the admitted judd -- ahmadinejad presidency. the government made several overtures to the u.s., was discredited by reason of the fact that the u.s. ignored those over chores. -- overtures. it was replaced by hard-line president. the relationship deteriorated significantly. there is a statement that elections have consequences. iranian elections are not free and fair. the iranians are not offered many choices. they are offered meaningful choices. one can almost never predict the outcome. nobody predicted ahmadinejad's selection -- election, including the most influential elements of the establishment, who were

quite surprised. the next election is shaping up to be a very interesting event, with various factions involved. there may be opportunities to change the nature of that relationship. it's probably not going to happen. it's certainly not going to happen unless we can successfully address the first reversing the iranian nuclear program to a point where they are more distant from gaining nuclear weapons capability, and can we have confidence that they will stay at that distance. >> thank you, jim. let me ask tom. you made an interesting statement. you said, it's time for the negotiating process. what makes you think that the

iranians are? what do you think will move them ? >> they have shown themselves willing to move from a process that had one inconsequential meeting per year, with the rest of the year devoted to negotiating about the next week, to of four meetings before the elections, and now two following. we do not and should not expect miraculous moves to rapid agreement. over a period of time, we are in -- engaged enough to believe that we have gone beyond the beginning of the beginning. we're not at the end of the beginning yet. but we are getting there. to some extent, this means that on the table are discreet questions for which there are discreet negotiating possibilities. the principal one that remains

dividing us is the extent of sanctions relief. my hope is that we have the wisdom, the good sense, and negotiating persistence to address that question very particularly and move on, as jim walsh says, to something that can show that the kind of outline that i put in my opening talk can be achieved. >> let me ask jim walsh. how much time do we have two pursue the negotiations in light of the installation and use of the new ir2m centrifuge? >> how much time do we have. the first way to answer that is to say where we are right now. i follow the leadership of the director of national intelligence and his repeated public testimony.

the way he describes it is that iran currently has a rudimentary nuclear capability. if you're determined, you can make a nuclear weapon. he goes onto say that that while there is nothing technical inhibiting that, they have not yet made a political decision to build the bomb. that is the crucial line. trying to understand why some countries that start, end up as nuclear weapons states, many states do not become nuclear weapons states. the d.n.i. has gone on to say that iran had a nuclear weapons program in the late 1990's. in 2003.gram was put to a halt-

there may be unstructured activities that continued. this is the space right now where diplomacy can map. looking forward -- you are absolutely right -- both sides have found a way in search of tactical clubs with which to beat the other side to gain leverage. the result is, we have gone down and down in terms of this relationship and in terms of the status of the program. there are two things on the horizon. one is advanced centrifuges. they have installed a number. it's not clear that they work. these are ir-2's that have been promised for many years. if they

do work, this will prove their efficiency with respect to enriching uranium. in about a year, 14 months, year and a half, the plutonium reactor could come online. that would represent which wou reprent patho producing. my own guess is that this business with the ir-2's is about trying to improve their leverage. we need to stop playing the tactical leverage game and have negotiation, or will find that these little levers become new obstacles. that is what the 20% was about. what are we concerned about as nonproliferation professionals? 20% did not exist as an issue because -- because.

cause people kick the ball down the field, were reluctant to take the political risk, to say yes when yes was a possibility, that is how we got to 20%. after our field negotiation in 2009, the run-in was that we would produce our own. that put us in a new world of difficulty and complexity. we need to stop creating new obstacles for ourselves. we need to be able to be serious about diplomacy, or by will face some of these problems you allude to. >> jim dobbins, you have been in some tough negotiations. jim walsh, as have gone down towards the bottom of a hole and we keep digging, how do you see the negotiations unfolding? had we get back up out of this whole? -- how do we get back up out of this hole? >> the answer is probably pretty

simple. we're going to have to sweeten the offer on sanctions relief. the administration is legitimately concerned but if it drops sanctions, and the irani ans don't follow through on their commitments, it will be hard to reimpose those sanctions. the answer is to suspend the sanctions, rather than drop them. >> all of them? >> whatever ones you choose to provide relief, you provided on the basis of suspension. the security council says, for the next six months, the sanctions shall not apply. at the end of that, they will be reapplied unless the security counsel agrees to extend that. the u.s. can unilaterally veto any effort to sustain the suspension. it automatically come back, and less iran satisfies -- unless

iran satisfies the u.s. government. that formula offers assurance that whatever gesture you make in terms of sanctions relief is easily reversible. >> may i offer a 15 second amendment? i think jim is right. fundamentally, we have to break the cycle of expectations. we have to do something that the iranians are not expecting, that gets them to say, we need to rethink this proposition. maybe the americans are serious. i encourage the iranians to do that. we need to take jim' sensibl detailed negotiating strategy. theres something else going on here. it's about history.

