support against iran. so they did not nuclearize against the state that's far more threatening for them than iran, why would they now? i'll leave it at that. >> all right. we'll throw it open to questions. same rules applies. please identify yourself. please wait for the microphone, first of all, and please ask your shortest, smartest question among the many that you no doubt have. i think the gentleman on the aisle there was first with his hand up. yes, that's you. >> dave, cato adjunct scholar. fundamental to any formulation of strategy is a connection between ends and means. your advocacy of a military strike is a means is pretty clear, but your end seems undefined. you seem to put it as creating space in the future for something to happen which doesn't seem a very concreed goal. are you going to go to war for that it should be something. what's your response to that? >> it's a good question. i think actually that the connection between ends and means is pretty clear. there are four nuclear facilities i

policy iran's isolation or the problem with iran trumps the need to get iran to work positively in afghanistan? if i could get brief answers and then we'll open it up. >> sure. you are very right this is what pakistani policymakers essentially are obsessed with or look at very seriously. they also have the whole civil war sken cenario in front of th. but i would say there are a couple of points.

this is iran's way of saying that, if the united states hurts iran's economy, iran can also hurt the u.s. economy. and, of course, it's not on the same scale. iran's economy is being hurt much more, but there are things iran can do to retaliate and that's why military option, it's not really a solution, because a potential conflict in the middle east with iran would be very messy, and could take years to come to an end, basically. >> do you want to add anything to that? >> i think particularly in the assad regime in syria goes down iraq and afghanistan will become major battlegrounds. iraq is not in a good state. nobody talks about it, but there are still bombs goine ofe easie to play because of their long borders. so i don't -- this is a reason against the military option, and something that we should be aware of as we go forward. >> all right. very good. please join me in thanking our panelists on the first panel. >>> president obama signs the >>> we have a look at the pros and cons of a military strike on iran by either the u.s. or israel. >> i see people filing back in. please fe

iran. so i will turn the podium over to matt. >> thank you very much for that introduction. i was here just about a year ago talking about my last book and it was in the old auditorium. it's nice to be here in the new digs. this is really a beautiful auditori auditorium. as justin said today, we're here to talk about iran's nuclear program. there's wide agreement that iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program opposes perhaps the greatest emerging national security challenge for the united states. and deciding on how to deal with it is the most important issue in facing the united states government today. as i see it, there are only tlooe ways this issue is going to be resofled. first, we could get some kind of diplomatic settlement with iran. second, we could simply act' es to a nuclear armed iran or third, we or israel could take military action. now, clearly the diplomatic settlement would be ideal if we could get it. but i think there's very good reason to believe we can't. in fact, it's

diplomacy towards iran. my read of what the congress is up to is they want to appear very concerned to various interested constituencies about the problem and that's about it. the one saving grace that we may have is that as an institution they are cowardly enough to ignore the power granted to them in article 1 section 8 of the constitution which indeed grants them the power to declare war. we used to do that as a country, declare war when the congress decided that war was appropriate. instead now we reverted to lots of hand waving and table pounding which perversely i think is probably a good thing. so the congress i think again often does some bone headed things to get its oar in the lake of u.s.-iran diplomacy but not really provided hope or anything constructive i think to the diplomatic agenda that the administration is following. as for the obama administration itself, you have to give it credit. it put its neck out there by on the campaign saying that it was open to diplomacy, by in 2009 gesturing in

he raises publications include coping with a nuclearizing iran, israel and iran, a dangerous rivalry, the next supreme leader, succession in the republic of iran, saudi rain an relations and many others. this commentaries have appeared in a varied of media including foreign policy, global security.org, international herald try bub, "new york times" and others and a frequent guest on television and radio. the final speaker is my friend and colleague justin logan, the director of foreign policy studies here at cato. he is an expert on u.s. grant strategy, international relations theory and american foreign poechl. his current research focuses on the shifting balance of power in asia and the formation of u.s. strategy under uni-polarity. his articles appear in many policy journals including foreign policy and the national interests, orvis, foreign service journal and others and appeared on many television and radio networks. with that i will get out of the way and introduce our first speaker, michael adler. michael. >> good morning, and thank you all for coming here. >> would you please

