--with iran. we hope they do not initiate military action against us, but they have seized american sailors and marines and urged allies to attack u.s. ships. we cannot be 100% certain the iranians will follow the wise course of staying with diplomacy rather than military force. host: a very different situation when the shah was in control in iran prior to 1979. at that point, we had a close alliance with iran even know the shah was often brutal on some people. do you see that renewing anytime in the next 10 to 20 years? guest: the supreme leader of iran is extremely suspicious about the united states' intentions in the region and sees opposition to the united states as a on a mental principle of the islamic revolution. says itlutionary guard agrees with him. it is hard to see that ideology in iran changing anytime soon. perhaps it might ver. many iranians would like to see better relationships between iran and the united states. wheres a point revolutionary guard disagree with the people. it seem

response to iran. so it's very difficult for the iranian policymakers to basically -- to see the u.s. taking actions that are not perceived to be compatible with the jcpoa and not at least present themselves as responding in some way. in terms of the inspections one of the -- as another was saying, the -- now, i don't want to say that rouhani administration oversold it, but the perceptions in iran of the nuclear deal is somewhat different from the nuclear deal itself. we saw this in the polls that we conducted immediately after the nuclear deal. people perceived the deal to include all sanctions not just the nuclear related sanctions. people perceived that the deal to be something that's going to basically block any new sanctions from coming forward. and a lot of these misperceptions about the deal were corrected over time. there was one thing that was never corrected that remain -- the misperception remains and it was probably every single iranian general and official said, we're not going to do that.

on the side including iran including iran course including including of course including iran when youhave i mean can set off experts that. would be allowed to participate in that action. we cannot talk about the democrats it's not about to go into the ballot it's about free campaigning it's about creating the condemn the checks and balances inside the system and the human rights that are respected but this site i would like to focus on one made sure i mean problem was that tension between sunnis and shia and we cannot jump over to the reality the problem is not only between iran and between the saudi arabia the problem inside the house inside the other board itself you have this big divide between two sick did in groups and this is at the core of what the war happening in syria and this is. could inflame at any point in their been on in kuwait and behind and this. problem i don't think that i mean putting the blame on one side would help definitely between iran and saudi arabia and that killing the real issue would have a lot but antagonizing or defeat or develop one part. of the othe

action against iran. it would be very difficult for to iranian policymakers basically see the u.s., taking perceivedat are not jcoa compatible with the and not present themselves in in some way.n -- i terms of the inspections, don't want to say the administration joseph sold it. iran upperception in the nuclear deal it's different from the nuclear deal itself. the polls wen conducted immediately after the nuclear deal. deal toerceive the include hold sanctions. people perceive the deal that's any new block sanctions. misperceptions about the deal were corrected over time. thing that was never corrected a remain the misperception. probably because every single iranian general and iran official came out to say, we're not going to do that. that was allow inspection of military. the perception in iran was that not allowoes inspection of iranian military and secure installation. the perception on the ground. every single iranian general has --e on tv after >> we're going to break away from the last part of thi

two iran. we went to kuwait to respond to that initiative. unfortunately as soon as iran accepted that initiative, saudi arabia that was a part of the group that initiated this idea rejected it. now we have to see what we are moving towards. i think we have a common destiny in this region. actually we have a common destiny across the globe. it's not a situation where you can win at the expense of others. >> rose: let me tell you what they say and we talked to many of the leaders across the arab world and iran and the state that it is, not an arab state, a persian. whether it's a revelation or a state. it's a cause or nation. does it want to be -- iran has to choose because they say that's kissinger and then these arab states and others in the neighborhood say they're coming to our country trying to meddle in our country iranians are in iraq, iranians are trying to have an impact in saudi arabia and in the emirates. >> we are in no country without the invitization from their government. we are i

