Dennis ross and former middle east Senior Advisor for the state department david pollock. From the center for national interest, this is just under an hour and half. [inaudible conversations] well, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you so much for turning out, springlike day in washington. Lets hope it continues. And thanks for cspan for coming along, and just a few tips on how were going to handle this mornings meeting. It is being filmed live, so when we cut to q a please state your name very clearly so that the world knows who you are and your your aunts and uncles can refer to the recording. The subject today i think is highly relevant. Iran sanctions and the nuclear deal. Weve heard a lot about iran during the election campaign, and particularly from the president , but i think there is some confusion as to what the actual policy is, given that we have a nuclear deal with iran, which no one seems eager at this point in time to care up, even though the president says its the worst deal ever negotiated. Secondly, we have a major fight with the islamic state, or isis, which the president claims is one of our Top Priorities in Foreign Policy, and yet ironically, one of the countries we are going to rely on to beat isis is iran. And iran has an election coming up. There is great pressure on capitol hill for more sanctions against iran, not for violations with the nuclear deal but because of its behavior in the gulf, its support for insurgents as in yemen, and its human rights record. And to discuss this we have an extremely talented duo before us, and before we get to the duo i forgot to announce who i am. Im geoffrey kemp, senior director for Regional Security programs here at the center for the national interest. And the first speaker on going to turn to is dennis ross, and then im going to turn to mark fitzpatrick. Dennis ross, many of you know, has an extremely distinguished record in this town, having served several president s as key negotiator for arabisraeli peace. Hes a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute key has written numerous books, the last of which is a must read on the relationship between successive israeli governments and american president s with some really interesting background material that i think is quite new. Mark fitzpatrick has lived for the last 10, 15 years in london working at the International Institute for strategic studies as their chief spokesman, commentator, writer on nuclear nonproliferation, but he is an american. And before he went to iis and censored in state department doing pretty much what hes doing now, he has now moved back to washington and is the executive director of iiss america. And in that capacity he runs the office they have here in town, and they hold meetings just like this conservative publications just like we do. But his real prominence in this town has to do with his extraordinary knowledge of the iran Nuclear Component including the status of the iran nuclear deal. So dennis is going to start out by giving a broader picture, particularly talking about how we deal with these conundrums that i mentioned, including the israeli ambivalence towards the iran deal, given hostilities that they go towards it while it was being negotiated. Denmark will talk more about the actual deal itself, where it is succeeding, where it has weaknesses, and what new sanctions may mean for the iran deal, even if they are not directly earmarked against it. So with that in mind, they will both have about 12, 30 minutes to open up, and then we will be free to question. Dennis . Thank you. So yeah, i will come on what to talk a little bit about what i think the Trump Administration confronts. Unlikely to try to explain what the policy is because i think their policy is something that is still being developed, but i want to kind of look at it from the standpoint of the kind of things they might do. And so let me start by just sort of noting two things to begin with. One is that obviously as jeff said, the president of nine states refer to this as the worst deal ever negotiated, and that reflects i think not just of you what the negotiations produce but an inherent sense of the deal itself has within it or produces a number of vulnerabilities. And i want to address some of that. Theres a second dimension obviously, which is that since the joint comprehensive plan of action, if you listen to the general who has he says iran has become much more aggressive in the region since the joint comprehensive plan of action. And if you think about it, the administration is confronting what they see as people of those that flow from the deal is a nuclear dimension, but also its a dealing with or things that must deal with what are the implications in the region itself. And so i think the first question to ask is okay, so what does the administration do about the joint comprehensive plan of action . As secretary of defense during his confirmation hearings made it very clear that he thought even though it wasnt a good deal that we had to live up to come and i would suggest that that makes sense. If we were to be the ones to rip it up since the fact it wasnt a bilateral arrangement, we would make ourselves the issue, not irans behavior for its bad behavior. If, in fact, what the administration wants to do is find a way to increase leverage on a rant to affect its behavior, then one of the things that is very important for the administration to do is to make it clear that the focus should be on what iran is doing. We shouldnt be making ourselves the issue. In other words, dont isolate the United States. Think about how you do more to put the spotlight on irans behavior and whats wrong with irans behavior. And here i think there is something that can be, i think effectively done. One thing that the Obama Administration didnt do it effectively, and i will come back to this a little later, in essence the