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hello and welcome to crossfire we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle in witching negotiations only a week ago the prospect of a deal with around was tantalizingly close then the french played the role of spoiler to the great delight of israel nonetheless negotiations continue much is made of the technical side of the talks in fact this is a sideshow with these negotiations are really about is the issue of trust. to cross talk around i'm joined by my guest flynt leverett in washington he is a professor of international affairs at penn state university and co-author of going to turn around also in washington we have new year he is

a turkey in middle east analysts as well as a journalist and in paris we crossed to valerie lynn see she's the executive director of the wisconsin project on nuclear arms control all right folks. i mean she can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage in flint if i go to you first in washington we almost had a deal over a week ago and what are the prospects of a deal right now and what are the prospects of. the radicals on both sides of the table winning. i i'm have to say i hope i'm wrong but i'm not particularly optimistic about a deal being reached being reached this week i don't think that there's been a lot of progress on the issues that kept agreement from being reached the last time the parties convened in geneva there's the issue of iran's nuclear rights and how they get acknowledged or not acknowledged in an interim agreement there are

disagreements about how to handle the during an interim deal this heavy water reactor facility at which the iranians are building there's still disagreements about the disposition of iran stockpile of near twenty percent enriched uranium. i don't really see much sign that either be united states or the french are backing down from some of the positions they took on those issues ten days ago and if there's not some give on that i don't know how the rain ians will be in a visitation to accept the five plus one proposal ok what are the possibilities of a softening its position because the international perception is that this is a very moderate negotiation team right now and the fact that we were very very close gives the impression that it takes it's more political will right now and as

i said in the introduction the program we can you know we can. get tongue tied over all the technical issues but it's a matter of trust i mean do we have that here and if it's not here yet what does it take to create that level of trust then the rest of it is a lot of details. well i think that's right i think you know since the p five plus one and iran met in geneva almost two weeks ago and now i think there's been a sort of deterioration of trust based on these technical issues but i don't think that you can divorce those from sort of the breakdown i think they are quite important the points that flint just laid out are at the core of the of the interim deal and i think that if iran doesn't soften its position on those three points the negotiations are not likely to yield a deal in mind so it's all incumbent upon iran to cave in to the negotiations it always gets down to that it seems like i am not sure if it's true.

well definitely iran has a huge role for. the deal but also this time i believe that u.s. administration really wants to get these deal done this is the time for obama administration to shoulder their approach to the iranian issue or nuclear issue all even the whole middle eastern. problems this is the time that they can prove they have been right from from the beginning so i think it's these time to the road ok if i go back to you i don't want to betray my age too much on this program but i do remember the what were called the salt agreements with the soviet union and our nuclear arms in it and you know i was a very i was a young boy at the time ok but i can remember reading some of the official material

coming out arguing for and against and it was intensely technical at times but it got down to the united states the soviet union saying you know what a deal is good for both of us now we can find a way to make that deal work and i think you know i think it's very reminiscent right now in the united states the soviet union could have arms control agreements the united states and its allies can have an agreement with iran. i think that's right and i think you know in terms of trust i think it's actually the iranians that have been more poorly treated over the over the last few weeks you know going into the last round at geneva i think the rain ians anticipated getting a draft from the p five plus one where they had clearly worked out understanding's about how some of these contentious issues about about the twenty percent stockpile about some acknowledgement of iran's nuclear rights that you know the rain ians had

expectations based on their prior discussions on what kind of proposal they were going to see and then basically the united states and france reneged on those understandings and so the draft proposal that went in front of iran was different from what foreign minister zarif and his team were expecting to see and they weren't in a position to except that. you know in last you know and last the p five plus one in particular the united states and france are willing to stick to understanding that the radiance thought they had reached at least verbal on some of these issues you know i don't think the rain ians are going to feel either in terms of substance or in terms of the atmosphere of trust they're not going to feel comfortable with going ahead with an agreement on how do you react to that because you know clinton saying there that the iranians have an understanding i think

that's why everybody was you know making reservations and going to geneva ten days ago i mean there was some kind of understanding there a real one and then all of a sudden we have the rug pulled out from under them and of course that doesn't make this negotiation team trust trust the other side trust me the western powers and and i think that's what's really kind of unfortunate because the level of trust is lower now than it was ten days ago. i think you know whatever whatever understanding may have been reached between some of the parties going into the last round of talks in geneva the the things that were the sticking points are important issues and if the united states and the other parties were willing to sign off on a deal that allowed for six months iran to continue a lot of the sort of most worrisome aspects of their program just dealing with a couple of them i don't think that that was you know sort of that was not a good deal i i wouldn't agree necessarily but the run the iranians were have been poorly treated i just think there was you know hope on their part that we would be

willing to cave there's some indication that some members of the p five plus one were willing to cave on those points but not france and you know eventually not the united states let's remember that the interim agreement we're talking about here would still allow iran to continue producing enrichment enriched uranium at a lower level than twenty percent and that is sort of the bulk of their enrichment work is that that lower level so iran would still be allowed to maintain a large portion of its nuclear program active during well trying to deal with it as a signatory of the of the nonproliferation treaty it has a right to generate nuclear power i think that it's still missed in western media here you know hand i mean it gets down to it did they did a perception is this what is it six months what it was six months old about i mean is that what it was what are the iranians going to do in a six month period in which it's such a low level of twenty percent go ahead first of all i think that there are

