Now in discussion on Irans Nuclear program and how the u. S. Should respond. From the heritage foundation, this is an hour. Good afternoon, welcome to the heritage foundation. We of course welcome those who join us on our website on all of these occasions. For our guests inhouse we ask that mobile devices are silenced or turned off as we prepared to begin, and for those watching online we remind you youre welcome to send questions or comments to at any time by simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. Leading our discussion this afternoon is peterboroughs. He is the senior fellow for National Security affairs in our center for Foreign Policy. He is also in his fifth term as a member of the congressional us, China Economic and security review commission. Prior to coming to heritage he served as a Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for asian and Pacific Affairs at the george w. Bush administration. Heritage he served as the assistant secretary of defense for asian and Pacific Affairs and the george w. Bush administration. He was also serving on the staff in the house with the Central Intelligence agency, the state department and activeduty naval officers. Please join me in welcoming peter. [applause] good afternoon, welcome to heritage and our program on iran. Since 2015, a Nuclear Agreement iran, iraq and yemen. Irans expanding influence in these wartorn countries have been facilitated by the dividends and sanctions provided by the nuclear deal. Questions like how should the United States respond, which should be done about the flawed Nuclear Agreement. How can the United States targeting target at home. Running is to discuss these and other issues is jim phyllis a Senior Research developer for affairs and Foreign Policy studies here at the heritage foundation. Policya foreign specialists who has written and spoken on middle eastern issues, International Terrorism since coming in 1979. He has offered dozens of papers on iran, its Nuclear Program and use of terrorism, and has testified for the Nuclear Program and other Nuclear Security issues. Jim hansen next to him as the president of the Security Studies group. He served in the u. S. Army special forces and conducted counterterrorism, diplomatic intelligence and humanitarian operations in more than one dozen countries. He is the author of cut down the black flag. Mark, he is the ceo of the foundation for the defense of democracy where he leads projects on iran, sanctions countering threat finance and nonproliferation. He is recognized as one of the key influencers in shaping counter threats from iran and the surrogates. Key warriors the against iran by the wall street journal in his book. The trump, obama and george w. Bush administration on both sides of the aisle. He is testified more than 20 times before congress and foreign legislators. With that, can you start us off . I would like to focus my remarks on irans various regional threats and the degree to which those threats have been boosted and complicated by the iran Nuclear Agreement. I am sorry to say that the access is alive and well. What north korea is doing today, you will love what iran will be doing a few years down the road. These states are led by rogue regimes that have sought Nuclear Weapons and the missiles to deliver them. They have cooperated closely on Ballistic Missile developments, perhaps to a lesser extent on nuclear issues. Both regimes have repeatedly violated their nonproliferation commitments. As the 1994 agreed framework with north korea, north korea, failed to stop the countrys nuclear ambitions. Future historians will eventually say the 2015 nuclear iran agreement failed to stop Irans Nuclear ambitions. I would argue that iran is much imposesgerous regime greater longterm threats the north korea. Much stronger economy, much more potent ideology, many more friends, allies and surrogates around the world and in the region. It has a much more aggressive record of regional interventions. In irans neighborhood, the persian gulf is the center of gravity for world oil. If iran is able to establish dominance over the slope flow bethat oil, there will Tremendous Energy security, National Security, perhaps longterm economic repercussions cascading out of that. The promises of the Obama Administration, the nuclear deal do not moderate irans behavior. They have stepped up their malign activities in the region since 2015. The Nuclear Agreement has made a by boostingn worse irans dictatorship in the economic, military and geopolitical sphere. The Nuclear Agreement handed iran and economic bonanza up to 100 billion. No one really knows how much in sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. This economic transfusion has enhancedrans economy, its ability to threaten its neighbors with conventional weapons, terrorism and subversion, and increase its support for its farflung. Urrogate network for example, they increased its defense budget, recently announcing there would be 300 Million Dollars more in funding for the Ballistic Missile program. That is very concerning because those of two of the most worrisome aspects of irans special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary guards which are charged with protecting and advancing irans revolution, not the national interest. That is the difference. The july 20 15 Nuclear Agreement, iran has escalated its military intervention in syria in close cooperation with russia. Irans troops and surrogate militias have played the leading in assisting b assad regimes attempts to clawback territory from syrian rebels. Thanhave deployed more 5000 revolutionary guards, troops and advisers, as well as Technical Support and in