original former involving american and iranian officials who understand firsthand the challenges of foreign policy and particularly u.s. iranian relations. on april 2 the world's sixth major powers in iran announced the frame work for what could be a historic nuclear deal. the terms remain controversial and somewhat disputed in both capitals. our goal today is to explore the challenges ahead. let me quickly introduce our panelists. you should have the full boy oweios at your seats but i'll introduce them briefly starting from my right. ali, former member of the iranianiran ian parliament from 2000 to 2004. he was arrested while demonstrating to support equal rights between men and women in june of 2006 and was released

130 days later. he moved to the united states in 2009 and is a visiting fellow at virginia tech and a human rights and digital freedom advocate. welcome, nice to have you with us. next is jim slatery a former congressman from congress from 1983 to 1995. currently a partner at wiley ryan, llp, the first former congressman to visit iran since the revolution and attended the world against violence and extremism conference in tehran in december of last year. he's been involved in interfaith dialogue with iran for ten years. jim, welcome. >> thank you. >> and next is michael fing, former senior director for middle east affairs at the national security counsel from 2005 to 2008 and currently a senior fellow at the washington institute.

during his tenure at the white house, my coal was responsible for coordinating u.s. policy towards the middle east including an emphasis on iran's nuclear and regional activities and his national security adviser, i did whatever he told me to do on the subject of which he worked. >> that's not how i remember it. >> welcome michael. next is a former congressman from california from 19 83 to 2013, and currently a senior at visor at covington and burling, llp. as chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, congressman burman was a leading expert on relations. howard, great to have you with us today. so with that, we're going to begin. we're going to go probably until about 10:30 maybe 10:35 or so given the late start with a conversation among us up here

and then we'll open up to questions with microphones, wait for a microphone to come to you. identify yourself and ask a question, and you can direct that to any of the panelists or all of the panelists as you see fit. let me begin, if we can. as i mentioned in the opening remarks, there seemed to be various versions about what has been agreed so far in the negotiations. we've heard from iran's supreme leader about objectives he has in the negotiations about prompt sanctions relief and no access to military sites. and a couple other details, which are not fully consistent with what the u.s. side has said. in light of the somewhat disarray about what has been agreed so far let me ask the panel two questions. first, how close are we to an

agreement, and how likely are we to get a final signed document by june 30. if i might, ali, beginning with you. >> thank you for having me here, i want to thank this organization, the usip, for convening this timely event, and i'd like to emphasize i'm not representing any organization and other -- i mean the people or group of people. i'm just talk inging on my behalf, my personal opinion here as a former member of iran's parliament. regarding your question, i think we are very, very close to a historic moment, historic achievement in solving big

international crisis peacefully and dipmatically. i'm very optimistic to accomplish this moment very soon. i even -- i couldn't imagine two years ago to see this such a rate of progress i remember that few years ago that we send a letter as seven former members of parliament through three leaders, and we proposed this deal. it was almost about january 2013, and we had lots of difficulties to even initiate and talk about in washington, d.c. i remember woodrow wilson invite invited us, and my colleague,

and i, we sat in the same -- in such a panel discussion to propose and convince skeptics and friends in washington to even -- imagine, we couldn't initiate this deal, and talk about that. it was difficult. finally, we tried toy edied convince the huffington post to print the exact letter, five months almost before the election presidential election, we did not know that he and this great administration is coming but we just heard rumors that tension is going on between talking behind the scenes between two administrations, i mean, the obama administration and iran's

followers, and you know his friend, and then be proposed, this proposal and deal and at that time, we had a lot of difficulties to talk about that, but right now, i sat here, and thank you for having me here again. be one to convince skeptics in washington, d.c. to see that we can help to finalize a comprehensive deal. it's very very different moment than two years ago, very optimistic and hope the united states officially will not lose this opportunity because i think the u.s. lost the first opportunity in 2003 when they got the same agreement adding the name of iran as axis of

