we can argue this it is more confident going forward and as barbara mentioned, he did praise president obama for discounting war and emphasizing diplomacy. he has kept a less idealogical former president ha sham i as part of the expediency counsel and one of the his advisers stated iran is open to compromise, et cetera, et cetera. we can list a number of other positive indications and the hope here is that sanctions will put enough pressure on hom any that he will back down. we have to also look at what is

it, what are his personal political interests, what are his ideological interests as the iran's supreme leader and more importantly, what is his world view? how does he see the world, the united states, and the nuclear program? when we look at hamanee, he really believes the islamic republic is engaged in conflict with the united states. he believes the united states has never accepted the islamic revolution of 1979 and will never accept the revolution. he doesn't believe that the united states is just opposed to iran's specific policies on the nuclear program, for example, but he has stated that the united states opposes the very essence of the islamic republic, and i don't think this is going to change as long as he is alive. this is the way he thinks about the united states. he participated in the revolution. he was one of the revolutionary

leaders. he helped overthrow the shaw and what he believes to be u.s. domination of iran, and so his world view is very much based on his experience. the islamic republic may even believe that the nuclear program as an important military deterant against the united states, even if iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, the fa account it has the virtual capability, the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon if need be, i think serves as a valuable deterant for iran and iran has seen the united states overthrow neighboring regimes like the regime of saudi arabia and the taliban with relative ease, so the iranian decision makers know that in the future the united states may take military action against iran to overthrow the regime. circumstances for that right now are not very good. this is not the u.s. intention. it is the possibility for the

future. in addition, he really believes the nuclear program is a sign of his regime's success. he sees the nuclear program as a success for the revolution despite the years of sanctions and isolations iran has faced and the sanctions we talk about right now are nothing new in terms of them being strong, very draconian and has been under sanctions for more than 30 years. he believes iran's progress on the nuclear program shows it is able to resist the united states. when you listen to the speeches this is a constant theme. he emphasizes iran ace time to progress, and the last speech was all about how iran is ranked 11th in terms of scientific progress. this is what he claims, et cetera, et cetera. of course the view point of the nuclear program is not

necessarily shared by all the iranians. within the political elite figures like rac janny and the reformists may not see the nuclear program in similar ideological and political terms. in fact, the isolation iran has faced, the sanctions, hurts the socioeconomic agenda of pragmatic conservatives and liberal lies the economy and open it up to the world and enact political reforms. this is not his mindset. he is very much compared to these other figures in isolationist and ideological leader. it is not clear how the iranian public feels about the nuclear program. we hear that there is a sense of national pride, a lot of iranian support the civilian aspect. there is a lot of polling done on the issue. we don't know for certain how iranians feel.

i would argue that the regime has had some success in selling the nuclear program as a matter of national right that, iranians think why should israel, pakistan, india, et cetera, the west have access to nuclear technology and why should we not? some iranians would argue that iran should have nuclear weapons. the question remains will he give into pressured sanctions and that undoubtedly hurt the economy and the iranian currency really devalued and prices have gone incredibly high. the average iranian is really suffering, the middle classes, some of the same people that support democracy in iran and this is one of the unfortunate aspects of sanctions, that it does hurt certain objectives and help dissuede them weapons but

no indication that they are fundamental will i rethinking the position on the nuclear program. he has admitted that sanctions are painful but there are signs that he is getting iran and the population ready for the long struggle with the united states. we have to remember they survived a lot, the long war with iraq, insurgencies, survived assassination attempts, and he is not a man at that can easily bend, and he has named this year, i don't remember the specific name, but the year of national labor and promoting iranian domestic productive activity. he really believes in the face of sanctions that iran can become more self sufficient and then he points out to the nuclear program and other scientific achievements for

this. in addition, unlike his predecessor, the founder of the revolution, not as open to advice from the political system. he pushed aside people like rac shon johnny and relying on very small inner circle revolutionary guards, officers, security people to give him advice. and in a lot of ways he is cut off from the world. he believes that the united states is in geopolitical decline, that the united states faces decline in the middle east because of what he early its the islamic awakening, what we call the arab spring, the iranian regime calls the islamic awakening. he believes that u.s. influence in the middle east is on the wane because of the overthrow of pro american regimes in tunisia, egypt, yemen, and there is instability also in countries