addition, 20,000 foreign fighters from iran backed militias. Militias andht recruits from afghanistan and passive and pakistan. Intervention, which has been eclipsed by the Russian Air Campaign has decisively shifted the balance of power inside syria in favor of the assad regime. Now that it is on the verge of defeat, u. S. Must take steps to preclude iran from filling the vacuum left by the Islamic State and prevented from repositioning thewallah and elsewhere for next round of warfare with israel. Iran also has stepped upon assad to it he targeting the jewish state, which provided thousand of increasingly and capable longrange rockets to palestine, and gaza. An estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles to hezbollah. In case the Israeli Government had any doubt about the nature of the irans hostility, the revolutionary guards hopefully a sign of one of the missiles they tested in march 2016, which said in hebrew, not in farsi, but in hebrew, israel must be wiped off the earth. Iran also was escalated its threats to arab adversaries since the nuclear a sign. Radicalize shiites in bahrain. Back militant groups such as the ball rod party. Trained militants from bahrain and revolutionary guard camps in iran. They have intercepted several arms shipments from iran. By the way, that is in violation councilsecurity revolution 22 31, which enshrined the Nuclear Agreement. It prohibits these armed exports. Also escalated the pressure against bahrain claim in the should be next to the islamic republic. Saudi arabia also has come under increasing pressure from iran. Not only from the saudi bridge of hezbollah, which has launched terrorist attacks inside the kingdom, but also from rebels in yemen that have launched that are fighting the saudi led intervention in that country in support of yemens internationally recognized government. Otherave also launched missiles against saudi territory and raided villages on the saudi side of the border. Lifting u. N. Sanctions and iran helped ease and pave the way for enhanced strategic cooperation with russia. It allowed russia to it allows iran the opportunity to push us purchase more advanced arms from russia and modernize its army. Russia already has delivered s 300 missiles that could greatly complicate is really or american retaliatory preventive or preemptive attacks against Irans Nuclear facilities if the deal is filing it. Proponent of the deal, i am not really focusing on the deal here. If it was up to me i think we iran and violation of this deal. It definitely bike violated the resolution that accompanied the deal. Regardless of what the policy is on the nuclear issue, the u. S. Has to push back stronger against iran on the regional level. I think first and foremost, we must draw a clear redlines. Number one is the nuclear redline. I would argue that it is the chief it is barrier to irans proceeding down the nuclear path, not some kind of diplomatic agreement. U. S. Needs to maintain its strong forces in the gulf and the ability to launch an incredible use of force against the Nuclear Facilities or other aspects of iranian power. U. S. Should also strengthen its allies especially in israel and the gulf cooperation. They faced the most immediate threats from iran should build the gcc defense capabilities, particularly in the areas of missile defense. Forces, naval forces, Intelligence Surveillance and reconnaissance assets. Pentagon should expand and institutionalize joint planning and joint exercises to develop a shared strategy for deterring and containing the Iranian Regime. Missile defense should be high priority. Israel has a very good one. U. S. Can do more to help is really withstand the Ballistic Missile threats. The gcc states also face that threats threat. They have much less capabilities. U. S. Sold oman, patriot missiles. Those missiles are not integrated into a Regional Defense system. Has been done to improve the effectiveness against the iranian Ballistic Missile threat. They should be imposing additional sanctions on iran for terrorism and its Ballistic Missile activities and human rights abuses. Constellation of enterprises that revolutionary guards have spun off to support its operations. The goal of the sanctions to be to pay an increasing price for the activities of the revolutionary guard. Finally, the u. S. Should seek to weaken and undermine the surrogates. Particularly has wallah, which has been instrumental in syria, iraq. Has wallah has been training rebels in yemen. It is also very active in lebanon. Last year the gcc in the arab league declared them to be a terrorist state and designated as such. The eu continues to differentiate between that has ball a military wing and the political wing as if the political wing has no knowledge or power to stop the terror activities of the socalled military wing. Washington should work with the gcc in israel to try to influence the eu to step up at sanctions on has wallah and join the rest of the role, or much of the rest of the world in trying the threats that that organization poses. The bottom line is that the washington must impose clear and increasing tots on the regime in order dissuade it from continuing on its present path. Let me just stop there. I dont know if you guys caught this from jims remark, but iran is the bad guys. Can we lay that on the table. The funny thing is, that actually needs to be said. We spent the past eight years watching president obama in power this regime. For some reason, i am still stunned. I dont know where he read this, heard it or thought it, i dont know who gave him the idea that iran could be a partner for peace, but he treated them that way. He gave them everything they wanted, everything they asked for comment even before he took power, he was making moves to make them the regional hegemon. Can find no i historical background for this. It is not like they havent been doing that thing since 1979. Time forabout u. S. iranian relations. Through the entire iraq war, they were one of the major producers and distributors of explosively formed projectiles that killed american troops, somewhere between 500, 1000, at least american troops were directly killed by weapon only weapon we weaponry provided that were used by then them to kill u. S. Troops. Yet somehow he decided that they were going to be the ones that we should back. That was the horse we should back. Now we are dealing with that. We are doing with the fact that not only have they been in power, they have been returned to the international community. 