our special series in depth fiction addition sunday, live from noon to 3:00 pm eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. next a discussion about the future of the iran nuclear agreement. the heritage foundation hosted event in middle east scholars who talks about the implications of the trump administration's decision to exit from the deal. this is an hour and 10 minutes.

>> good afternoon, welcome to the heritage foundation at the douglas auditorium. welcome those who join us on the heritage.org website on all of these occasions. we ask the courtesy to see that our mumble devices have been silent or turned off as we prepared to begin and for those watching online and in the future you are welcome to send questions or comments at any time, simply email the speaker@heritage.org. hosting the program is james phillips, senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs, veteran foreign-policy specialist who has written widely on middle eastern issues, international terrorism, since joining us in 1979. he has authored dozens of papers on iran, its nuclear program and use of terrorism and testified before congress on iran's nuclear program and

other middle east security issues. please join me in welcoming jim phillips. >> welcome to heritage foundation. we are approaching a key inflection point in the trump administration's iran policy. donald trump last january set a deadline of may 12th to either end or mend the iran nuclear agreement and negotiations are ongoing between the us, britain, france and germany to address some of the flaws of the deal including sunset of key restrictions on uranium enrichment of iran's advancing missile program which should be considered in the context of the nuclear program and inadequate verification measures. it is unclear whether a

satisfactory arrangement or agreement between the us, britain, france and germany can be reached by the pres.'s deadline. more importantly, it is unclear what the broader strategy is for the administration going forward on the iran nuclear issue. the pres. has hinted that he may be open to negotiating a stronger deal directly with iran but there is no clear path for doing that. on monday the plot thickens when the israeli prime minister benjamin and yahoo gave a tremendous presentation about stolen documents from iran's nuclear program that confirmed long-standing suspicions about iran's ambitions. secretary of state mike pumpeo confirmed these documents are authentic and said that it showed the iran nuclear deal

was built on iran's lies on that issue. at a minimum the revelations will increase pressure for stronger inspections and verification measures and even precise targets for iaea further investigation but the revelations also, i think, make it much more likely that the administration will scrap the nuclear deal entirely. given the crumbling foundations of this agreement, should the us walk away or try to fix the agreement? to answer these and other questions we are fortunate to have with us a panel of distinguished experts including richard goldberg of the foundation for defense of democracies and élan berman of the foreign policy council. our first speaker is michael

ruben, a resident scholar of the american enterprise institute and former iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense and a senior lecturer at the naval postgraduate school department of national security affairs and it lists in the foreign military studies office. in addition to his policy work he has authored a number of books, encyclopedia of injuries about iran. >> let me mention there are things we know. a lot of the press is focusing on whether the tremendous probe in german and yahoo presented presented new material, let me present other issues we know to be true. the iran foreign minister said

repeatedly, that iran had no nuclear program, it was a figment of western imagination. 100,000 documents suggest he is a constant liar. being able to speak english to the secretary of state is not a magic formula that proves someone's and 30. we have been on this situation before when we were conducting at the time secret negotiations, iran's un ambassador promised iran wouldn't interfere or since the islamic revolutionary guard, and according to the iranian press, that is what he runs in. there were two possibilities at the time, he knew he was lying or he was being sincere but didn't look at the islamic revolutionary guard corps. it would be a bad situation and

counterproductive trust but in this case he lied with regard to the idea he wasn't fighting in syria but newsagency which is affiliated with islamic revolutionary guard corps had knowledge in may 2016 that the higher gc lost 1000 fighters in the train and assist program. irani and maj. gen. fighting in syria, and the track record and need to be careful about any agreement when we are relying on the personal trust of someone like that. one of the other things that hasn't been brought up is ayatollah how many, residents obama cited this has proved uranian's were sincere about resolving the nuclear program, that iran -- found nuclear weapons, iran never killed them and all these documents show that is what iran was doing and

therefore the idea we put our faith in iran because of something that was never written down or revealed in any consistent format suggests that was one big propaganda play. the last thing we need to recognize is the 2007 national intelligence sentiment was flat-out wrong. this is a problem with the intelligence community. in 2003 there was a finding that iran was developing nuclear weapons. in 2007 to much public debate, the and i.e. national intelligence council released a new national intelligence consensus document, the us intelligence community finding iran stopped its nuclear program in 2003 or 2004. the international atomic energy agency in defending itself after benjamin netanyahu revealed these documents, said

