Welcome everyone. Its a very timely topic. The trump strategy with iran, maximum pressure is the theme of this stagnant situation. We will follow no one follows around as closely as we do and there isnt one where we wake up and see these incidents and the escalation happening in the region area this may well be a few more than a dozen incidents in the gulf targeting hackers and threatening the freedom of navigation. You asked the iranian abolition, this discontinued, 44 sanctions and around increase its enrichment of uranium. And eric, we have seen for explosions in two months targeting the afghan militia, program militia. In yemen, just this morning, the us confirmed that one of its drones were shut down. This is the second incident in yemen in, since june. So we need to discuss all of this as a very Diverse Group of experts and some i would, all of them actually i would call friends. Im going to start from the far left. With bottom, its, like right. Hes a senior fellow at the foundation or defense of democracy, to his right is brian julius, senior fellow at the center for american progress. To his right is fatima lsi, she follows yemen very closely as a nonresident fellow at the institute and to my left is my regis. A senior fellow here at Hudson Institute. Thank you for hosting us. Thank you for our cspan audience following this and those who are following us on twitter as well. How were going to do this is where going to start off by very short opening statements. And the maximum pressure strategy. Is it working what has changed in the region and then were going to have such a amongst us and will filter to you for questions afterwards so mike, why dont i start with you mark its been now over years in the us with from the nuclear agreement. A maximumpressure strategy , sanctions on almost everything thats connected to the Iranian Regime. Has worked . I believe its working ask for doing this on such short notice, thanks forbeing here, for coming. I believe the maximum Pressure Campaign is working. Despite irans publications , in an attempt to get your cave and to find a bypass mechanism to start us sanctions. Is working, but ill tell you whats not working. I believe this is what war with iran looks like everybody thought up in his narrative at war with iran is an invasion of iran with 100,000 american troops. Thats not what war with iran looks like this is what war with iran looks like what were seeing is there are very few accessible. There are some attacks on oil tankers. There are some rocket and missile launchesby certain proxies. In the love on. But theres this air campaign and what the iraqi militias and other militias tied to so money are realizing is that so money cannot protect them. We have for explosions in iraq in the last 30 days. Against ammunition depots. One happened yesterday. Ammunition depots that are controlled by iran back militias. And theyre being attacked without consequence. Weveseen the Israeli Air Force attack , salami proxies and defensive capabilities in static missile storage sites, iraqi storage sites in syria without consequence. These air campaigns where russia sits on its hands, they dont use that as the hundreds, to protect his operations and we are seeing provocations by iran that really are working and if you look at the increased capability that the us and other allies in the strata foremost, we now have an intelligence reconnaissance ability and show the International Community went iran tries to impede something now the British Center is probably the last Successful Operation iran to be able to conduct in the street if we do this right. So what im thinking here is iran is now resorting to billing after factors that are involved in illegal smuggling operations iraqi tanker that was seized 10 days ago, is there. And they seek it, to be able to show that it was cheating because they knew it was cheating was there. Thatswhere theyre at. Its fun to watch. I think as an international body, we can really absorb these facts, continued sanctions on because this is what war withiran looks like. They cannot do a lot and the end of the day, with regards to the jcp, russia and china are not interested in the Islamic Republic violating the mvp, the Nuclear Proliferation city, the jcp was a necessary and in a lot of ways. And he was already there, its a ceo a was designed to iran, more of a share in the middle east aligned with us interests , announced that sally iran competition in these fancy layout at all. Ill stop there. This is what war with iran looks like and its fun to watch. I do have a lot of questions, maybe onthe difference. The deployment in the gulf, the british have not deterred iran so we will get to that also in the discussion on the jcpoa but when we moved to fatima. What you give usinsight on , when you look yemen, the drone incident today, the second, how has this maximum pressure been seen inside yemen . What is iran doing differently . Thank you to the Hudson Institute for having me here. In terms of yemen, i think the huthi rebels have become irans favorite proxy. So course in iraq or in lebanon, the iran back militias cannot take action because they would just direct confrontation with us forces in the region but in yemen, because of the ongoing conflict, it has become very easy for iran to use the huthi is to send a message to the United States who are hiding behind plausible deniability, saying that it has really no relations with the huthi communities and its basically a complete line because the huthi is all of their capabilities in the drones, on the Ballistic Missiles to the rgc. So within yemen, it is, the yemeni people from the us out thrown all of its effort into mediation efforts in yemen so backing that you and political process. If backing the un envoy. But we are consistently coming into just, its not going anywhere. Because around hes on telling the huthi to escalate. A time when its against its best interest to escalate. So even for example if you