iran's nuclear program, which began in 1957 with the assistance of the eisenhower administration as part of an atoms for peace" initiative. mr. kennedy: good morning. this is an amazing crowd. we have already had to turn away a good 50 people or more. i am dane kennedy, director of the national history center. i want to welcome you to this briefing on the history of u.s.-iranian relations. this is part of an ongoing series that the national history center provides to bring historical perspectives to current issues that are confronting congress and the nation. the purpose of the program is not to provide or advocate for any particular political position. it is nonpartisan, it is intended to inform policymakers and the public about the issues they are dealing with.

i want to give a few thanks, first to the mellon foundation for providing funding that makes these briefings possible. i also want to thank our assistant, jeffrey, for helping o make the arrangements. i want to thank the office of gerry connolly, which booked the room, and i want to remind or explain why there are index cards on your seats and why i passed index cards around. what we will do after presentations by the speakers is we will get questions, and we would like you to write those questions on the index cards, rather than ask them in front of the audience.

so, keep your index cards ready, and jot down questions when they come to mind. so, now, i will turn this over to matthew to offer introductions. matthew: thank you, dane, and jeff, and everybody who helped arrange this event. everyone out there supports the national history center and all the other professional organizations and networks that help historians thrive. and thank you for coming to the event. we will have to get you information about professional organizations like schaefer, the society for historians of american foreign relations. so that rooms are full every june when that organization meets. but what we are talking about today is the history of

u.s.-iran relations. that is our theme. in this binational relationship, as with most, history is a matter of perspective how one defines it. to some, we need to understand why thomas jefferson had books about cyrus the great in his library. to others, we might need to study the arrival of american missionaries in iran in the 1830's and the work they continued through the mid 20th century. some would contend this early history was displaced by the official u.s. presence in iran, which arguably began during the second world war and came in the form of tens of thousands of troops. others would point to dates like 1953, when an anglo american coup overthrew a democratically elected government in iran at the height of the cold war. still, others are interested in the more contemporary past that began in 1979. it was in that year that the near 40-year rule of the u.s.

ally, the shaw, came to an end. the monarchy was replaced with the islamic republic of iran, which marked its 40th anniversary of the revolution in february. so, we had the deep past, the cold war, and the post-1979 era. regardless of what one studies, it is an exciting time to study the history of u.s.-iran relations. not because of daily headlines the profession. today, we have a range of methodologies that can help us better understand the past. despite methodological differences, so-called traditional diplomatic and military historians regularly work alongside scholars. in this rich interpretive landscape, the annals of history continue to unfold through declassification of documents or through reinterpretation of old documents through lenses of race, culture, gender and

emotion to name just a few. in addition to these historical subfields, other disciplines help drive the conversation. if one comes from the iranian studies or middle east studies background, these are inherently interdisciplinary areas of inquiry. one could borrow from other disciplines besides history, . political science, for instance, is always helping to move the conversation forward. that brings me to the introduction. we have two speakers today. one is a professor in the department of political silence science at tulane university. i will not read his bio to you here, but many of us have read his book, "u.s. foreign policy and the shah," published in 1991 in addition to his articles. john is our second presenter, he is the associate director of the middle east center at the university of pennsylvania.

he also has a very long list of publications, but i would alert you to one that is forthcoming titled "iran and america: a history," and you will be able in a year or so when it is published. with that, i will turn the floor over to the professor. >> thank you, matt, and dane and the national history center for inviting me. i am going to give a sketch of u.s. policy toward iran since the revolution 40 years ago. the u.s. has shifted a lot, and sort of cycled back and forth between different approaches toward iran. to simplify things, i would say that u.s. policy toward iran has

sort of cycled through three main postures toward iran in the 40 years since the revolution. first, a posture of engagement in which the u.s. uses primarily diplomacy toward iran and third parties to try to reach a comprehensive settlement of outstanding differences with iran, rather than just narrow issues, and also engagement usually is aimed at bringing about some kind of domestic change in iran, although certainly peacefully, mainly encouraging moderates. a very good model for engagement is the u.s.-china rapprochement in the 1970's, when the u.s. and china went from being extremely hostile toward each other to a much more cooperative relationship. so, engagement is one posture the u.s. has taken from time to time.