they had no evidence that iran was experimenting with nuclear weapons design or anything like that since 2009 which means in 2007 the consensus document, the us intelligence community was wrong and we haven't had any introspection about mistakes that were made in that account. it seems our new national security adviser, john bolton, was right, when he said the 2007 national intelligence estimate was crafted in a way to constrain debate. it was the pinnacle of intelligence politicization. when it comes to nuclear weapons, you can think of this from a non-technical aspect, 3 major components to a nuclear weapons program. one is the ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade and this was controversial about the 2007 national intelligence estimate. you could change the definition to say such enrichment wasn't a component of a military program. we now know and it is no secret

that iran has the ability to enrich uranium. they have the technology to do so. the second component is the warhead design and that is what these documents showed beyond reasonable doubt. the third component is a delivery platform, ballistic missiles and so forth and this is something john kerry gave a free pass on. what would happen if trump walks away from the deal? despite the hyperbole and public debate, not much of anything. when it comes to unilateral sanctions the administration which has been toughest on iran over the years has been bill clinton's administration. 1994-1995 with executive orders forbidding investments and forbidding european subsidiaries or european partners and the iran libya

sanctions act in 1996, are doing this. the europeans complained a lot but no matter what residents or prime ministers might say if you are chairman of the european business and worried about your bottom line, you are going to become the diplomatic football. and therefore we need to start paying attention so much to what the european leaders say and recognize there's a precedent of unilateral sanctions and european companies tend to play ball. and european governments give loan guarantees to european businesses and european taxpayers, that is a different issue. i also want to say that regardless of what donald trump decides to do the joint conference plan of action was never meant to be a get out of jail free card when it comes to

iran and iran's work on ballistic missiles and terrorism. and benjamin netanyahu choosing to debate that. and iran, why is that? and smuggling various missiles, in algeria. this is an indication iran is acting on behalf of of ideology and not simply an issue and restoration of grievance isn't the key to bringing back into the fold. i spent 5 months in yemen and arms markets in yemen and i saw lots of weapons re-in those arms markets but never saw anti-ship missiles. yemeni tribesmen are fighting the government, desiring to get

there hands on anti-ship missiles. until recently when the uranium started providing them. in conclusion, i'm a historian so i get paid to predict the past. i only get that right past the time. iran isn't the first country that entered negotiations to give controversial or covert nuclear program, has extended gave it legacy programs and in 1991 you had south africa decide they would come in from the cold and worked with international atomic energy agency, and a fully compliant south african government, it took the iaea 19 years to certify south africa as clean and yet they are willing to turn a blind eye to iran's program, let iran self tests.

letting the new england patriots do their own controls on whether they are deflating footballs, and the fact of the matter is it will fly anywhere, and the russians and chinese but also from the us government, politicizing intelligence and completely soil their own reputation. they have a lot of accountants and between 1980, and 1991 the international atomic energy agency has one major fail when they gave the iraqis 11 clean bills of health when it turned out after the liberation of kuwait we found unequivocally saddam hussein's son-in-law said erected have a nuclear weapons program. this isn't the first time iran has engaged in such a strategy.

the national security adviser between 1998 and 2005, between 1988, and 2005 was hassan ronnie --rouhani. the americans whispering in his ear, the europeans ears and he agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and when he was defending himself against his own domestic critics he said the reason i agreed to do this is we needed to focus on other elements of our special projects and to stop the centrifuges from spinning anyway and this way we were able to control our own time frame. when he was stepping down on february 9, 2005, hassan rouhani gave a speech in which he outlined all the various times for irani in this defeated the united states of

america and set our strategy is clear, we engage in a doctrine of surprise, we mold them into complacency with dialogue and deliver the knockout blow and fool me once, for me twice, let's hope not a third time. >> our next speaker is richard goldberg, senior advisor at the foundation for defense of democracies. of former senior senate aid and 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 irani and missiles that led efforts to impose sanctions on iran for the abuse of human rights. separately, he is a navy reserve intel officer with service on the joint staff and in afghanistan. >> thank you for having me, honored to be here with my

fellow panelists. it is important to look backwards just a couple years because all too often in washington what is right in front of us gets wrapped up in politics. when we talk about whether or not the president should leave the deal, israeli intelligence signing means, 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 american eyes to be a crazy man into iran in mock mood on it is a --mahmoud ah d ahmedinij ahmedinijad. the obama administration sold us on a narrative that a new

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

important things. one was the enrichment of uranium. 2, allowing iran to keep in control equal facilities and capabilities that could be used in production of nuclear weapons. for a long time we considered the entirety of iran's nuclear program elicit, we cannot trust them until they were in absolute denuclearization, we cannot be happy as an international community. based on the idea we can trust iran if they could come clean, and let them talk to the iaea and have the director issue a report. as long as the report comes back with no worries but there is no current intention to build nuclear weapons. we will allow iran to maintain, under our international monitoring.