2016, they were the state departments leading sponsor of terrorism worldwide. That may not get you much in the Trump Administration. In the Obama Administration and its you cash flow in in the middle of the night. There are spending that money on a lot of the organizations that jim mentioned. I want to talk about the proxies. Is a humanitarian group that operates to feed the poor. Or, the terrorist organization that shares its gains with people to buy their allegiance. They are one of the main places iran spends its money. There are one of the main ways iran push its of power and destabilizes the region. There is another Wonderful Group of humanitarians. Iran backed them. They are causing no and destruction. The other thing i would like to note, lets flip another thing on its head. Israel is a great ally. Can we get back to that again. We can have iran as an ally and israel as a front of me at best under the Obama Administration to israel being our only true friend in the region and iran being the enemy to peace in that region. We have changed nothing else but that thought process, i think we have established a much better, and much more realistic world order. Groups iraner group in yemen. There is a dangerous situation there because you have the gulf and the otherse helping. It is not like they are really helping good guys. They are helping less bad guys in some cases against them. That is something being to keep an eye on. The two places where i think iranian influence is right now is most important to the united is iraq, syria and afghanistan. We have wars going on impulse of those. We have a plan were i think the nice thing is, we are at the endgame in iraq. What is going on in syria . Anybody know . Nobody knows what the answer is. It is not good, and it has not ended, it is closer to the end. We need to plan for a postisis phase in both those countries. One thing that has to happen is that we have to stop the advance of iran into both of those areas, and we have to push them back. And onehe main dangers, of irans biggest goals has been to create what some call a shiite crescent, or a land bridge to the mediterranean. If you go through iraq and syria, you get to the met. Be irans greatest dreams along with nukes and other bad things. That is what they want. They want to control that swath of territory. They would like to control all of it. Ability to have the move from iran to the mediterranean, or the other way, they have accomplished something we cannot tolerate, nobody can. That is just a bad scenario for everyone. Aty have been very good seating that area with malicious. We always hear about the shia been that have be involved in the iraq war killing americans. Once we left and iran moved into that vacuum, they started creating alliances with local shia militias and what could become a shiite crescent. Is a horribly bad thing for everyone. They have been smart about it. These are local shia and majority areas. They have done a reverse sons of iraq concept where during the surge, we went and i we worked with the tribal leaders, we made friends with them and we said, this is your territory heard we will help you. Al qaeda and iraq as an enemy to all of us. We want stability. We basically made them the local constabulary and said, we will back you as you try to take control of your own areas from al qaeda and iraq. Is, in these done areas, where there were pockets people,villages and they started paying them. They said, we are protecting you against isis. We are protecting you against the other imperialist, the coalition. We will be your friend, so they build alliances with these people and allegiance from these , note that goes to ron even to baghdad. That is something we now have to deal with because they are there, they are armed, they feel empowered and, and lest we and the other folks in the region can do something to push them they are going to be at least a foundation of that land bridge to the mediterranean. That cannot happen. , lets doidea something about it. Lets just not admire the problem and say this is awful and horrible. The areas that they are in our majority sunni areas. Same place that isis has decimated there. They are essentially part of the region set now have to come back under control. Brokend syria are both states. The baghdad government exists, but the idea that their loan can go into the sunni areas and provide governance in a way that will be accepted by the people there is a fantasy. It is not going to happen, did happen, they do not trust them. We promised them after the surge that we would make sure the majority shia government in baghdad, which is highly influenced by iran, would treat them well. Them, whiche by share well and to all the things they need to do. That did not happen and the rainy and stash iranians took more control and essentially those guys got bur