secondly, coercion, where the u.s. also is trying to bring about big, comprehensive change in iran's behavior, but in a much more hostile way, using economic sanctions, military action of various kinds, various levels, to try to intimidate iran into backing down across the board, or what their preference usually is, using these kinds of hostile measures to carry out regime change in iran, to try to bring down the islamic regime or at least change it very substantially. thirdly, containment. repeatedly, the u.s. has sort of returned to a posture of containment toward iran, where we try to limit iran's objectionable behavior, but without any great hope of achieving a big change. sometimes in periods of

containment, the u.s. and iran have made rather limited, transactional agreements that are mutually beneficial. but containment is mainly aimed at just that, containing iranian influence, much like u.s. particularly spread, its geographic much like u.s. containment efforts toward the soviet union throughout the cold war. i'm going to briefly sketch through what i would call 10 distinct periods in u.s. policy toward iran since the revolution. the early ones i am going to skip through quickly because they are not so important for today. there is a lot written about this, john's forthcoming book which probably will be very good. another i would recommend came out five or six years ago by david crist called "the twilight

war," which i think you will find quite fascinating. so, 10 periods in u.s. policy toward iran. first of all, the first 10 years after the revolution, 1979 until about 1989, the u.s. bounced back and forth between different approaches. the carter administration, before the u.s. hostages were taken in november 1979, the u.s. embassy in tehran was seized by iranian radicals. before then, the carter administration tried to encourage moderates and tried to swing the iranian revolution in a moderate direction. of course, this did not work. they did, to some extent, continue this after the hostages were taken, but very quickly the carter administration was consumed with trying to get the hostages released, and iran was in a process of rapid

radicalization. it made impossible any efforts by the u.s. to achieve change with iran. so, the carter administration was a time of engagement. this was entirely frustrated by growing radicalization in iran. the second time period was during the reagan administration, and you might think that this was a time of hostility and coercion toward iran. there was a certain amount of hostility. but, this was not really a phase of coercion. i would score this as a phase of containment toward iran. surprisingly, given there were major clashes between the u.s. and iran, especially in lebanon, in the early 1980's, iran was backing groups that were precursors to hezbollah, and they did a lot of nasty things, killed several hundred americans in various terrorist attacks in

the 1980's. took 15 civilians and government personnel hostage, some were tortured to death. there was a lot of severe hostility and attacks by iran toward the u.s. despite that, the reagan administration was really restrained and did not retaliate for most of this stuff. so, the early reagan period i would score as containment, and relatively effective in this regard. iran rapidly became isolated in the early 1980's. the second reagan period is the period of the iran contra affair, a fascinating detail but ancient history. 1985-1986 the reagan administration tried, number one, to get the hostages in lebanon released, but also the iran-contra affair was aimed at

number two, trying to initiate rapprochement with iran that hopefully would snowball and lead to comprehensive change and moderation on the part of the iranians. this, of course, didn't work. once again, radicals in iran torpedoed this initiative. i would score iran-contra as an effort toward engagement but it did not work, just like the carter efforts. after iran-contra in the last two years of the reagan administration, this was a time of reversion to containment. there was a lot of tension between the u.s. and iran at this time, military clashes in the persian gulf in the last couple of years of the iran-iraq war and various other tensions, not really coercion, but certainly far from engagement. so, the first 10 years, cycling back and forth between engagement and coercion,

engagement and containment, nothing working very well. the first bush administration, coming into office in early 1989, at least initially gave the look of pursuing rapprochement with iran, but it never really got anywhere. a famous phrase in the bush inaugural speech in 1989 was, "goodwill begets goodwill." in other words, if iran shows goodwill to the u.s., mainly getting their friends in lebanon to release the remaining american hostages in lebanon, if iran shows goodwill, we will reciprocate. one problem was it took three years for the remaining hostages in lebanon to be released, it was not until december 1991 they were released, by which time things had changed quite a bit. and secondly, u.s. priorities shifted rapidly after the desert storm war, the madrid peace process began, the first bush

administration was invested in that, pushed it hard, iran was very much an opponent and that soured prospects for better relations. so, i would score the first bush administration as a period of containment, even though there was talk about engaging, pursuing engagement, but that never got off the ground. the early clinton period largely continued this. the clinton administration was pursuing many of the same goals as the bush administration the -- in the middle east, especially the israeli-palestinian peace process, which morphed into the oslo process under clinton. also in the early clinton years, iran was carrying out a lot of terrorist attacks, especially in europe, but also elsewhere, assassinating iranian exiles and

also a couple of attacks in argentina and elsewhere. so, this is a time in which iran was really being rather schizophrenic, on one hand being open to the united states in terms of talking points, but on the other hand, carrying out nasty attacks. all of this culminated in the hobart towers bombing of 1986, backed by iran but not carried out by iran, in which 19 u.s. air force personnel were killed in a dramatic terrorist attack. there was strong suspicion immediately that iran was behind this, but the clinton administration did not get concrete proof for quite some time. the clinton administration chose to wait until they had strong evidence. by the time they had strong evidence, things had changed a lot in iran, so the clinton administration never retaliated with military force, though they retaliated with a fascinating covert operation called

operation sapphire. you can look it up on the internet and read about it. it is pretty interesting. all this changed very much, the beginning of the more important period of today in u.s.-iran relations comes in may of 1997 when a stunning election outcome emerges in iran. a very moderate figure was elected president of iran. he very quickly began making very pronounced overtures towards the united states, and the clinton administration quickly realized there was an important change foot here and began to reciprocate. beginning around 1998, the clinton administration began pursuing engagement with iran, trying to strengthen the president, trying to take advantage of the change that had occurred in iran and see if they could make something of it.