evil -- i think it damaged the deal i think this moment i hope you don't lose this opportunity and it would lead this deal iran and the region to a peace stability in the very near future. >> thank you. >> howard, how do you see it? what's the prospects of getting it done at all? what's the prospects of getting it done by june 30? >> well, i'm a little more nervous than you are about the likelihood of the agreement being reached and it's clear to mean that this american administrationments to reach an agreement. i think there are some limitations beyond which it will not go but it certainly wants

to reach the agreement. the question raised more recently is does the supreme leader want to reach the agreement? he's made statements in recent days, and regarding sanctions relief regarding the sanctity of security and military sites on which no inspectors can ever go. made other statements looking like it's a very different agreement than i think the p-5 could ever sign. question comes up why is he talking like this? and the fact is he's made statements like that before. he talked about 190,000 sent centrifuges at one point, talked about a large number of reactors

and enrichment facility, and in the end, one area of the administration's released parameters that they haven't really challenged is the reference to the numbers of of centrifuges, the numbers of of enrichment fill, and they don't seem to be arguing about those aassociations in the administration parameters. so in the end, i think a lot of this depends. and we've heard for a long time, and i believe that there is a tension inside iran between elements of the irgc and quote hardliner, and the current president and foreign minister and we've always thought where does the supreme leader come down in that complex and that to me, is a big part in answering the question of whether there's a likelihood of

reaching and agreement by june 30th. >> ali, let me ask you, if you want to comment, i think one of the questions we all have is, how should we read the supreme leaders' statements? do you have any advice for us on that one? i'm going to turn it over to michael and jim. >>. >> i would say that i don't. i agree with your comments about iran's situation. i have a lot of concern, mostly about the u.s. side because in iran we have consensus between the supreme leader, u.s. leader parliament parliament, and vast majority of people, unprecedented in iran about one very, very important issue, but how about here? no. i don't think so. administration, yes. i agree with that. but how about congress? how about the many influence and

pressures and to congress about you know breaking the deal. i'm very -- i have doubts but i'm not really concerned. as i said before i'm optimistic about congress, on the 14th they got an agreement with the administration, the new legislation, and still, i feel it's really great because it makes more congress -- that bill that passed in senate, it makes more sustainable to implement in long term -- in this agreement, but we have a lot of problems. i cannot predict what would be

the decision of congress after the comprehensive agreement in june. >> this is just for those -- this is a bill that was passed last week that gives the congress 30 days to consider as a nuclear deal the option of legislation at the end of the time, and suspends any suspension of sanctions during the period of that consideration. so there's now some agreement now in the u.s. side of a process for consideration between the white house and the congress. i have to ask michael and jim, there seems to be less agreement on what the substance of that agreement should be. everybody seems to agree well a bad agreement is worse than no agreement. there seems to be no real consensus of what a bad agreement would look like, and secretary of state baker in an

op-ed last friday suggested that one step is get our own house in order and identify three or four things that really makes a reasonable agreement for the u.s. stand point and be claire about this. in the same way the supreme leader is clear about what he needs. is that a good course of action? michael, then jim, go to you. >> sure. when you ask if this is a good or bad deal, there's two questions, in a sense. the first is does the deal do what we need it to do? is it valuable to the interest to advance objectives set out, in this case having to do with nonproliferation, having to do with the threats that we perceive iran poses in the middle east. there's a second question, too and this is one highlighted by the president especially, which is, what are the at ternlternatives? good deal in comparison to a deal that better advances our interest, and in both of these

questions are tremendously controversial. an op-e ed in the wall street journal said, he said, this is the right track, but that needs to be improved, and here's three or four ways in which he suggests not just improving it but he'd suggest saying we have to insist on these things and get our other people and partners to insist on them. that's the first question, trying to make the deal more valuable of american interests, a better deal as it were and i think all his suggestions are the right suggestions in aget iran to work out the sites and individuals involved in that and getting to this question of military sites which military sites are nuclear as we've seen in the past as well as the question of sanctions, phased relief of sanctions in the so-called snap