discussions over the. there is a right in the p t. is as iranians are arguing as it is an issue of the rights i think their discussions over the. sticking point that are going to try to overcome these issue for the next six months. ok flynt how do you react to that i mean i get to get senator peter i want to say something on this whole question of nuclear rights and the right to enrich there are basically four countries in the world which try to deny that the n.p.t. does not recognize the right of a non-nuclear weapon state like iran to enrich uranium under safeguards those four countries are the united states france the united kingdom and israel which isn't even a signatory to be in p.t. those are the only four countries that take this position the rest of the world the brics the nonaligned movement key u.s.

allies like germany and japan have held consistently that the treaty recognizes a right to enrich and what is so perverse when wendy sherman testified exactly longer yet that it's always been the u.s. position there is no such right that's just a lot when the u.s. and the soviet union first opened the n.p.t. for signature in one nine hundred sixty eight senior u.s. officials testified to congress that the n.p.t. recognized the right to safeguarded in richmond that was the position of the united states in til the end of the cold war and then we decided to try to unilaterally rewrite the treaty because we didn't want non western countries getting fuel cycle capabilities ok valorie in paris before we go to break you want to react to that i mean it sounds very hypocritical on the part of the western powers well i mean i think in the case in the in the camp that we're talking about here let's just leave aside the right to enrich and let's look at the fact that iran to rein him in richmond program was built in secret using illicit imports and has has

a lot there are a lot of unanswered questions about this sort of history of iran's nuclear work the u.n. security council all the member states have voted several times for iran to cease a lot of this nuclear activity and to resolve outstanding questions they have been linked to nuclear weapons potentially nuclear weapons work so there are a lot of things here that iran needs to answer for and i think you know. that's sort of this notion of acknowledging a right to enrich. i think would come much further down the road at all right folks have to jump in here way to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on iran state with our take. the only thing we want. is a. little

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back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing negotiations with iran. ok i want to go back to you in washington you know i know the technical issues are very important the i.a.e.a. is looked at this iran's nuclear program more than any other program in the history of this company. technology and but still they'll never be able to iranians will never be able to say enough to satisfy some people but it's kind of change gears here a little bit it seems to me if there was a reproach moment between washington and tehran it would be a wonderful geo political breakthrough for the united states in a region that has so stumbled through over the last decade or so i mean let's look at afghanistan let's look at iraq let's look at syria look at the the drugs trade i

mean this is a real gambit if you can get around this issue of trust are doing this is definitely one of the. crucial times for for the middle east and for the for the u.s. this is what the u.s. has been trying to do and i mean let's let's look at that iran has all the rage the nuclear capabilities by now. i do believe that bringing more sanctions on iran at this point is going to damage u.s. objectives objectively basically get a deal and make sure. that a bill be no more wars which is the basic objective of this administration so yes i do agree that such a deal if it can if it can be done will be wonderful for

for the for the region but at same time there are countries like saudi is that. look i mean it is not only for for nuclear issue there is a deep mistrust between the saudis and the iranians and so those are not going to like these and we already seeing the allies of the us in the middle east israel is called countries and the saudis are trying to find their. ways to scuttle the deal and we'll see how this is going to play out for the next six months valerie let's talk about the politics of the deal because again you know we can easily and should focus on the technical sides of it but the geopolitical issues here i mean israel said any deal is a bad deal by default i mean what kind of negotiating position is that to have in dealing with what he claims is its arch foe i mean no deal it's a bad any deals

a bad deal i mean that doesn't make any sense in diplomatic circles but it seems to have a lot of traction with a lot of senators and congressmen in washington well i think that that's wrong i mean i think the israeli attitude is is absolutely wrong it's not true that no deal is a good deal i mean i think there are there are plenty of places where the iranian nuclear program could be brought to rest let's say for the next six months that would be sufficient that would be sufficiently reassuring from a technical point of view to sort of build the trust and get some kind of a long term agreement which would be in the interests of the u.s. the interests of iran and the interests of a lot of other people and a lot of other countries so i think that the israelis and i think netanyahu in particular has taken a very hard line. i don't think necessarily the right line on the other hand i think it's important to remember whether president obama said about what would constitute a good deal which would be a good interim deal which would be allowing iran's program to know in advance

and some of the things that we're talking about right now would not accomplish that ok flint in a way and they're i mean it's again you know the united states talks about an interim deal and all this and then it it helps to do the deal in the process i mean it again it always seems like you know the iranians have to take go the extra mile the extra mile the extra mile i mean there are introspections going on every other week from what i understand from the i.a.e.a. i mean this is a very carefully watched program. that's right and you know the deal that was on the table in geneva last time i think was you know from a nonproliferation standpoint it was and excellent deal if you actually take the n.p.t. seriously and you take the right of non weapon states to develop safeguarded fuel cycle capabilities indigenously if you take that right seriously then this was

