The iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of democracy. It has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos. Charlie over the weekend, the president called kim jongun a madman and wrongly accused iran of firing missiles. Joining me are nick burns, professor of diplomacy at Harvards Kennedy school. And michael morrell, the host of a new cbs podcast. Im pleased to have both of them here. Where are we in terms of diplomacy and contingent planning . The fundamental problem is the North Koreans are a few months away, six to 12, from demonstrating the capability of putting a u. S. City at risk of nuclear attack. There are three pieces you have to have. One is Nuclear Weapons. The ability to get a nuclear yield out of explosion at 100 . We know they have that. They have demonstrated it. They have tested it. Got that guaranteed. The second is the ability to deliver a payload the distance you want it to go. They have done a couple of tests that demonstrated the capability to put a missile as far east as chicago or detroit. We dont know 100 what the weight of the payload they tested was, so we dont know exactly how far it could deliver a Nuclear Weapon. As far as chicago or detroit. We are not 100 how much the payload weighed. That is a big determinant of how far it can go. Check for sure on the weapon. Close to a check on the missile. Third piece is, can you make a Nuclear Weapon small enough to fit on a missile . The Intelligence Community thinks they can do that. The last piece is, can you make it all work . Can you make all of the Electronics Work under the intense vibrations of takeoff and reentry and the heat and pressure . On that, we dont know where they are. The consensus view is they are getting very close to that. They are demonstrating that capability. The president has said they will not be allowed to achieve that capability. Hence, the fundamental problem we have. I think diplomacy is the right approach. I think putting pressure on them is the right approach. After 25 years of pressuring them, i am not 100 sure, in fact i am uncertain that will stop him from ultimately demonstrating that capability. Charlie does the language of the united nations, does it make you realize america is serious and angry about this . Or does it make them more certain in their desire to do something that will hurt the United States . Nick i think the language of the president over the last eight or nine days confuses them. What we need to do is go back to what we did so effectively in the cold war. Strategic deterrence. He is a despicable leader. He is probably evil in many ways. But he is not a madman. We assume he is rational. What eisenhower would have done at the podium last week, or reagan, or bill clinton, would have been to have said the following the United States is not going to be the aggressor. We will not attack north korea. But should they seek to attack, we will respond with overwhelming force. That is Strategic Deterrence. That is what secretary mattis is saying. It is with secretary tillerson is saying. It is what general dunford said this week in congressional testimony. It is what all of our experts are saying. But the president has come out with this bombastic language charlie destroy your nation. Nick it is too hot for the united nations. It loses its friends. It almost makes kim jongun to be the victim. I think what the president has been able to do with mattis and tillerson is move the chinese a little bit. We have got to practice Strategic Deterrence. We have to envelop in a bear hug the South Koreans and japanese, instead of what the president said about canceling free trade. Third, sanctions. Let me Say Something positive about the Trump Administration. In the last week, they have announced two sets of sanctions. Sectoral and financial sanctions last week. This week, sanctions against individual companies, some chinese, trading with the North Koreans. This is what president bush or president obama did so effectively with the iranians. They increased the leverage and the pain. They raised the cost to the iranians and drove them to the negotiating table. That sanctions piece is critical. If the Chinese Central Bank is serious and instructs the other banks in china to shut down lending to north korea, that is the kind of pressure, but it is diplomatic. It is sanctions. It is not making ourselves into the aggressor. I think that is a tactical mistake. Charlie suppose you were advising the president on the diplomatic front. If the North Koreans came to the administration and said we will put a freeze exactly where we are now. We will freeze it if you eliminate all hostile actions against our country. Would you take that deal . Nick i would not immediately. I would open negotiations on some variation. What we probably cannot do right now is agree to a deal that says if the North Koreans freeze their Nuclear Development in place, we will freeze all American Military activities. What you want to do in a negotiation is drive up the economic pressure of sanctions, but you also want to have the military preparedness and strength. We have an alliance obligation to south korea and japan to defend them. Some variation of that might be a final, messy compromise. But i dont think you agree to it at the beginning. Michael they will not make that offer. They want the same kind of strength going into negotiation. Kim jongun wants to demonstrate the capability of being able to attack a u. S. City, and then he will be happy to have a negotiation about where we go from here in this relationship. Charlie he has more arrows in his quiver . Michael absolutely. Charlie do have a feeling about the notion there is anything short of a fullscale