back of sanctions, which may be a myth in a sense, but that's a separate question. it's important that we look as we approach this next period not just at the question of the substance of a deal, which he's addressing, but the alternatives. we need to focus on improving our alternatives if possible because it's highly possible we get no deal even if we want one. it's important to look past that point of failure saying where would we be making sure we're well positioned if that happens and also worsening iran's alternatives. there's more than one dimension to this. we're not the only party looking at the deal, and if iran perceives alternatives as worse, that's accepting a deal more favorable to the united states. i think red lines can be useful, both in know your own bottom lines, but they can be useful as a negotiating tactic, and some determine one interpretation is that he sets the redlines to

influence the dynamics of the negotiation, to get us to give more as you would in any negotiation in about anything, and the thing about redlines, though, they have to be credible. you have to believe in them. so there's this certainly process to go through, and i worry that especially with american negotiationers who tend to be, you know, more transparent in a sense that if we do not believe that these bottom lines are good ones to have, you know, sort of privately, that trying to project them publicly ultimately backfires on us as it did in the case of syria. we should have bottom lines. we have to figure out what the bottom lines are, and figure out how do you best project those tactically as part of the negotiation. i will say additionally, that presumes the deal can be fixed. that secretary of state baker's census, essentially, the deal is not where it needs to be but it's the right track, and we have to fix it essentially. i worry the deal cannot be fixed, that the design of the deal is concept issuely lyconceptually

flawed. for example, if we get the deal it requires probably, any president, not just president obama, but his successor and maybe that person's successor, to be waiving sanctions every six months, an unstable process because anything can intervene. hardest decisions are left for the future. they have to do that, saves the hard stuff for when they are not around, but that does not necessarily it's going to come to pass. second, we have not required iran to dismantle anything. essentially, the program is in tact. if you have positive change in iran, if iran sort of changes its regional status, becomes friendly to the united states, whatever you can imagine, having a nuclear program in tact there ultimately will be a negative for the security of the region. nuclear programs grow in groups or in pairs as many here know.

even a different sort of iran will be perceived as a threat by, for example regional neighbors and any future reigns government having a hard time giving that up for reasons of pride. finally, the other conceptual flaw is separating between regional issues. our power, sanctions, for example, they are blunt instruments. there's no such thing as a nuclear related sanction. that gets to the question how do you detour iranian support for flood watch terrorism or following a deal without the tools available? either leads you to less effective tools or direct action leading you into more direct involvement in the complex of the region. i worry that, yes, secretary baker's ideas are good bottom line positions to have, but the

deal is not successful even if we reach it. >> jim, what's your view from the u.s. stapp point, what do we do to get our own house in order in terms of proceeding with the negotiations? >> one of the things to share is that in december, when i was in tehran tehran, i visited with members of the key people in the government, leading clerics you know, friends of the supreme leader, and every place i went i heard one question, and that was can president obama implement the deal. they wanted to know this. this was after our elections after the fact that the senate had been taken over by republicans, and, of course the house continued to be in republican hands. so they raised the question because they wanted me to understand that if we expected them to put the option on the

table, they wanted that deal accepted and not scuttled by our congress. we have to be mindful that as all the questions arise from the congress, it undermines our negotiators' capacity to get the best deal at the negotiating table, and that's a part of this that's not been adequately focused on and the iranians are very fearful, those that are really aggressively committing to a deal, and in many cases they bet political futures and careers on betting a deal with the united states. their nightmare is going out on the table, get the worst deal and have united states scuttle the deal. that politically destroys them. that may do more than that to them. we don't have, as americans, fully understood that dimension

of what's going on in the negotiations. you know, i -- i'm a kansas democrat so kansas is the most republican state in the union probably so optimism is sort of hard wired into my dna but we have this historic moment and the great tragedy would be our domestic political forces prevented us from really getting a historic break through in a relationship with iran. so all americans really need to be in the debate and we really need to be focused on some of the very tough details, and as far as i'm concerned verification is going to be key in all the dimensions of verification. for example, i'm troubled by the statements supreme leaders made denying access to military