what did we see the last couple years? not only did they get to retain their capabilities to build a nuclear weapon if they so chose but took advantage of the sanctions released, tough sanctions being taken to expand through the region, double down in syria and during the civil war to expand, supports the rebels who are hezbollah, in yemen and lunch missile attacks in saudi arabia. all of that comes from the jc poa. we entered into over the last several months a fix negotiation with our european allies to see if we could stay within the premise of this deal, stay within the core elements of the deal that allow iran to maintain its nuclear capability, allow iran to maintain the ability to enrich

on its own soil and control nuclear materials but fix it around the edges to make donald trump more comfortable with it since he doesn't seem to like the deal. 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 in iran but to preserve a deal that allows them to increase trade with iran. unlike the united states they have companies that 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. the companies see a market they can do business in. so long as they can come up with parameters that kept the united states in the deal, kept the united states secondary sanctions as they are called which would apply to their companies and their banks from

saying off, that can continue. what were the 3 leader that i had declared, similar to its fatima, that it would never develop nuclear weapons, they would limit range with her missiles to 2000 km. guess where the negotiations came on ballistic missiles? anything over a 2000 km missile tests, a missile capable of traveling farther than 2000 km, would win international sanctions would anything in their existing arsenal would not so iran gets to keep the delivery mechanisms michael told you about. with regard to inspections, one of the key concerns the trump

administration has raised over and over again and several experts in the nuclear field raised, there is an impossibility to truly verify this agreement without access to military sites and the sites that are under surveillance and iran declared it will never allow a single inspector into a military site. what do the europeans say? we should strongly urge and encourage and pressure the iaea to inspect military sites but unfortunately they iaea could do that today. they could have done that the last couple years. from tradition and fear of breaking down those requests don't happen because they know the uranian's will say no and that dynamic won't change based on what was negotiated. we also learned last week on a simple warehouse that apparently with housing the entire nuclear weapons archive

in iran we don't always know what we don't know and the iaea doesn't know what it doesn't know. the final piece, and when the deal could expire in certain key provisions to restrict iran on the enrichment side. and this is a key issue for the trump administration and the key issue for iran because for iran, the europeans, they don't want to trigger an uranian exit from the deal which would collapse their trading relations because us sanctions would come back and this was looking like it was on the ropes in current negotiations because the e3 could never agreed to illuminate these sunsets for fear of an uranian exit regulation of violation of the deal so they were trying to work around it. what is something that looks like it sunsets, when we get

down to it in 2025 we will have a discussion about what the iranians are doing and maybe sanctions will come back and maybe not. something we could sell to the uranian that at the same time selling it to donald trump. that was the state of negotiations a couple weeks ago and it was looking like it was on life support. i think what we learned from the intelligence information that was revealed by the prime minister of israel and israeli intelligence is we have been negotiating over the wrong things. the idea, the fundamental idea that we can trust iran, that they have given up their nuclear weapons intentions, that they are not looking to one day say to us no matter whether there is a sunsets or not, you know what? we have our own build in sunsets to this deal, it is called a time of our choosing. we have the capabilities, we

have the intent, we have the infrastructure and architecture and organization, we have used all of this time to develop more advanced precise missiles, we have been doing a lot of research and development under the deal on advanced centrifuges and are ready to go on those and we can say goodbye to international inspectors and we are going to have nuclear weapons and it will happen quickly. we now know that is our intention and that is what critics have said from the beginning of this deal. in that iran commitment in the deal, that they will never pursue nuclear weapons on the precondition of sanctions relief under the deal that they would come clean on past military dimensions and anything they are keeping that can be used to build nuclear weapons, that means we have to go back to formula on this and any other agreement and that is why if you look at secretary

pompeo's statements it is clear and important what he says. the intelligence shows us the extent of uranian lies and deceptions and that must force us to call into question whether iran can be trusted to enrich and keep nuclear materials. that is the fundamental reset going back in time to long-standing international precedent and called on iran to halt its nuclear program. if you think about it at a time when this administration was about to enter negotiations with the north koreans, the standard for north korea, maximum pressure, never leaving until north korea takes steps to verifiably and irreversibly

denuclearize. that is where the trump administration is going on. they have a decision that i believe you with and turn over the day after another issue with iran, may 12th is coming up. important to remember that may 12 is not a deadline to report to congress, not a deadline that automatically the entire deal collapses and sanctions come back. it is renewal of one waiver of one law governing one piece of the things and architecture placed on iran. it is 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 uranian crude. if you do business with iran through the central bank, it is big. it comes back automatically but