against russia, against iran. i want to thank the ranking member of the foreign affairs committee from new york for his determined and excellent work on this legislation. regimes in dit parts of the world are threatening vital u.s. interests, and they are destabilizing their neighbors. it is well past time that we force fully respond -- forcefully respond. under putin, russia has invaded its neighbor, ukraine, seizing its territory and destabilizing its government. it poses a threat to our nato allies in europe as moscow works to undermine democratic values with determination and sophistication. as u.s. intelligence agencies have made clear, this former kgb colonel attempted toint fear with our own election. left unchecked, russia is sure o continue its aggression. putin's forces continue to prop up the murderous assad regime in syria, prolonging a deadly, deadly conflict that has driven tens of millions of people from their homes while enabling the chemical s shall -- weapons and other systematic human rights abu

or without iran.t important link, you will not be able to end the conflict in syria without the syrians. at the end of the day, the syrians should decide. the rest of us should facilitate. we should not dictate to the syrians what they should do. charlie: did you approve russia coming in? -- made a point that they were invited in by the assad government. were you ok with russia coming in to prop up the assad government? mr. javad sharif: what we have said is that we do not interfere in the decision by a sovereign government. i give you a clearer example. we disagree with the united states, but we do not intervene against the united states cooperating with the iraqi government. we have not intervened against it. because we believe that is a decision that the iraqi government should make. we may oppose it, but it is their decision. charlie: so do you encourage the government of iraq? to make sure that members of the sunni islam, are not shut out from government? so that they do not see what we have seen

arms to iran. we're not giving these arms to iran. the u.s. is charging him for it. the money that's handled by the enterprise for the contras and the money that the enterprise gets from its arms sales, if it's going to, say, take the money from the iranian government, the money from these two operations actually starts to go into the same bank accounts. you know, so north comes up with this idea, and again, to him, it must have seemed totally logical and really neat. what north really cares about are the contras. okay? he's really committed to the contra cause. and the contras are always short of money, it seems. no matter how much money they get from third parties, from third countries, they always need more money. there is always a money issue for the contras. and north sees this money sitting in the bank accounts. and there are proceeds coming in from the sale of the arms to iran. so north's idea is, of course, give this money to the contras. give the money to the contras. he comes up with a fu

anything else on iran? we're done with iran. middle east peace. let's see what we can do to solve it. >> is this the first time? >> i know other people from the state department have had a series of discussions with him. he has been in meetings in israel with our ambassador there . there are a whole lot of those conversations taking place. it was my first place to go over there and hear first happened. reporter: would you like to see it -- >> the state department has been more active. we have been accompanying plrm kushner and nd mr. they like to work with us and we would like to work them. and we went over to say-. reporter: the israeli prime minister told the french president that he is skeptical about the trump administration, do you have any comment on that? >> i'm not aware of the prime minimums fer's comments. this is the first time. we have a very good he relationship with prime minister netanyahu and this administration has talked about promoting peace between the israelis and the palestinians. reporter: this is a flash point, very volatil

by the united states is of the iran they are clearly very. very much a source of concern to most of the free world the western world i believe that president trump sorts of quite early in his first term to do is these problems as unpredictable and unexpected as he is on the all the issues but at least we see that in the first quarter of his first term as president of the united states he has put a lot of energy into into the middle east and into the israeli palestinian israeli are a conflict and i hope that this will would signal to boast to iran and to the rest of. the potential allies for countering iran that he is serious in that. in that respect you mentioned the free world and i think it's quite clear to me about the when you look at the region over israel's policy towards iran it compares to only one country which is saudi arabia everybody else has moved on everybody else is flexible could tar turkey jordan egypt not to mention russia the european union even the. united states under the obama administration and there we know that there

against russia, against iran. i want to thank the ranking member of the foreign affairs committee from new york for his determined and excellent work on this legislation. this is a very important bill. these three regimes in different parts of the world are threatening vital u.s. interests and they are destabilizing their neighbors. it is well past time that we forcefully respond. under vladimir putin, russia has invaded its neighbor ukraine. seizing its territory and destabilizing its government. it poses a threat to our nato allies in europe as moscow works valuesrmine democratic with determination and sophistication. as u.s. intelligence agencies have made clear, this kernel attempted to interfere with our election. if left unchecked, rest assured to continue its aggression. in his forces continue to pop up. the murderous assad regime in syria prolonging a deathly, deadly conflict that has driven tens of millions of people from their homes while enabling the of chemical weapons and other systematic human rights