sites. i understand the military, you know, need, of that from the iranian side, but we're going to have to have access up questioned access to all sites that have anything to do with the nuclear operation, and that is a red line. that will be tough to get to. >> i want to follow up that and frame the question and go down the line, howard, starting with you and down the line. in light of this conversation, there's two ways to frame it. what are the principle obstacles that can prevent the parties from getting an agreement or flipping it around? what are the two or three things that are really require edd if they are to be reached. starting with you, if i could. >> well, the answer to that has changed.

i understand looking at washington and understand the administration tries to do one thing, congress sin stipgtively and adamantly against what it's trying to do. how do we count on an agreement with the administration? the equation changed tremendously in the context in an agreement between senator corker and the white house. it turned everything around. one, the congress will not act on the agreement before there's an agreement. secondly, while the congress -- there's no way in the world congress ever approves this agreement only way the agreement does not go effect, and by that i mean the president loses his

ability to waive sanctions he will need to waive to the american part of the deal is if two-thirds of both houses disapprove of the disagreement and vote to override the president's veto and so to me the debate changed from instinctively not wanting to do any deal with iran, particularly a deal that did not dismantle dealing with the infrastructure, and michael is right about that, the deal does not do that, but it changed from that debate to a debate about issues like is this a good deal, and more than that is it a good deal on the issue of giving significant comfort for a significant period of time that iran will not get a nuclear

weapon? michael raised other issues, very legitimate issues to raise, but i don't think iran's support for terrorism, iran's hedge tendencies -- the sanctions effort that brought the community together was on iran's nuclear program, and if we tried to conflate and bring every issue into this, we'll lose the support of the international community. i think we have the test of is this a bad agreement in the context that michael asked? is this the least worst option? that will be the question that 34 senators if they think it is the least worst option, the deal goes into effect.

divide one-third into 435 congressmen in the same equation. that's very much change the balance of power here now, and i think the parts i don't know about this agreement level of verification the way is just exactly -- what is going to be the centrifuges that are pulled out? what are the consequences when iran say no to a particular desire by the inspectors to go to a certain site? those things that hopefully get filled out in the next two and a half months. those will decide how congress reacts. i think it's a much less bleak situation than it was last december in terms of talking with fouks you talked to in they

ron. >> i agree with you the onnal action last week fundamentally changed the equation here, and i think if iranians look at this bottom line is will the white house be able to hold one-third plus one in the house? >> probably not for a bad agreement. >> absolutely correct. i think the bad agreement ultimately will be defineed by the issues of verification. no one trusts anyone in the deal. iranians don't trust them, we don't trust them stop talking about that the fact of the matter is we need adequate verification of procedures, and i think that's what the congress is ultimately going to be looking at, and when you look at the context agreement and perhaps michael and i disagree on this, i think given the status quo compared to the outline as described by the state department, okay, and i underline that because there's

clearly a disperty between what the state department outlined and else was outlined, but given the state department outline compared to the status quo and begin the fact you go through this the number of centrifuges dropped down to operational, the volume of low enriched uranium dropped from 10000 kilos to 300 kilo, and, you know, the other provisions in this and the -- basically fundamentally changing the plutonium operation and fundamentally changing what's going on i mean these are significant concessions made by the other side and given the status quo is a major step forward. again, it all depends on verification. >> so, michael, going to you, putting you on the spot for a bit. is this deal, as outlined in the state department fact sheet the least bad outcome and if it is

not, what is required to make it in your view the least bad outcome, and then i'm going to ask you to comment briefly on what you heard. >> the answer to the first one is no, i don't think it is the least bad outcome. i do worry that the deal as outlined in the u.s. fact sheet first of all, there's not a deal, unresolved issues. hard to evaluate that per se because of the unresolved issues, but i think there are some big holes in what we have agreed to some of those what are secretary baker outlined that it's absolutely critical, for example, that questions we call pmd possible military dimensions, what iran's done that those be answered up front. i don't see how you can have a sufficient verifyication regime without those questions answered. people say, well, why do you need iran to confess. it's not confessions, but it's about the information.

