gate its way forwards both to discuss that are now and joined by jarrett blanc senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace and formerly a u.s. state department chords in a very very raw new claim for mentation mr blank it's so good to talk to you thank you very much for finding time for us thank you now i'm sure you are greatly disappointed by president terms decision to walk walk away from the. but hopefully there is still some room for damage control how much of it do you believe can still be salvaged well i suppose you can call damage control there from the u.s. perspective no good outcomes here one possibility is that the path that we're currently on the successful and that's that immediately after president trumps announcement president rouhani said ok we're going to stay in the deal for a little while and give time for the other participants mainly the three european countries to see what they can offer us to make it worth our while to stay in long term that could succeed it would be good from the perspective that would keep her

on the nuclear program under control and under inspection but it would leave the united states very isolated and europe for the position to confront other problematic iranian policies alternatively those negotiations might fail which would lead to a resumption of industrial scale enrichment and a serious serious problem for the region in the world now trump is obviously in violation of the american implications but to some extent he's choosing his word because last winter he gave the europeans what looked like an ultimatum that he was going to do it on last the transatlantic allies could agree on sound ways of shoring up the deal and i gather from your article is that the talks which began in january were progressing fairly well what do you think may have happened to upset all about progress well i think it's a combination of a lack of sincerity on president terms part he wasn't really looking to come to an agreement with our allies he was looking to. to act on his and in this toward his

predecessor barack obama. and also the total chaos and dysfunction in this administration so the president gave his ultimatum senior officials worked on negotiations with the europeans i don't think there was any process to brief the president on the progress and so you know he heard about it from president mccrone and from chancellor merkel but but had not been buying into the decisions made along the way as you pointed out in one of your articles they were a number of things that trump could have done he could have extended the sanctions waiver to allow a little bit more time for the talks and yet he decided to end it abruptly after all those meetings cordell meetings with president micron and chancellor merkel to the russians that looked kind of through a do you think he was trying to make some point to some some nasa edge to the europeans or is it just mr trump being who he is you know it's hard to know if he

was trying to send a message but certainly after all the bonamy of the mccrone meeting after the supposedly improved atmosphere in the merkel meeting and then he actually treated his intention to make this announcement and sort of telegraphed where it was going while foreign secretary boris johnson was actually in washington trying to convince vice president pence and the secretary of state to continue the negotiations it whether or not he was intending to be rude whether he was trying to send a message this clearly isn't the way allies behave toward one another the russians are often accused of and into taking all sorts of conspiracy theories and i personally think that's a cultural thing rather than political because we enjoy counter-intuitive explanations and one such conspiracy theory that's been. stalking me as i was preparing for this program is the thought of whether or not iran is the main thing here do you really think that. the major thing here. asked mr trump sas is the fear

of iran's potential nuclear program oh absolutely not if the concern were ron's nuclear program the solution was the j c p o. if anything the pulling out of the running the risk that iran will restart industrial scale enrichment that raises the possibility of increased conflict across the board so if you want to conflict with iran this is the way to go this is obviously not about trying to contain iran's nuclear ambitions but also that what i think this is really about is barack obama president trump is trying to tear down the accomplishments of his predecessor i think it's pretty clear from his public remarks that he does not understand what was in the g. c.p.u. a or what is in the g. c.p.o. a and it doesn't really matter to him he doesn't have a policy objective he just wants to disparage barack obama and what about the so-called european allies because. there are some many issues involved i mean the

the fate of the european. exemptions from tariffs on steel and aluminum is still very much up in the air mr trump is supposed to make his decision until june first now there is a threat of. secondary sanctions we are talking about very very large chunk of the economy do you think all these economic issues and i'm trying to phrase it very carefully not to be accused of russian bias but still do you think these economic issues are going to be featured in the political discussions on the run sure i mean the first thing you need to say about this is that for europe's perspective iran does not matter economically so whatever decisions europe makes these are the the g c p u a are going to be national security could decisions and political decisions if they want iran to stay in the j.c.b. way they're going to have to offer some additional economic benefits but that's not because. europe is deeply and hammered of the possibility of trade with iran i do

think though to your questions your broader question europe is perceiving all of these things as a piece so the steel and aluminum tariffs the recent sanctions on russia the resumption of sanctions on iran i think you see the united states disregarding the needs and interests of its allies and europe and other allies are going to have to look at this and decide how to respond in order to protect their own console and yet mr blank you suggested before that in the event of trump's pullout your of will likely side with the united states even if it blames the current administration for ruining this deal and if it does i think the european leaders will essentially have to accept that their level of credibility is the same as trump is that they are moral equals and i personally don't think there's much trouble on that side of as far as the u.k. is concerned but when it comes to germany when it comes to france. do you think

they can afford it from a moral point of view do you think chancellor merkel for one can bring herself to be seen as standing shoulder to shoulder with trump and that well first of all i think that's a little bit unfair trump is the trump is the actor he is the decision maker in this terrible decision that the european leaders are now stuck with a series of very uncomfortable dilemmas that they will need to resolve but but they're not the ones who created this disaster what i wrote though was that if iran were to were to respond to our violation with a violation of their own i'm quite sure that europe will side with the united states if you have the u.s. out of out of out of compliance in iran out of compliance then europe will side with us even if we were if it's our fault if iran manages to stay in compliance i think europe is in a much more difficult situation and the possibility that they will try to strike a additional bargain with iran to provide some replacement economic benefits is real but that. i think the question here is not only striking additional

concessions for iran but also negotiating that with the united states because i'm i'm pretty sure you're heard a number of officials in the trauma administrations directly almost ordering european companies german companies to get out of iran to seize business operations there immediately. that's hardly seems to be building bridge that you employ a bit with the allies but putting that aside do you think the united states needs to be taught a lesson here that's essentially the question i'm trying to ask you do you think the european union needs to take a moral stance in this on this particular issue to show the united states the trumpet ministration and in this example that this is not ok to conduct international politic policies like that i mean american woman american former official i'm not going to call on europe or anyone else to teach the united states a lesson i think europe has got a very very hard set of decisions to make where they'll need to decide the need to

weigh problems in the transatlantic relationship against their real concerns their national security concerns about the resumption of iranian unconstrained nuclear program and i'm sympathetic to how difficult those decisions are going to be as i started out by saying from the u.s. perspective there are only bad answers here either you've got europe essentially isolating us because they find a way to save the deal or you've got europe failing to save the deal and return iran returning to unconstrained enrichment which is a huge problem for us for europe and for the world but hold on mr blank you may have forgotten but it was the administration you worked for the obama administration which was very proud of forging the so-called european consensus on sanctions against russia back in two thousand and fourteen and the rationale back down was that. russia in your eyes violated certain norms of behavior and. needed to be signed to signal that this is not the way you conduct yourself on

the international arena now we now have the united states which clearly violated its obligations to reach is involved in behavior that you clearly disapprove of you made it very clear throughout this program which also leads to an increase in confrontation in the middle east should the united states be sent a similar signal that this is not the kind of behavior that its european allies welcome on the international arena. leaders around the world including from our closest allies have condemned this decision and the very fact that europe has now shifted from negotiating with the united states to negotiating with iran is a strong rebuke to the decision that president trump made i would i describe president obama's leadership on sanctions with iran with russia with other countries a little bit differently from what you did i don't think it's a question about germany making a moral stand or

a value judgment what i would say is that we were able to convince countries around the world that on a variety of problems we had a plan and a way forward and that if countries were willing to suffer a certain amount of economic dislocation in the short term we could solve real problems and so in the iran case we were able to convince the government of russia china india as well as our closest allies to stick with us and we got to the g.c. . and some of russia's policies we were able to convince as you say germany and other european countries to suffer some real economic harm because they thought we had a plan i think the problem now is that the united states is proving that we cannot be trusted with this tool and so the chances of getting even our closest allies let alone a nontraditional partners like russia like china decide with us i think they're they're much much reduced i don't know if you heard this but chancellor merkel said the other day that you're of can no longer rely on the united states in order to protect itself and. i would argue that the more pressing. question right now is is

whether your of can really take it for granted that the united states will not lash out at europe economically do you think this rat of secondary sanctions is real do you think the united states good calm with full force against the european countries if they decide to continue trading with iran provided of course if iran is in compliance with the j.c.b. already so the threat of secondary sanctions is very rule real basically this idea that you know if you're a non us company you've got to choose do you want to do business with iran or do you want to do business with the united states and for most companies that's going to be an easy choice and for most companies the threat is sufficient the u.s. doesn't really have to do much in force mint in order to get a lot of big companies to say you know what this isn't worth the risk but european governments do have tools available to them to seek to counter the secondary sanctions threat and that's the question i think that's going to be on the table

when europe negotiates with iran with russia with china with the remaining participants in the g c p a way to see if there's a way to salvage a sort of a rump version of the g. c.p.o. a and and if europe were to try to deploy those tools then you could be in a situation of some confrontation government to government confrontation between the u.s. and our allies but but we're still a little ways off from that at this point well mr bank we have to take a short break now but we will be back in just a few moments stay tuned. across europe municipalities are taking their water supply back from private companies to meet people because of the simple song alone even some company guess what else will they invite private companies to take over the utilities many. bought

a telescope of a lab solicitously got to be a violin the poor might be cool. i've been this is a stick with them out. of more use than bill bill if bill brought up locals are ready to stand up for the basic human right of access to water it's about water but it's also over much more than more it's about the hurt and the redistribution of all as to birds and their date down towards the want of. welcome back to worlds apart but jared blanks former u.s.

state department coordinator for ironically implementations mr blank just before the break we talked about the european reaction to trump's decision and let me ask you a few questions about russia as you may imagine many people in moscow very very skeptical of all the speculations about trump supposed collusion with the kremlin but given the where we are with the iranian nuclear issue trumps rebuke of both the american obligations and to your european allies don't you wish moscow had some leverage sumber of poor with they said ministration well issue. on the collision question i'll just say. we don't know whether or not laws what specific laws might have been violated in the united states we don't know what president trump himself knew what is out in the public so obviously demonstrates that the trump can play in colluded with russian actors in a way that is deeply disturbing for for america i don't want to make you have this

discussion about the russian collision but what is out in the public at this point of time is the indictment of thirteen russian nationals who tried to do something on social media who have horrible english whose posts have been viewed by you know in some cases zero people so i think you guys are blowing it out of proportion but anyway let's stick to the iran and the trump tower meeting and the payments to michael cohen's accounts i mean the question is not whether or not the efforts were successful i think the point is that the the public documentation shows the trump campaign tried but that as your question do i wish that russia had leverage over trump president shop i guess what i would say is this i remember a time not so long ago. you know when i was working on afghanistan pakistan iran in the obama administration that we were able to compartmentalize our agreements and disagreements with russia so there were some areas where we had a very serious disagreements and we confronted each other on those disagreements we

were as i said occasional adversaries but where our national security interests overlapped for example in afghanistan for example on iran's nuclear program we retained the ability to work together and to achieve things and i do very much regret that the politics i think in both of our countries is pushing us away from the ability to be at least occasional partners i think that's not good for us it's not good for you it's not good for the world for the time being moscow has been very restrained in its reaction to trans announcement about the j.c.b. zero eight but short term russia is set to benefit from the increase in oil prices even though it's sad both before and now that they devalue strategic stability more than short term material again now from my point of view the kremlin avail now have to think very carefully whether it wants to be proactive in its defense of the j.c.b. away or whether it just wants to go with the flow and a lot of the europeans have the initiative what would you personally like to see

well i think you're right that both russia and china we've talked we've spoken a lot about the ether european countries but both russia and china also have some decisions to make here as you say how active do you want to be in the defense of the g c p o a and how much potentially do you see the resumption of u.s. secondary sanctions as creating commercial opportunities for your firms in iran. you know what i would hope at least in the immediate term is that iran is clearly trying to make an effort to see if it's possible to salvage the deal foreign minister zarif is visiting moscow he's visiting beijing is in brussels it's hard to know what those negotiations. what those conversations will look like and whether in the end i would think that whatever emerges from them is a good idea but i do hope that all of the remaining participants in the g c p a will make a sincere effort to figure out if the deal can be salvaged now you've given

a number of interviews lately in a week you essentially explain how unfair it is trumps criticism of president obama's dedication to the disappearing but i wonder if there was anything that the obama administration could have done to make it more difficult for its successor it's you bringing on the agreement you know when i was asked in twenty sixteen what happens if if donald trump wins the presidency will he tear up the deal my answer was always it is hard to imagine any president of the united states tearing up this deal if it's working if it's managing to constrain iran from developing a nuclear program and imposing all of these very strict inspections on iran i said it and i believed it and as problematic as the trump administration has been so far i still find myself surprised at every new bad decision they manage to make though in terms of the question of you know would it have been possible to make it more legally difficult for trump to pull out the answer is really no there's been a lot of talk in washington maybe you're referring to the idea that if this had

been a treaty through the senate trump could not have pulled out that's not really legally the case previous presidents jimmy carter george w. bush have pulled out of treaties just on executive authority so even if you could imagine that the republicans would have seriously considered an obama proposed deal back in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen it would not have protected that deal from from it you also made a point in one of your articles when they disappear it was drafted it was primarily a bill to respond to possible iranian violations nobody could have. foreseen. they need to guard against american noncompliance and i wonder what is the. implication of that because you you mentioned that they were a number of previous american presidents who essentially walked away from the previous deals but it seems to me that the message to the rest of the world here is that you can strike deals with the united states but they will only last as long as

the current administration is in office well unfortunately i think that that's right i think that there is. the president trumps decision is dangerous for in the iran situation it's dangerous for the region but it also does undermine the position of the united states in the world we are demonstrating that we cannot take yes for an answer and that makes it very very difficult to make credible deals with the united states with any future president of the united states who hopefully will be able to recover they'll be able to demonstrate that our political some system has come to its senses but it's going to be difficult now you mentioned before that on a number of strategic and important issues the obama administration and the putin administration despite the lack of very warm personal chemistry between the two leaders they were able to find some degree of compromise they could work together but obviously i think in moscow at least there is a sounds of missed opportunities what's interesting about donald trump is that so

far he has been finding it very hard to find a strategic over life if he's adversaries but he found one geopolitical soul mate and this is israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu. do you think the two are working in concert or do you think that policies are planned mutually planned and coordinated or is israel just being a portion a stick in following a perhaps orchestrating directing president presidents trying to leave so you know i think it's very difficult to work in concert with the trump administration because the trumpet ministration is so internally chaotic they don't have anything that resembles a normal policy process in the united states and so i'm a little bit skeptical that anybody including prime minister netanyahu is really working in concert i think that this is more opportunistic you see where president trump sort of biases and guts gut feelings take him and then you see what you can do without and so you know i think prime minister netanyahu wants

a more confrontational u.s. position toward iran he wasn't going to get that in syria because the president trump doesn't want a deeper investment in syria so he found a place where he might be able to rile up the trumpet ministration and increase the risk of confrontation now as you perhaps know it prime minister netanyahu has just visited. on sources here say that he's trying to advance a very interesting narrative he's suggesting that after trump's blog from the day scipio a threat emanating from iran is ever more pressing despite the fact that it was in fact israel which has been clamoring for the american administration to abandon this deal do you think israel is poised to become even more proactive in quote unquote defending its security in other countries and the where can it lead all of us well for for a long time i've been trying to remind people to distinguish between prime minister

netanyahu and israel prime minister netanyahu has spoken bitterly and angrily about the j. c.p.o. a the israeli security establishment including now a string of two. chief of army staff have all made clear that the j c p a worked for israel by removing the existential threat that noorani nuclear program would have been just making iran a threat but not next essential one so to some extent i think that present prime minister netanyahu is now in a phrase we use in english the dog who caught the car he got what is rhetoric wanted but he's right that this does pose real risks for israel the right response would be to try to find ways to deescalate the situation with iran on syria and other issues i think as we've seen this week there's certainly a risk that netanyahu will take the other course and see this is an opportunity to escalate tension and see if he can draw the united states into a regional conflict that you know to be honest president trumps instincts in this

case or right he'd like to avoid now the rainy and also wrote it in one of your articles now have a lot of things to consider the economic pressure the i would suggest a very provocative israelis behavior certainly emboldened by trump's moves also the considerations of domestic politics come into play here this multiplicity of challenges do you think it's likely to make iran more careful more cautious or on the contrary make it feel that it has nothing else to lose you know before it's a question i do want to say you know i heard you refer to israeli steps as provocative i would just say that everybody acting across that israel syria border is being provocative right now the iranians are being provocative the israelis as well it's incumbent on everybody to try to lower the tell me mr blank let me let me get to this point because i don't think there is a moral equivalence here because iranians and the russians as much as you may hate their presence in syria they are on the invitation of the legitimate u.n.

recognized government you may question the legitimacy of assad as the united states has done informally but you have never sought to revoke its membership in the united nations so your government also recognizes the legitimacy of this. syrian state at least at this point of time so suggesting that iranians flying over the syrian territory throwing throwing bombs on the syrian city syrian facilities is not provoking to fight i think this is not a fair comparison so i didn't say it wasn't provocative i said that everybody was being provocative you keep bringing us back to these legal and moral questions i would just say i'm focused on i think an overarching moral question which is how do you avoid a war and the fact is that is israel does have real national security concerns about what's going on in syria including the iranian presence and it's in everybody's deeper interest i believe to try to lower the temperature that need to go back to your earlier question which is you know what does this mean in iran is it is iran going to be pushed into a corner or do they act more provocatively or are they on the defensive you know my

guess is that we talked a little earlier about compartmentalization i think you're going to see some of that out of iran as well i think they're going to be areas where they try to be conciliatory toward europe and others and they're probably going to be areas where they try where they they feel like they can or they need to be fairly provocative and again my hope is that everybody will take a step back from that and try to find ways to prevent an escalation which would be dangerous for all of us well mr blank i can certainly agree to that that we have to leave it there i really appreciate your sharing your perspective with us today and our viewers can keep this conversation going in our social media pages as for me hope to see you again same place same time here and we'll to part.

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police in parish and kill a man who stabbed one person to death and injured several others near the french capital's main office for a house a terror investigation is underway. and the stories they're shaved the week european leaders are refusing to toe washington's line after president trump withdraws from the iran nuclear deal and imposes new sanctions against a wrong. i don't know clashes intensify on the israeli gaza border and head of the u.s. embassies move to jerusalem leaving three palestinians dead in the violence. and russia marks at seventy three years since victory in world war two.