like bahrain, et cetera, so he believes that as iran stands strong in the face of sanctions that the u.s. also faces these problems and at time may be on his side. we can argue that he is delusional, he has said that obama is exiting from did he lugss but we can argue that he is delusional and that's what we have in iran. this is the view point of a man making decisions for the entire iranian population. where does that leave the united states in terms of policy options? i believe the next panel will talk about these options including the military options and not a lot of people would argue that even within israel that there is a military solution. if there is an attack against iran, they can kick out the iaea, the regime can crack down on opposition. there will be a greater swell of national pride. i don't think iranians necessarily will forgive the

regime for sins because of an attack, but it will put the regime or it could very well put the regime in a favorable position, especially if the israelis do not manage to really damage iran's nuclear program very much. the military strike will set back the u.s. objective of democracy in iran and could lead to greater instability in the region. diplomacy is a solution and barbara mentioned that the goal is really to manage the situation to prevent an armed conflict. in terms of diplomacy, going to rely on diplomacy, this situation can go on and on and on for several years and ultimately there has to be a solution not just to the iranian nuclear program but a solution to the islamic republic and our relations with the islamic republic. i would argue that as long as

itoe la is in power in iran, we will not solve our problems with iran, that he is not amenable to normal relationship with the united states and he is going to do everything in his power to under mine u.s. interests in the region. i think the good news is that iran has not decided to weaponize its program, the u.s. intelligence community assesses that there is no indication that homany and the leadership decided to weaponize the program and given the vulnerabilities they face at home, lack of legitimacy, iran's receding regional influence, this gives us the opportunity to inka the islamic republic and hope for something better to emerge in the future because if you look at iran, i think iran more so than a lot of countries surrounding it has the real potential for a democratic system. and ultimately only a democratic

iran will not solution to the nuclear crisis. thank you. >> thank you all for coming. when we originally drew up this i thought it would be a difficult case to make there is hope for diplomacy and a degree with those on the other side of the table there is increasing hope but i am going to try my best to pour cold water on that increasing hope. despite the fact that i am very, very much a supporter of diplomacy, i think i would support a much more ambitious diplomatic approach than is likely to happen. i will explain some of the obstacles in terms of american domestic politics and in terms of sort of structural international reasons in the international system. i should also reveal that i was doing work on iranian potential

proliferation in 2006 and 2007 but for the past year or so i have been working on the asia pacific region so i am actually having to pivot back to the middle east as i think the administration is having to pivot back to the middle east, so i will defer on many recent developments to my co-panelists. you have to say the good thing about the u.s. iran or western iranian diplomacy is there are really good metaphors. there are zones of immunity, closing windows, clocks running at different speeds, like the salvador dally painting of nuclear proliferation. i favor diplomacy as i will reveal at the end and fafr an unrealistically ambitious approach but it is fact unreal lis that i can at that causes me to doubt whether or not we will get where we want to go. as i mentioned ali covered quite

well i think some of the iranian obstacles to diplomatic resolution of the problem and i want to focus on u.s. domestic politics and structural impediments and suggest where we might go from leer on prove me wrong n terms of american domestic politics, the general afterism i have been trying to get out is that what might work can't happen and what might happen can't work. i think that that's a fairly glum assessment and i hope i am wrong about it, but that's what i believe at this point. as barbara mentioned, the congress's attitude is add more pressure on top of the existing pressure and promise not to puts any more pressure if concessions are made and in fact it is even stopped that last part of want putting anymore pressure. the central bank sanctions, for example, the congress did not write an off ramp for iran to say and, oh, by the way, if you fulfilled these 57 demands that

we're making, we'll remove the sanctions. if you're iranian and looking at what congress is doing and saying what are the demands here that we can fulfill, conceivably, that would give us a way out of this, the congress has stopped by in large even gesturing at the idea of an off ramp. i think it is something of an indication of the role that congress intends to play. i am pretty much a partisan of congress as an institution but they have really not covered themselves in glory, i think, with their participation in u.s. diplomacy towards iran. my read of what the congress is up to is they want to appear very concerned to various interested constituencies about the problem and that's about it. the one saving grace that we may have is that as an institution they are cowardly enough to ignore the power granted to them in article 1 section 8 of the constitution which indeed grants them the power to declare war. we used to do that as a country, declare war when the congress