inspectors need that. what are the sites to check? who are the people to talk to? what progress has iran made to date? i think there's other issues, questions of how sanctions are relieved and when? it's important to maintain leverage going forward in the event of iranian noncompliance because there's going to be questions. there always are with these regimes. there's questions about access to sites. we talked about that already. i don't think we can permit a distinction between civilian nuclear sites and military sites begin the clear sort of military nature of iran's past nuclear activities. so within the context of what's been outlined, i think thoseaddressed to make this a deal worth supporting, worth making, really. then there's, again constantly back to the question of alternatives and i think one thing negligented edneglected in our debate is not what are the united states' alternatives, but iran's

alternatives? this raises the question of time because, you know, we could afford to negotiate for another six months if we have to. it's great to set deadlines and diplomacy. i don't know, frankly that deadlines are set at this stage are credible, but we can look forward to negotiate for another six months, 12 months, and i think the iranians can afford far less to simply see this, the interim agreement extended another six or 12 months. we have to bear in mind that iran's own alternatives are not fantastic. we have to for the sake of having a sustainable deal a deal that survives past 21 months, 24 months it's important we get what we need here. will it then be a great deal? i will say it's not a great deal because of the flaws, and i worry a lot that the deal would not survive the ten years, even of the initial period. it's probably at this stage of the game the best to hope for. >> thank you. i want to come back to the issue of what happens if by june 30 there's no agreement, but i have

to ask you this, given your hopes for this agreement as you expressed in your opening comments and given what you have heard here, does it reassure you about some of the questions you had about the u.s. side? >> reassured me at first. let me just point out that we have more -- much more problem in u.s. side, please access this idea, then iran. sometimes i'm joking about iranian strength, especially when you have problems that congress had shut down the government, and i was joking to americans saying you don't have supreme leader here: if you had supreme leader order. no, it's bad idea. don't do that. but i'm just joking, but -- [ laughter ] so now -- i'm just comparing the current truth to assistance poll

sick tick systems, politicians from iran to the united states. in the current parliament there's not many problems. they are already in agreement and the supreme leader if the supreme leader decides something, especially this current government, i mean parliament would approve it, definitely and right now they approved. the supreme leader has created a new term which was you know, very, very new for us, at least in here and i think also for you, and the term is so-called heroic flexibility, and so that is finished, and all in the same page, but in here, we don't have such a system, more a democratic system we have here, and between administration and the congress, we have a lot of difficulties so let me ask you, please

accept from the panel access idea of comprehensive deal. we have much more problem. secondly, i don't agree expressing the idea about the idea we extend six months or 12 months again to negotiate and negotiate and negotiate because two important elections is coming and going to be escalated, and here in the next presidential election and in iran, two important elections at the same day and time, february of 2016 election for parliament and assembly, which is very very important this moment the second one also. so i think if you extend

negotiations six or 12 months especially, the domestic policy would affect much more than negotiations, and you cannot get out of the negotiations when you extend for too long. maybe you imagine 20 days, one month like you in the last bill agreement between that administration and congress. that's fine, but more than that i can imagine it would certainly but this deal in deputy so this is the second point, laens point about the -- about what you mentioned previously is that i don't think the verification would be major problem because we have the same issue in the past than what the president

was, secretary of the national security council and president was -- i mean, was in power i was in parliament. i'd remember. you had the situation and problem and iran voluntarily gave you -- aiea access including some military places and so it's had its own process, technical problem not my expertise, and when they want to ask to have access to military places but when they accept to execute additional protocol i think it would assure you and everybody if they have any