unfortunately, nothing really came of it, certainly not in the clinton term, but it was a tantalizing period and one of several periods of engagement the u.s. has pursued. the george w. bush administration sort of inherited this from clinton. and in some ways, conditions were more fruitful, having to do with what was going on internally in iran in 2001, the beginning of the george w. bush administration. the bush administration and this -- in this period never formulated its iran policy and had conflicting views. real hardliners wanted to be tough on iran, but soft line people wanted to continue obama's approach of engagement. but, once 9/11 came along, that

changed everything. for a few months after 9/11, iran was extremely helpful to the u.s., especially in afghanistan. they very much facilitated the u.s. effort to overthrow the taliban in afghanistan and wipe out al qaeda training camps there, and then iran was very helpful in setting up the new post-taliban government headed by karzai, and the bush administration took advantage of this goodwill but certainly did not reciprocate. pretty quickly, the bush administration after 9/11 began to reveal its new approach toward iran and the middle east in general. broadly speaking, this was phrased at the time as the global war on terrorism. the main focus was al qaeda, but also pretty quickly iraq was brought into this as a supporter of terrorism, and iran as well.

so, in early 2002, bush made a speech, i think it was the state of the union, calling iran part of an axis of evil. this began a period of strong hostility by the united states toward iran, basically a period of coercion which continued to the remainder of the bush administration. soon, the u.s.ty invaded iraq in 2003. gradually in iraq, tensions heated up between the u.s. and iran, with the u.s. apparently supporting various ethnic guerrilla forces carrying out terrorist attacks inside iran, and iran backing shiite militias in iraq that carried out many, many attacks against u.s. forces. so, you could say there was really a sort of low-level, secret war playing out in iran, at least in

the last few years of the george w. bush administration, with hundreds killed on both sides, hundreds of american military personnel killed with iranian fingerprints on the weapons, and hundreds of iranians killed in terrorist attacks that seemed to have been backed by the united states, although this is kind of murky. so, certainly, the last seven years or so of the bush administration were a period of coercion and really the model of coercion that is out there today. finally, that brings us to the obama administration. with the failure of the bush administration to achieve much from its coercive efforts, obama came into office wanting to pursue a different approach, wanting to pursue engagement. he made a series of speeches, particularly in his first year, 2009, calling for better relations with iran, and tried very hard. but the iranians did not

reciprocate in that period. and so gradually, the u.s. began further ratcheting up economic sanctions begun under bush. and obama ratcheted them up quite substantially, and iran really started to scream, the economy really went into a tailspin. in about 2013, the obama administration launched an initiative toward iran, initially a secret initiative, to negotiate an end to iran's nuclear program or at least a scaling back, and john will talk about that in a minute. this led to the jcpoa nuclear agreement of 2015. the obama people hoped this would lead further to a broader rapprochement, and this was certainly a broad engagement effort, but nothing came of that. iran did certainly agree to limit its nuclear program and has been abiding by that agreement until recently, but nothing further came of it. so, in this sense, obama's

engagement initiative, if the goal was broader rapprochement with iran, was very much a failure. that brings us to the trump administration. i would say the trump administration has not fully revealed its intentions toward iran, but clearly the u.s. has been quite hostile toward iran, but i would say it is not out of the question that president trump might decide to do with iran what he has been doing with north korea, which has been pretty bizarre, but it is not out of the question he might try that with iran, but he has hinted at that. so, it is too early to say what the trump approach is. what conclusions can we draw from this cycling back and forth among three postures toward iran? the main conclusion is that nothing has worked well with iran. iran doesn't respond either to friendship or hostility from the united states. engagement, there have been four

major efforts at engagement, carter, reagan, clinton, obama, none of them produced anything other than small agreements here and there, mainly because radical forces inside iran continue to torpedo these efforts, and they are still there now, maybe stronger than they have been in recent years, so engagement has not been successful so far, and i think its prospects now are limited. secondly, coercion. the main u.s. effort at coercion was the george w. bush administration. as i explained a minute ago, this got nowhere and was quite harmful to the u.s. hundreds of u.s. personnel killed with iranian fingerprints and not a stopping to the iranian nuclear program, so coercion also has not worked in the past. this brings us to containment. i would say containment also has

