he's reported from new york, tokyo and washington. he's author of several books. you haven't seen his bi-line lately because he's in the process of writing another book. what is your -- let's just start off and give you a little plug. >> the new book is a look at the obama administration's national security policy, it deals with with afghanistan and pakistan, it deals a lot with iran, as you would imagine, a bit with the arab spring and china. mostly it's an effort to try to explore what's new and different about this administration versus the bush administration. how you compare the promises that they came in with with what actually happened. the world's been a little busy in the years since the president was inaugurated. >> when does it come out?

>> in june. >> let's just start out with this, i'd like to ask you two gentlemen. if president obama called you, if you were still on active duty and said, what do i do about iran, what would you tell him? >> how do you spell that? >> i'm going to start with the easy questions. >> give us a rundown on where you think things are right now. what the situation looks like. >> my concern with iran, if you were to get one of those telephone calls is that we have as a nation embarked on negotiating diplomatic approach along with stretching out the time lines in order to have an opportunity for a diplomatic solution to work. there are those around the world and certainly in the united states that believe that clock is ticking and starting to run

out of time. and so what are the logical next steps you would want to worry about, and think your way through. not necessarily because you want to execute them, but you want to have them in your head. the thought process of several presidents now have said not on my watch, no way will we ever allow that to happen. what does that mean? we said that about korea too. what does it mean? how do you want to handel that? are you going to do something more provocative or overt to slow this time line down? which most people are thinking along the lines of a military strike? is that a possibility if you're going to do that? what would the implications be, what would the likely counter be if you were to do that? is there more negotiating that can be done in delaying strategies that would be more successful and fruit will. and because the iranians get a vote in this, if they decide

they want to go ahead and announce they're moving in this way, what are the implications to something like that. i think in the context, you have to worry about ten years of war, a country that's war weary. a world that's in financial discourse so to speak, and challenge. the likelihood of a strategy that would deny the iranians is a strategy that involves an invasion and change of strategies in iran. the idea that that's going to happen in the same year you get a new chinese government, new french government, new united states government. that stacks up pretty hard. those are the things that are on the table. the likelihood that something in the year of 2012 occurring, that would challenge that, i think is pretty high. >> admiral, let me ask you, how

close do you think iran is to achieving a meaningful nuclear capability? >> short answer, i don't know. and i don't know that many people outside of iran are -- or whether the iranians really know. there's a lot of opinion out there, and exactly what their intentions are, how far they've gone, whether they would actually -- if they had the means, weaponize some nuclear capability, i think remains to be seen. right now by them keeping things ambiguous, it gets -- it's actually fairly clever, particularly if their real intention is to proceed. but what really strikes me now is again we're reaching this crescendo of talk, just constant war, war, war, it's almost like the old movie, the black and

white, you know, beating the drum, the chant goes on. certainly not very helpful at all. there are a lot of balls in the area right now. general cartwright certainly ticked off the better part of a couple dozen of them here. all of that makes this extremely complex. the sound bytes we see in the media would simplify this thing or seemingly, would make it very simple, it's not at all. what i think about this is -- go back to a couple fundamentals, and one of them is that the iranian regime, which has been in place now for several decade s and the united states have had virtually no dialogue. there's been a few, let's go have a discussion, but there hasn't been meaningful dialogue since the revolution. and there's a nasty history here which a lot of people are aware.

getting anything started in the way of a dialogue is a challenge particularly with the regime basing a lot of its pillars of longevity on the fact that the u.s. is the archenemy and galvanizing support to demonize the u.s. makes it all the more challenging. >> david, what do you -- tell us where you think this is right now. are they close? what are your sources? i know you've done a tremendous amount of work on this. you can do a lot of work on this, the deeper you get into it, the more uncertain you become of exactly the question that you've asked. how far away are the iranians, admiral fallon had it right when he said that ambiguity is really the iranian's big friend right now. in many ways, having a capability or a near capability is as useful to them or perhaps

more useful to them than actually having a weapon. if you think that they actually had a weapon they know what would happen if they used it in an explicit way against israel, the united states, other targets. i think that's unlikely, what they're -- i think if they are interested in a weapon, they would be interested in the influence it gives them in the region. and they would get that influence -- or almost as much of that influence by having the world know they had a capability of building a weapon in a matter of weeks or months. and it keeps them within the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. and it keeps the u.s. intelligence agencies able to say, there's no evidence that iranians have made a political decision to go ahead with a weapon. why would you make a political decision to go ahead with a weapon when you could get many of the same benefits and be just short of a weapon? i think all sides here have