iran and it's much more expensive not to go through iran. if we want to apply the sanctions it's going to be problematic. politics come in the way of economics completely in this region. just an example about the surplus electricity that tajikistan wants to sell to afghanistan when it has its own serious problems on electricity almost at war with uzbekistan. we do have political problems in the region that cannot be solved through economics can be exaspirating. the countries prefer bilateral than multilateral and regional because of the competition with each other and because of the gains thaeltd get. they're unsure how much the taliban if they come to power would hold on to their promises on economic contracts. there has no good record of the taliban having held -- having had a good economic strategy before. and finally, chinese are giving a lot of guarantees on money. russians are giving guarantees on security. central asians want guarantees. this is it the message of my talk. they want guarantees. this is the word. iranians want respect,

for israel there is no reason to attack iran because, flaum, iran will not attack them and the israel economy is booming, tourism is strong and the stock market apparently is not paying attention to the crisis because it's going higher and higher. so what do you think about these? i also would like to ask you about this crisis atmosphere, which is created. to what extent does it actually benefit both israel and iran in the sense that for israel it's the diverting attention from the palestinian issue. usually when israeli prime minister is coming to washington, he's being rebuked for west bank settlements and expansion in the west bank. this time around he got a reprieve, they only talk about iran and israeli is the underdog. the iranians at the same time -- >> that's far more questions -- >> instead of 90 barrels -- >> if we could wrap it up. we have a really long line behind you. >> iran is getting -- the price for oil san diego 90 a barrel and the world price now is $120 because of the crisis. so they are pocketing $100 million every day because of that crisis. thank you. >> thank y

ali raises publications include coping with a nuke rising iran, israel and iran, the next supreme leader, you can ses in the republic of iran, saudi relations since the fall of saddam and many others. his commentaries have appeared in foreign policy.com, global security.org, international herald tribune, "new york times" and others and he is a frequent guest on television and radio. and the final speaker is my friend and colleague justin logan, the director of foreign policy studies here at cato. he's an expert on u.s. grand strategy, international releases theory and american important policy. his current research focuses on the shifting balance of power in asia and the formation of u.s. grand strategy under unipolarity. he's authored numerous policy studies and articles including on "uss-china policy, u.s.-russian policy, and policy approaches towards a nuclear iran. his articles have appeared in many policy journals including foreign policy and the national interest, orbis, foreign service journal and others and he also has appeared on many television and radio networks. with that i w

policy iran's isolation or the problem with iran trumps the need to get iran to work positively in afghanistan? and i'll leave it at that. so, i think we'll get brief answers and then we'll open it up. >> sure. i think you're very right. this is what pakistani policymakers essentially are obsessed with or look at very seriously. they also have the whole civil war scenarios in afghanistan in front of them. but a couple of points. one is we must remember that pakistan's elitist orientation has always been south south asian, india -- i mean, whatever they do, they look towards india and oppose it or whatever. and there are big problems, of course, with india. they had also -- and also is -- i mean affected how it makes policies towards afghanistan because there was no real expertise on afghanistan. i look at things that have been written about afghanistan today and pakistan. a lot of the big effects are wrong. i mean, the composition of the society, one's life and that kind of stuff. the thing -- the real answer to your question is that in the 1990s there was a reasonable conflict of information

his iran publications include coping with nuclearizing iran, israel and iran a dangerous rivalry, the next supreme leader. saudi arabian relations since the fall of saddam. and many others. his commentaries have appeared in a variety of media including foreign policy.com. globalsecurity.org, national "herald-tribune", "new york times" and other and he is a frequent guest on television and radio. and the final speaker is my friend and colleague justin logan. he is the director of the foreign policy studies here at cato. he is an expert on u.s. grand strategy, international relations theory and american foreign policy his current research focuses on the shifting balance of power in ish asia and the formation of u.s. grand strategy under uni polarity. authored numerous studies and articles on u.s. china policy, u.s. russia policy, stable says and reconstruction operations and policy approaches towards a nuclear iran. his articles have appeared in many policy journals including foreign policy in the national interest, foreign service journal and others and he also has appeared on many tel

iran, one of the concerns of a military action would be what iran could do in response militarily. i think it's important to point out iran doesn't have a powerful conventional military. that's not really a response option. it has been investing in a symmetric capabilities. it has ties to terrorist groups and has ballistic missiles and could cause a problem in the persian gulf. those would be the options. i do think in the event of a strike if they think the regime is at risk that they have nothing left to lose, that they koes exercise some of these more extreme retaliatory options including possibly trying to close the strait of hormuz. it's important if we decide to use military force we are very clooer in our public statements and private messaging and our targeting we're only interested in a limited strike against the key nuclear facilities, not after coming after the regime. i think iran can get that message. we have a number of ways of communicating with them. and i think that we can also play on iran's fierce. put yourself in the shoes of the supreme leader. your primary goa

/iran or western iran diplomacies is that there are really good metaphors. closing windows, clocks running at different speeds. so, again, i want to reiterate, i favor diplomacy. i favor probably an unrealistically ambitious diplomatic approach. the very fact that that approach is unrealistic causes me to doubt whether or not we will get to where we want to go. as i mentioned, ali covered quite well some of the obstacles to a diplomatic resolution to the problem. i want to focus on u.s. politics and impediments and suggest where we might go from here to prove me wrong. so, in terms of american domestic politics, the general idea i've been trying to get out into the public is that what might work can't happen and what might happen can't work. and i think that's a fairly glum assessment. i hope that i'm wrong about it, but that's what i believe at this point. as barbara mentioned, the congress' attitude has been let's add more pressure on top of the existing pressure and promise not to put any more pressure if concessions are made. in fact, it's even stopped t

would be either hostile to iran or far from corporate in with iran as a matter of the bashar al assad regime has been so iran is standing to lose and they did supply of weapons to the syrian opposition enough to upset the regional arms balance right now no great know what would i think saudi arabia's told and started to supplying them with weapons but we are talking about like weapons so this as far as or as long as that is what is happening i don't think vision to change them in the balance of power in the middle east that they are still very weak is a possible that they can be simultaneous interventions in syria and iran doesn't seem likely i don't see the european european union or nato or going into syria and they don't see the european union or neutral. taking part in an attack against iran this could be nato could. try to draw the europeans into attacking targets in the run doesn't seem very likely if turks appear thank you very much for joining us here on r.t. you're welcome. dear mom i'm sorry that i had to do this i've been in so much pain in the past year that i can't take i

or taking military iran. nuclear iran would pose a grave threat to the peace and security and would lead to further proliferation in the region as other countries acquire weapons in response. it would he'd lead to further proliferation itself as iran would transfer of the technology to other countries. and nuclear armed iran would be more aggressive. right now iran restrains its foreign policy because it fears major retaliation from israel or the united states. with weapons, it would feel emboldened to push harder and engaging in more coesive diplomacy in the region. we could see an even more crisis prone middle east and with a nuclear armed iran and israel, other nuclear armed states in the region, any one of those crisis coz result in nuclear exchange. given israel's small size, it could mean the end of a state of israel. once iran has missiles capable of reaching the united states, one of these crises could result you the in a nuclear exchange on u.s. soil. so a nuclear armed iran poses a grave threat. pre

si on iran. it is a judgment by this administration and the previous few administrations that an iranian nuclear weapon is a significant threat to u.s. rvitl national interests in a vital region. israel factors in making certain decisions but not in the ultimate course. i also think there's been some in evidence the last couple months that this administration isn't prisoner to israeli desires on this. how do i know that? because if this administration had been prisoner to those desires, obama would have laid out much clearer red lines than he did at the apac conference. we would have green lit an israeli attack on iran already instead of basically telling them not to do it and we think it's a bad idea. and we would have -- or we would have committed to doing it ourselves. now, i mean, this is a viable option. how do i know? because half the republican candidates running for president have suggested exactly, you know, green lighting an israeli attack or doing it jointly or doing it ourselves, clai