not worked well toward iran, although maybe better than engagement or coercion. iran has expanded its presence over the years in places like lebanon, iraq, syria, yemen to some extent, elsewhere, among the palestinians, but on the other hand, iran is pretty isolated in the middle east. the only government that is very friendly with iran is syria, and that is just a shadow of a government. iran has a few friends here and there like hezbollah, but it is really very isolated. so, containment has had some successes, and there have been small, specific transactional agreements reached in various containment initiatives that we have seen, most importantly the jcpoa of 2015. so, i think containment is the only thing we can hope for for the foreseeable future. i don't think conditions are right either for engagement or

coercion toward iran. and the fundamental problem remains internal political forces inside iran. radical forces remain strong, especially the supreme leader, the keyverwhelmingly powerful figure in iran. he is deeply anti-american, always has been, always will be. the one ray of light, the one piece of good news i could mention is that he is now 80 years old. he is ailing, has prostate cancer. he has lasted a long time. he has been in office about 30 years now, but one of these days he will exit the scene, may be in five years, something like that. that might possibly conceivably bring about change in iran, as the death of stalin did and the death of mao did in the soviet union and china. the u.s. should be prepared for

this possibility. but, there is no guarantee that a new era would be any better, so probably containment for the foreseeable future is the best we can hope for, sadly to say. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. a very big thank you to dane and jeff and the center for inviting me, and thank you to matt and margaret. it is a great honor to share the stage with distinguished historians. and it is exciting to see so many people here with the overflow room. i will try to be as boring as i can so people will leave and we can create more seats. [laughter] someone give john limburg

a seat? a former hostage at the embassy in tehran, i think the man deserves a seat. maybe someone can give him a seat. i think that is important. i will try to be as brief as i can. as mark says, i am going to address the nuclear issue, something we have been talking about for a long time. and i am going to take an unusual approach that you may disagree with, and i am happy to talk this through in the q&a. as a historian, i have been working for a number of years on this book, a history of u.s.-iran relations, and people want to know what you think. i remember a few years ago when the jcpoa was being negotiated, people would say, you are working on a history of u.s.-iran relations, what do you think of the nuclear deal? is it a good deal, bad deal? and i would surprise people by saying it is self-evidently a good deal. i think anyone who looks at it

closely would say that. but i actually think that is irrelevant. it is not really the real issue. this entire nuclear crisis has been ginned up for so many years. it is largely a distraction, and it is difficult to engage with in isolation from the larger issue of u.s.-iran relations. that is something people are surprised to hear. it is such an urgent crisis and so on. i'm not sure i agree. if you look at history you understand, if you look at the history of the iranian nuclear program, you understand why i would make that argument. my broader claim is in the absence of trust, in the absence of a constructive conversation or channel of diplomacy, genuine diplomacy, between the u.s. and iran, there's not much point in talking about isotopes, fuel

rods, enrichment, and so on. when we were talking about it, i think we have seen that proven to be the case in the last couple of years. we have seen how quickly things can unravel when there is not a larger atmosphere. that nuclear deal was negotiated with great time and energy. in the end, it disappeared in a different political climate. that's what we have to address. mark laid out some of the broader outlines. i will talk about the history of the iranian nuclear program. hopefully i get us up to the current moment we are in so we can understand better why this may not be important as we think it is. the take away message is it is not really about the nuclear program. it's not really about that.

let's start at the beginning. how many people actually know when the iranian nuclear program began? raise your hand. one. the nuclear program begins in 1957/1958. it begins with cooperation from the united states. it is the eisenhower administration that had its flagship atoms for peace program. this was an attempt after the horrors of hiroshima and nagasaki to prove that nuclear power can be used for positive purposes. the idea was the u.s. would cooperate with developing countries to develop peaceful

nuclear energy for their civilian purposes. so the u.s. gave iran its first batch of enriched uranium, about six kilograms of leu. in the late 1960's, they helped iran to build tehran's research reactor. this was to create radioisotopes for medical purposes. this continued through the 60's and 70's. it wasn't just democrats, some of the most vigorous advocates of the nuclear program were people like henry kissinger, donald rumsfeld, and dick cheney in the ford administration. mid-1970's. if you look at some of the documents, you will see how vigorous they pushed this. they felt it was critical for iran. you often hear the talking points from opponents of iran.