an excellent deal but if you wanted to take this kind of hedge of monica american position where the united states gets to arbitrate which countries get to exercise their rights to peaceful use of nuclear technology and how they get to exercise those rights then you know you're not really taking the n.p.t. n.p.t. seriously and i think that's really what the israelis and the saudis and others in the region who don't want there to be a deal that's really what they're getting at their own national security strategy as their own their own foreign policy strategies rely on a hedge of monic united states monica united states that will back them up let israel use military force in the region whenever wherever it wants and if the united states actually comes to terms with iran i agree i think it would be

a great thing for the united states i think would be a great thing for the region but it does mean that the united states is recognizing that there are genuine regional powers that it has to deal with through serious diplomacy it can't just assert prerogative and that is a nightmare scenario for israel and saudi arabia ok let's change gears let's look at the scenario where there is no agreement valerie if i go to you i mean what what is the future then i mean if we can't because we keep hearing forces. still on the table everything's still on the table here you know if we don't get an agreement then someone's going to have to fulfill those words i suppose and if you are a rand you're going to do anything you need to do out of necessity to protect yourself i mean it seems to me that you know if this does the ring is we're all going down in one direction and it's not a very good direction to go for regional peace and certainly not for the people of

iran that have been suffering under these sanctions for so long go ahead well if there's no deal you know right now after after this current round of talks and then it's likely that congress that the u.s. congress will pass additional sanctions that will probably harden the position positions of iran positions in the united states and it's not clear to me that we're going to have the kind of let's say sort of frequent and. congenial exchanges that have characterized the last couple of months which have been which which have marked quite a change from the past ten years so i think we don't get any kind of a deal here i don't think that things are going to moving in a in a good direction from the perspective of perspective of diplomacy but i wouldn't go from there to say that the bombs are going to start dropping on iranian nuclear facilities i think of a lot of a lot of folks in tel aviv would like to do that i'm sure of that i mean again you know if you think counter-intuitively if we continue down this path and there is no

deal then there are many people in probably in around they'll say look you can't deal with these people we we almost had an agreement they walk away from it we have to think of our own geopolitical interest our national security and then you start cutting off the transparency of this program and then they then you have this ultimate nightmare scenario where nobody knows what anybody is doing go ahead. i might disagree with some of the issues you just stated are i do believe that the rains are trying but the same time if you just look at yesterday try trying what you know what do you want to do what i want to clarify what are they trying to do trying what. i think the iranians are trying to get a deal on the reins are really tired of the sanctions but i just have one point that just yesterday iranian supreme leader came.

and he's foreign minister trying to get these deal so it is not the rules of picture that iran is trying. extra miles around the still trying to. address. their own people than trying to. stay. but we shouldn't be surprised that we shouldn't be surprised by that they're speaking to their own people flynt you know i again you know it seems to me that we could have all the political rhetoric where you want you know what the israelis say about your round with iran's about the israel you know blah blah blah blah blah we've heard it for a long long time but that shouldn't stop countries from having cool heads and recognizing their national interests and this is what this is all about and that's why i said at the beginning of the program it's got to be about trust it is about

trust it is about recognizing interest and i think that you know you ask what will happen if there is not an agreement i think the iranian plan b. you know they want to pursue these negotiations that are going on right now in a way so that if at the end of the day there is not an agreement most of the world is not going to blame iran for it most of iran will most of the world will not see iran as the problem and so that then when the united states comes out with a new sanctions bill or the united states goes to russia goes to china and says let's put more sanctions on iran the rest of the world is going to say look you tell as the saying. about getting a deal but you had a good deal on the table and you wouldn't take it no we are not helping you with sanctions any more i think that is an important part of the rainy and calculation and i think it will be an important dynamic if we don't get

a deal it is going to start to erode the willingness of key players in the international community to cooperate with american demands on sanctions ok valerie and i think of you the last word in paris tell give me an optimistic note let's end on an optimistic note how can we get an agreement go ahead real quick well we can get an agreement if. again if iran is willing on these couple of limited points to a suspension. to allow the six months or more and to build trust among the parties i think everyone knows that iran is going to be left with some amount of uranium enrichment work being done in the country and that's an incredible give ok all right on that point we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in washington and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk.

i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. stay with sob story. let's get this guy like you would smear that guy stead of working for the people all titians the mainstream media working for each other right bribes vision. problems. they did rather.

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a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our. friday people on abby martin and this is breaking the sad looks like big brother is a reared its ugly head again this time in oakland again this tuesday they open city council approved a resolution to go for the creation of a domain awareness center that sounds innocent enough but in reality the center would be a surveillance hub for oakland police align them to monitor the city's video cameras gunshot attackers and license plate readers being from oakland and experiencing firsthand the brutality from the police against peaceful protesters let's just say that oakland residents aren't going to let this happen without putting up a fight in fact the issue has been so contentious among the people that tuesday's city council meeting had to be cleared out by police after approach.