear tests and on the iranian side, high-level north korean leader going to tehran for ten days during the reelection if you

look at that as a relationship that's their, both the negotiations in the past and in what they're operationalized and capabilitie capabilities, secretary pompeo, when he gave his first television interview on sunday was asked about this question in his response was very appropriate, he said do you think that the north koreans are going to get upset if we leave the iran deal. he said north koreans have a lot higher priority is to think about them what we do with the iran deal. that is absolutely true. but also say that there is something silly, if you're thinking about this at home, when it's on tv unite ahead

and say it makes sense, we break a deal with iran, how can we come to a deal with north korea, but unpacked that for second. kim jong-un, you're a dictator, you've killed members of your family, you starve your people, you have one of the worst euphemism ever created, you commit some of the most horrific human rights abuses every day, do you think you're kind of on the couch with your therapist thinking about your relationship with donald trump and i don't know if i can really trust the guy, he broke that deal with iran, i don't feel like i like him right now, no, because the united states has a boot at your throat economically, politically, militarily, and basically they're telling you you can sit down with us and discuss the dates.

maybe the regime will at some point. the guys a dictator. >> i think that's right i would only add a couple points my sense is that this discussion were having should be clarifying for the north koreans for two reasons. it provides an opportunity to mashes a little bit about the durability or the permanence. if we go back in luck, there was a great poll that was done that said americans oppose the

jcp away on a margin of 2 - 1. obama rammed through a deeply unpopular political agreement and that's why that side of the public while is having problems down because the agreement is seen as both unpopular and transient. now as a trump administration approaches negotiations with north korea, he complained to the difficulties politically that the jcp always having i think for small executive agreements are impermanent, their temporary and here's our system actually works. second of all, you have to give me more so the american people believe that you are actually sincere otherwise this agreement will go away shortly as soon as i'm gone. i actually think and at least one way it's the white house's negotiating position. if i could just add one more linkages, a legal linkage, in

1994 and thereafter when north korea threatened to withdraw from th the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, exactly the same threat that the republican of iran is making now come the legal consensus and their ia ea is that countries can walk away from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty but only after they regular lies all the concerns that develop under their membership in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty which means that as north korea found out if iran stinks it can simply walk away and tear up the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, that won't be a magic formula for ridding itself of all these legal concerns that have developed over decades because of their cheating. >> it's interesting. at this point, let me open it up to questions from the audience and i would stress that these should be questions, not statements and try to keep them short so we can get as many in as we can. were also waiting for the

microphone. we'll go with you and master. >> thank you. terry muller with the heritage foundation, could you please comment a bit more on the extent to which disagreements within the western alliance are undermining this process and how the impact they will have on our ability to act effectively going forward, whatever the ministration decides. >> if he would be ridiculous to suggest as some on the right are that there isn't going to be damage and that the europeans aren't point to be upset with us. my point was, however, is going back to the experience of the clinton administration, that even when the europeans get upset about unilateral sanctions, often times just the sheer size of the market of the united states versus the countries which might be targeted for example libya and

iran back in 1996, we the europeans to settle down on the correct side of things. certainly when it comes to the financial sanctions which rick has helped craft and implement, that certainly seems to be the key instrument. yes the europeans will complain, no i don't think it's a fatal blow to our transatlantic relationship as some like to portray. >> i would add, i do think we shouldn't underestimate the impact that prime minister netanyahu's revelation may have on this issue. we still see the europeans putting up the front. their positions haven't changed. they are under tremendous amount of commercial pressure domestically to make those statements until such time that the president re- imposes sanctions.

as i understand, i'm not going to review people and sources but there are a lot of conversations going on in berlin and elsewhere in europe of people who are really upset and they feel like they were duped. they are very rule-based. their argument to stay on the deal is based on the fact they made a commitment and now they're faced with reality that iran didn't uphold its commitment and light at the beginning of the process. that is sort of a contradiction that they can't quite get through at the moment. they're struggling and they want to see the documents and work their way through it. in the end, some on the left, today there is a document proposed of steps that the european union could take despite the re- imposition of u.s. sanctions, the crisis group and all these different things, trade wars with the united states and instead of doing all the business with the central bank of iran through deutsche bank and regular bank, move all your

