Im really pleased to be here this afternoon with brian hook and elliott abrams, both from the state department, to talk about two of the most pressing issues that the United States is facing today, iran and venezuela, and the next is the relationship with the evolving relationship between the two countries. Elliott abrams is a special representative for venezuela at the department of state and brian hook is a special representative for iran and a Senior Policy Adviser to secretary of state mike pompeo. He previously served as the director of policy planning in this administration at the state department. So, ive known both Brian Elliott for quite some time, and its always a pleasure to see both of you. I would like to start. I think author start with elliott to tell us a little bit about the evolution of the administrations policy, visavis venezuela, as i recall, elliott, i think it has been about a year and a half since you have been special representative. Why dont you tell us a little bit about what has been happening in that country and about u. S. Venezuela relations. Thank you. Thank, you it is a great pleasure to see you again and to be here, our office or actually next door to each other so i here through the wall. U. S. Policy has been particularly strong in the last year in a half, but in may 2018 there was a phony election and in january of 2019, when former president maduro claimed another term the National Assembly in venezuela, which is democratically elected said no, that was a phony election and the office of the presidency is vacant and as a consequence, juan juan guaido stepped in as interim president. And now many other countries to be supporting him as interim president. His policy was to provide a return to democracy, a restoration of democracy. And we do this through diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions. The sanctions, which have been strong, and a great success, although i have to admit that theyve been helped along by the unbelievable corruption of the maduro regime, what we have been trying to do is take away resources from the regime so that it could not continue its terrible deprivations, and weve been very successful with that and just a couple of numbers, in 1998, when chavez came to power, venezuela was producing three and a half Million Barrels a day of oil. They were down to 2. 3 Million Barrels a day. Today it was to be about 250,000 barrels a day, which is incredible, 95 reduction. Part of it is their own corruption incompetence, partly is sanctions meaning people do not want to buy their oil and so theyre not producing oil. What the regime is doing was attempting to dismantle institutions of democracy in venezuela. They are acting now to prevent free elections of free parliamentary elections, most recently, for example, theyve been taking over the parties, in eastern europe, where the Supreme Court rules, youre not the head of that party, and it put in some pluckiest of the party who then has control of the parties off assets, offices, symbols, branding, if you will. The worst part of the repressions is killings in the most recent report by the un high commissioner human rights talks about roughly 1300 killings already this year. Non judicial executions. The newest tie this pariah regime has is to another pariah regime, iran. I guess we will talk more about that in a few minutes but the link is not new, but it has been newly energized, the last couple of months, and that is in a context in which russia and china are actually pulling back from venezuela, and we see these two pariah states finding each other. I just finished with one more word. This is a bipartisan policy. A commanders in washington, this is one of the few that are left, but at least so far, this is an area where democrats and republicans have found a very great deal of agreement. That is an important point to emphasize, as there are a few areas, but theyre out there and i think its important that we highlight that so the title for the seminar, which we should have, i shouldve mentioned in advance, it might almost be a tale of two pariahs and so with that, brian, i turn to you. Can you tell us a little bit about, also in the same time period, or whatever you would, like in the past year and a half, u. S. Iranian policy, some briefing developments there in than i do look forward to talking about that next. Thank you, im glad we were able to do this on this private farm, working with, you put your legacy lives on in the form of the National Security. I feel like we are continuing to implement what was set up but the administration. It is especially ironic know what we are seeing now is this circumstance where these two pariah states have found each other. You are right to describers newly energized ties because these ties for started earlier. And they kind of get done and they got some new energy. We go through the oil numbers in venezuela what this is done to his missions. A very similar analogy in iraq, but when trump got out of the Iran Nuclear Deal in may of 2018, iran had about 3 of the worlds oil supply, and thats equal to about 2. 5 Million Barrels a day that were exported. Being out of the deal allowed us to apply big pressure on iran, and irans chief source of revenue is oil, oil exports. We have slapped around oil sector, and the press that it pays for being the principal driver of terrorism and antisemitism instability in the middle east so in may of 2018, iran had 3. 5 Million Barrels of oil a day, and there is a story that came out in april that had their march 2020 members 70,000 barrels. 2. 