Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion Focuses On Future Of Iran

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. We of course welcome those who are joining us on our heritage. Org website on this occasion. For those inhouse, we do ask that courtesy check, that our mobile devices have been silenced or turned off as we prepare to begin. And for those watching online, youre welcome to send questions or comments. Simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. And of course, we will post the program on the heritage home page following todays presentations as well. Leading our discussion, jim phillips, Senior Research fellow for middle Eastern Affairs in our d center for Foreign Policy studies. Hes a veteran Foreign Policy specialist whos written widely on the middle east and issues of International Terrorism since coming to the Heritage Foundation in 1979. He has authored dozens of papers on iran, its Nuclear Program, its use of terrorism and has testified before congress on Irans Nuclear program and other middle east security issues. Please join me in welcoming jim phillips. Jim . Thank you, john. The Iran Nuclear Agreement has been enforced now for more than a year but yet it faces a very uncertain future. As president ial candidate, donald trump indicated that he would overturn the deal or also indicated that he may enforce it so tightly that the iranians may walk away from it. But as president , hes been in no hurry to rip up the deal and it appears the administration is still reviewing its options. Critics charge that the nuclear deal only slowed irans uranium enrichment program, did not halt it, and that the administrations promises that the deal would help to moderate irans behavior have not come to pass. Iran still does very provocative missile tests. Still supports terrorism. Still expanding military intervention in syria and harassing u. S. Navy ships and other International Ships in the persian gulf. Supporters of the deal indicate that almost all of those things were not included in the deal. And that the deal did reduce irans stockpiles of uranium enrichment for a few years in order to buy time for possibly defusing this crisis. How well has the jcpoa worked . Nuclear deal also is a joint comprehensive program of action, or jcpoa. So how well has the jcpoa worked . What are its strengths and weaknesses . What position should the Trump Administration take on the deal Going Forward . To answer these and other questions, we have a very knowledgeable panel of experts and ill be introducing them as they speak. First speaker is fred, Senior Vice President for policy and programs at the center for security policy. Fred served in the u. S. National security positions for 25 years. At the cia, dia, department of state and the House Intelligence Committee staff. During the administration of president george w. Bush, he was chief of staff to john bolton. Then the undersecretary of state for arms control and interNational Security. During his tenure and briefed key National Intelligence estimates on these issues to committee members. After he left government in 2011, he founded and served as director of the Langley Intelligence Group network. The newsmax medias Global Intelligence and forecasting services. He has published numerous articles in various journals and newspapers and last year published the eyeopening book, obama bomb a dangerous and growing National Security fraud. So let me turn it over to fred. Thanks, jim, its a pleasure to be back at heritage to discuss this National Security issue and very humbling to be on a panel with some of americas leading experts on this issue. I mean, jim, youve written extensively on this issue. Former official ive known for a number of years and really knows exactly whats goinging on wit Irans Nuclear program and David Albright has produced information that i couldnt i dont think i know which end was up without the report his organization is producing, i might add, reports hes been producing despite pressure from the Foreign Policy establishment and Obama Administration to pull his punches. Maib hes not going to talk about that but i really respect him for the hardhitting reports his organization has put out and not pulling his punches. Donald trump said repeatedly during the campaign that the nuclear deal with iran is one of the worst deals the United States has ever negotiated. He implied he would tear up the de, renegotiate the deal and other options being discussed right now. Mr. Trump is right. This really is a terrible agreement that has endangered u. S. And interNational Security, but the question is what will mr. Trump do about it . Im going to discuss three options that are on the table for mr. Trump to deal with the deal, but i first want to talk about why this is a bad deal. And theres two principle reasons for this. First of all, the jcpoa legitimatizes and normalizes Irans Nuclear program, and second, it allows iran to continue to engage in Nuclear Weaponsrelated activities while the agreement is in place. Now, why is that a problem . Iran built its Nuclear Infrastructure in defiance of its treaty obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty. It did it in secret. It cheated. It a state sponsor of terror. And it had been the position until early in the Obama Administration that there are certain technologies, although they have peaceful applications, iran should not be allowed to pursue because they are simply too easy to use to make weapons. However, the Obama Administration was so desperate for an agreement it made concession after concession to give away these dangerous technologies because they wanted to get a legacy Nuclear Agreement from president obama. Now, the Main Technology that is of grave concern is uranium enrichment. Until about 2010 or 20121 uranium. Under the agreement, they can operate uranium centrifuges and develop advanced sent funls while the agreement is in place. Allows iran to increase its expertise and a technology it can later use to make Nuclear Weapons. Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium. Thats the position of the israeli government. It should be our position, too. Now, iran also had a reactor it was building that would be a source of plutonium. Proponents of the deal have praised the fact that under the agreement, iran filled its reactor with cement and it will be rebuilt so it will not produce weaponsgrade plutonium. Thats not exactly the case. This reactor will be rebuilt by the chinese according to the arm patrol association, it will be the source of a quarter of a weapons worth of plutonium per year. Even if that plutonium is not usable as weapons which some experts have said, this agreement will allow iran to acquire expertise in the construction and operation of a heavy water reactor. This was outrageous concession by the United States and it is something that i think is going to make us considerably less safe down the road when this reactor is completed. In addition, this reactor has been exempted from an oversight process to safeguard the technology being provided for the construction of this reactor. Its not being diverted for weapons purposes. So, i mean, this is a real problem. Rarefy case und now, supposedly this has the strongest measures of any Nuclear Agreement in history. In fact, the verification mostly applies to the declared supply chain and declared nuclear sites. Theres a procedure to get access to suspect facilities in nondeclares si d sites but has a vote to get the inspection and if iran refused in theory, sanctions would be snapped back. Sanctions that had been suspended under the