why does iran need nuclear power? no one can take seriously the idea that they would need nuclear power. it was an oil-rich nation. the u.s. actually felt that iran needed nuclear power. a basic reason was if you're a developing country that has a lot of oil, it does not make a lot of sense to build very expensive refineries to use the oil for domestic power purposes. it is kind of a waste of time and money. if you have huge amounts of oil, you are better off selling it on the international market using the money to develop a much more sustainable energy program that will last many years after the oil has run out. that's what all the studies in the 1970's, that was the case they made. the u.s. government-funded studies in the 1990's and 2000 made the same claims.

that have not changed for iran. the fact that it is an oil-rich country does not mean it doesn't need nuclear power. there always has been a genuine need for nuclear power. as you know, nuclear technology is a dual use technology. it can be used for medical research, radioactivity, energy production, and also, building nuclear weapons. that's were the concern comes from. in the 1970's, this was not much of a concern. henry kissinger said famously "i don't think the issue of proliferation really ever came up." the fact was we trusted this shah, this close american ally enough that we believed whatever he said when it came to nuclear program. it doesn't mean we gave him a cut, there were limits on how much nuclear cooperation the u.s. was prepared to undertake with iran. it wasn't the same atmosphere of distrust that exists today. 1979, revolution breaks out.

iran's nuclear program is completely abandoned. not because the u.s. put this huge amount of pressure on iran, to abandon their nuclear program, but because iran chose to abandon its nuclear program after 1979. the ayatollah who came to power felt nuclear program was yet another example of the shah's excessive fascination with shiny western objects and technology, things that were not islamic, that were not authentic to an islamic republic, and that it should be abandoned. this is not just the idea of nuclear weapons, this was the nuclear program completely. the ayatollah said weapons of destruction were a sin against islam. he cited a lot of quaranic text against these kinds of weapons of mass destruction. he said even the peaceful nuclear research that was going on, the energy production, all of that was new western technology that iran could do

without. he mothballed the entire program. when khomeini died in 1989, a new, more moderate, and somewhat more pragmatic group of people came to power. they felt iran could not afford to be quite so complacent about either its energy needs, medical needs, but also, security needs. the feeling was it is not islamic to build a bomb, but is it islamic to do some research? to maybe build some centrifuges? perhaps enrich uranium? there is nothing against that? it was also a concern about saddam hussein. this is what is often missed in american conversations about the iranian nuclear program. we have conversations about what the u.s. can do to get iran to do what we want. we often forget iran, despite the rhetoric and the heated

nature of the u.s.-iran relations, iran is often less concerned with what the u.s. is saying or doing than what its immediate neighbors are doing. in the 1990's, western intelligence, global intelligence was convinced saddam hussein was pursuing weapons of mass destruction. you all know about that. it led up to the 2003 war. it wasn't just the u.s. that was concerned. who would be more concerned about that than iraq's neighbor? the neighbor who just fought a devastating eight-year war with saddam hussein. no one was more concerned about saddam's ambitions when it came to wmd's than iran. iran had a moral conflict in the 1990's to continue to maintain the islamic -- stricter against research and development of a nuclear program, or do we say,

we are not going to build a bomb but get as close as they can? build the technology that might make saddam hussein think twice before developing a nuclear weapon or unleashing it. that was the calculation they made. iran's nuclear program in the 1990's was brought out of the mothballs and reinvigorated. it was largely rudimentary. the possible military dimensions of that program in the 1990's has been something an conclusive, and one of the major issues. to what degree was it just research and development and basic first generation centrifuges? to what extent was it more? it is an open question. one of the most interesting things about what happened in the 1990's is how was iran going to build a nuclear program? it was easy in the 1970's, pick up the phone to washington and you got the help he needed. how will iran do that in the

1990's? it is trying to reinvigorate the program it abandoned. this is where we step back to history, but you have to look at the larger global infrastructure of nonproliferation. the whole issue that we danced around, in terms of the legal infrastructure behind this, was the 1968 nonproliferation treaty, the npt. for those of you who are not familiar with it, it is the part of the global initiative to try and avoid nuclear catastrophe. the idea behind the npt was to get as many countries as him possible to sign it. in there were three basic principles behind it, disarmament, and nonproliferation, and cooperation. the basic gist, you have five

countries in 1968 with nuclear weapons; u.s., soviet union, great britain, france, and china. the idea is you don't want more countries to get nuclear weapons. the three basic principles, the five countries that have weapons agree to a gradual process of disarmament, reducing their stockpiles. that process is still ongoing and has not fully been accomplished. there's nonproliferation. the countries that don't have the bomb will promise not to have it. if you are a country without nuclear weapons in the late 1960's, how will you respond? that doesn't seem very fair. that's where the third principle comes in, the cooperation. that's what is often forgotten about. this is the glue that bound it together. this is the nuclear haves saying to the have-nots, you will have to stay have-nots, but we will cooperate with you, we will give you all of the help you need to

build a peaceful civilian nuclear program that you are not being held back scientifically or in any other way. those are the three basic principles. if you are astute, you will realize that the key is it only works if everyone signs up to it. if you are a country, if your neighbor has not signed up, why would you? let them build a bomb while you don't? from the very beginning, getting countries to sign up was the most important part. a lot of countries that didn't have nuclear weapons were very resistant to it. not so much the small countries, it's interesting -- there was an interview a few years ago with the shah's nuclear chief.