problem security problem, for example, israel security if they have concern about that, it koulds assure you it should assure you and everybody to say no problem about that, but about the second problem that's right now both talking to each other in iran especially about sanctions, much more tougher than the first i think because the first one about -- executing or implementation of additional protocol voluntarily is already accepted in geneva i believe i heard, and but about sanctions, i think we have two different idea and opposing each other and

i think it's also practiceal and resolvable and can resolve it as well in this -- during this two months or so. >> what i hear is that i think it's going to come down to these two issues this verification and monitoring issue which has a number of assets that we talked about and relaxation of sanctions. those are the two crunch issues. we heard now michael suggest that we have more time we've heard ali suggest that not much more time because it gets politically complicated so let me bring you, jim, in and howard in and say, if at june 30 we have not bridged differences on the two issues, two critical issues, what do we do? what is plan b? what's the plan for a soft landing so that this does not badly damage the situation in the region?

>> well, first of all, i feel very strongly that we shouldn't be budging on this june 30th deadline. >> interesting. >> i think that we have to dig in on this, both sides have to recognize that the clock is running out for both of us and for different reasons, but i have to observe that if this gets kicked down the road for months, we're into heavy political campaign season. we'll soon be into the iowa caucuses. and i think it's important for us all to understand that the political pressure, domestic domestically, is going to be so intense, especially on the republican side, let me explain why, that in the republican primary, the christian fundamentalist vote is vitally important to all of these candidates on the republican side. they are appealing to the christian fundamentalists, and on the east coast i don't think we have -- there's just not the awareness of the rising

influence of christian zionism in the country, so we have reality emerging in the heartland where the strongest supporters of israel are christian-zionists who are now in the christian fundamentalist camp basically, and these are voters that are vitally important to the republicans running for president. and so what this is going to do, couple with the fact that we have literally hundreds of millions of dollars moving in the american political process based on this issue. it's a staggering amount of money. all of this is going to put e enormous pressure, especially on the republican candidates for president. why am i saying this? it's going to solidify republican opposition to any deal, and that's going to make this process much more political than it otherwise would be. and so this deadline of june the 30th has to be hard for both sides. if i was in iran and if i was looking at this from the iranian

perspective, i would say, my goodness, we got to get a deal and get it now and be flexible in how we get there because the clock is not on our side of the table, and i think that the iranians that i've had an opportunity to visit with, they understand the historic moment. for the first time in 35 years, there's high ranking leadership in tehran and in the united states together wanting a deal, and i think this makes this a historic moment. and i think we better not -- we better be smart enough to take advantage of it. >> howard, how do you see it if we get to june 30th and don't have it done? >> well i share jim's nervousness, perhaps for some different reasons. the whole threat of this is the pressure that came from

international sanctions on the economy. >> and the election. we tend to blow by that. >> but everything is wrapped together. >> related, yes. >> it's related, yes. agreed. >> yes. for the first administration -- u.s. government has been sanctioning iran since 1979 with the exemption of a brief prosecutor for pistachios, an american company could not do business with iran. in the late 1990s, we went extraterritorial and imposed sanctions on iran's energy sector of more than $20 million. neither the clinton administration nor the bush administration ever imposed a sanction on there because of the international push back they feared would come from exterritorial sanctions on

foreign companies that made those investments. whatever you think of the president of the united states, he undertook a strategy that develop an international coalition. i don't think ahmadinejad's presidency with the supreme leader was going to extend its hand in the first year of the obama administration and unclench their first but i thought it was necessary for the administration and the president to be willing to do that to build up the international coalition that would come down. i remember oil for food and i watched on iraq a consensus on sanctions that started to wither and wither away, and i fear the same thing happens here. all i'm saying is i think we should get a good deal done by

june 30th. extension of the jpoa, it's interesting because there were people who thought that was a terrible mistake and it provides limited sanctions relief. it's not going to take the pressure off the iranian economy. it's not going to make the people of iran and -- and, again, it's more time for the unity of the p-5 to sever, and this is a very different time than 2009 and 2010 when this coalition was put together. russia is taking a very different approach. generally on issues that -- all kinds of potential jinx here i'm concerned about. i'd like to see it here. >> one more question and that is this, if we talked a little bit about what happens if we do