decided that war was appropriate. instead now we reverted to lots of hand waving and table pounding which perversely i think is probably a good thing. so the congress i think again often does some bone headed things to get its oar in the lake of u.s.-iran diplomacy but not really provided hope or anything constructive i think to the diplomatic agenda that the administration is following. as for the obama administration itself, you have to give it credit. it put its neck out there by on the campaign saying that it was open to diplomacy, by in 2009 gesturing in the direction of diplomacy, but i perceive not too terribly much interest in spending gobs and gobs of political capital on getting diplomacy with iran up and running in a way that will be fruitful. i can't entirely blame them for that. it is nts clear to me they have enough political capital left, particularly this year, to get

things rolling in a fruitful direction, and obviously he with have all noticed with goings on at the supreme court they had lots of domestic priorities on which they're spending political capital so i don't envy the position in which the obama administration finds itself. i think to echo what the others said is any diplomatic process that has the hope of producing long-term resulting would be itself a long-term protracted process of meetings after meetings after meetings that would be easy to sort of demo gog as selling out to the obama republic. they rather write themselves. i think it is a politically peril us on thing for the administration to do and for a variety of reasons i will defer to michael adler gladly on this and hope that he is right. i am not sure that the israelis were as well received to president obama's message.

again, i remain open to being persuaded that's right, but i wonder whether it is. moving onto the structural international obstacles, i am indebted to reminding the insight to one of the panelists on the second panel who has a forth coming paper where he mentions this topic but to start with the diad as the political science kids all it, the relationship between iran on the one hand and the united states on the other hand is terrifically imbalanced in terms of material power. the iran cannot conquer the united states. the united states if it decided to could conquer iran. it would be big mess. i don't support doing so. in terms of material power, there is simply no comparing the two countries. given that, if you look at things from iran's perspective, any diplomatic deal would involve making lots of substantial security assurances

to iran. if you do this, not only will we not -- not only will we do something on the one hand but we also agree not to do something in the future. the question becomes how could iran trust assurances provided by a country with overwhelming power and indeed i believe is still a uni polar power in the international system? how do you make credible assurances to a relatively weak state as a uni polar power that if it decided to do renag at any point. this is a point not terribly well grasped or at least i don't see evidence it is well grasped by the administration or certainly by the congress, and it is just very difficult no matter how genuine the intention to kredably convey that to a country with which coming from both sides there have been poison us on relations for the past 30 odd years. this is ae very important point to highlight and president obama in a recent interview with

jeffrey goldberg of the atlantic pointed to cases where he thought diplomacy had produced good results in terms of nuclear non-proliferation and point at south africa and point at libya. well, if you're aytolla and you look at the libya deal and say we could get ourselves a libya deal, what about about that, doesn't look like a very good deal because again the united states could easily renege on assurances made if for example there were another political crackdown and iran has kredably denuclearized and the united states decides it has had enough of dictorial regime crack down on protesting civilians, so i think getting our heads around how to convey kredably security assurances is maybe my sort of sunday punch here in terms of pouring cold water on the prospect for a long-term diplomatic deal that works. i want to reiterate, i favor

diplomacy. i favor a very robust diplomatic approach to iran, but i worry again that what when we win concessions of the security council to do another resolution sanction of iran and what have you, there's a sort of "or else" on the other side of that in terms of people that have signed on to the deal. we censor iran. and in our mind we have an "or else" statement at that end. i think the rest of the world doesn't really have an "or else" on the end of the security council resolutions or any other statements. we need to get our mind around that. if we decide there's an "or else," it will be us and a very small group, should it come to that. it's conservatives to have particular views about the united nations tend to endorse the idea that the security council sanctions should bite in

important ways. i think we would probably have to make large, probably prohibitively large concessions at the outset to get iranians to believe that we're serious about diplomacy. if you look at 1737, 1747, i think it's probably unlikely that iran is going to agree to suspend outright as those indicate. and i think we would probably have to do something in terms of the unilateral sanctions from washington or from europe in order to convince the iranians that we were serious. i also think that that's probably a political nonstarter. if you could get them to do something like stop enriching the 20%, i would be willing to

walk back some of the things we're doing. not just promise not to do anything in addition, but indeed to walk back some of the things we're already doing to convince them that we were serious. it would be a political nightmare. or one other thing we could do, particularly if they agree to stop enhancing the fordo facility, that would be terrific. i would take that as a sign that we would -- we should be willing to walk back some of the things that we're already doing. this is not a mainstream point of view. i've not heard from the administration or from the congress, and i think it would be a political nightmare. but there again, i think you see