it is not the only thing that happens to return to maximum pressure. there's a lot of executive action that has to happen, a lot of banks have to be redesignated, companies go back on the list, people have their assets frozen. other laws need waivers rescinded. that is an open question what the administration intends to do but if there's a true exit there has to be a comprehensive strategy in place and that is diplomatic information, military and economic. there's a lot we can talk about. i look forward to your questions. >> are cleanup speaker is yvonne berman of the american foreign-policy council based in washington, an expert on regional security in the middle east, central asia and russia, consultant for the cia and the department of defense and

provides assistance on foreign-policy and national security issues to arrange congressional offices and been called one of america's leading experts on the middle east and iran by cnn. >> it is great to be back here and have a public conversation about something so fast-moving and potentially dramatic in terms of implications. i want to focus not on where we have been, i want to spend the bulk of my time talking about what happens now and what happens next because that is where the conversation is. i am a big fan of playing the political field as it lies anti-spiders sense told me the

administration is now committed to an exit from the deal was the only question is how they plan to exit the deal. first of all, i am convinced it is the case because personnel is policy. over the last year we had a trump administration that has been evenly divided between folks who want to fix the deal and went to nick that. to retain with certain improvements on the margins. and the deal was flawed and needs to be overturned to move forward on iran policy and the pendulum has swung decisively in the direction of the incoming national security, the advent of national security adviser john bolton with the recent confirmation of mike pompeo, we are looking at a critical mass of folks who are critical of the resolute action.

to move beyond it. it is necessary to talk about where jim started, the revelations we heard earlier this week. if you spend any time at all on social media, you see a heated debate between folks who are deeply ideologically committed to preserving the deal and folks who are technical experts with phds and thermodynamics say there is some there there. we don't know how much because candidly we haven't read everything. it is useful to read the information before jumping to conclusions. if your political worldview is implicated in a circumstance it makes you jump the gun a little bit and that is what you are seeing on social media. the reality is if you get to the core of what the prime minister said the goal wasn't to reveal a new set of facts. the goal was to remind

audiences, one audience member who absorbed information visually that this is a regime that can't be trusted, and running counter to the spirit and letter, it wasn't intended to convince the president as much as to reinforce the direction he is headed in. that is a good frame to think about what comes next. there are different ways of leaving the deal. the possibility that when donald trump makes a decision about the iran nuclear deal he goes for a big cut and says the deal is defunct and moved away from the deal and also a way in which you bridge between 2 sides, talk about both fixing and nixing at the same time.

it is so robust and powerful. iran walks away from this coalition. and new expanded access. they are not willing to accept. and we have a debate about which way will be better but the overall direction is this. and in various agencies for quite a while now. and the state department, pentagon, with three major problems, a comprehensive strategy towards iran will need to address on the day after,

the first is military. it is not an exaggeration to say over the last decade iran has something resembling an imperial project in the middle east. the regime now controls four separate capitals in the middle east. in yemen and damascus and syria. if you look on a map, if you are watching at home or go to your computer and google, you can see publicly available maps that show the zone of territorially control which stretches from the territory of the islamic republic, because of the fragility of the iraqi government, shiite militias beholden to iran, iran controls

the ground, iran controls by proxy the south of lebanon. deep and intimate relationship with the shiite militia. and intense concern and more so for our allies in the region that are not separated from iran's expansion by geography. and we will end up there in a couple minutes, the israelis are concerned this imperial project has brought iran which they consider an existential threat, closer to their territorial boundaries than it has ever been before. the second military problem we are looking at is the uranian foreign legion, iran has not one but two, standing army, the

iraqis during the eight years of the iran iraqi war, it has a clerical army known as the uranian revolutionary guard, which are sort of for lack of a better explanation the varsity some of the guys that control the ballistic missile arsenal, the nuclear arsenal, expeditionary terrorists abroad, things like that. the revolutionary guard has been instrumental in establishing a third foreign legion for the uranian's, shiites from afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, iraq, syria, they have deployed from the era -- syrian space. the scope of this varies. the intelligence community estimates it is roughly 40,000 fighters. the israelis estimated double that. however you stack, you have to understand this is a

significant threat and force multiplier for irani influence on the ground and needs to be addressed by the us military and our allies as we think strategically about this. the second big-ticket item we think about his economic. there is immediate action that can be taken at follow-on action that can be taken. the center of gravity for iran is the islamic revolutionary guard corps which is more than simply a military or clerical force. it is an economic powerhouse in the islamic republic itself. by calculations, it controls the third or more of the uranian national economy which means targeting them through economic pressure will have a dramatic affect on the economic health of iran and the ability of the islamic republic to operationalize a lot of the