learned as general cartwright said, the lessons of north korea. on the one hand, one of the lessons of north korea for the united states is, you can keep saying, we won't tolerate it, but one day the country conducts a test, you don't have a whole lot choices, and that's where we are. the iranians look at north korea and say, you know, maybe testing it is a step too far? >> so a question about north korea, exactly what did they test? what do they have is an open issue. but the business of drawing red lines is a challenge, it seems to me. so you draw a red line, and then someone is perceived to have crossed it. now what are you going to do? and this is a challenge for the flapping lips brigade right now. >> leon panetta says there is a red line. when he says that, what do you all interpret that to mean? what is the red line he's

talking about. >> i don't profess to get inside his head, but i think that they are -- and i agree with admiral lon, it's difficult to draw a red line with the lack inside knowledge that you have. in my mind right now, i think what the administration is saying, is that if there is any kind of evidence that there is weaponization going on, any external signature to that fact. or are if the iaea inspectors are thrown out and not allowed to return, that those are steps that are are overt and could be used as red lines whether that's what we'd use or not, i don't know. but those are overt steps you could see and draw a line against them. >> this is not something i know a great deal about, but correct me if i'm wrong, is what iran

seems to be moving toward like the situation you have in japan, where they don't have a nuclear weapon, but they could build one in very short order? is that what they're trying to do? >> well, you have a fuel cycle that is -- that takes you to an enrichment activity. that activity is cut off at a very low percentage. what the iranians have done is go to the next higher percentage under the guys of using for a reactor to do research, medical research. that's the halfway step to weaponization levels of enrichment. the technology associated with enrichment is understood. taking to the next level may take a little time. but the basic technologies are now understood. >> we have these sanctions and we added new sanctions. iran says they now want to talk. does that mean the sanctions are

working? >> i'm not sure that those two statements get connected. but the sanctions are having an effect, i think there's little doubt that they're having a significant effect on the country. >> what is the effect? >> their ability to conduct business. i felt for some time that one of the more effective -- you're going to try to put somebody in irons, getting to their pocketbook is the way to make people pay attention. that seems to be the case now. you may have more of this than i see that -- in the economic sphere it's getting difficult for them to do simple things, like getting food imports in the country. because they can't pay for them, because nobody will deal in dollars and their currency is

not worth too much now. >> what do you think they said. there's a history here of people saying things, and there's a distinct lack of follow-up of things that actually back up. who knows. maybe there is an effect. at the end of the day, the supreme leader is the guy that's most likely going to be making decisions and calling shots here. i think that one of the additional challenges that we have in this country is understanding how they make decisions, who's got influence, in what areas and how do they go through whatever steps they might go through to actually reach a decision that's rational. >> there have been sanctions that the u.s. and the united nations have put on iran for many years, the sanctions that you've seen happen in the past six months have been the first that have really gotten their attention, why is that? the first thing,it's aimed at their central bank.

and that's how they clear revenue for their oil sales. for the first time we are indirectly going after their oil revenue. the result is that their currency has fallen in value against the dollar by about half. that's panicking a lot of people who had been operating in the currency itself. it makes it very difficult for them to sell oil in dollars, so they're beginning to think about trade agreements. barter agreements back and forth, so then have you to ask the question, can sanctions alone lead the iranians to come to the conclusion that the nuclear program just isn't worth it? that the pain isn't worth it? on this you get differing opinions. you get some people in the administration who made the case to me, that look the iranians always say we will never give in to pressure, until that magic day when they give in to pressure. you get others who say, the

sanctions may weaken the regime and it's hold on power. but in the end it's not likely to reverse the nuclear program, because the nuclear program is pretty popular, even among the opposition parties. you have to ask the question, what are you really accomplishing? >> i think there are lots examples of sanctions around the world. we've had an embargo against cuba for many decades, and north korea certainly enjoying free trade agreements with folks. but i think in recent weeks and months there have been a number of things that are beginning to add up here that are starting to -- that ought to be really getting to these people. so countries that were flaunting the embargoes in the past and the sanctions are now beginning to come into line. i think it's difficult for these guys to get things done. is that enough? >> my sense is all of that is