look at the port of data in yemen where the Arab Coalition was going to move in and try to reclaim the port which was, basically would help in terms of elevating the humanitarian crisis there was was back there as in any type of military confrontation and the military could have escalated the crisis. The huthi had allegedly stated that they would beable to withdraw , but the day after they withdraw, they launched an attack, a joint on saudi arabia so. You would say the huthi is feeling more empowered. In yemen. The who these are constantly empowered by the Iranian Regime and theres, their standing and they dont have any allies so the only ally that theyre looking for is the Islamic Republic. And their relationship with the Islamic Republic is slowly coming to the service area just last week, the huthi is appointed ambassador. Its a legitimate government but iran is seeking to provoke that way so you know, this is just an iranian that we are used to. Randall is all of these things were often busy trying to interpret and its basically advances its own expansion of interest. And unfortunately, these militias, despite any costs that i have home so the huthi have been very brutal in the way thatthey govern inside of yemen. There have been over 8000 Political Prisoners in yemen and they are detained by huthi and we hear nothing about that in the news. And of course, the huthi are using this to their advantage and iran is using this advantage. In the same way the huthi, units such as the killing or the acceptance or 30 journalists. In among the geese who have not evengenerated any attention. They clamped down and they started follow an iranian life strategy in terms of cracking down on domestic opposition , but then they pursue the destabilizing effects on the region, on the neighbors. Whom yemenis always hadstrong ties with. Brian, what you give us your, unfiltered thought. Your approach, your assessment of the maximum pressure strategy the administration has employed, is working . Where you see things going from your perspective mark. First, thanks to all ofyou. You should be beach. What we are honored and that an important discussion, thanks to mike for having me here, i have adifferent view from my. We thought about this a lot. And in discussions like this, different views and their regular in town. So hopefully if you disagree with me and i hope you do, we will do it respectfully, the way mike and i do in the Philadelphia Eagles and dallas cowboys. This item is wearing a redskins high. Its amazing. There will be two victories for each of us every year. Light issues, our differences are important, a lot more of these. But were also human beings want to share our expertise back to for doing because its quiteoften you dont have people from different persuasions. The second thing to answer your question is when i talk about iran, ive never been to iran. I talked to a lot of iranians , but i think one thing that often missing in washington dc think tank is the iranian perspective. A multitude of iranian perspectives and my friends here will give us a littlebit , these american. But there is a range of perspectives. The point i want to make is a simple one but an important one. When we talk about iran we think of it as some sort of chessboard and were going to exercise policy tools against it. The country people and just a few blocks from your , there than anything exhibit at the sackler gallery, i a couple of colleagues at once. I, six women photographers. Not that this will give you sort of people appreciation of what complex deciding what iran is, but look at these photos. Theres a court date from one of the photographers, and then im going to, its important because these complex diverse views from within iran are often represented. She writes about these photos, these images will not change anything, nor will they help anybody. What i will is that they visualize a generation marginalized by those seeking in their name. By those seeking in their name. So i offer that with a sense of humility as an analyst, who just looked at us Foreign Policy, who talks to, who goes to the middle east all the time. As a limitation in what i have to say and what those limitations is that i havent explored the full depth of what iran is and its a country with people. My name response to your question is no, the strategy is not working. This is where mike and i disagree. I think its adisaster. My friendly amendment to the title of this panel which is trumpsmaximum Pressure Campaign rally, allied and rattle iran. This is what i wouldchange , trumps aggressive appeasement , confuse allies, attack each other. Trumps aggressive appeasement of iran confuse our allies and let them attack each other because increasingly our debate on Foreign Policy are about dividing ourselves. Aggressive appeasement. Aggressive, what do i mean by that . We have a president who as we see every day uses rhetoric with fx, on the way here to the panel i got a call from a danish journalist. What to guess what he was asking me about . Greenland. People take the words of the president of the United States to this day very seriously. Thats all im going to say about that topic. This is a president on iran, if its monday, wednesday or friday he says one thing, tuesday orthursday, will hear him saying Something Else. But its so often quite aggressive. Reminiscent of that phase earlier on in north korea policy if you want to call it a policy of fire and fury. But policy isnt just statement. Its action. After years of trying to all us troops back from the region and rebalance to where we were in the 80s and 90s, we are sending more troops to the region. And just a few months ago, to the middle east in saudi arabia to other places, us air bases and things like that. Lets be clear, were not talking about syria where the fight against some of these forces in iran are. And there but for the graceof Parker Carlson i think two months ago , we may have had some sort of military action