imperial strategy it is pursuing a there are ways to do that. you can look at commercial actors like iran air, the national air carrier designated as part of negotiations over jcp away and we should become a critical component of that foreign legion. is the average and there's documentary evidence on the internet that has devoted much time and resources to bringing those shiite foreign fighters into this area on behalf of the uranian regime. you could do things like rich mentioned, think more strategically about iran's central-bank and connections only with international terrorists but directly with the irt see and using existing

law and new authorities you could reach out and touch a critical component of the islamic republic in a material way. i would get out the metric of success for renewed economic pressures to follow the money. is the truman strategy -- a truism of strategy that it is interesting to watch. over the last several months the uranian's have been thinking how to improve their economy to a greater extent than they have done until now. iran has changed its tune, it's formal approach to crypto currency. iran has been a skeptic of things like that coin or if syria. they have a national plan to develop their own national crypto currency. and making more difficult for

the united states. and sanctions need to be where the money is. and we need to focus on the human terrain in iran, something we haven't done to a series extent for a long time. protests have broken out in iran in the last days of 2017 and continued until the present day. they are less large than we saw in the middle of 2009 and suggest a fundamental rupture between the uranian people and the repressive regime that controls them. how can we best exploit this, we need to increase america's credibility to decrease the legitimacy of the islamicto do. during protests in january and

february, hr mcmaster spent a lot of time communicating with the iranian people. and the message, on march 20th of last month was a very strong and vocal denunciation of the depredations of the islamic republic. if we want sustained public diplomacy to engage the uranian -- iranian people, systematic reform, the tools by which we reach out to these people, that is the reform of the persian service, radio free europe and radio liberty, this is happening and this is the silver lining in the

conversation, this is happened organically in the administration and it needs to be fed and continued and nurtured as a way of improving our average but ultimately, all of these things won't be effective if we don't know what to say to the iranian people. that gets us to the zone of danger we are in. we know that a decision is coming. we don't know if it will happen on may 12th but we understand there is a moment of inflection that is underway. we don't know what our comprehensive strategy towards iran is yet even though the president announced formation of a compressive strategy in october of last year. there hasn't been much meat put on the bone at least publicly but there is urgency to do so because for the first time we have seen direct military confrontation between the state of israel and iran in syrian airspace, even in israeli airspace.

this, we hope should not be a portent of things to come. it is clear iran's growing capabilities have made it increasingly dangerous and urgent for us to marshall a comprehensive strategy. i would end with this observation. this month, may, is going to be the locus of not one faithful decision but at least two and the second has to do with the meeting the president is supposed to have later in the month with north korean leader kim jong un. it is clear they watched the negotiations and watched iran reap tremendous benefits as a result of those negotiations which up until now it is fair to say north koreans were eager to assume they could do the same as the result of a new deal with the trump administration so what we

decide on iran is going to have to mentis implications for the course, success and expectations that we see surrounding nuclear negotiations likely to emerge. thank you. >> before i open up to questions from the audience i would like to ask the first question that the lawn touched on and ask in turn the other panelists as well, there has been a lot of ink spilled on the issue of linkages or proceeding between the iran nuclear issue and the north korean issue with some people saying walking away from the iran deal would undermine leverage with north korea. others say it is evidence,

looking back in history the evil is still alive and well and strong reason to suspect both of these, i wouldn't say close allies but allies of convenience and i would ask each of you what linkages, if any, do you see between these issues and how would the administration proceed. >> north korea has traditionally played what about me, whenever they see someone getting greater benefits but there is also a pattern under multiple administrations. to get away with actively cheating on previous agreements, there is a great deal of euphoria about north

korean announcement to denuclearize, from 1992 there was denuclearization declaration, in his memoirs talked about triumph of diplomacy and after 1994 the great framework it was also clear north korea cheated and continued to cheat upwards of 1998, and 2000, and the response was clear, some people say the united states can't pull away from this agreement and there's a reason our founding fathers had a ratification process for 3-d rather than simply an agreement and there was another layer to dilute this sort of oversight but there's a strong pattern where the united states despite the best efforts of some diplomats and despite the best efforts of some lobbyists consistently seeks to calibrate our national security strategy