attack we can do militarily, in terms of cyber, being able to shut them down from a power standpoint . Nick just with iran in the last decade, we have to use all instruments of American Power to try to weaken him and coerce him to the negotiating table. I agree with mike. You have to have a rigorous benefit analysis of an attack. There are 30 million South Koreans living below the dmz. 200,000 americans and 35,000 american troops. The heavily the most heavily mined place on or. The North Koreans have a tremendous conventional capacity with artillery. You would have to assume in first days or weeks of the war, maybe hundreds of thousands dead. That is not an exaggeration. That is why you see serious people, general dunford, secretary mattis, going to the hill and speaking publicly saying diplomacy is the way we go. We get back to rhetoric. As the president keeps punching kim jongun in this kind of eightyearold taunting war going on, you listen to mattis in india this week, he has diplomacy eight or nine times in a paragraph. Secretary tillerson. They are the calming influence. Charlie we dont want war with the North Koreans. Nick that is a very important signal to the North Koreans. Michael the problem with the punching. One problem is he does fear, incorrectly, that the United States wants to get rid of him, his regime, and wants to reunite the north and south. He sees these weapons as the ultimate deterrence against us doing that. When the president uses the kind of language he is using, it reinforces in kim the reason why he wants to have these weapons. The second is, and this is a strange thing about north korea, they use the vitriol like no other country i know but are incredibly sensitive to it. One thing you hear from the North Koreans all the time is when south korea says something not nice about kim jongun, the North Koreans get their back up. This language not only reinforces their policy but it is dangerous because it forces them into a corner. Nick the problem with tough rhetoric that plays to the president s base is it introduces into the mind of kim jongun and his advisors a doubt. Are the americans in a defensive posture . Will they only attack us if we attack them . Could President Trump be serious . If they think he is serious, that we might attack them first, you have the risk of conflict. They put their troops on alert. We have american aircraft this week flying just outside the 12mile airspace limit. I worry the rhetoric is destabilizing to Strategic Deterrence and deeply unwise. Michael the chinese did Something Interesting three or four weeks ago during the height of the kim trump rhetoric. The chinese said if the United States preemptively attacks north korea, we will fight on the side of north korea. And then they turned around and said if north korea were to attack first, north korea is on its own. That was a message of deterrence to both of us. It was the chinese being the adults in the room. Very interesting. United states of america used to be the adult in the room. Charlie is there some backchannel communication going on now between somebody advising the north Korean Leader who speaks to the president . Nick i dont know. Im not in a position to know. Charlie would you expect that to be happening . Nick i would hope so. In a situation like this if you , do not have a diplomatic relationship with a government, and no one in the current government admits to meeting kim jongun, you need to establish communication. I think secretary tillerson has been trying to do that. In the summer, he was saying if there is a pause in some of these nuclear and missile tests, maybe we can graduate to the next level. Kim jongun didnt give him a chance. There has been a flurry of tests of both varieties. I see secretary tillerson and secretary mattis as adults. I think they are trying to move us toward negotiations. They understand this is a longterm struggle with north korea. It is not going to be resolved this year or next. We need to get to the negotiating table probably for a compromise that will be deeply unsatisfying to people who want to end the crisis. But if you can avoid a war and freeze the North Koreans in place, that is not a bad outcome if you can get it. Michael here is one of the things you have to worry about in a war scenario. When i described the three pieces they need to put a u. S. City at risk, i said we know a lot about one. We know mostly about the other. And the one in the middle we dont know a lot about. At the end of the day, we dont really know what their capabilities are today. If kim jongun fired an icbm with a Nuclear Weapon on it today, it might work. Jim clapper is saying publicly we have to assume, prudence requires that in military planning and diplomatic thinking, you have to assume he might be able to attack us successfully today with a Nuclear Weapon. Going to war today not only risks definite war with south korea, between north korea and south korea, but maybe a Nuclear Strike on korea, maybe on japan, and maybe a Nuclear Strike on the United States of america. That is how serious this is. Charlie let me turn to iran. They also suffered some rhetorical assault from the president. He said not only was the deal an embarrassment but he called iran a corrupt regime and rogue nation. Why is he doing that . Why was that necessary . What was the point . Michael let me tee up the problem and let my diplomatic friend solve it for us. Charlie i will sit back and listen. Michael there are two buckets. One is the iranian Nuclear Weapons program. The second is iranian misbehavior in the region. Their own conducting terrorism, their support to terrorists, their support to insurgents, desire for regional influence, desire