iran is not free. jews in iran have a lot to worry about. but the jewish state that iran openly calls a cancer that has to be excised from the middle east, that has to be eradicated, certainly must take seriously iran's claims to annihilate it. >> the way the talks seem to be going, u.s. negotiators, iranian negotiators, seem to be saying that the sanctions are working and that they may in fact roll back some sanctions. that's what the iranians want and there has not been a direct rebuttal to that from the other side. the really tough sanction that's are supposed to take effect this summer. what happens -- okay. >> i think it would be a big mistake to rescind the sanctions or lighten the sanctions. i think there has to be a cascade of sanctions. so far, that's the acid test. the sanctions haven't worked. how do we know that? because nothing has been stopped. what has stopped in the iranian program? >> what if they halted full enrichment to 20%, started importing that? would that be enough? >> i think what they need to do are three things. on

a nuclear armed iran. iran won't believe us. >> i want to respond to the gentleman in the front's point about the iranian people, i think it relates to a point that was made about the aftermath of regime change. i'm not advocating, i don't think anyone up here is advocating bombing the iranian people out of existence. i don't think you can argue the united states was bombing the libyan people or syrian people in the 1990s. iranian people support the current regime. my understanding of the iranian opposition and dicy den figures i've spoken to, there's not broad base support for the current regime. the current regime will fall at some point it's just a matter of when and i do think if the military strike, series of strikes was done so in a targeted matter, civilian casualties could be kept to a minimum. and so, there may be some initial kind of rally around the flag notion inside the country but if it was made clear this was going after the regime and regime elements and elements like others that have been

nuclear weapon project how do you measure iran's capability to launch a counter attack iran has a couple good duty of launching a missile attack on israel a direct attack on israel with few hundred shahab me science what would be the effectiveness of such an attack what are what is their accuracy of these missiles i don't know all. but i don't suppose we would be worse off than we have been in ninety ninety one when we were under iraqi missile attack them it was cost and no one actually got killed but. there's no guarantee that that is not going to be to happen we had an old arrow which we didn't have then we would be able to intercept. at least some part of these attacks missiles attacks and the greatest damage would be as in the case of the. cue for rocket attack the economic damage to israel because under such attack everything comes to a standstill and what about arab support for an israeli strike on iran you mentioned american involvement but surely it's also needs arab assistance in the form of landing lights and even feeling a systems many arab countries are very cautious of iran.

law iran is not. or this or jordan or some other client regime of the united states they will stand firm and they will take it will pursue its rights but with regards to what i said earlier i repeat it's obvious that there's never been any evidence whatsoever that iran's nuclear program has ever been anything but peaceful and i'll decide one example that was stated before and that is the four do plants in your home therefore do plant was only built to produce enrich uranium because of the constant threat of attack on iranian installations in other words since the natanz installations were being threatened by the israelis and the americans illegally and in a you know the use of this is a form of terrorism to constantly threaten a country they built the four do plan to protect the people who work there because they're after all of their are after all human beings they have families and therefore to plant is under i.a.e.a. supervision it has cameras there that work twenty four hours a day seven days a we

about iran's capabilities? if you could each just gave really quick thought on that. >> i think frankly the president -- ahmadinejad has been extraordinarily marginalized. he's basically had a fight with the supreme leader over the past couple years and he's lost decisively. and not only has he lost, but i think actually the office of the presidency itself has been weakened and that the supreme leader has tried to put the presidency back in the box. i don't think that whoever is the next president of iran is likely to be a game changer if for no other reason because you don't get to run for president unless the supreme leader agrees that you're okay. and so i guess he thought mu w moussaoui was fine but afterwards not so much. i don't see the 2013 election as being a game changer. the only thing is it could do is complicate diplomacy for all the reasons that a heated moment complicates it. it allows sides to play politics with the issue instead of settling it. it's already having that effect in our country. i d

i mean that's not really a valid argument he's cantered her iran or iran is iran insult and the united states oh and in fact you can because iran is an independent sovereign country in fact contrary to the claim made earlier that the international community is united on iran it is not a nonaligned movement which consists of three sets of the country of the world supporting iran but in the west the nonaligned movement in other words the majority of the world tonight are not considered as the international community the international community as well as our western countries they represent us and they're the ones who make the decisions. in their eyes the riots are not going to accept that the iranians are working with the frame within the framework of the of international law and they will continue to do so those countries that are not pursue a working within the framework of international law are those countries that are threatening iran with a military attack which is barbaric those countries which have placed an embargo on the iranian central bank in order to prevent iran from even i

they have been distributed all over in iran. so having perhaps one target, you may have three or four. you know, if you want to -- as an example. so it's not only about chrome or -- the problem, if you want really to stop them by military means, you need to step a lot of targets. so i think this answers the difference between the u.s. and israel in this respect. u.s. has much more power to do with. and this is not also anymore a surgical strike like was in iraq. or this place in syria. because they were isolated buildings. you knew exactly where you go and what you need to get. but here you have perhaps ten places which you need to eliminate in order to make sure that this doesn't take place. then surgical strike is a surgical strike. it's not a sledgehammer. but if you really want to stop the program, you should use sledgehammer. elimination of a couple of places. you only buy time. but actually, israel's community use the sledgehammer. what happened in 1991, and gulf war actually stopped nuclear program, and you now see the hi

iran has explained them -- iran has acknowledged this type of research is going on. if you look at the iaea reports in spring of 2010, it is there. there's military and civilian applications. the iaea asked at that time, what are the civilian applications where you need microsecond timing for your explosions, but you have simultaneous explosions? unfortunately, iran was not able to answer this question, stated that these are military secrets and they cannot disclose them. but i have a hard time understanding why you cannot disclose the civilian experiments. maybe their argument is that these were military people who did this sort of thing. what is the lesson that we learn from here? that is a bit more tricky, but i think it's really important if. first, it has to do with the iaea access rights. if the iaea sees this kind of experiments, which really appears to be supporting nuclear weapons research and development, it should have access to those sites and should have access to these people, documentation, and other studies, and to interview these people. why? if i re

not to attack iran right now we see iran through one lens in one way we see this as a unchanging theocracy that is very of the american anti western incurable if you will know the words it's fatally stricken with this theocratic disease of religious fanaticism i don't i think it will change and i think if we can back away from this iran will evolve differently over the next ten years and we don't have to have this hostile relationship or confrontation that would be i mean are you that's one of my organs you know was don't look at you want to change for the better you look at the future look at what is driving iran what is what is iran's principal interest internal modernization economic development what do its people want israel to focus of everyone's hatred in iran absolutely no most iranians could care less about it in fact most iranians are not very friendly towards arabs so the bottom line is why are we doing what we're doing we're looking at things as though they will not change my point is that nixon had the foresight to understand china was at the beginning of a long period of chang

when it comes to dealing with iran. we're sitting down with douglas macgregor every tired army colonel who fought in the gulf war and was referred to by some officials as the best fighter the us army has got mr macgregor thank you very much for joining me good to be here president obama has put forward an ultimatum for iran either make progress with negotiators or face consequences consequences meaning war some say a strike may happen within the next few months in your opinion how realistic is that should we expect the war in summer topical question right now in washington d.c. i think the answer right at the moment is no president obama is not remotely interested in waging war against iran so let's be clear about that no one at the top of the united states military establishment is interested in waging war against iran and the intelligence community has made it abundantly clear that iran is nowhere near the development of a nuclear warhead or the capacity to deliver one so we had those things up it's very very obvious

iran is not free. jews in iran have a lot to worry about. but the jewish state that iran openly calls a cancer that has to be excised from the united states, the enslaves will be annihilated. >> the negotiators seem to be saying that the sanctions are working and that they may in fact roll back some sanctions that's what the iranians want and the really tough sanctions that are to take effect this summer. okay. what do you do? >> i think it would be a big mistake to rescind or lighten the sanctions. i think there has to be a cascade of sanctions. so far, that's the acid test. the sanctions haven't worked. how do we know that? because nothing has been stopped. what has stopped in the iranian program? >> what if they halted full enrichment to 20%, started importing that. would that be enough? >> i think they need to do three things. one, stop all enriched -- >> all enrichment, even the 3% for medical? >> yes. because they say they need it for medical isotopes, so the second point is after you stop the enrichment is remove the enriched material

would be either hostile to iran or. corporately with iran that as much as the bashar assad regime has been so iran is standing to lose is the supply of weapons to the syrian opposition enough to upset the regional arms balance right now no break no what. i think saudi arabia started to started to supplying them with weapons but we're talking about like what comes so. as far as or. as long as that is what is happening i don't think this will change them in the balance of power in the region if there are still very weak it's a possible that they can be somewhat tenuous interventions in syria and iran doesn't seem likely i don't see the european european union or nato going into syria and they don't see the european union. taking part in an attack against iran this could be nato could. try to draw all the europeans into attacking targets in iran doesn't seem very likely if talks up here thank you very much for joining us here on r.t. your work i'm. sure is that so much of that isn't even to the people at the earliest the t

iran doesn't heed to these requests. and it has not heeded to the requests or the iaea board of governor, not to the requests of united nations security council. as a result of that, the authority of the two organizations is diminishing, whether you get someone who doesn't comply. and syria for example has already used this playbook in stalling in answering to some of similar questions with the iaea. so we have created a dangerous precedent. the first precedent actually to this came from north korea. it's not only the answer to the iaea questions, but providing access to the certain sites. so what is at stake is actually the credibility of the whole mpt regime. let me talk a little bit more about the military activities. actually, iaea has been accused of misusing information that comes from intelligence, it comes from third parties. it's not able to verify the vicinity of this information. i don't think it's quite true. why? first of all, i mentioned this procurement which has about according to the isis website, there

yeah i think many distinctions were lost on iran i think iran simply did not understand the american people you know in a sense she sort of had to have a connection with the way americans thought but i think in a deeper sense if you look at her philosophy she simply did not understand the american people she didn't understand american values and what you see her in in all of her books you see her. american values one after another in the judeo christian values in particular so what would america look like if iran was running the show or if one of her accolades or devotes he's like orion's ranger. well we can see you you would see basically a dismantlement of government you'd see every aspect of government which benefits people would just go away all that would have left would be the army you'd have a police force and you'd have the courts and that was basically if i was her vision of america were basically the united states would be run by corporations and since they'd have no barriers to merge to merger or it may be no way to trust barriers they would have america would be ruled by

negotiating with iran is a little bit like doing the hokie pokey. they're entering their second year. there's a that have been involved. my question is dr. kahl said one of your points was that in 60 years there have only been nine countries that violated -- we've only gone nuclear, nine countries have gone nuclear. we have not only the three mentions thatty of you have mentioned, saudi arabia, but also nigeria, bahrain, have all announced military programs. pakistan is building two more heavy water processing plants, a second chemical processing plant. the nine countries within the context of the u.s.-soviet competition now are within the context of the middle east and the sunni/shi'a ferocity. my question is doesn't that change the likelihood of more countries getting nukes? >> it could. we have to be very careful. one of the countries you mentioned was the uae. we should hope every country develops their nuclear program the way the uae has. they've given up the right to domestic enrichment. there's no responsibility for proliferation as long as i

that iran's capability to launch a counterattack iran has a cup ability of launching a missile attack on israel director back on israel. with few hundred shahab me sides what would be the effect ignace of such an award is their accuracy of these missiles i don't know all. gone supposedly would be worse off than we have seen in twenty one when we were under iraqi missile attack them it was course no one actually got killed but there's no guarantee that that is not going to happen we had an old arrow which we didn't have then which would be able to intercept least some part of these missiles attacks and the greatest damage would be as in the case of a katyusha rocket attack konami damage is red because under such attack everything comes to a standstill and what about arab support for israel in strike iran you mentioned american involvement but surely israel also needs our persistence in the form of landing lights and even feeling assistance and many arab countries are very cautious of iran and. the for example saudi arabia has been urging the united states for a pack of around for many