Obama Administration became very defensive about the issue of iran that getting the economic benefits from the deal. And the iranians, my colleague Patrick Clawson who was here, wrote a piece with two other members of the Washington Institute, which i think very effectively focused on iran having created a narrative about how irans leading up to the deal and we worked. And one of the reasons iran isnt doing nearly as well as it might interest of the economic benefits from the deal is that iran, when it comes to creating transparency in its Banking System and fulfilling the standards that the Financial Action task force has record with regard to Money Laundering and terrorist financing, iran doesnt meet those standards. One of the reasons it therefore becomes very difficult for a lease banks are quite hesitant to do the quite the financing that would be necessary or some of the bigger deals is that they worry about the consequences of being slapped with really big fines because they might be dealing with someone who is connected with Money Laundering or terrorist financing. So if iran isnt getting a lot of the benefits economically from the deal thats because i rent itself is continuing not to meet the kind of standard that everybody else is supposed to meet, at least with regard to the banking requirements. And it would be effective i think to try to focus on that but also focus on what iran is doing in the region. When jenna fulltilt says iran has become more aggressive in the region, well, thats a good thing to remind everyone. And the sanctions that exist that were, the obama admin session was very clear where going to continue to exist on Human Rights Violations or on the terrorism, they exist is again of irans behavior, not because somehow we are dreaming these things up. So that is the context that i think the administration can draw and should draw on. Now, if i were advising the administration, what else would i advised them to do . And i would just say by the way, im not advising the administration, but if i were advising the administration, it would be a number of things that i would focus on. And they go back to concerned that i myself had about the joint conference of plan of action. One of the Major Concerns i had is that because at the end of 15 years there really arent any limitations on the sides of the quality of the Nuclear Infrastructure that the iranians could have. I worry that down the road, irans threshold Nuclear Status would be such that the gap between that and being able to have a weapon would be sufficiently small that iran might at some point be tempted to go for a weapon. I always felt that one of the key things that i wanted that Obama Administration to do that they did knew that the Trump Administration could actually do was to bolster deterrence. Moving towards a weapon that would stand in the commitment that they made that our policy would be we woulduse force to deal with the nuclear destruction. Secondly, after 15 years the iranians, there is nothing that prevents the iranians from being able to prove use highly enriched uranium after your 15 so that is something the administration should establish as aprinciple that if they do that, that would be a traitor but the third thing , i favored for a while , one administration was able to restrain their enthusiasm for this proposal but i was in favor of at some point giving the israelis the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. We developed a Massive Ordnance Penetrator which is a 30,000 palm pound bomb which is a conventional device we can build with one enrichment site built into a mountain. We should lease the b2 because we dont have a plane that could carry it and the reason for doing that would be twofold, one, even if we change that territory policy, maybe the iranians wouldnt believe it was for real. Maybe they wouldnt act on it but if the iranians had this capability they would likely believe the israelis would act on it. And moreover, it would signal that we would be supportive of the israelis under those circumstances. The fourth thing i would like to see happen, one of the concerns i had that the iranians were almost bound to cheat, at least along the margins. If for no other reason than to test the provisions within the point of action. And i felt that again, if youre going to bolster the terms one of the things you have to do is establish that for every transgression no matter how small theres some price. For the smaller transgressions, the price should be a proportional price but there should still be a price. There is a jointcommission , thats something that obviously brings together the 5 1 negotiated but weve seen the iranians have more heavy water than they were supposed to. Weve already seen the iranians have more, i understand they had excess materials, more than theyre supposed to. The procurement channel that was established for the express purpose of ensuring that we would have a very clear picture for dual use capabilities, dual use materials that the iranians were requiring, the iranians have only made five requests for the procurement tab which is another way of saying theyre really not using the procurement channel. We know from the germans, dave engaged in illicit behavior trying to acquire these materials. And the point is that we should have some understanding at least with the europeans that rather than being in a situation where in the joint commission we flagged things the iranians are doing that they shouldnt do, they should think theres a consequence, a price for them doing the things theyre doing so you established as i said, a pattern over time that when you transgress or when you violate, they get used to the idea and it becomes clear if theres a big violation, then the consequences will be severe. Thats been away to bolster returns. And, a fifth area where i would like to see principles assertion and i think the new