he said they never should have signed it. iran was one of the very first signatures in 1968. it signed the document the day it opened for signatures. none of the major countries signed it. countries that mostly signed it were fiji, nicaragua, clearly countries that were never going to build a bomb. the midrange countries, argentina, they stayed out. they said they are going to build the technology and then sign it. that's exactly what they did. by the 1990's, almost every country in the world had signed it. a couple dozen of them had only done it after they first developed the technology. iran did not do that. by the late 1990's, you have three countries refusing to sign it; india, pakistan, and israel. all three of those countries had refused to join the npt, not

just so they can develop the technology, but to build actual bombs. india and pakistan got the nuclear weapons in 1998. israel has always been vague. sometime in the 1960's or 1970's. today, they have 200 warheads. this is the point of the iranian s would often make -- we're running out of time. this was the situation iran found itself in the 1990's. they want to restart the program, but how will they do that? we are members of the npt, so cooperation is part of that. they were not able to get much cooperation. every time they went out to get uranium or something from argentina, russia, the u.s. put pressure on those countries not to cooperate with iran. iran was not happy about this. they said it is a violation of the npt, but no one listened.

what are they going to do? they started to have to go to more illicit channels to get what they felt was the rights under the npt. what happens if you are iran in the 1990's and you go to more illicit channels to build your nuclear program? it is going to immediately increase the suspicion that the u.s. and other enemies have of what you are doing. if you work within the npt, everything works great. you get the cooperation you want. one of the key provisions is you get inspections from the iea. and if they think you're doing something suspicious, the cooperation ends. i think that's where the dispute in began. it became an almost self-fulfilling prophecy. i guess we're out of time. maybe i will stop. that's where we ended up in the 2000 when the dispute became much more front page news. i want to leave a lot of time for q&a. i wanted to talk about the 2000 and how we got here, but that's the deep history of the iranian nuclear program.

you don't have to sympathize with the iranian or be a big fan of their government, but you should understand historically how we got here. it is not perhaps as simple as some of the headlines suggest. thank you very much. [applause] >> at this point, if you want to take one minute and write down a question on the card that was on your seat when you sat down, we can proceed to collect them and i will ask questions that appear on those cards. if your question does not get asked, you can stay after and we can talk a little bit. i actually have one question i would like to ask while you consider your questions, so if you can keep the room quiet. it is one question directed towards both of our panelists. it deals with the joint

comprehensive plan of action, the jcpoa, the iran nuclear deal. my question is this. john, you made the statement that without trust, there is no reason to talk about centrifuges and other aspects of nuclear technology. so my question is this. does iran's nuclear program, which as you demonstrate, has been around for many decades, provide a vehicle for the u.s. and iran to have discussions? is it a vehicle for engagement and an issue that can be discussed in ways that -- domestic issues in iran or regional proxies cannot? and then my question would be to mark, how do you respond, is the nuclear issue a genuine path to engagement that provides each side with acceptable risks and leverage to meet a broader agreement, or are there in equities, as john makes clear in

the international system that makes such efforts difficult to pursue? is the nuclear deal a legitimate path to engagement, or is it something that obstructs the dialogue we may want to see down the road between the countries? >> that was exactly obama's philosophy. i think he came to power believing he wanted a much more broad agreement with iran, he felt it was time to rewrite the map of u.s. alliances in the middle east. i do not think initially he was interested in the nuclear issue, but because it was the hot issue, he saw it as a way in to a broader conversation. i think immediately, we saw how quickly it fell. by focusing on the nuclear issue, it allowed those opposed

to the idea of the relations, in particular, those days, israel, to basically make a lot of noise around the nuclear issue and encourage ways for the u.s. to get more bogged down in some of the specifics of the nuclear negotiations. we saw how that went. eventually, obama got his deal. in a way, the opponent sort of ran out the clock on him. he got the deal within about one year at the end of his second term. there wasn't much energy or time left for serious agreements. >> i would add that on the iranian side, there was no following up on the jcpoa these past four years. what's been happening in the last year or so, the water is much more muddy than it was back