the iran key foreign minister says iran dominates iraq.eople say the united states fought the war but the iran has been the greatest beneficiary. >> i sure the person who wrote that new york times article picked up a sentence from my friend's statement. iran has been on the side of the iraqi people from the very beginning. that is why we have come to the aid of the kurds. iran was the first country. he asked many to come to the assistance and the country that came to the assistance immediately was iran had it not been for our assistance and not for the very brave struggle of the kurdish people, it would have been falling to isis. had it not been for the brave struggle of the iraqis. we came to the assistance. we chose the right side. our neighbors chose the wrong side. they make all the wrong choices. they supported isis. they supported extremist in iraq. came to the assistance of the people and now is accepted by the people of iraq and they can continue to quote, misquote politicians in order to create misunderstandings but i think that a

including iran in this process seems to be very very. kind of redundant because iran looks at exactly the other direction how to not allow this resolution of the israeli palestinian conflict to to be. to become to become a reality because this nurtures. the. the any muzhik t. the hatreds and the and the host time approach of of the iranians towards to was the zionism towards israel towards the jews etc plus you know i'm not i'm not here to provide any any advice is to present trump or to america i'm just thinking through searching and looking for the best options for my country for my people and for the other human beings around us while speaking about your country i mean your futures blamed iran for essentially sabotaging the peace process but let's look at how well israeli negotiators perform because you know i find it interesting that in most of the business schools around the world you see israeli negotiators former israeli negotiators teaching in the m.b.a. program the art of deal making do you think the deal that israel has so far

and us, and it's not okay between iran and us. >> bret: i'm just going to clear, the jcpoa is the iranl. >> looked, tillerson is exactly right that the way the administration structure the deal is completely divorced from all other iranian actions, its attempt to intake over neighboring countries. all of these actions are excluded. obama did that explicitly. he wanted this to be a pure nuclear deal. the other effort, as you said earlier, he had all the goodies given up to iran upfront. the major one, the one that really counts, the world had been able to come after ten years under our leadership, to be able to produce worldwide sanctions of ridging that was killing the iranian a company. that was left and right away. that's the problem. american sanctions are not going to make any difference. the europeans have totally lifted the sanctions. the iranian economies is on the rebound. that is a loss. so there is no point tearing up deal. the iranians are going to have the benefits doing at least it holds them in some check. the question is what do you do when it runs out in less than a dec

it contains sunset restrictions where iran's nuclear program go away over time and iran can emerge withindustrial sized nuclear program with near zero nuclear breakout capability with an easier covert sneak out capability and with increased regional hegamony. so rob is right the deal temporarily pushed the iranians further in terms of breakout but over the medium term iran will emerge wealth thing it wants by faithfully complying with the deal. we don't want another fatally flawed nuclear agreement like with north korea. we need to deal with this flawed agreement. the president made it clear he thinks this is a terribly deal, a fatally flawed deal and i think my advice to him is don't certify compliance and begin to lay the predicate for a massive pressure campaign and get the iranians back to the table to negotiate nuclear deal number two that addresses some of the fatally flawed elements of the deal and give us inspection rights into military sites which we have in theory but in practice the iranians aren't letting us into military sites where they're likely to engage in nuclear weapo

against iran. and so you know i just see this incredible disconnect between the reality of the situation and what the us is trying to do to iran and in the region in general and you mentioned that you went on a tour of what used to be the civic torture center so can you explain what the survivor was than what you witnessed while you're on that tour yes and first of all i asked for this tour it wasn't that people suggested it i knew about the sock this sock was created by the central intelligence agency it was created after the cia overthrew the democratically elected president mohamed moses decks are you prime minister in one nine hundred fifty three because he wanted to nationalize iran's oil industry for the benefit of iranians the u.s. installed the shaw otherwise known as a king and created the socket a very brutal security agency in order to keep the shawn power which they were able to do til the revolution of one nine hundred seventy nine so what i saw it's now a museum is the sock prison in