administration could do something would be again, to track see. Are the iranians providing more material assistance to hezbollah and some of the other shia militias. Again this could be a place where we could increase the price to them. One of the reasons i think the Obama Administration was hesitant to do some of these things is because there was a fear that if they did then, this would play into the hands of the hardliners. It would weaken robot. It was a kind of analysis of the above Obama Administration did which was that one of the important things that was potentially changing in iran was that you could empower ronnie doing the deal and the administrative action power, it would empower the more pragmatic constituency with the iranian hierarchy and if anything, it might impose a price and they would be seen as provocative, it would hurt them and played to the hardliners. By the way, that was exactly the opposite logic that was used in the first turn it approaching the iranians on the nuclear shield. There the approach was to build pressure on the iranians to lead the way out. Thats still a lot that i think should apply. If you really want to bolster and enhance the more pragmatic side, it should be one of the things you want to do is show that what celebrity does, the that it costs, it doesnt benefit yearend. If you want the iranians to see that they engage in using shia militias to weaken regimes, its something that works against the iranian interests, there ought to be a price. Should we be doing more to interdict. Quality which they are not supposed to be providing order to these, yes. Should we look for ways to raise the cost . Yes. One of the things that the iranians have not been shy about is that the nuclear deal prevents them from doing anything they want to do on the restoration. I dont know why we cant respond in kind. Maybe ill wrap up. As you raise the issue of the iranian election, i grant that its, how you think about the iranian elections in whats going to happen and what we might do to affect this are Different Things but there are very few people who think that hot johnny was going to win the last election so he will govern our behavior by what we see in the iranian elections is kind of, its about as good as thinking thats going to happen in our elections. We should be humble about thinking that we are going to be able to affect the iranian election. Right now, its clear i think the iranians at this point, whatever the criticisms rouhani, there seems to be a cautious posture toward the trunk administration in no small part because theyre not quite sure what the Trump Administration is going to do. And they also see potentially that they can create some divisions between us and the other members of the 5 1. I would say you shouldnt be overly preoccupied by trying to gain the iranian election. We should be doing what we think is the right thing to do. And i would remind everybody here, the iranians said to us that as long as they were under sanction, they were not going to negotiate on Nuclear Materials. We tremendously increase the sanctions on them in the first term. They came and they did negotiate. Im not arguing for a big increase insanctions. Im arguing for, implement the sanctions we have. Dont be shy aboutdesignating , when they engage for example , we should have done what we did with the white house. 2231 falls on the iranians not to test Ballistic Missiles. The iranians will say, well are not supposed to test missiles, we dont intend to have Nuclear Weapons. Any test by definition is subject to that. Look at what the Ballistic Missiles, look at the range they have. Look at the payload they could carry. By the way, they could carry Nuclear Weapons. Because in fact they are called on to do it theres no reason why the administration not only on its own shouldnt be going to members of the 5 1. There told not to do it but theyre doing it anyway. We should be implementing the sanctions that we have, we should be where the iranian behavior justifies doing more, we should do more. Especially with the other members of the 5 1. We should look for other ways to have agreements on if they violate what the price will be, at least for the europeans and we should look for ways to raise the cost of the iranians and what theyre doing in the region because the basic logic of what we applied on the nuclears should also apply i think to that behavior. Thank you dennis. Very provocative and it raises a lot of interesting questions to discuss, hopefully. After marcus, ive got mark. Its a pleasure to be here, we could all agree that iran presents a problem in several areas. One area where they dont present an immediate problem in is in the nuclear area because they are no longer marching ahead fast toward having the capability to produce fissile material from doctor weapons and his shortterm. That the doa block them from having met but because theyre not marching toward that capability, were not talking about going to war. So the region is more peaceful than it might have been otherwise. Tehran continues to rage and in many ways, its problematic. I would see what the proposition that the United States should be willing to sanction iran for other areas in the nonnuclear field. And warrant it. Lets talk about what then warranted means. I would say a couple things, one is when sanctions can be more effective tools in changing the behavior and questions. Sanctions tend to be the policy of first choice but its not only, a hammer isnt the only tool in our toolbox. When warranted, we also know that applying sanctions and other areas doesnt violate us obligations under jc file, whether intentionally or certainly. And undermining the relief that iran was promised would violate it. Patrick clawson and his colleagues have been watching and wrote a very good report, i agree with several of the recommendations, three in particular. One is that the United States sh