then. >> we have some great questions coming in. please keep them coming. one question deals with the united kingdom, its position in the middle east, current rising tensions between iran and the world. i think the core of this question, or what it speaks to is the nature of american allies. are there historical insights that we can claim to help us understand how the united states can manage its allies allies that may not have the same interests but otherwise that the u.s. deals with? how do american allies figure into the relationship historically or today? >> i don't think u.s. allies have been important players

toward iran in these big, diplomatic issues we have been talking about for 60 years since the british bowed out in the 1950's. the europeans, both individual countries and collectively as the eu, have engaged in negotiations with iran, they are pursuing a different path today, but it is not amounting to a lot. i don't see them being able to make some type of agreement without the u.s. i don't think they have the desire. i'm not sure they have the power capabilities to do so. i think it is really an american show. >> it depends on which allies you are talking about. since the u.k. was brought up, for at least 15 years, i have and been saying despite all of the rhetoric, i have never felt

there was much likelihood of a u.s. war with iran, but for the first time, i'm concerned about the possibility of a british war with iran for a number of reasons. the ship taken in gibraltar, apparently the spanish were given the same intelligence and said they would not act on it. it is a violation of u.s. sanctions. the british took the bait. they impounded the ship. i do worry with boris johnson in power, with brexit looming, the u.k. is much more isolated, it has been needing allies. the u.s. is an obvious ally. i think you can expect the u.k. to grow much closer to the u.s. position. boris johnson is motivated by instincts and sees himself as the type of leader. what better way to unify the country than bringing out the gunboats? or in churchill's phrase, the splatter of musketry? unifying them.

that's something i worry about with the general brexit atmosphere. in >> we will move from allies to advisors. how do you feel about john bolton's influence on the trump administration? my question would be about the relationship between presidents and their advisors. in history, we are reading about not just national security advisers, but iran desk officers, persons on the national security council and the way folks in the mid-level bureaucracy influence policies. is there anything you can tell us about the relationship between presidents and advisors and the formulation of iran policy? you can address john bolton and mike pompeo today or perhaps a historical moment that speaks to this question. >> i could say a lot of things.

we both spent a lot of time looking at mid-level advisors. i think the role of someone like dennis ross is critical. it is interesting to look at. i will answer about bolton and pompeo. i actually think that despite the so-called warmongering instinct of someone like bolton, the goal is not war, and it is not to bring about regime change. this is pure speculation. i think they genuinely believe that if they put enough pressure on iran, that they will somehow come to the negotiating table. i actually believe their goal is to talk and negotiate with them.

i don't know if they wanted to talk about a more broad deal so they can say they did a better deal. in a way, i like that approach. i always thought the u.s. should take a much broader approach to its iran diplomacy. before i get quoted as saying i like the bolton-pompeo approach, i like that they are looking at a much broader range of issues. however, i think they will find themselves disappointed if they actually believe iran is going to capitulate on every single issue in the way that they presented it, giving the u.s. this sweeping victory like the u.s. had with the cold war and so on. that's not going to happen. i think that's what we are going to find out. >> historical counterpoint i would add, i think of the kennedy period. there's a lot of literature on how the administration pressured or did not pressure the shah of iran.

kennedy is very important. in the words of that, people like robert comber figures a 1961 and 1962 that they are driving the policy conversation about iran before the issue reaches the desk of the president for executive action or the drafting of a new national security memorandum. the question we can see parallels in the past with the situation. >> i'm reminded of the moments, the 2003 grand bargain shot down by cheney and rumsfeld, and make sure it never reached the desk of the president. a lot of people disagree about what exactly was involved. iran supposedly proposed a sweeping negotiation of broad negotiations with the u.s. and the response, colin powell was hoping there would be a serious hearing.

instead, the response was they don't talk to evil. >> with regard to iran and what they might want, or why they would not enter into negotiations with the u.s., important context is iran's rights within the international system and under the regime. this often gets lost in conversations that happened quickly and are covered in brief news stories. what rights does iran have within the international system, within the context of international law as they are dealing with the rest of the world? what recourse do they have in these feelings? >> they certainly have a right to develop the civilian nuclear program and a right to free trade and things of that sort. the trump administration doesn't seem to care much about that,

nor have previous administrations. i think this is much more about exercising power. the key issue is whether the economy will withstand the sanctions or not. the jury is still out on that. we will know within one year. iran's economy may be screaming. that may trigger domestic unrest. it is hard to say. that's the key instrument the u.s. is wielding, the sanctions. a key part is whether the europeans will go along with more work cross purposes to the u.s. sanctions. secondly, were there other players, especially china, but also the russians, maybe east asians, that will violate the spirit of the u.s. sanctions. that's the key set of issues, how the economics will play out. it is too early to say. rights? who cares about rights anymore? not the trump administration, that's for sure.