to reality rather than put lipstick on a pig, whether it is the islamic republic or north korea, it doesn't matter. the fact the trump administration is willing to walk away from the joint conference plan of action yet there is reputational complaints on the part of europe, it might seem counterintuitive, might start to take the trump administration more seriously. >> that is well said. there has been a lot written about the history of the relationship between iran and north korea in missiles. that is obvious if you look at several of their missiles in comparison in the nuclear realm. we don't know as much publicly in reports. there's a lot of allegations that nuclear tests, north korea, uranian -- iranian side, high-level microliter going to

tehran for 10 days during the inauguration of rouhani, the extent to which they coordinate the talk, we should ask him -- assume is extensive. we do know if you look at that as a relationship that is there and they view some more playbooks, negotiations in the past and what their operational capabilities were. secretary pompeo was asked about this question and his response was very appropriate. do you think north koreans are going to get upset if we leave the iran deal? north koreans have higher priorities to think about. there is something silly if you think about this at home. what is that on tv, break a

deal with iran, unpack that for a second in your mind intellectually. you are kim jong un, you are a dictator, you have killed members of your family, you starve your people, you have one of the worst euphemisms ever created, reeducation camps, you commit the most horrific human rights abuses every day. do you think you are kind of like on a couch with your therapist thinking about your relationship with donald trump? i don't know if he can really trust the guy, he broke the deal with iran, don't feel like i like him right now. know. the united states has a bigger throat, economically,

militarily, and the dates by which we verify or denuclearize or continue maximum pressure but it is not going away and maybe a regime will at some point. that is what is happening. it is not like can't trust this guy, the guy the dictator and the sooner we align our policy expectations of iran or that regime, the better and more successful possibilities are with both. >> absolutely right. i would add a couple points. my sense is this discussion we are having, with regard to the white house, should be clarifying to the north koreans and provide an opportunity to message a little bit about durability or permanence of executive agreements and there was a great hole that was done in the washington post in 2016

that said americans oppose on a margin of 2-1. obama ran through a deeply unpopular political agreement much more than a strategic agreement and that is why that side of the political aisle is having problems now, seen as unpopular so negotiations with north korea, it can point to difficulties they are having by saying executive agreements are temporary. here is how the system works and second of all you have to give me more so the american people believe you are sincere or this will go away shortly too. at least one way it strengthens the negotiating language. >> if i could add a legal

linkage. in 1994 and thereafter, when north korea threatened to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty the same threat they are making now the legal consensus of the united states and its allies is the country's can walk away from nuclear nonproliferation treaty but only after they regularize all the concerns that develop under their membership in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty that means as north korea found out, can tear up the nonproliferation treaty, that is not going to be a magic formula for ridding itself of all these legal concerns that have developed over decades. >> let me open up to questions from the audience, their questions, not statements and try to keep them short and get

as many and as we can. wait for the microphone. >> on the extent on which disagreements in the western alliance are undermining this process and how the impact they will have on our ability to act effectively going forward whatever the administration decides. >> it would be ridiculous to suggest as some on the right are, that there isn't going to be reputational damage of the europeans are not going to be upset with this. my point 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 that might be targeted like libya and

iran, leave the europeans to settle down on the correct side of things. when it comes to the financial sanctions which rich helped craft and implement, that certainly seems to be the key issue so the europeans complain and i don't think this is a fatal blow to the transatlantic relationship as some like to portray. >> i would add i do think we shouldn't underestimate the impact prime minister benjamin netanyahu's revelation may have on this issue. and make their statements, a tremendous amount of pressure to make those statements as it

re-imposes sanctions. and there were a lot of conversations going on particularly in berlin but elsewhere in europe, people were really upset that they feel they were duped and they are very cool based, their argument to sustain a deal is the fact that they made a commitment and are faced with the reality that iran didn't uphold the commitment and lied at the beginning of this process and that is a contradiction they can't quite get through and are trying to struggle with and see the document and work their way through. in the end some on the left today there was a document composed of steps the european union could take despite the reposition of us sanctions, all these different things, trade wars with the united states. instead of doing oil business with the central bank of iran with deutsche bank and regular

banks, central banks, the central bank of iran does and open up to money laundering concerns. all these other crazy things. in the end this is still the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. .. that would be unbelievable. i think that's right, i would only point out. my reading of the report references exactly the same. these are acts of desperation,

tactics that the europeans are trying to marshal in a desperate bid to save the deal. have the frame work, we can have our cake and eat it, too. that's the dilemma that is sort of facing the white house, michael is right, if anybody tells us we can get out of the deal and not have any second order or third order affects with our trading partners, including those in europe, that's same simply not correct. the durability of the sanctions coalition that we need to create, the obama administration in its negotiating process did what the pentagon would call created an environment that the pentagon would call a self-licking ice cream cone. it went around and saying that the sanctions collation was fundamentally broken until our allies that weren't as invested in the coalition thought, oh, the sanctions aren't working.