not get a deal but if we do get a deal and ali starting with you, if i could, what's the likelihood that a nuclear agreement would lead to some kind of breakthrough in relations between iran and the united states, between iran and its sunni neighbors, and what impact might it have on iranian behavior on other issues of concern like syria and yemen and the like? i'd like to hear from you, go down quickly down the line and go to the audience for questions. >> first of all i'd like to emphasize on that point that president obama mentioned and finally got in agreement with congress that it's a big fault to tie in any other issues other than nuclear in this negotiation or bring inside this comprehensive deal that is

making this -- that makes it almost impossible the deal. other than that, looking at the last speech of the supreme leader in iran before yesterday, the last one ten days ago, he mentioned something that i think it was for the first time that mentioned that if we got in agreement with the united states and the western countries, and we could implement it and i mean, we got this deal, we may allow the negotiators to negotiate about other problems that we have maybe with the international community, especially in the united states. so it was for the first time that he mentioned and so right after that, i would imagine that

this deal it would lead negotiators to talk about, at first, regional issues like isis yemen, i mean iraq afghanistan, many regional problems that we have right now and war combat and getting in agreement like now like agreement that we're close to getting the nuclear issue and lastly, i think, it may lead to even broad conversation and negotiations to normalize the relationships between the united states and iran and after that maybe even lead to negotiations about some internal problem that we have about human right and many other issues.

so i'm pretty optimistic about that is going to happen very soon, and if we got this agreement and put it away from the international community and iran. >> bottom line, based on ten years of interaction with the iranians from the business community to the religious communities, from the political communities in iran, i am totally convinced that iran wants a reset with the united states, with some limitations, and i think that this nuclear agreement from the standpoint of u.s. national security interest is extremely important to get the nuclear issue solved and extremely important for israel as well. if we can do this, and make progress there it is a platform from which we can move to a lot of other discussions and we can

do so focusing on those areas where there's common interest. there are issues in the region that the united states and iran share and need to address. isis. isis hates iranians as much as it does jews and christians and americans. we can work together iran and the united states, dealing with isis. i also believe there's an opportunity to deal with the issue of hezbollah in lebanon. all of this stuff can be on the table, and the first step is to get this terrible nuclear question resolved and use the confidence, a little trust that we can build in dealing with this to build a boater future together. >> michael? prospects for a broader opening? >> i think that at this stage they are dim, even if we have a nuclear agreement. you know it's important to keep in mind on the one hand we've already talked to the iranians many times over the years about

regional issues. we've talked about iraq afghanistan, and well before we had serious nuclear negotiations, we were doing these things, and i think we have to maintain what's critical to main tape is flexibility on tactics. when conducting foreign policy, we cannot be dogmatic with tactics. we should not regard it as terrible to use tactics of engagement, for example. at the same time, i think we need to be unreleaptnting in defending our interests. this is where the difficulty between the u.s. and iran lies. far more divergent in strategies that are important too because we may share, for example a view that isis is bad for the region, but the way that iran goes about dealing with the problem is itself difficult to american interests, and we see this playing out in takrit.

it's important and we're not right there for a breakthrough because we have not seen the broader shifts by iran that we looked for for so long. the agreement if we get it will be very narrow and technical. it's not going to deliver the kind of monitor shift we've song talk about. whether iran wants that is in question. the supreme leader has not moderated his language about the united states. we're still accused daily of having created isis just yesterday iranian leader said isis is american proteges. i'm uncomfortable with the undertone that democracy is a diplomatic liability. it's not. it's one of the, you know, tremendous sources of strength dip matly in the world and of soft power and it's true as an american leader you can't simply you know make your own policy and force ahead. you have to have people behind