information that the deal allows in iran, iran restarts its nuclear program, and we're back to where we were before the deal. that's a lot of ifs, but those are exactly the ifs that most to have the national security establishment is using to try and convince president trump to stay in the deal. >> brangham: nick schifrin, margaret warner, thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: famine and drought threaten somaliland's future. and, what this artist's paintings of sunrises and sunsets can teach us about life. but first, an all-girls team from afghanistan finally made it to the u.s. this week to participate in a robotics competition. their visas were denied twice by american officials, until criticism prompted president donald trump to intervene and reverse the decision. the girls joined high school students from more than 150 other countries, many of whom had never seen-- or made-- a robot before. jeffrey brown will look at some of the immigration policy issues this is raising once again. but first, special correspondent kavitha cardoza, with our partner "educ

obviously including iran.is why the president of iran has put out a charter of the rights of the citizens. we believe excesses exist. we need to address those excesses. this is our own priority and an issue of national security for us. that is how we derive our legitimacy, from our people. pure and simple. this was one of the major topics of the campaign. charlie: we have to do better on human rights? dr. zarif: much better. there are obviously regions who are far far behind. the united states never complains about them. they are not designated by the united states. they are sending terrorists through the territory. charlie: you do have to be careful about that but no one has proven they were sent by the saudi government. dr. zarif: a court in new york condemned iran for participating in 9/11. find $11 billion for participating in 9/11. you want me to buy this? a court in new york awarded $11 billion to the victims of 911 against iraq. you're telling me nobody has proven saudi arabia was behind it. let me tell

including iran. that is why the president of iran has put out a charter of the rights of the citizens. we believe that excessive exists. we need to address those competitions -- excesses and we need to, because that's how we derive our legitimacy from our people so we have to respect them. more and simple. this was one of the major topics during our election campaign, and president is very clear on that. >> rose: we have to do better on human rights. >> much better, much better. but there are others in our region who are far far behind. >> rose: but also you put -- >> but the united states never complains about them. they are not designated by the united states. they support terrorism, not a single one of them is designated. they are sending terrorists to your territories for 9/11. >> rose: they have to be careful about that. they were saudis but it wasn't proven they were sent by the saudi government -- >> did you know -- >> rose: are you -- >> did you know a court in new york condemn iran are for p

our concern is the expansionist policy of iran, the hegemonic policy of iran.telling you this as a diplomat that represents a country that has three of its islands operated by iran until today this is not theoretical. , 1971. we see iranian footprints everywhere in the region. if you were to map out 15 years ago where iran's influence was and you would do the same map today, that area would be much larger. they have a much stronger influence in iraq, syria, and lebanon. part of the reason we're in yemen is to prevent that in yemen. we do not want to see iran replicate hezbollah. charlie: what are we planning to do as far as you know about iran's behavior? michael: what i understand, he knows more than i do, is we plan to challenge in specific places in the middle east on iranian this behavior. mostly behind the scenes, but we are going to take it on. this is a significant change for the united states. time,very long period of we ignored iranian misbehavior in the region, even when it was focused directly at us. the beirut embassy bombing trails back to tehran.