trade to the central bank just like the central bank of iran doesn't open yourself up to money laundering concerns print my god. all these are the crazy things. in the end, this is still the world leader leading state-sponsored terrorism. they're still building ballistic missiles. we know they want to make nuclear weapons. they are still doing horrible things in syria, propping up a fad and so, i think there has to be a little bit of step back and say yes, we don't like the policy, were not happy that donald trump did this, but we have so much more at stake in transatlantic relations. are we going to really just come up with crazy ideas to stick it to america because sanctions on iran are back? i certainly hope not. : :

and i think that actually goes with the route with the root of sort of the dilemma facing the white house because michael is absolutely right. if anyone tells you he can get out of the deal and there won't be any second or third effects in our relationships with our trade partners come including those in europe, and i think that is simply not correct. i think sort of the durability in terms of the sanctions coalition that we need to re-create. and let's be clear we need to re-create it because the obama administration in its negotiation process is what the pentagon would call creating an environment that the pentagon would call a self ice cream concord was fundamentally broken until our allies weren't as invested in the coalition began to think the sanctions are broken, but they weren't and we can normalize.

the center of gravity in the debate for these administrations in terms of reimposing economic pressure is to convince those skittish allies in those countries and companies that have a huge stake in remaining engaged or re-engaging with economic sect you're as a consequence of doing so appeared reestablishing the isolation is necessary for alliance cohesion. it's also necessary for a robust strategy to roll back. it's not going to be easy, but it's necessary. >> i just want to add on quickly to two things. one, you know, for looking up the world we shouldn't just think about our allies and think about your appeared we also have other countries that are importers of iranian oil in the history of knowing who attends to invade our sanctions and who doesn't and if you're watching, you know who you are. although across the oceans. and if i was the treasury department, i'd be looking very closely at you, so don't do it.

but you know, if you're in europe, there should so many other things and topics which are going to have to have the united states together with you on. there will be a momentary you know, sizzle that we are talking about, but after that, there's russia, china, trade issues. a whole bunch of other things. >> this woman right here. >> this is really just curiosity. i am one of the millions and millions of people who voted for donald trump as a registered democrat on this issue. my family voted on this issue. i have no other word for former president, secretary of state, my senator has endangered all of us. the one question i have is there one thing we got out of there? this one if you have an answer? tell me one thing we got out of it that helps and makes the

united states safer and richer. do any of you have one? i don't know but i'd love to know. >> i'm critical of the deal and hours have been critical. if i wanted to give an honest recitation of what proponents of the deal sad and true believers, i'm throwing out all the political dilemmas. there were two main strands. -- strength. by engaging the so-called reformists somehow we could put them over the top. i disagree with this. i'm just giving a recitation. the problem as i see there is good cops hardliners backup rather than being fundamentally different. the other aspect is they said this was fundamentally and the pathway to iran's nuclear weapons and begin that has been proven false. one thing, for example. when they said this was the

toughest inspection regimen, iran agree to abide or the additional protocol of nuclear non-proliferation -- the liberation treaty. there's 129 countries which have agreed to ratify it and therefore have institutionalized much more robust inspections. at the very least you can say i ran has 100 turkey of the most robust inspection regimes and so this is where i think a lot of people share your frustration and one of the reasons why the iran deal didn't pass the smell test. there's also obviously the lining here, which in their moment of honesty even supporters of the deal, those who negotiate it confront them with all the criticisms i have to admit. they say it bought us time. it delayed the crisis. we are not not having to face a nuclear weapon today. it may happen in 10 years, but we bought ourselves time.

don't know what will happen next. we bought ourselves some time. i think what we have learned this week as the iranians bought themselves some time. they've used the steel to expand throughout the region, to advanced missiles, to keep all their equipment and facilities in place and their infrastructure officials covertly in-place. we can deal with the nuclear crisis today when we had talked about it, and at the realities crashing. they are under enormous stress internally. the protests are a symptom of it. they don't have nuclear weapons yet. they haven't developed a longer range missiles that would be u.s. continental fear. or we can wait. we could wait 10 years, guaranteed and economic security, make sure their economy recovers, that they are dug in throughout the region with missiles everywhere surrounding allies. have the missiles perfect date, r&b perfect and and have the

crisis then. it is a crisis whether you confront it now or confront it later. we are stronger now to confront it. they are weaker now. don't let that dynamic change. >> that's absolutely right. michael in which hit upon the two main drivers because really the question is not so much why people are beholden to the deal now, but what was the mindset of the motivation? assuming they were acting in good faith, really i would point to two things. one is the fundamental misreading of michael said of the internal dynamics within iran, this illusory conservative challenge when recounting "the new york times" so decided as a reformist president. rouhani was the original roslyn assured to step off the plane with ayatollah khomeini back in