the center of the gravity of the debate in terms of economic pressures, convince those skittish allies and countries and companies that have a huge stake in remaining engaged or reengaging with the iranian economic sector caused some consequences to doing so that reestablishing iranian isolation is necessary, it's necessary for alliance cohesion and it's necessary to roll back the state sponsored terrorism. it's necessary. >> i want to add on quickly two things, one, for looking at the world, we shouldn't just think about our allies and think about europe, we also have other countries that are importers of iranian oil and we have history and precedent of knowing who attempts to evade our sanctions and who doesn't. and if you're watching who you are all the way across the ocean. 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 are just so many other things and topics that you're going to have to have the united states together with you on. there will be a momentary fizzle that we're talking about, but after that, there's russia. there's china, there's trade issues, there's 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 president trump and on this issue, my family voted on this issue. i have no other word for our former president, secretary of state, my senator, has endangered all of us. the one question i have is what is -- is there one thing we got out of it. i listen to the talking head. does one of you have an answer, tell me one thing we got out of it that helps and makes the united states safer and richer?

does any of you have one fact? i don't know. i'd love to know. >> i mean, i'm critical of the deal and always have been critical of the deal. that said if i wanted to give an honest recitation of what proponents of the deal said and what true believers, there were two-- and i'm throwing out all the political things. there was a moment that engaged the so-called reformists that somehow we could put them over the top. granted i disagree with this, i'm giving a recitation. the problem is, i see they're playing good cop to the hardliners bad cop rather than being fundamentally different. the other thing was that they said this would fundamentally end the pathway to iran's nuclear weapons and again, that's been proven false. i mean, one thing, for example, when they said that this was the toughest inspection

regimen, well, iran agreed to abide by the additional protocol of of nonproliferation treaty as opposed to ratify it. there's 129 countries which have agreed to ratify it and therefore, have institutionalized much more robust inspections. so at the very least you can say that iran now has the 130th most rebust inspection regime, so this is where, i mean, i think a lot of people share your frustration and this is one of the reasons why the iran deal didn't pass the smell test. >> there's also, obviously, the line you hear a lot, which in their moment of honesty that even supporters of the deal, those who negotiated it when you confront them with the criticism that they have to admit. they say, well, it bought us time. it delayed the crisis. we're not having to face the nuclear weapon today. it may happen in ten years, but we bought ourselves time. that's always the answer. the supreme court leader will die in the interim, don't know what will happen next, we

bought ourselves some time and i think what we've just learned this week, the iranians bought themselves some time. we didn't buy ourselves time. they've used this deal to expand throughout the region, to expand their missiles, r & d, to keep their equipment facilities in place, infrastructure, officials and infrastructure covertly in place. we can deal with the nuclear crisis today when we hadn't talked about it, but the real is crashing. they are under enormous stress internally. the protests are a symptom of it. they don't have nuclear weapons yet. they haven't actually developed a longer range missile that would be a u.s. continent fear and european continental fear or we can wait, we can wait ten years and guarantee economic security and make sure their economy recovers that they're stronger and dug in throughout the region with missiles everywhere surrounding our allies and have the missiles perfected and have the r & d perfected and the capabilities

there and have the crisis then. it's a crisis whether you confront it now or later. we're stronger now to confront it, they are weaker now, don't let that dynamic change. >> no, i think that's absolutely right. michael and rich i think hit upon the two main drivers of what propelled because the question is not so much why people are beholden to the deal now, what was the mindset, what was the motivation of the administration, what were they trying to do, right? assuming no ill will and that they were actually acting in good faith. i would point to two things. one was a fundamental misreading as michael said of the internal dynamics in iran, illuso illusory reformist, and rouhani was one of the original revolutionary that stepped off the plane with ayatollah

khomei khomeini, he's more of a company man than reformist, just saying, but there is this permanent conversation that happens in washington about the internal struggle, the balance between liberal forces and conservative forces. i would argue that there is such a struggle, but it's much more outside of the government than within it. right? you're seeing these protesters, you're seeing women in prison for taking off their head scarf because they don't want to live under sharia law. and the second is, this sort of the psychological dynamic that rich talk about, kicking the can down the road and the psychologist has a word for it, this is a pavolvian response. the obama administration for whatever reason convinced itself that there was a binary choice to make. it was either the deal or war, right? you could argue that's not the case. i firmly do not believe that was the case those only two options. if you procedure from the