that israel be wiped off the face of the planet. That whole set of issues. Right . On this first issue, i believe the jcpoa, the nuclear deal has put that issue in a box for the next 10 to 15 years. It is not perfect, but it is pretty darn good because it has put them in a box for 10 to 15 years. As far as i know, the iranians are living up to almost the entirety of the agreement. There are a handful of small issues where they are not in compliance. But those are minor issues. The president had to make a decision about how to handle the first one, and he also needs to make a decision on how to handle the second one. How do we disincentivize, deter, the iranians from this misbehavior in the region . That is the second thing he has to decide that has to be done against the following backdrop which is the most interesting internal politics in iran in a long time. There is a real struggle internally playing out publicly between the hardliners and what i call the centrists, many people would call them moderates. Charlie rouhani. He is a centrist. It is a fight, a struggle over whether iran will remain a revolutionary nation or going to be a normal nation. It was fought publicly charlie i asked the Prime Minister of iran. He said we want to be both. Michael you cant be both. Both cannot exist, coexist at the same time. This debate played out publicly on the debate stage between rouhani and this very conservative candidate for president. The iranian people voted and spoke overwhelmingly they wanted to go in a certain direction. The question in trying to manage the nuclear issue, president has to make a decision soon, and managing the regional misbehavior, how do you do that in a way that does not strengthen the hardliners and weaken the centrists . Nick is going to tell us charlie before you do that. When you talk about supporting terrorism, the charge against iran is they are heavily involved against the saudis in yemen. That is one. Go ahead. Nick iran itself conducts terrorism around the world against israeli and jewish targets and the targets of its neighbors. Charlie how does it do that . Nick it has an apparatus doing . what is it i am asking because assassinating nick the saudi ambassador in the United States several years ago. Charlie that was not carried d . Out. It was interrupted. Nick it was interrupted. There was an attack in europe several years ago. The iranians were involved in that. I think it is fair to say they are the only state in the world is still practices terrorism as a statecraft. They provide support to terrorist groups, hezbollah, hamas, and others. Hezbollah could not exist without the support it gets from iran. Support to insurgents in the region trying to overthrow sunni regimes in yemen, iran, and saudi arabia. Their support for people like president assad is another issue. That is what i mean by regional misbehavior. Nick to use mikes construct of these two big problems, i think President Trump is right to try to push the iranians back on the big struggle for power in the middle east. President trump is wrong to try to wiggle out of the iran nuclear deal. Why . There is a big shia sunni struggle for power. Charlie we have taken sides and said we support the saudis who represent the sunnis. Nick sunnis. President trump was right to do that. Charlie why was he right . I thought president obamas tactic was different. Not saying youre coming. Behind the saudis. I thought president obamas tactic was to try to recognize iran has a legitimate interest in the region and try to get the saudis to talk to them. The foreign minister said at this table we cannot get them to talk to us. The foreign minister said, we cannot get them to talk to us. Isnt that what the president wanted to do, obama, he wanted the saudis to talk to the iranians . Nick it is hard to do that when the iranians are launching military offenses through the hutu rebels in yemen trying to establish a line from tehran to damascus to lebanon. It is as if the great shia power of iran is punching a big hole in the sunni world challenging the power of the sunni state. This is an existential issue for the gulf region and israel. As we all know, israeli relations with these countries are the best ever because they have a common enemy. I think President Trump has been right. Despite my deep respect for president obama and support for him, i did not think he was effective on this. We have to be sending military aid and acting politically to isolate the iranians. Charlie we made a big deal with the saudis to sell them military equipment. Nick we did. I think we were right to do that. On the other hand, as you know, i was the point person on iran for the bush administration, we spent our time sanctioning the iranians. We never got to the negotiating table. I think it would be a great mistake for President Trump to walk away from the nuclear deal. Charlie why shouldnt we be trying to have a better relationship with iran so you can push back wherever they are being adventurous, wherever there is behavior that does not follow what you hope would come out of the nuclear deal . We thought the nuclear deal with would lead to some betterment of relations because you could build on that. That has not happened. People on the right will argue that as soon as they release the sanctions, the money coming into iran would immediately turn to support their misbehavior. Nick i supported the nuclear deal, president obamas deal, because i thought if we could freeze them for 10 to 15 years, good for us. Strategic, Tactical Advantage for us. They get sanctions relief. We put restrictions on them. If we walk away from the deal, they get sanctions relief and all the restrictions are off s