>> how about the history that you discussed taking us through 10 stages? we have a specific question about the iran-iraq war and the impact on the u.s.-iran relations. you made a comment that some of the development of the 1980's were ancient history. how do we make sense of an event like the war that has such a lasting impact on iranians, everything they experienced in the 1980's and that war? how do we consider these historical hangups between the u.s. and iran, or major conflicts that result in death, loss of life, transformation of society? how do they affect conversations today, or do they? >> iran was severely traumatized by the war. probably not one family in iran that didn't lose somebody or at least had somebody wounded. i have known so many people who

cough from poison gas or had limbs amputated. certainly loved ones lost. it remains a big factor inside iran. above all, the impact of the war is to make iranians very careful about their security. as john mentioned, this is a major impetus for reviving the nuclear program in the 1990's, they could use a nuclear weapon to deter and iraqi attack. these are the concerns they had in the 90's. iraq is no longer hostile toward iran. there is a friendly regime we put in power. iran is happy with that. they're still very concerned about their military security.

we should not forget the u.s. participated in the war in some way, particularly in naval clashes. war as a reason to fear american power. they've taken measures to prepare themselves to retaliate against the united states. impact, as a big much as world war ii had on the united states. this is appointed as often lost in the debate in the u.s., whether you believe iran or not, there is something you need to take into consideration. of nuclearhe victims weapons attacks. this was the first major use of chemical weapons since the first

world war. you still have veterans walking around, dealing with the physical facts. country other than except maybe japan is more sensitive to the issue, the danger and the hardship and suffering brought about by weapons of mass distraction. this plays into the discussion about the nuclear program more than we appreciate. it would be difficult for them to gain major public support for the idea of using nuclear weapons. questionse of other came in. we have some good history students.

i want to acknowledge those questions they are asking. this is directed toward the professor. it could be fielded by any of us. possible that all of these approaches fail because the united states has switched between them so much. if thehey build trust , is it aed consistent question of strategic flaws, is it a question of strategic consistency? >> the most important set of obstacles is who is in power today.

hostility lot of deep toward the united states among the leaders. this is a good point. we have seenency, the trump administration abandoning not just the agreement, but the engagement approach of the obama administration. that undermines trust. how adversely that affects prospects, it is hard to say. iran has made some noise about wanted to have some discussions with the united states or renegotiate. think they are more pragmatic. these are just words. you can't tell how serious they are about it.

minuten't know from one to the next if the u.s. is going to do, especially when there are changes of administration. trump will lose the election in 2020. they are hoping they can hold out until then. you can't be sure who is going to replace them. the current immigrants are on board with going back to the obama approach. beyond that, who knows? they have a lot of distrust of the united states. it's valid. they are more stable than we are. they've got a dictatorship and that doesn't change much. that's the downside to democracy i suppose. >> that's an extremely astute question. out, the changes

in u.s. administration are relevant. sometimes within a single administration, there are changes. you mentioned goods -- bush senior. it's not to blame the united states. things changed during those three years. and his inaugural speech said it could well be gets good will. america keeps its word, whether it's a vow on marble steps. the implication was we will keep our promises. the calculus changed. fundamentally, iran did bend over backwards. it was not easy for them.

they went to lebanon and found it very difficult to convince the militias to release hostages. they got it done and they did not get rewarded for that. the stayed with them during 1990's. there was a lot of skepticism. can we really trust them. they thought they had seen nice words before. that was a reference to 1989. we have heard that for. what about action? finalhen it came to the stage of the negotiations, the supreme leader was skeptical, at said let's try this. he kind of said i'm not sure if this is going to work out. it's unfortunate.

i don't think it's the change of administration. the made it easy for hardliners. you don't have to agree with or the the republic to see engagement his often turned into a game of rope a dope. that's another way for the u.s. to get us to do what they want. the iranians have often said we will engage, but not if you're trying to use negotiations to dismantle theor republic or bring about regime change through the back door. that's a lot of what they see. part with marcus.

it's not always just changes of administration. sometimes it's a mentality that we often have. the goal should be to bring about the capitulation of the islamic republic. i don't know if that's a useful goal for us. not happen.y >> thank you all for the questions and the discussion. [applause] >> we would be happy to linger and chat. her haveay at conversations with anybody who would like to have them. >> today at 6:00, the 1863

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our past on american history tv, every weekend on c-span 3. students competed at national history day. 3000 students advanced to the finals in june. the theme was trying and tragedy. one of the presentations is a 10 minute performance. a junior level performance by three middle school students in waco texas. on the brainwashing of hitler's youth. >> this is the triumph and tragedy of the cutler youth. chitler youth. >>