and mike says were already at war and i think you said its fun to watch. Again, respectfully i disagree. War is never fun to watch and i would say also in fact its a good point today, we are at war, we should tell our congress and the American People about it. They need to have a voice in that and the authorization for use of force when we send our most precious National Security assets into harms way. They need the support of the democratic society. We are living right now and thank you again for coming this summer in a haze where most of the American Public just needs to track and this and that the dangerous precipice thatwere on because its a collocated situation. Aggressive appeasement, why appeasement after mark if you look at secretary of state mike pompeos speech where he had 12 requirements which he called basic, what you would like to see in iran. To me as an analyst whos been in this thing for a while it reminded me of those benchmarks that members of congress wrote about iraq and of the 1012 years ago, sort of a wish list of play ideal of where we would like to be from secretary pompeos perspective. Yesterday hespoke at the un as well. He asserted the policy like my has asserted is working. Protest year, when a us official asked repeatedly said policy working, hes actually arguing against the basic set offacts and realities that people dont believe. That may be a function of our policy environment or political environment but again, aggressive appeasement , abuse in the sense that he was in the middle east as i see it, i dont see any closer to equilibrium. See around hurt by the sanctions, the clear. Maximum pressure is having an impact on the people of iran, not sure im having it having an impact in a strategic way yet on the calculus of the leaders, but having an impact and this is where ill close area i think in this environment, the way i look at the trump team itself. Because this is where the center of gravity is, theres a whole other discussion about our policy of iran and National Security that is worth having inside the trump team i see a lot ofdivision from the top down. It was everybody on board to impose costs on iran, to impose maximum pressure. I dont see a glimmer of a strategy of whats next. As a policy analyst, thats what concerns me. Wherever you stand on the position i was the guy in favor of the jcpoa. And what could be improved in a better way than the trumpet ministration has done. I think that ran does things that behave like the region, guess what. Some of our closest partners as well. We would be better advised to use our tools of statecraft and a better approach than what weve seen under trump. I think were in a weaker position where more isolated in the world. We have some of our closest allies not backing them and we have this thin veneer of rhetoric masking movements that couldget us into sticky situations with the absence of an actual coherent strategy. Idlike to follow up. The only iranian american on the panel. You follow whats happening inside iran, you follow every drone that has happened in the region, every missile that lies off from yemen to the salaries. Work where do you see things, or where do you, what your take on what youve heard so far and is there a strategy when you look at it . And is working . A strategy. Like a wwe reference. Hopefully it will begreat. Question. Also thanks to hudson and mike for hosting and go panelist for sharing the stage and to you guys for turning out. You make it sound like other than life choice tracking flying tubes all the time. But it can get a little bit redundant. Im intentionally using the word redundant because the weekly followup of what brian was saying, what the strategy is is more of the same. Were going to see more of the same and you see it in the news cycleand an mediterranean method of escalation, you see it in the american response and , were reaching a new normal and this has been the summer of escalation for a more political highlight, 57, the un ga, around on selfimposed deadlines to interview to exceed the limits goes on Nuclear Program by the nuclear deal, where locking in positions and i think what youre seeing is a very public negotiation and i have fought on what the americans are saying publicly about their position and i have thoughtabout what the iranians are saying publicly. Rephrase that and see how we got here. Max Pressure Campaign you can say interest when washington left the arambula last may, left on may 8 a few days short of the deadline to extend the waiver form our sanctions relief and then washington began temperamentally into basis reimpose the sanctions that were way by the jcpoa nuclear deal, i foundthat the irresponsible strategy for escalation. However then washington has ramped up the pressure and around response to that, it wasnt really said publicly but you saw it in the behavior, the classic academic showing about communications by the words aware of iran is a game with eddie. The nation for was framed as patients area i had history for this supranational area counsel, this injunction is best defined around response to the first year of max pressure may 28 20 with obvious a second and the product injunction is in the law which means very god is with the patient. You have max pressure, the uranium strategy was to wait out the trumpet ministration. You choose not to think would drive the europeans for americans, to choose to do things the entrance to the apartment, that with the Un Security Council divided, make america look more isolated and not iran informal violation of the area and would live in the gray zone and cultivate ambiguity but not do things the warrants or invite a response. Like most of washington thought that american unilateral sanctions not accomplished sufficient damage to the Macro Economy of iran when multilateral sanctions almost a decade. Thats fast forward one year and the conventional wisdom in most of washington and conventional wisdom of most of the regime in