agreement. If the Trump Administration attempts to get an authorization from the various parties to get an inspection like this, i think the answer is almost certain to be no. Both because the europeans wont agree to vote with him and because iran has threatened to withdraw from the agreement if there is an attempt to implement more sanctions or snapback sanctions. I dont think that thats an option. In addition, iran is refusing to allow inspections of military facilities. If there are weaponsrelated activities going on, its happening at weapons facilities. Iran said they will not allow inspections of the facilities. That, alone, in the agreement is a big problem. Then there are issues that were left out. These concern promises by the Obama Administration that not only will this agreement reduce or eliminate the threat from Irans Nuclear program, it will bring iran into the community of nations and make iran improve irans relations with the United States. I think we know the last two conditions have not happened. Iran has fired at least a dozen missiles since the Nuclear Agreement was announced. Missiles had been fired by the ho ho houthi rebels, iranian proxy, into the red sea at american uae and saudi ships. Iran has continued its support of terrorism, probably financed by the enormous amount of money it received in sanctions relief under the agreement. But missiles is something thats worth talking about at a little bit of length. We were told early in the Nuclear Talks that missiles would be included in the agreement, but the iranians refused to include it so instead there is a provision concerning missile tests and an annex to a Security Council resolution that endorsed the agreement. But what really wasnt known at the time was that this language barring Iranian Missile tests for, i think, eight years, weakened previous Security Council resolutions and only applies to missile tests that are designed to carry Nuclear Warheads. Now, lets be real here. These missiles are a Nuclear Weapons Delivery System. Theyre not being built to fire monkeys into space or payloads full of dynamite. They are Nuclear Weapons Delivery System to carry Nuclear Bombs against israel, the United States and europe. Thats their purpose. Iran is the only nation in history to have a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers or more without having a Nuclear Weapons system. So lets not pretend this is not part of the Nuclear Weapons program. It was another irresponsible concession by the Obama Administration to get this deal that it allowed the agreement to go through without this as part of it. This is why every time iran tests a missile, they test about a dozen since the agreement was announced, they have not been in noncompliance with the Nuclear Agreement. And the Iranian Foreign minister actually has bragged that he worked for over a year to get this language so they could test missiles and pretend they were not part of the Nuclear Program. So i think this is a bad deal for many reasons. I think it makes us less safe. I think it gets iran closer to a Nuclear Weapon. And i think iran is able to cheat on the agreement and will not be caught. So what should President Trump do about it . Theres three options that i see for him. Tear up the agreement. Renegotiate the agreement. Or pursue a policy of strictly enforcing the agreement. In my view, tearing up the agreement is the best option. This agreement is a fraud. It was sold fraudulently to the American People. There are numerous side deals that were not disclosed to congress when it voted on the agreement in september of 2015. It was negotiated not only over the objections of israel, one of our closest allies, but behind its back and behind the backs of our allies in the middle east. I think this is a big deal. When we conducted Nuclear Negotiation with north korea, we included regional states. We consulted with them. This agreement was initiated with no input from regional states. They were surprised. Jay sullivan writes about how regional states were stunned what iran was allowed to keep under an agreement to reduce the threat from its Nuclear Program. It was a betrayal and i think this is the best reason why this program has to be stopped. Also this agreement undermines important nonproliferation efforts that the United States had been pursuing to top the proliferation of uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing. This is something the Bush Administration worked very hard on and negotiated an agreement to share Peaceful Nuclear technology with the United Arab Emirates called the gold standard, share Nuclear Technology provided the nation was sharing it with agreeing not to enrich and not to reprocess to produce plutonium. The Obama Administration backed away from that standard. I think this was a serious mistake because the more nations who are allowed to enrich and reprocess fuel means the more nations will have covert Nuclear Programs. This was a mistake. We have to return to the gold standard. We had to return to a process of not permitting the proliferation of reprocessing and uranium enrichment. I think that of the options that the president s looking at, renegotiation is more likely. And i can live with renegotiation because im confident that a trump team ultimately will either push for a deal that actually addresses the threats from Irans Nuclear program, brings in other crucial issues such as Ballistic Missiles and sponsorship of terrorism, or iran will back out of the agreement. But theres two objections we hear about. First of all, the u. S. Cant renegotiate on its own and what general mattis said the u. S. Had to keep its commitments, just cant tear up, back out of this agreement. These are both false arguments. This is not really a multilateral lly lagreement. Between the United States and iran. Mostly in secret, mostly before the multimat rlateral attacks b. Read jay sullivans books. Western states had their arms twisted to go along, all the concessions john kerry worked out with the iranians. These other nations are just along for the ride. That cant be the reason. Concerning why the u. S. Should keep its commitments, the u. S. Does not have to keep its commitment to an agreement that commitment to an agreement that is a fraud. This is a fraud. This agreement with was fraudulent Going Forward. It endangered National Security. The American People learned about one unfair concession after another. Can you imagine what congress would have done when it voted on this in september of 2015 if they knew there was a secret deal to pay ransom to get american hostages out of iran . I know the Obama Administration said the release of the american prisoners was not related to the nuclear deal. Give me a break. And the same day we flew a plane load of cash to iran. While they were doing celebrations in january of 2016 about the success of the deal. It was revealed in the wall street journal a few months later. There were many other secret concessions like this. The u. S. Does not have to stand behind a fraud. Strictly enforcing. That seems to be b the b objective of the day right now. The reason people are pushing this is because the argument is well, its a multilateral agreement. Our european allies will be b upset with us if we back out. Lets force iran the back out. Well, theres several problems with this. First of all, this approach legitimizes a fraudulent agreeme agreement. We know this is a fraudulent agreement and working within this process is a mistake, but second of all and this is a very important point. Iran can advance its Nuclear Program. Its Nuclear Weapons program and be in full