you. you have to have con stitch went sis behind you. a danger here, of course, is that the president has to make sure he has people behind him, public opinion behind him, and what you see is i think americans want to see negotiated agreements. polls are clear about that but also very uncomfortable with the broader set of issues, suspicious about whether the agreement is successful in delivering, and so there's also -- in a democracy, you know, you have to deliver a deal which has buy-in of your own people, and you have to deliver a deal which is therefore sustainable over the course of election cycles, and we just can't see that as a bad thing, but see it as a source of strength for the country. >> howard? >> i wonder if at least in assumeing there's a deal from our american perspective a good deal, and does not get disapproved by the congress, i think there's potential for

going in the other direction because it's not just evangelicals zionists, i mean, there is concern about deals but there's concerns in the gulf, israel and my own sense a little bit of the message i heard when the president announced what he was going to -- the frame work agreement and strange announcement, he announced one thing, and the e.u. and iranians announced another thing but he made a point of emphasizing the efforts both with israel and with our traditional era of allies to demonstrate that we are going to be there for them in many ways, and yesterday morning's "new

york times" had an article about the weaponry we are sending to our traditional alilyiesallies, saudi, uae, and qatar. nothing traditional there, but mutual defense agreements, things to deal belief that iran has hedge interests, and willingness to stand with allies in the region. to what extent does that -- i guess what i'm saying is i think there's going to be an embassy in havana before tehran. [ laughter ] >> let me go to the audience if we can and you'll have a chance to jump in. >> two final comments from you and jim and then the audience.

i was overruled by my panel. [ laughter ] >> we already had negotiations with iran on many other issues other than nuclear. my question is which negotiation? can you please tell me that on what the outcome? i think you just invited iran and world just behind it seems not officially and when i was in parliament to talk about the afghanistan issue you had. completely krorpted with the united states, but right after this, president bush mentioned, you know, had this very faye mougs statement saying that iran is one of the three countries, ax axis of evil so it damaged. so when other than this time did you have association negotiations? when did you -- i mean the u.s. -- recognize iran as a partner, as a stake holder? iran is a regional power. there's no doubt, i think you

agree with me. >> one thing i do -- >> you didn't invite even about syria, you one time, united nations had in geneva meeting and ban ki moon invited iran after that because of the pressure of the united states, they cancelled the invitation. so what is behind us is you have other cooperation recently about isis, iran already cooperated about this, but you didn't have coordination or officially saying that iran is at least one stake holder in the region and invite them and respect them talk to them like now, you are talking with iran almost two years about just nuclear. you didn't have the opportunity we didn't have the opportunity to invite and recognize iran as a partner not as an enemy.

i think you should answer this question. >> quick copy, and then i'll answer. >> coming back to something howard mentioned which is very important, and that is that i know that our sunni allies are fearful, and they see it as them losing influence, iran gaining influence influence, and i think israel has similar concerns, and you're spot on in the need for us to make sure that our sunni allies and israel understand that just because we have improved relationship between the united states and iran does not in any way diminish our obligations to the defense of israel and to our historic commitments to the sunni friends and allies in the region, and i think there needs to be tremendous diplomatic efforts made to reaffirm those historic obligations and commitments. >> we'll go to questions. i need to say one thing.

what seems to be lost in history is there was an agreement with iran on the nuclear issue in 2003 and 2004 between the e.u. 3, britain, u.k., france germany, and iran and it involved the suspension of enrichment and a negotiation to eliminate that program. that agreement broke down in the implementation heavily because of the election of ahmadinejad as president in iran in spring of 2005 on a very different agenda, and he walked away from that agreement and restarted the nuclear program. i raised that because implementation of the agreements are very difficult and requires commitment on both sides, which is why it is so important that if there is an agreement there's support in the congress of the united states and support of the

american people so there can be sustained implementation of the agreement. we've seen in the agreement in 1994 and 2003-2004 agreement with iran and the e.u. 3 that you can lose agreements if you can want have a sustained successful implementation. questions from the audience? start right here. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac