welcome to amanpour on pbs. on the end of president trump's fire and fury, will this lead to negotiation or conflict? plus, major ribener from the israeli defense forces on the rescue operation to deliver white helmet heroes. and they helped approve the chemical weapons in israel. ahmed joins me here in london. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. president trump fired off a high-intensity tweet today, in emphatic capital letters, warning iran's president, quote, never threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequence the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. his tweet follow's president rouhani's response about disrupting oil shipments in the persian gulf is iranians try to block exports. quote, america should know peace with iran is the mother of all peace and war with iran is the mother of all wars. so, could the escalating war of words lay the groundwork for a new diplomatic overture between the united states and iran or could it head to another

showdown in the persian gulf area? a expert at the carnegie endowment. welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> what are we to make of this? is this some dressed up attempt at bringing iran to the negotiating table or is this real? >> with president trump it's always difficult to tell, christiane because he's more impulsive than strategic. if you look at what happened with north korea, he did taunt kim jong-un a number of months before meeting him in singapore, and then he actually sang his praises. and so it's conceivable that he has a similar vision in mind with regards to iran. and, in fact, iranian officials leaked last week that president trump had actually tried to see president hassan rouhani at the u.n. last fall. he actually tried eight times to see president rouhani and the iranians rebuffed him. so it's conceivable this is a prelude to an overture.

you can see him dropping bombs on iran, you can see him building hotels in iran. >> can you really see him dropping bombs? it is true that the entire trump hierarchy in the national security sphere, whether it's president trump, whether it's mattis, pompeo, bolton, they are all hard on iran. they are iran hardliners. do you see a different tone coming out of the white house, out of the administration on iran than perhaps you saw coming out on north korea? >> well, john bolton has really been the most hawkish american official on iran perhaps over the last three decades when he was the private citizen. he had consistently advocated bombing iran. now, you're right, christiane, when trump ran as a candidate one of the things he talked about was getting out of dumb wars in the middle east. he was very critical of the iraq war and the afghan war.

so there is a disnance that on one his instincts are to withdraw, like some of his policies and some of his officials have precisely the opposite instincts. i would say the big distinction between north korea and iran is that north korea's leader kim jong-un is a young man in his 30s. he has a very long time horizon, three, four decades he could be in power. whereas iran's supreme leader, ayatollah khomeini, is 71 years old, he's been ruling four decades. he's always been defiant against the united states. and he hasn't left the country since 1989. so the likelihood of some type of a summit between khomeini and trump is nil. and the likelihood khomeini and trump is smallman. >> some have tried to figure out what the actual message of the administration is because we have this tweet from president trump, but we had the speech yesterday to a group of really

hardline antigovernment iranians. the exiles in los angeles, in which pompeo was very strong against the regime, but he also had a line at the end which was about negotiation and wanting to see whether there was any, you know, room for that. do you put any store in that last line or is it just a last throw away line? >> no, i think that those are the president trump's instincts as well. remember when trump announced he was pulling out of the iran deal, he gave a ten-minute speech, 9 minutes trashed the nuclear deal. the final 10, 15 seconds he said when iran's leaders are interested in renegotiating this deal, i am ready, willing and able. so he is actually not dogmatic. i don't think he's ideological. i think he is open to renegotiation. i think the administration does have a clear strategy, which is

they're trying to subject iran to enormous pressure in order to force one of two outcomes. outcome number one is, in fact, iranian capitulation. not only in the nuclear context, perhaps in the regional context and that would require some type of renegotiation. and outcome number two is the implosion of the iranian regime. i do think they have a strategy. i think there is also a huge gap between what they are trying to achieve and whatter th they arey to achieve. >> capitulation and implosion have been tried 40 years since the revolution and neither of which has happened. one thing has happened. during the tanker wars of the 1980s, there was disruption in the straits of hermes. i want you to walk us through the stakes. if the u.s. is saying toal its allies, no more buying of

iranian oil, iran is saying if you threaten us we'll threaten yours, a third of all traffic goes through those straits of hermes. what is the likelihood of that being blocked? >> at moments of tension, they have threatened for decades on closing the straits of hormoos. it is strategic of a suicide bombing for iran. they would hurt other people but they would above all hurt themselves because oil is the lifeblood of the iranian economy. if they prevent oil from flowing out they would be hurting themselves and alienating key partners like china. they have long threatened this. one of the few cards they have to play. but i think the likelihood they make good on that threat is very low. >> so from the u.s. point of view, i mean, secretary pompeo is extremely active on his

twitter regarding iran policy. i mean, all you have to do is check it out and you'll see exactly what the state department is thinking about this. it's pretty aggressive, but it's also attempting to reach out to the people. the latest is the united states hears you. the united states supports you. the united states is with you. how is that bound to go down there? is that something you think the iranian people will take to the bank, so to speak and come out and depose their leaders, hoping the u.s. will support them? >> well, christiane, as you know there is tremendous popular frustration in iran, political, economic, social frustration. but if you look at the collapse of authoritarian regimes throughout history, especially more recently the 20th century, 21st century, it usually has two key prerequisites. you need pressure from below, but even more importantly, you need divisions from above. i would argue what the trump administration is doing with their policy is that they are

trying to incite pressure from below, but they'll simultaneous simultaneously reuniting rather than dividing the iranian regime. what you will have is a regime willing to use overwhelming force and sly lens to stay in power. and you have a society which isn't willing to die en masse to take power. and so for that reason, i think by trying to incite the iranian people against the regime actually do a disservice to the cause of democratic transformation in iran. >> so iran has kept its agreement under the iran nuclear agreement. it is abiding by the terms. when you say it's uniting the top, it's kind of solidifying the hard liners, right? >> it's further entrenching the revolutionary guards. whenever there is insecurity in a country, that often plays to the advantage of security

forces. so the revolutionary guards who are already the most powerful institution in iran have grown more powerful. and to the extent that there were more pragmatic officials in iran, they have definitely been weakened over the last year. >> interesting. some have said like pompeo said, there is no such thing as a practici pragmatic in iran. do you believe that, there are no moderates in iran? >> i do think that there is a debate amongst iran's elites about whether they should be a nation or cause as henry kissinger put it. i think president rouhani does aspire for iran to be a nation state rather than revolutionary cause. the reality is those forces were already weak in iran. they have only grown weaker. >> so where do you think -- i know we started this by saying we're not quite sure what the strategy is or if there is a strategy, the two elements that you pointed out have been tried

before. let's just go back to the bush administration when the idea of military intervention in iran probably reached its height, but it didn't happen. walk us through, for the sake of viewers, you know, what it would take to have a military, a successful military intervention in iran. >> well, when you talk to former u.s. officials, even current u.s. officials, even israeli officials for that matter about military conflict with iran, what they say is that it's not -- wouldn't be a full-scale intervention like iraq. it would be more targeted military strikes against iran's nuclear facilities which are dispersed around the country, some cases embedded under mountains in iran. i think the danger iran faces is that it's a country which is simultaneously fighting three cold wars, three proxy wars with israel, saudi arabia and the united states, which could all potentially turn hot.

and so iran in some ways can afford a military conflict much less than the united states because they have a downward spiraling currency. they have social crises. political crises, economic crises, environmental crises. he is trying to avoid a military conflict. with president trump it is very difficult to get inside of his head and ascertain whether he is simply being impulsive or he actually has a strategy behind his bluster. >> we will wait and see. thank you so much from the carnegie endowment joining us tonight. and moving on to some of these regional aspects, the trump administration does want iran to stop its support for the assad regime in syria. indeed after more than seven years of war, assad seems to be the winner taking large swaths of territory in the west along with the borders of israel and jordan. the situation for the opposition has grown so dire that even the white helmets have had to flee.

more than perhaps any other group, they have brought the horrors of the war to the world like daring rescues. their bravery was the subject of award winning documentary. so when those governments realize the white helmets were under imminent threat they turned to the israeli military for a dramatic extraction. and we turn now to major effeffi effeffi effie rivner of the idf. you were in that operation. thank you for joining us. tell us, major, how you got hundreds of these white helmets and their families and civilians out of syria proper. >> good evening. it actually was a very special operation. and as you pointed out, we were approached by the united states, canada and a couple of european countries at the request to please assist in the extraction of the white helmets.

we in coordination with the organization and our neighbors here in israel, coordinated with them a time and a place where they could approach the fence. we waited, prepared to receive them and assisted them in evacuating themselves from syria and taking them to a safer place. >> so you took them through where you are now, which is actually occupied syria, the golan heights. and down into israel and across, right, is that how you did it? >> that is correct. we brought them into israel on the fence. between israel and syria. and then took them down through israel into one of the neighboring countries. >> okay. i know you don't want to say it. >> as you put it. >> we understand that they went to jordan. but i just want to ask you, because this was an exceptional situation, right? you're not in the business of evacuating syrians, are you?

>> no, we are not in the business of evacuating syrians, but we have been in the business for many years already in assisting the syrian population and giving them humanitarian aid. operation good neighbor has been going on a couple of years ffering from the syrian civil war. this is just another chapter in that very significant operation. >> so tell me, you know the story of the white helmets. how did you feel about being able to rescue them? what part, in your mind, have they played in the resistance in syria? >> i think it's not about the resistance in syria. i think it's more about the very significant humanitarian effort that they had in syria in trying to assist in saving lives of the population who are suffering from the syrian civil war, and their lives were in danger.

and we, as the request was given to us by, as i said, the united states and other countries, we're committed to assisting these people who risked their lives to save other syrians and trying to help them save their own lives. >> major, we just heard from the white helmets earlier today, because apparently nearly 300 of them have been unable to evacuate and one of the volunteers, abu muhammad said the syrian regime checkpoints did not allow the majority of us to reach the evacuation point. the situation is getting worse by the minute especially after the batch of white helmets managed to leave yesterday morning. the regime is looking for us. do you have any other plans to try to get any more out? >> we as of now have no other plans to get any out. we were approached, as i said, with the groups that came to the fence in coordination with us, we were able to extract everyone

who came to the fence saturday night, early sunday morning. and whoever arrived we were able to take them out. we don't have any other knowledge of any other white helmets right now. so as of now, there are no other plans to extract any more white helmets and no request -- no such request has been submitted to the state of israel yet. >> major of the ids, thank you so much for joining us from the occupied golan heights after the dramatic extraction. thank you. now, the white helmets as we said have often been the canary in the coal mine of the syria conflict. even helping to uncover the use of chemical weapons used by the regime. working with the united nations body dedicated to their eradication which is the opcw, which is the organization for prohibition of chemical weapons. now, its outgoing director general, ahmed, said syria was a

test case for trying to beef up the laws and seeking accountability against the use of these banned substances. he joined me here to talk about it in the studio just a little earlier today. welcome to the program. so, you have been head of this organization for eight years. especially the duration of the war in syria which concentrated the world's mind again on chemical weapons, right? so, how helpful was the war for your efforts to hold people accountable? >> at the beginning no one, in fact, rejected the results of our fact finding mission reports, science based reports. in fact, they collect samples, both biomedical samples as we call them, blot or tissue as well as environmental samples from places where they are used. i think all these reports are

objective, science-based, impartial, and they couldn't become tested. >> yes, of course, they were including the security council, including by syria obviously. acuation of israel from the e white helmet. i looked up, i found this in the research. russia, syria's most powerful ally in the conflict described the opcw report as politically motivated and doubtful data obtained from opposition and notorious ngos like the white helmets. so, they hated those people on the ground who could actually tell them the truth, right? >> my term is one of the ngos with which we worked, our teams worked, so far we didn't see any evidence of the white helmets, you know, cheating or providing us with false information and so on. >> right. but the opcw has just been assigned blame for the chemical attacks despite russia and syria. how significant is that? for a long time you weren't able to do that. >> i think it's a good thing because there was a gap and i

don't think they would continue with this gap. it's good that now there is a mechanism for retribution. this is the first step towards accountability. and without accountability, you cannot issue the deterrence. our goal should be, our collective goal by the international kmurnt should be to deter the use of further chemical weapons and hold accountable those who use. that is the only way to do it. >> i'm going to play a sound bite from a journalist who we talked to in syria, but this is what he said about the main killing machine in syria. >> the truth is in syria, if you look at the numbers, over half a million people have been killed in syria. that wasn't being done with chemical weapons. that wasn't being done using sarin gas. the truth is when the united states makes a statement and says we're not going to allow you to use chemical weapons and sign the bill with russia to withdraw those chemical weapons. they are basically giving the green light to the regime and

other parties involved to use any other mooenz of violence to kill syrians. >> what do you think of that? in truth, very few people were killed by chemical weapons, as horrible as that is. and hundreds of thousands, as he says, were killed otherwise. >> it's true that approximately 500,000 people were killed during the syria war. as far as the chemical weapons used, this is in fact a norm which is established after 100 years almost, after the extensive years of chemical weapons during the first world war. and in view of all this, in view of the fact that these weapons were found i mortal, repugnant, even the military during second world war didn't want to use chemical weapons. they were against it. that is the consensus developed over decades. that's why probably the use of chemical weapons that attracts more attention through

commercial weapons. >> do you feel that throughout it this process, those who were responsible for the attack, 2013 and 2017, have they been held responsible, the perpetrators? >> not yet. i hope they will be. >> and to the best of your knowledge, who are the perpetrators? >> in the case of -- i mean, we determined the use of sarin. and the mechanism did establish the syrian republic being responsible of the use. >> that's the assad regime? >> yes. >> so, i want to play for you this set of sound bites. it's from president obama and president trump. president obama famously said that there would be a red line if the syrian regime moved chemical weapons around, there would be a red line. let's play this and then the other one. >> we have been very clear to the assad regime, but also to

other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons being moved around or utilized. that would change my question. >> tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. it is in this vital national security interest of the united states to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons. >> so describe for me a little bit, how did your heart feel when president obama did not enact his red line? that was in 2013. and then when president trump actually did?

>> in 2013, the use of sarin was determined. normally the reaction was taken, but there was a lot of pressure. due to this pressure, the syrian republic, in fact, accepted the chemical weapons -- and gave up its chemical weapons program. it was not a small, in fact, stockpile chemical weapon. it was huge. our expert found this chemical weapons much more sophisticated than we initially thought. so all these chemicals were taken outside of the country, were destroyed. we are talking about the chemical weapons -- >> i was going to say because clearly they did not get rid of the stockpile. >> the chemical weapons. these were huge stocks. >> after eight years of doing this, what would you say was the biggest success and the most disspiriting failure or disappointment? >> actually, i wish that the --

that we could do more to prevent any use of chemical weapons. i wish the international community could stay united, you know, confronting or countering such threats. we are also concerned about the use of chemical weapons by terrorists, which is an immediate threat given the fact isis used syria and iraq. on the other hand, we should feel fortunate that we have such institutions which can look at the matter and provide some side space evidence. >> you keep saying science-based evidence. is that because you feel you are under attack politically and people are ignoring the science in the evidence? >> i say it quite frequently, christiane, because the issues are -- not myself, but because

political issues are involved. >> yep, that is the diplomat's answer. ahmed, thank you for joining us. the outgoing director general of the opcw. and that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching amanpour on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you're watching pbs.

katty: you're watching "beyond 100 days" on pbs. tension rises between iran and the u.s. is it just words? a useful distraction? or something more serious. christian: as america gets set to reimpose sanctions, tehran promises the mother of all wars. katty: donald trump responds with an all-caps tweet and warning of dire consequences. mr. trump's approval ratings rise after one of the most contentious weeks of his presidency. christian: also on the program, u.k. government has abandoned opposition to the death penalty so that two members of the isis group can be tried in the united states. theresa may heads to gateshead in northern england, the foreign secretary to berlin