5 million to 70,000 barrels in about two years. This is the price that the regime pays. What i find interesting about venezuela and iran is that these are not poor countries. They are rich countries that are governed by thieves. I was just in the middle east last week and went on a tour of the gulf and also to israel. When you look at cities like tel aviv, abu dhabi, montana and then you look across the gulf, and you get the feeling that the iranian people have been robbed of decades of failed leadership and you see the same thing happening in venezuela under maduro, and youll see the same thing in lebanon said the Islamic Republic of iran and that has not been to the advantage of lebanese people and what we see in the region, is that the iranian Islamic Revolution model being rejected we see now on october mass to protest against the iranian, model against hezbollah, even in the south, we have protest against hezbollah. Theyre tired of corruption, the tide of the lack of transparency and accountability. In iraq, massive protests in iraq at the end of last year, and in iran itself, the heart of the shia corridor of power, protests in november in all 31 provinces. The regime ordered 1500 of its own people, and they injured thousands and jailed everyone anywhere between 10,000 people. Its because crackdown theyve had to do other people in their 41 year history. So i see the trend lines in the middle east, and contrast that with what we are seeing in places like the uae, the reforms in saudi, in bahrain, in israel. These are countries investing in iran, people in progress, in the future, and that gives people a sense of hope and you look at iran and you see a sense of hopelessness among the iranian people and we think iranians deserve more representative government. I go all over the world and meet with the iranian diaspora and one thing that is clear to me is that iranians are thriving everywhere except in iran, and this regime has held back so much potential, because this kind of the peoples well on our proxies. That is the consequence of our maximum economic pressure campaign, very successful. We are very pleased with the regime being much weaker today than it was three and a half years ago we took office. And you do not see these kinds of headlines when we came into office. Irans military budget is not a record low. Its proxies are its proxies were written you had a lot of shear relating. When you do business with this government in iran, you never know if you are supporting common commercial terrorism, and weve now made that very clear. And if so i think weve seen Foreign Direct Investment collapse as a result. So as we look at the growing, newly energized ties between iran and venezuela in our hemisphere, we are very concerned about it. That is why we have offices next to each other on the second floor. We have determined that this relationship not become a new form of instability in our hemisphere and so while that is kind of how i look at it, elliott who has had so much expertise in the middle east and also equities in the western hemisphere, given the work he did back in the clinton bush years so weve got i think the right people in place with the right policies, with a lot of good leadership. Thanks, brian. One of my questions is what do you see as the objectives of both iran and venezuela in terms of the reconnection that we have seen . Are the tactical objectives merely to get around some of the sanctions . Is there a longer history of that relationship . Is there a more strategic impetus behind this relationship . Elliott, do you want to provide your thoughts on that . Well, it does go back, as brian was, saying it starts with chavez under an inch of as an ahmadinejad if you go back to those years, you have exchanges of business. The level, if were talking dollar, mounts the level of commerce has never been very great. It is rising now, for a few reasons and i think one of them is they are pariah states. They are essentially friendless countries. They have relationships with a few other countries but in terms of friendly relationships, not really anything so, theyre looking for a way to say, you see, we are not really all that isolated. Then there is a very pragmatic one. There is one thing we. So which is oil. And he desperately needs gasoline. Nobody is buying the oil. He does have gold reserves so he is able to say to the iranians, well, if you want gold, i can give you gold and the iranians of course have an enormous amount of oil and gasoline but they are having a hard time getting rid of it so, that is a practical arrangement. Gold for gasoline. And then is the ideological part. I mean, what held together chavez and ahmadinejad and now maduro with the present group, a hatred of the United States, i think probably more than anything else. All right, so its not necessarily an ideological affinity but the islamic regime has with venezuela. I wouldnt call the regime in venezuela a leftist regime. I would call it a criminal gang, thieves to deal with drug traffickers who take bribes from drug traffickers, who have destroyed the country, which was, you know, as brian was saying, in both of these cases, used to be rich countries, but it is an ideological and left right says it is ideologically it is not ideological in the left right. Sends it is ideological and has a viewing the United States as an enemy which necessarily pulls them toward each other and to it certain extent, in the case of venezuela, toward russia and china, although russia and china are keeping a certain degree of distance. But i would like to hear more about later. But brian, your sense of the nature of this inbound friendship. The imf recently put out an assessment, the three word performing economies in the world, libya, iran, and venezuela. Libyas a failed state and you have an illegitimate regime in venezuela and in the case of iran, you have a regime that is facing a crisis of legitimacy and credibility with its own people. The elections that are held in iran are complete sort of west failure theater. About the true nature of the regime, so i think the fact that iran and venezuela, two of the worst performing economies in the world, causes them perhaps to reach out and see if they can do something to help each other because they are both in dire situations. The Iranian Regime, as elliott said, they could only assess about 10 of the Foreign Exchange reserves. Right now the reality 