you measure iran's capability to launch a plan to attack iran as a cup ability of launching a missile attack on israel direct attack on israel. with few hundred thousand sites what would be the effectiveness of such an attack and what is the accuracy of these missile i don't know all. gone supposed to be worth all of the in one thousand nine hundred one when we were under iraqi army so the image was cost no one actually got killed but there's no guarantee that that is not going to want to happen and we had an old arrow which we didn't have then which would be able to intercept least some part of these missiles attacks and the greatest damage would be as in the case of you for a rocket attack the economic damage to israel because under such a pact everything comes to a standstill what about arab support for an israeli strike on iran you mentioned american involvement but surely it's also needs our persistence in the form of landing rights and even feeling assistance many arab countries are very cautious of iran. for example saudi arabia has been urging the united states for attack iran

iran. there's been 16 years of diplomas circumstance as you have talked about you have said repeatedly, said it in march, i know you stayed to the army radio this morning. it is not a problem of days but also not a problem of years. now you said that first in march so i would imagine not years, plural. you think that means this will be resolved by next spring? >> well, i hope it is resolved and i hope it is resolved peacefully. the international community is putting a lot of pressure on iran and making clear that its nuclear program must stop. if it stops with sanctions, the combinations of sanctions, diplomas circumstance other pressures, i, as the prime minister of israel, will be the happiest person in the world. >> do you think that sanctions are working? i mean, i saw story today about -- i think it was 56% of iranian -- of iran's fleet, tankers, sitting off the coast with oil, full of oil, 'cause they can't sell it. it would appear that sanctions are working. >> well, they are certain

in istanbul with iran over the iran nuclear program.ve and you've done some reporting on this in terms of the intentions on this. my question to you is is there a possible end-point, is there a realistic possible end-point to negotiations that would satisfy the current israeli government? >> well sure, i think that if you had monitoring in all of the places that the iaea has been denied access to now for several years, and you've answered all the questions of the inspectors about laboratory and other sort of programs that you know, the head of the iaea said could be used for a nuclear weapon and remain all of these outstanding questions and you had a essential that the entire program was disclosed, which no one ever has, because the two main facilities were only disclosed after they were essentially outed. and those were the facility in kom, and the facility in etans. when you have a history so much deception and everyone who wants to build a nuclear weapon in the modern age, after the u.s. has deceived people about it from you know, th

i want to talk about iran. i hope you agree with me that our best peaceful diplomacy tool left to us to stop the march is the vigorous enforcement of the sanctions that we presently have, particularly the central bank of iran. is that the best tool? >> it is certainly probably the highest priority tool. we have others, but your characterization is right. >> in that context respect to the implementation of the central bank sanctions that begin to take effect tomorrow with respect to non-petroleum transactions, i have concerns about the subjective criteria. that will be used to determine whether a country has achieved significant reductions and purchases of refined petroleum. i would have preferred we had some scale, but we heard arguments why having a subjective criteria may be better. i can presume that in the absence with the security waiver under the law, all countries would be required to make reductions in the purchases in each of the 180-day period? >> yes. our expectation and direction we are giving is th

iran's president. says no threat pressure will make his country give up its rights to nuclear energy. comes ahead of this weekend's talks on the issue with major world powers in turkey. now more than a year. plan and celebrates fifty one years since the legendary first flight of the final frontier russian. plan of moon exploration. to appear on our closest cosmic neighbor with. the ups and downs in the u.s. relationship and the effects on the world they're having all of that under scrutiny right now as we talk to barack obama's former national security adviser. general james earl jones thank you for taking time to sit down with us of course former security advisor national security advisor to president obama from two thousand and nine to twenty ten. i'd like to start with what you think the top priorities in terms of u.s. russia global security are let's focus on cooperation first i think the russia u.s. bilateral relationship is one of the most important relationships on the planet today and i was wit