february. he's more of a company man than he i reformists, but just hanging. but there is this permanent conversation that happens in washington about the internal struggle come in the internal balance between liberal forces and conservative forces. i would argue that there is such a struggle but it's much more outside the government. you are seeing protesters were taking off their headscarves and they don't want to live under sharia law. that is more than rouhani has ever said or the second is sort of a psychological aspect from and the king down the road. psychologists have a word for it the obama administration for whatever reason convinced itself that there is a binary choice to make. it was either the deal or war. you could argue that it's not the case. i firmly do not believe that was the case. but if you proceed from the notion those are the only two

options, then the deal, even a terrible one that delays the doesn't fundamentally divert iran from the nuclear passes in the aggregate and that's where the conversation is now. there is disbelief in the obama administration that if we'll may sour the iranians for trade, we can bring them in to join the international community oftentimes proponents at the deal with the bush administration and look how many centrifuges iran has involved. that evidence doesn't work. between 1998 and 2005, the european union under this idea of showering them with trade tripled their trade with iran. it was the same time. the price of oil than toppled. python sub one was the person in charge of distributing the

money. 70% of it seems to have gone into the then covert nuclear ballistic missile programs which is an indication that the reason why i ran has this massive expansion in the first decade of the 21st century wasn't because those two much coercion. it is because of too much diplomacy. >> we have time for one more question. let me just go with this man right here. >> thank you. is it legally possible if trump chooses to withdraw from the deal come is a legally possible for him to unilaterally impose a sanction that says that all transactions to and from iran, prohibited from using the u.s. financial system? >> yeah, the way to answer that is first of all, yes.

u.s. unilateral sanctions come on make a distinction because tickets can using when you try to boil it down into a 302nd sound bite, it's hard to find out what were talking about. people in government get confused, too. our bilateral sanctions on iran have been in place, you know, from the beginning of the islamic republic that we started increasing based on terrorist attacks against our embassies and others. we go back to the original one, we have never really backed down from the idea that it is illegal for u.s. companies except for various humanitarian exceptions that we make. iran cannot do a transaction that brings its money over here. what we decided to do in 2010 and then in 2011 on the central bank and then in 2012 and 2013 was this idea that we can

leverage our financial system against the rest of the world financial system and make people choose. it's less about whether or not your bank of america is going to do a transaction with the central bank of iran. we can hardly make that happen here with our allies. but how do you make sure that deutsche bank is not doing those transactions? that is the loss that we've passed. the way it works is if you are a european bank for you are a chinese banker russian bank, if you hold correspondent accounts payable through accounts, connect transactions at the central bank of iran after may 12, assuming the president does not renew the way for, it is illegal under u.s. law for that transaction to occur in the penalty, mandatory penalty is to deny you were somehow constrict your own correspondent payable

through accounts with u.s. banks. so you are jeopardizing your entire access to the u.s. financial system. that is catastrophic. which means it doesn't only just apply to a bank. it applies to other companies that need tanks to do deals. and so, overnight everybody who's a corporate attorney in any multinational corporation with a memo to everyone in their business and says halts until further notice, and so we can figure out what is going on. that will have an immediate impact on the regime. by the accounts overseas in the central bank go on lockdown. camp of the money. they are in escrow. can you imagine what that means for the iranian regime right now that is under so much stress on the radar after they've combined their exchange rates and are

drawing down their foreign exchange reserves most likely. it's very opaque we all know but the only way to avoid price takes internally and now you don't have access to your overseas foreign exchange reserves. that is a lot of pressure. the mullahs don't want that to happen and it could happen overnight through the u.s. government current law. [inaudible] correct. that's been a total sanction. just by itself, there's other banks and we took them off of their blacklist with the jcpoa. the ones and zeros that processed the electronic transfer. the system has reconnected the iranian banks and the central banks could we pass a law in 2012% the president will impose sanctions on the board members who are all banks themselves to pose the same sanctions of those banks that they don't disconnect the iranian banks in the system including the central banks

specifically. but the big question mark of what they'll do after may 12th to make sure this happens. >> i would like to thank the panel and thank them for an interest and presentation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> israel's defense minister spoke at the washington institute for middle east policy touching on the iran nuclear agreement. the theory and civil war gaza strip another theory and issues. this is about an hour. >> at afternoon -- good