accurate. what you don't know at the end is it really gets hard. which way is it going to go? is it going to convince them not to proceed or galvanize them to proceed. and that's the unknown here? >> is there anything we could do short of military action to convince them it is not a nucle? or is that just something they've decided they have to have it to have respect and so forth? >> i'm not sure that they decided yet, or at least the leader has decided yet. the likelihood that there's something -- a single act that will all of a sudden flip the switch is probably pretty low. it could be the stackup of several activities, the sanctions, their ability to do business globally now. the loss of their ability to work with their -- both their airline and shipping lines and get safe harbor and refuelling

rights and things like that. all of these things could stack up if a way that convinces them. but have you the same problem if you decide to take kinetic action. are you going to steal their resolve to go ahead and do this? or are you going to delay for a few years and get back into negotiation? the likelihood, i think -- my thought process is, it's more likely to galvanize their thought process. you have the libya example sitting out there. this is the cun that the we got to agree to abandon their nuclear aspirations and then we replaced the leadership. that's not a good precedent for the iranians to be looking at. >> would you add anything? >> well, there has been a middle range option for the obama administration. the president came in saying he wanted to open up negotiations, he did a broadcast on the iranian new year to the iranian people.

and i think there's a lot of debate about how sincere his opening was. but then when you read the wikileaks documents, you discover they started working on these stiffer sanctions right away, assuming the diplomacy wouldn't work. there are other things happening to the iranians at increasing paces. there have been five scientists assassinated. it's widely believed no one has proved it's the work of israeli intelligence. maybe it's not. you've seen a missile plant blow up, we've had missile plants blowup here too, so it could have been accidental. but sure raises a lot of suspicions. you saw the computer worm that ended up hitting the iranians and for a while, slowing down their ability to produce. i think this all comes back to the question that general

cartwright raises, which is when the iranians see this. does it redouble their determination to move out ahead. or does it make them think that this isn't worth it? i haven't seen any evidence yet that it's really slowed their programming. you just grab the amount of uranium enrichment activity that we know about. it has some ups and downs. fundamentally it's on a pretty steady up. >> let me just ask you, whether it's the right thing to do or wrong thing to do, israel seems to be drawing a line in the sand on this. how credible is there a posture toward iran. i guess what i would say is, do they have the capability to take out iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon with, if they decided to do that? >> no. >> no? >> no. >> they can slow it down.

they can delay it, some people estimate two to five years. but that does not take away the intellectual capital. does not take away the ability of the iranians to then proliferate the sites in which they do business in a given way. so, no, you're not going to do that with a kinetic attack. it's a delaying tactic, it's not a change tactic. >> would you agree with that? >> no, sir. >> why? >> well, one of the challenges here, is that folks have taken some historical events, like the osheraq, iraq strike and possibly striking syria a couple years ago. they acted, they have resolved, they took care of the problem it went away. this is not a pinpoint -- single target, one strike and it's over. they've been pretty clever about

distributing stuff. to really take care of the problem, when somebody decides they want to do it kinetically or militarily, it's going to require some people. and quite a few in the country which is not likely to happen. >> but -- >> you can do air strikes, delay things to cause them some havoc for debate. >> well, give me an example of -- have they got it spread out over a wide area, is it very deep? why is it such a hard thing to do? >> well, this is part of the calculus of red lines. but for a long time, most of their activity occurred at one site which was somewhat underground but certainly strikable. but they have over the past two or three years talked about alternative sites. we know of one that is pretty

well understood, which is deep enough underground, there aren't weapons deep enough to penetrate that activity. so when you get to the point where you start to franchise out the fuel cycle and distribute it around the country, and you have an understanding of the enrichment process, the number of places you could put that far exceed our knowledge of ever discovering them all. even if you could, again you're not going to kill the intellectual capital to just rebuild the centrifuges some place else. this is a will issue then at that point. if they have the will to do it, they will produce. >> what happens if israel does decide to do this? >> well, do what, bob? >> strike. take some military action. my sense is the united states would advise against that. but israel doesn't always take the advice of the u.s.