the domestic political influences constraining our ability to operate internationally. the net take away is that if you really want diplomacy to work and if you really think that a military option is a terrible idea, you'll have to really bite the bullet, so to speak, and do some things that you would really rather not do in order to get the train rolling in the first place. in the second place, realize that this is going to be a long, agonizing process that's going to have lots of set backs and may not, in the end, work. i hope that we get that far, but i fear that we will not. so i think i'll just leave it there and turn the podium back to chris to field questions. thank you very much. >> thank you all very much. we left a lot of time for q and

a. maybe before i open it up to the audience, do any of you wish to respond to anything that was said by the other panels? all right. very good. with that, i will throw it open to questions. we have a rule here. the rules in the new auditorium are the same rules in the old auditorium. when you ask a question, wait for the microphone so everyone can hear you. including those online. state your name and frame your question in form of a question. this is a jeopardy rule. and no speeches, please. who is first? hands, right there. >> i'm with peace action. you were talking a lot about -- or people mentioned the sanctions. and that that's hurting the people of iran.

but no one really talked about whether sanctions even work. and i recently read a report that they don't, that there was some study that was done that showed it, that they have never worked. so, my question on that is, why are we pursuing the policy that doesn't work, that's very harmful, that would be perceived as bullying, i would think, by the people of iran. and we're talking about confidence-building measures. that doesn't seem to me to be a confidence-building measure. >> okay. thank you. so, the question is, sanctions don't have a terrific track record. what is different about these sanctions, if anything? i think all four of you might -- barbara, first? >> they do work in some cases. we have the south africa example where sanctions did help get rid of the apartheid regime and that's usually referred to. we have sanctions because it's a substitute for war and substitute for diplomacy. people don't want to declare war in this country. i mean, even the congress, even some of the more gung-ho neo conservatives don't want to declare war. and so what do you have? you have sanctions. they've taken on a momentum of

their own. this started under the george w. bush administration. our treasury department has become one of the most creative parts of the u.s. government in terms of devising ever more clever ways to destroy the iranian economy. i was at a session with ehud olmert, the prime minister of israel, where he basically bragged that when he was prime minister in his talks with the u.s. treasury department, they had already come up with the idea of expelling iran from the swift, which is the system that enables banks to do transactions with foreign banks. and he says this was an idea they were already talking about four years ago. so, we're good at it. we're good at sanctions. we're obviously not good at diplomacy and we don't want to go to war. >> anyone else? mike? >> sure. i think, in a sense, we are losing a state of confidence with iran, taking place in

convert operations inside iran and short of every sanction short of war. the purpose of sanction sincere basically to get iran to talk. so, you can see the talks coming up as one way in which sanctions have succeeded, because the question with sanctions is they certainly are causing problems for iran. but the many main question is, are they sufficient to get iran to strike a deal with us on the nuclear program? so, i think the jury is still out on how this policy ends. and, once again, the fact that we're having these talks, which justin referred to the difficulty of getting forward and getting real concessions. i think that the way -- at least the west is approaching it, they want to start very slow. and there are actually two plans

out there for the diplomacy. one is called the russian plan. the other is the american plan. interestingly enough, the first step in the russian plan is that the united states would give security guarantees to iran and, in return, there would be freezing of sanctions. news bulletin, that's not going to happen. i remember back in 2004, 2005, when this whole thing started. i got what's called a nonpaper. that's a diplomatic brief on how to go forward. europeans had prepared it. one chapter was security guarantees. and once the americans got ahold of it, that chapter disappeared. but that is not to say that there couldn't be security guarantees at the end of the process. and in terms of it being a

political nightmare, going on what you said, this whole thing is a nightmare. we're in a situation that, in a sense, is not going to end well. somebody is going to be unhappy. it's going to end in tears, one way or another. but i think despite the elections, despite everything going on, if we can get a start to this process, you have the situation in iran where -- barbara spoke about it. after the parliamentary elections, there's a possibility for consensus in iran. this is a very polyanna-issue view, by the way. if khomeini has rendered ahmadinejad a lame duck through these elections and saying, look, we are really having trouble doing business. can't we do something to get out of this? there might be a way in which the iranians would decide that