225,008 to one dollar and you have seen a collapse in that currency. People are losing their savings because their money is not worth all that much. Ive been very heartened by the fact that in the november protest, all of them were directed against the government. When we got out of the iran deal, there were plenty of people in the commentariat who had long predicted that are sanctions and cause the iranian people to rally around the regime. Its the opposite. In 31 provinces, not a single protest against america or President Trump or our sanctions. What did we see . We saw a brave woman on video climbing of all to tear down a picture of soleimani. We saw the Supreme Leader being burned in effigy, seminaries were burned. The government invited people to trample upon the israeli in american flags and people walked around them, and the video went viral. I think in both cases, maduro and iran, these are two governments that represent around people badly to the rest of the world. And when you look at the long history of these two countries, the American People, the venezuelan people, and the iranian people, we have so much in common in terms of interest in boundaries and right now in both cases with these governments, we dont Share Interests or boundaries. These two pariah states found each other because they need each other, and even, so weve been able to disrupt those operations to get fuel and money exchanged in our hemisphere. Speaking of gold, just a small point, but, elliott correct me if im wrong, i read recently that a lot of that cold is in the United Kingdom and that can be blocked, actually, from being removed. Is that correct . Thats right. There is well over one billion dollars worth of gold and maduro tried to get at it and sued and the high court in london ruled about a week ago that juan guaido is the 220,000 to the dollar i think you said in venezuela, in venezuela, its only up to 200,000 to the dollar. So, another, you know, point, is it also shows that this is not just a u. S. Position but it is an example of allies and partners working together for the same set of objectives in this case. I think you made your point, elliott, earlier. Its nearly 60 countries. It is really all the democracies. The eu, western europe, canada, the u. S. , latin america. They view the maduro regime very much is illegitimate. They very much want to see venezuela go back to a democracy. With neighbors, its worth noting columbia, above all, but peru, ecuador, chile, brazil, there is a huge tide of migrants. The largest in history of latin america. Now it is not far short of 5 million. Of course, the strain that puts on their educational systems, their Health Systems is very great. I would like to add to that. Sure. Our policy, broadly, you can and it took summarize them about 8 more years to is the four pillars. The finally get there economic. And pressures, diplomatic then, it took isolation, us 5 years to get to the super bowl so military force to defend our interests and it is not done standing with the overnight iranian people. And all this other things elliott talked about have to be the very successful policy by the, way, your 45 minute building a coalition of countries are all supportive of the same instance. In the case of iran, democratic isolation is something that we spent a lot of time on. Part of that is exposing the regime for what it is and talking about it honestly. Because, if you whitewash what the regime is up to, if you look the other way, it expands its non Nuclear Threats in order to keep iran alive, you have the consequence of actually increasing Global Support for the worlds leading state sponsors. That is what we saw, i think in the last demonstration. The iran deal has come to the acceptance of Regional Peace and stability because theres a green light to move out of hostage taking our policy of isolating the worlds leading sponsored terrorists and antisemitism has brought a lot of people onside. When you look at every thing that europe has done over this administration in terms of visas, sanctions, iranian activity on missile testing, cutting diplomatic ties. This is the eu sanction, the regime for the nation and terrorism attends in europe. We have the International Security in the gulf to respond to irans piracy. Maritime people that it executes. That International Coalition has really helped to develop iran to illuminate their ability its a much different picture than what it was last year before we had this set up. Just two weeks ago, at the iae, the board of governors had gone 25 to two calling on iran to open access to suspicious Nuclear Sites and answer questions from the iae. We are working with the e3 and leading, as we do, diplomatic isolation from iran and to hold them to a higher standard, a standard of a normal nation. Secretary pompeo claims this. We want iran to behave like a normal nation, not like a revolutionary cause. I hear that repeated as i have been around the region. This is what people are saying. Why cant iran be normal and be at peace with the sanctions . Theyre constantly at war. Iran loves to be the arsonists and the firemen. We do not allow them to perpetuate that fiction. Heres another key thing and i think this is something that is really, you will take all the people that work on iran and put them into a room, you could probably divide them over this question. We see iranian aggression and we decide to stand up to it. The other side of the room sees iranian aggression and worries that if we stand up to it, it will force iran into a corner and they will then commit even greater acts of terrorism. Well, if you follow that second theory of the case, you are playing by irans rules. As i said, the hallmark of this regime is Foreign Policy. Its to intimidate people into accepting the usual level of violence for fear of something worse. If you play by those rules, iran winds. The house always winds. So, we are saying to iran, its over. You are not going to be running an expansionist evolutionary Foreig