so our concern is the expansionist policy of iran, is the hedge mondayic behavior of eye iran, and as a diplomat that represents a country that has three of it's lands occupied by iran, until today, since 1971, there is not theoretical. we see iranian footprints everywhere in the region. and if you are to map out 15 years ago where iran's influence, iran's footprint was and would you do the same math today, that area would be much, much larger. they have a much stronger influence in iraq. much stronger influence in syria and lebanon. and part of the reason we are in yemen is to prevent that from happening in yemen. we do not want to see iran replicate hezbollah in yemen. >> rose: what is our-- what do we plan to do in this government as far as you know about iran's behavior? >> so what i understand, yousef knows more than i do, is that we plan to challenge in specific places in the middle east iranian misbehavior. mostly behind the scenes. but we're going to take it on. and there is a significant change. for the united states. for a very long period of time we ignored iranian misbehav

charlie: including iran. dr. zarif: obviously including iran.hy the president of iran has put out a charter of the rights of the citizens. we believe excesses exist. we need to address those. we need to resolve them. this is our own priority and an issue of national security for us. because that is how we derive our legitimacy. from our people. so we have to respect them. pure and simple. this was one of the major topics during our election campaign. president rouhani's platform is clear. charlie: we have to do better on human rights? dr. zarif: much better. but there are others in our region who are far far behind. but the u.s. never complains about then. they are not designated by the u.s. they support terrorism. not a single one of them is designated. they are sending terrorists to your territories. to bee: we do have careful about that. there were saudi's, but no one has proven they were sent by the saudi government. dr. zarif: has anybody proven anything about iran? a court in newat york condemned iran for participating in 9/11? us $11 bill

iran has always had good relations with the cuban revolution sanctions good for iran apart from say civil aviation of course but dissensions may countries throw in their current door to see. if a country makes clever political decisions then they would be able to turn the sanctions imposed on them into a golden opportunity to develop their nation and to rely upon themselves the developments that have taken place in iran whilst under sanctions may not have ever happens if sanctions were not imposed on it in iran is one of five leading nations in terms of their scientific developments. and we believe that sanctions on russia could benefit them of course russia is a very strong nation and it's a superpower so the sanctions against russia by the us. in some european nations will only make russia more independent and even cuba and other nations like venezuela off free and sovereign nations and they don't want to be on the americans control. kind of a grand ayatollah shaikh was an iraqi thank you very much. to his grand ayatollah shaikh most an iraqi talking about sanctions ahead of washi

with respect to iran this bill so many of the things iran's leaders do to drive violence and instability from tehran's ballistic missile program and support for terrorism. to the regime's abhorrent human rights record and efforts to build up its military. i have said this again and so m things again that we need to hold the regime's feet to the fire on all these issues. this bill does exactly that. and finally, on russia, this bill is a strong direct response to putin's efforts to undermine american democracy. it imposes new sanctions on those who want to do business with putin's cronies or with russia's military or intelligence. it strengthens existing sanctions for russia's illegal annexation of crimea, an armed intervention in eastern ukraine. it pushes back against russia's cybercrimes, including a hacking of our election to help donald trump, a story which congress and the special counsel are still trying to get to the bottom of, as well as putin's support for the murderous assad regime in syria. it gives the congress a strong oversight role in making sure that these russian sanctio

by iran to come home. it also calls on iran to fulfill its many promises to help find bob levinson. also urges the president to prioritize release of these captives and encourages him to take meaningful action to secure their release. last week the administration called on iran to release these unjustly detained u.s. citizens or to face new and serious consequences. we appreciate the administration's actions so far. with this resolution urge continual attention to this matter until all of these prisoners have been safely returned to their families. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from new york is ecognized. mr. engel: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in support of this measure and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. engel: let me thank chairman royce because here again is another piece of legislation from the foreign affairs committee that we have sho

is that the deal hasn't improved iran's. its its behavior in the middle east that's continuing to support radical groups is contending to support the us and regime in syria. so the deal from the iranian perspective hasn't been. transformational it's been merrily transactional always comes at the time that an american citizen has been sentenced is being held in iran what you make of the timing of that and how this might affect things. well the original seven of the nineteen seventy nine iranian revolution was the hostage crisis radical iranian students taking american. diplomats hostage and in many ways almost four decades later iran's policies have been changed they continue to take. us citizens hostage and i think among the messages they they try to send to the u. s. government is don't think that. were interested in a better relationship with you i think these. days. detain men's also are meant to sabotage iran's on. because the elected government the role honey governments and iran and i think. the danger here is there's