the psychology has to be broken in order to create a path that would allow us to implement some of these good ideas. >> the report makes very clear some of the steps that need to be taken to break the psychogy of confrontation mistrust. >> i'm going to go to the audience. please raise your hands. state your name and affiliation. make your questions short, directed to one of our panelists. we will be as efficient as we can to cover as much as we can. i see a hand over here. the microphone is to your right. >> i am barbara from the atlantic council. i want to congratulate you on your report. i'm going to play skeptic. ambassador pickering, what makes you think that president obama is going to want to take ownership on iran at this stage?

maybe this is for jim dobbins -- you talk about engaging on syria . did ministration has said it is not want to talk to iran about syria at all. you talk about a bilateral channel, naming chief negotiator. iran has refused to have a two- minute bilateral with wendy sherman at the p-5 plus one. >> obama ownership, the question is, do you want another war in the middle east. it is very clear that nobody does. president obama has made that clear. jim is right that whatever happens in syria, there will be an iranian quotient to how to deal with that. by laterals, it would not think the you need to appoint a new negotiator. negotiations can proceed in the

context of the p5 plus one. some months ago we started out with just a few bilaterals. i think it was china and maybe germany. now britain and france have been added. maybe there will come that magic day when mr. julie leung wendy sherman will do more than ask each other for talks -- he and wendy sherman will do more than ask each other for talks. >> information always improves policy. talking to the iranians about syria would be superior to not talking to them at all. i think we would have a better understanding of what we're about. there might be some

commonalities. generically, i'm opposed to the idea that once you withhold medication -- communication as a pressure devic >> we made it a practice to punish people we don't like by not according them the pleasure of talking with us. it is in a constant effort to shoot ourselves in both feet. >> another question. third row from the back. your name and affiliation? >> bruce, former hostage in tehran. i speak for that group, in a sense. at least one of my colleagues here. i can speak for all of them in saying that an incrementalism --

end incrementalism. [inaudible] the secretary of state spoke about the neil deal in -- new deal in pyongyang. if we can have a new deal with pyongyang, we can have direct discussions with tehran. i never failed to say it. among the hostages, i was the last to board the airplane leaving tehran to go to freedom. i said to that hostage taker at the time, i look forward to the day when your country and mine can have a multiple medic relationship. -- diplomatic relationship. there must be a way to talk directly. >> do you have a question? >> my question, let's start

talking. kazakhstan, we left them all lying there. until the elections in tehran take place in june, they will probably have nothing. that is my plea today, find a way to stop kicking the ball down the road. sit down and talk seriously, directly, at least at a level that has some consequence down the road. that is my plea. it's not a question. >> is there a question? in the back of the room. >> i'm nancy gallagher from the university of maryland. a week from monday, we will release a report on media coverage of iran. one of the themes we have noted over and over is basically,

portraying the negotiations as an opportunity. the first step in negotiations is an opportunity to test whether iran is serious. i don't think in the coverage we ever saw the reverse question. what is iran looking for as a test of american seriousness about negotiation? i want to ask each of you, if you were to recommend one step that the president could take in the next couple of months to demonstrate in a way that would really resonate with the iran ians, american seriousness and making the diplomatic piece of the equation of equal importance , what would that step he -- be? >> do you want to start, jim? >> i will leave the diplomacy to the professionals. i will say that one of the things i see, for both sides

hashedwants to negotiate when it sees it is in a position of weakness -- -- no state wants to negotiate when it sees it is in a position of weakness. having arrived at that stronger position, the inclination is to drive your advantage, press ahead. the result is when you don't negotiate when you are weak and you don't negotiate when you are strong, you don't negotiate. going back to what i said about breaking the cycle, this will sound crazy, but could we not do something around these earthquakes other than issuing statements of regret and sympathy? are there not other ways to demonstrate to the people, a palpable way that we have sympathy for their position? there is such a deep history of

mistrust in which both sides are fully justified in wondering about the seriousness of the other. this idea that something has to be done to break the psychological circle, vicious cycle we are in. in addition to whatever these gentlemen recommend, i would like something that speaks directly to the iranians. >> you mentioned you would have the negotiations anyway, jim, because you think you would get information. direct yourself to the question. >> if you're talking about something that the president might do, it would be to put the nuclear negotiations in the context of a broader perspective of u.s.-iranian rapprochement. not to abandon the insistence that the nuclear negotiations