>> countries would do what they perceive to be in their best interests. if they feel they're backed into a corner, maybe they're least obnoxious choice given the palletable options. so they make a strike at something very difficult, i think because a level of effort that's likely to be required given what we think we understand, and i'm not plugged into every day intel any more. but there are a lot of targets. this is not a one time shot, it's going to take a fair amount of work. if one decides to lash out and take a whack at something, could probably inflict some damage. but then what happens? >> well, what do we do then? let's say that we find out, we get the call, the planes are in the air, this is what we're going to do, we just thought we'd let you know about it, what -- obviously neither of you are in the government now, but what would you think the u.s.

reaction would be? >> well with, it's a real conundrum. number one, if they're in the air, there's not likely much we're going to be able to do to get in between them and whatever targets they perceive they have. and at that point, then, the government is faced -- our government is faced with, do you disavow it, do you say it's a bad idea? do you kind of passively watch it happen? or do you aggressively join in? that's the range and matrix of the things you might be able to do. which you do is probably going to be a decision that is more likely to occur in approximate with their launch. in other words, the situation will tick tate probably what the art of the possible is. being ready for that, and having the forces of posture in such a way that you have choices is probably the thing they're most concerned about right now. >> i think the by extension, given the -- at least the iranian rhetoric to date would

link the two of us, israel and the u.s. no matter what happens. we would need to be prepared to protect our forces and our people through whatever might happen. i think there are a couple thoughts here. one, we have an awful lot of things in common with israel. we're often portrayed as yes, no, yes, no. but we share a lot in this region, not the least of which is to get to some long term state of better stability and security. and so we will certainly cooperate i think to the max extent we can, we're going to share intelligence, we think that any weaponization of this capability in iran is not in either of our best interests. and at the end of the day, you try to come up with ways to deal with this that might actually result in a better sunrise than

something ugly, you never know where it's going to go. >> the issue of how the united states would respond if the israelis moved ahead, was one of the bush administration took up in 2008 when the israelis came to the administration and asked for the bunker busting bombs and for the refuelling capability they would need to be able to do this more effectively. and they were turned down by the bush administration. we can go back to some of the memoirs, we discovered there was an active debate inside the administration on that issue. but one of the questions that came up was, if they went over iraqi airspace, which would be the most direct way in, which is the time the united states controlled. would they try to stop them? i think the answer they came to was probably not. the bigger concern i hear within the administration now is not just what happens that day, but as admiral fallon said, there will be an assumption by the iranians that the u.s. and

israel worked together at least in sharing intelligence. and then the question is, does the u.s. get sucked in to whatever happens that follows? i'm only seeing young classifieds. war gaming, there was one done in brookings a few years ago, one done in harvard. in almost every scenario i've seen of these. the u.s. does get sucked in sooner or later. because somebody tries to take a pot shot at american ships and you're off to the races. i think that's the big concern the administration has right now. >> the foreign minister spoke at csis earlier this month. he said that military action against iran would be a disaster that would complicate development notice middle east at a crucial juncture. as a nato ally, does turkey's

stance complicate options on iran. or is it just speaking, reflecting reality? >> my sense is, reflecting reality, and certainly as he perceives it. and certainly that -- i was going to kind of take us back to the output of this equation versus the input. so, yes, there's a strike and all that happens, but the economic side this would, no matter how effective or ineffective the strike is, would be significant. both in the revenue side of the oil activities, but then globally in the instability that that will cause in the markets. and so that's a piece of it, that i'm sure turkey is very concerned about. and at a minimum. and then they lie on an obvious path to and from israel to iran. and they have a neighbor iran who's going to be affected and probably going to want to lash out. there's a lot in the region

that's at stake here, that's far beyond the weaponization issue. >> i certainly don't. no one that i'm aware of thinks there's any real positive outcome of a military strike or some kind of conflict. no telling what the eye rainians think, one has a hard time conjuring up positives out of something like this. what does that mine for us? it seems to me this is one these -- you never know what instrument actually gets the job done in these situations, and you never know how things stack up. because you're not in their heads and they in ours, as we kind of lurch down the road here, it seems to me that we ought to be doing a couple things. one, making very clear that we are trying to come up with some kind of a negotiated end to this

weaponization drive if that's what they're about. and frankly, it's bigger than that, it's the whole region. there needs to be stability. but at the same time, we're not going to just stand by. we're not going to stand by if they decide to take a whack at us for some reason, or try to close the straight or any of these things. just not going to happen. so these are not good outcomes. let's not precipitate something. there may be some other things too. it seems to me if we -- if you look down the road, what if iran turns out to come out one day and say, guess what, we have one. whether they do or not, where do we want to be in that situation? so there are other country that is have nuclear limits right now. it seems to me one thing we might consider here is some kind of a de claire