notion those are the only two options, a deal, even a terrible one that only delays, but doesn't divert iran from a nuclear path, that's where the conversation is now. >> actually, if i could add one third aspect to this, that the europeans focused on. there is this belief in the obama association if we only shower the iranians with trade we can bring them in from the cold and join the international community. the opponents would say the bush administration tried coercion and look how many se centrifuges they stalled. it doesn't work. the european union under the idea of showering trade, tripled their trade with iran during the same time period, the price of oil quintupled. and at the national security council, in charge of

distributing the money. 70% of it seemed to have gone into the then covert nuclear and missile program. the reason why iran had a massive expansion in the first decade of the 21st century it wasn't because of too much coerci coercion, it was because of too much diplomacy. >> we have time for one more question. let me go with this man in the second row. >> thank you. is it legally possible if trump chooses to withdraw from the deal, is it legally possible for him to unilaterally impose a sanction that says that all transactions with -- to and from iran prohibited from using the u.s. financial system? >> yes, so the way to answer that is first of all, yes. u.s. unilateral sanctions, i'll

make a distinction. it's confusing and when you try to boil it down into a 30-second sound bite. it's hard to understand what we're talking about. people in government get confused by it, too. there are bilateral sanctions on iran that have been in place, you know, from the beginning of the islamic republic, that we started increasing based on terrorist attacks against our embassy, against covert, and others. when we go back to the original ones we have never really backed down from the idea that it is illegal for u.s. company to do business with iran, except for various humanitarian channels and existential -- exceptions that we make and iran cannot do a transaction that brings its money over here. what we decided to do in 2010 and then 2011 on the central bank and 2012 and 2013 was this idea that we can leverage our

financial system against the rest of the world's financial system and make people choose. less about whether or not, you know, your bank of america is going to do a transaction with the central bank of iran, we can already make that happen here with our own laws, but how do you make sure that deutsche bank is not doing those transactions, and that's the laws that we passed. and the way it works is, if you are a european bank or you're a chinese bank or a russian bank, if you hold correspondent accounts, payable through accounts, conduct transactions with the central bank of iran after may 12th assuming the president does not renew the waiver, it's illegal through u.s. law for that transaction to occur and the penalty, mandatory penalty to deny you or somehow restrict your own correspondent to 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 all the companies that need banks that do deals. so, overnight, everybody who is a corporate attorney in any multinational corporation puts a memo to everybody in their business and says, halt all further business with iran until further notice. until we can figure out what's going on and that will have an immediate impact on the regime. all their accounts overseas, iranian accounts overseas from the central bargaining go on lockdown, can't move the money, they're in escrow. can you imagine what that means for the iranian regime right now that's under so much stress on the real after they combined their exchange rate and drawing

down their foreign exchange reserves most likely, it's opaque so we don't know, and now access to the foreign exchange reserves. that's a lot of pressure and that's why we see sabre rattling, the mullahs don't want that to happen and it could happen overnight under u.s. current laws. correct, the may 12 sanction. now, if it's just by itself, remember, there's other banks and we took them off of our black list under the jcpoa. the swiss system, in europe, this is the ones and zeros that process the electronic system of money. the swiss system has reconnected the iranian banks and the central bank. we passed a law in 2012 that says the president is sanctioned to put sanctions on the board members who are banks themselves to impose the same sanctions on the bank if they don't disconnect the iranian banks from the system,

including the bank specifically. and a mark after may 12th to see if that happens. >> with that i'd like to thank the panel and thank them for an interesting presentation. [applaus [applause]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we're live on this friday morning at the atlantic council here in washington d.c. for a discussion on north korea and the prospect for a successful dialog between the u.s. and north korea. ahead of those planned talks with president trump and north

korean dictator kim jong-un. this should start in just a moment. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] . [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] . [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and once again we're live at the atlantic council here in washington discussions on north korea and prospect for successful talks between the u.s. and north korea. president trump and north korean dictator kim jong-un are expected to meet sometime this month. whileway wait for this to get started the associated press

reporting that hiring picked up modestly last month. unemployment rate from 3.9% from 4.1%. job growth up from 135,000 in march. the overall unemployment rate is now at the lowest since december of 2000 and the rate for african-americans is 6.6%, that's the lowest on record since 1972. president trump likely to make remarks on that this afternoon. he will be making an appearance at the national rifle association convention in dallas, texas. we'll have live coverage of his comments today starting at 1:45 eastern on our companion network c-span. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] .

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning and welcome. i'm fred kemp, i'm president and ceo of the atlantic council. and thank you all for joining us for the 2018 atlantic council east asia foundation strategic dialog. they say timing is everything. and we certainly are gathering together here at a historic moment. i want to especially welcome our