are the first test of that relationship, and the most immediate task for the two sides. to speak in a way that opens a broader perspective of the relationship, based on mutual respect, a certain set of principles. depending on exactly how that was phrased, that could send the kind of signal you're talking about. >> tom, you have a view. >> on page 11 of the summary, we list what the u.s. wants, what iran wants. it's important for us to test the iranian interest in negotiation by saying to the iranians that, we are going to stop some activity that you have objected to for a short period of time as a way to encourage

forward movement on the negotiations. 30 years ago, john f. kennedy gave a speech in which he outlined to the russians, the soviets for the first time the way in which we looked and approach strategic ability and disarmament. maybe the president could complement this cessation of activity with something that goes along those lines. maybe he could direct his negotiator to go back with something that is a slightly more realistic view of how to solve what seems to be the impasse over sanctions. those three things linked a program that clearly indicated, that is jim walsh and i have said, the president has taken a personal interest and directed this process, would be in my view the kind of signals that help rule this on the needle so

that the pressure track and negotiating track are more equal. >> we have a question in front here. >> andrew, global insight. i'm going to direct this to ambassador pickering. when netanyahu was at the united nations last september, drawing his red line, it seemed a difficult time in terms of the israeli input. when president obama was in tel aviv, there seemed to be a softening, particularly on the part of the israelis as far as taking a broader approach. i wish the israeli public understood the point that jim walsh made about the font -- point that the american community consistently does not

believe. we are in a situation where we have a bit more flexibility. does this not suggest that we could make some progress, which might have been difficult six months or a year ago, given the politics of the middle east and israel in particular? >> i have had a certain association with israel over the years. my sense has been all along, the prime minister netanyahu would like the u.s. to do the job. liking the u.s. to do the job and picking militarily means that he also has to give us the running room to do the job in the negotiating context. particularly, with his inept and

maybe inapt speech at the general assembly, there crept into their a notion that there was a new israeli timeline. despite the bomb and the red line and all the other pieces took the headlines. he and the president are at least closer together than they have been over how to deal with this issue. i think we do have some running room in the negotiations. my own view is that that is not an unlimited amount of time. with all respect to israeli domestic politics, the prime minister not to as well -- do as well. this provides them with a different position inside israel. the heads of the three intelligence service, the recently graduated heads, and the recently graduated head of the idf cautioned against what

was being clearly proposed was an unwise movement on the part of israel, preemptively, to attack iran. that would've produced the results that we outlined in our second report, maybe even on steroids. i don't know how long it will last. the last person in the world for me to become a prophet, the last place for me to become a prophet about is israel. israel wants to help, by keeping the military pressure on. at the same time, look at it this way -- the evolution of the new equilibrium. i will not be millennial. i will not say it's going to last forever. your question raised an interesting point. we have a little bit more running room than we did last year. let's hope we use it wisely. >> a question down here, and i think it will be the last question. >> it is short or it john

lindberg from the -- short. . john lindberg from the american naval academy. my question is for john pickering. given the level of trust that jim walsh talked about, is it possible that we can't move beyond the nuclear issue, that both sides have painted themselves into such rhetorical corners that the issue politically is too hard? not technically, but politically too hard, and we may have to put it aside? the position of holding everything else hostage to the nuclear issue? and perhaps find other areas, such as the things you mentioned , where the sides can find it if they do say yes and reach an agreement, the sky is not going to fall. >> it's another very interesting question. my feeling is that we have had

such a sense of mesmerize asian -- mesmerization about the nuclear issue that even at fairly senior levels in iran, one has had even from moderate iranians, they are -- my own view, and i think it's reflected in the report, is that there should be an opportunity to move as well to the other issues, as each side sees the benefit of doing so. i would not like to enter into a process in which every issue was on the table, and we got into what the israelis call a giant schlep. that means we talked forever and get nowhere. the problem on the other side, as jim walsh points out, we have

now narrowed the process down to where we talk, but get nowhere as well. it is very hard to dissect these. to some extent, the point the report makes is that the president makes it clear that he wants an agreement and is prepared to move. he lays out his roadmap for that, or his approach, much of which i think is already on the table, and uses that as a way to test the iranians to see if they are prepared to go. if they want to talk about a wider number of issues, we should be an agreement to try to do so. we should do so on the basis that it isn't going to be something that is going to consume years and get nowhere. we have to be very careful about that, and talk about it. >> we have 12 seconds. i think we have finished. that will give me enough time to thank our very distinguished panelists. the woodrow wilson center, and those who have put the report

together. [applause] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

♪ >> thank you for tuning in. welcome to a new -- brand new edition of the program that presents different faces and educated stories on taiwan. i am your host. early in this yeahe