Ambassador Dennis Ross
Challenging Conversations: The Potential Iran Deal
Ambassador Dennis Ross | Challenging Conversations The Potential Iran Deal | 05.03.22
- So, I think we’re going to jump straight in. I just want to say a very, very warm welcome to Ambassador Dennis Ross, who will be discussing the potential of the Iran deal today. Ambassador Dennis Ross is Counsellor and Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Prior to returning to the Institute in 2011, he served two years as Special Assistant to President Obama and National Security Council Senior Director for the Central Region, and a year as Special Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For more than 12 years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties and negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israeli and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement. He also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together. Since leaving government at the end of 2011, he has authored many op-eds in “The New York Times”, “Washington Post”, and other papers and magazines. In addition, he writes monthly columns for “U.S. News and World Report” and the “New York Daily News.”
So on that note, Ambassador Ross, Dennis, thank you very, very much for joining us. Welcome to all our participants. And I’m now going to hand you over to Carly, who will be in discussion with you. Thank you very much.
[Dennis] Sure.
Thank you, Wendy. Dennis, nice to see you again, and thank you for joining us again.
[Dennis] Sure.
So tonight we’re going to focus on Iran, specifically, the Iran deal. But as we all know, nothing can be viewed in a vacuum. So I think let’s start with the deal and the JCPOA. And then, zoom out to some of the other geopolitical challenges that might be having an effect. So first of all, I’m going to ask you for our audience sake to cast your mind back to 2015 and the signing of the JCPOA between Iran and a number of the world powers. And just remind our audience where we left off, and in the years that followed, including in 2018 with President Trump, the exiting of the deal by the U.S. to bring us up to the Biden administration.
All right, so I will say this ‘cause it sets a context, also, for our discussion. Back in 2015, the proponents of the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, basically proclaimed this was the greatest arms control deal ever. And the critics of it said it was the worst case of appeasement since Munich. And I can safely say, at the time, I said they were both wrong. It was a deal that had pros and cons then. If it reemerges now, it’ll have pros and cons now. So let’s sort of set the stage for understanding what the pros and cons were then, versus what they they could be today.
Dennis, I’m just going to ask you to pull your chair back a little bit 'cause we’ve lost the bottom half of your mouth. There you go.
Okay.
Thank you, perfect.
You want to see me as well? So it’s okay.
I do.
Okay. So look, in 2015, the pros of this deal were that it meant that the Iranians had to ship out what was about, probably, 10 bombs worth of material. They had about 12,000 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium, which would be, you know, certainly, up to 10 bombs worth of material, no less than eight bombs worth. They had to ship all that out and keep less than 300 kilogrammes, less than one bombs worth, of low-enrich material, low-enrich uranium for 15 years. So for 15 years, they could have less than one bomb’s worth of material. Number two, they could not enrich, even though they could continue to enrich, they had to ship out anything above the 300 kilogrammes. And they were limited in their enrichment to 3.67%. To put that in perspective, when you purify uranium and you begin to separate out fissionable material, you basically produce this kind of enrichment.
To make its weapons-grade, it has to be 90% purified. We’re talking about being limited to 3.67%, again, for a 15 year period until the year 2030. Thirdly, they had a heavy water plant, which could have produced another form of material for a nuclear bomb. There’s two kinds of material for a nuclear bomb. One is low-enriched uranium. The other is plutonium. A byproduct of a heavy water plant is plutonium. So here they had to dismantle the core of the heavy water plant, and that meant that they weren’t in a position to pursue the plutonium side of the pathway to a nuclear weapon. So here you see, they basically have to reduce what they have to less than one bomb’s worth. They can’t pursue a plutonium pathway to a bomb. In addition, they were limited to the level to which they could enrich. And they were not permitted to continue to work on their advanced centrifuges. They had six models of advanced centrifuges they were developing.
Now why is that significant? Because the first generation of centrifuges, which they had used to enrich, were primitive machines. Actually, the design they got from Pakistan. And they were quite inefficient compared to these new models. These new models were anywhere from five to 20 times as efficient, meaning they could produce up to 20 times as much enriched uranium as quickly as the first generation. They were limited to, they weren’t able to pursue those. They weren’t able to do R&D on them. They weren’t permitted to do serious R&D on them until the year 2025. And then, starting at the end of 2025 and the year 2026, they could begin to instal these advanced centrifuges. So all these factors limited their programme. Now that was the pro. So what was the con? So the con was that they weren’t ultimately required to reduce the size of their nuclear infrastructure. And their aim has been to produce a very large, to create a very large nuclear industrial base, which they claim is only for civilian purposes.
But the truth is, if they really wanted to produce civil nuclear power. And I should just say parenthetically, when you are enriching uranium, you can use it for one of two things. One is it to fuel a nuclear reactor to generate electrical power. The other is to create a bomb. So there is such a thing as, we know there’s civil nuclear power. It’s basically used to generate energy. But if you have a different purpose in mind, you can also use it to build a bomb, to create a bomb, the basis of a bomb. So here they were. They were in a position where they were being permitted to pursue enrichment, number one. And number two, they were being permitted to create as large an infrastructure as they wanted. Now what created concerns for many people was by the year 2030, Iran would be in a position where their breakout time would go to zero because they’d have all these advanced centrifuges, which they would’ve perfected, and there was no limitation on the size of the nuclear industrial base they could create.
So the combination of size and advanced centrifuges gave them an ability to have a zero breakout time. Again, let me explain breakout time. When you hear the term breakout time, that doesn’t mean breakout time to a bomb. It means breakout time to creating fissionable material to 90% weapons-grade. The hardest thing to create for a bomb is that. You still have to turn it into a metal sphere. You still have to have tests and experiments where you create an implosive device to create a chain reaction. So there still are technical things you have to do to create a bomb, but you can’t create a bomb unless you have what is the fundamental raw material for it. And weapons-grade fissionable material is the most fundamental element. And so when you hear breakout time, that means breakout time to a bomb. The JCPOA was designed to preserve a one year breakout time. And I should have said one other major advantage of this was it did have extensive verification. I’ll make one last note on this. In the first term of Obama, when I was there, the objective was to negotiate an outcome with the Iranians that would so change the size of their nuclear infrastructure, that the reduced size itself would demonstrate an intent not to have a weapon.
That changed in the second term when the Obama administration came to the conclusion they couldn’t get the Iranians to agree to that. So instead of trying to get a demonstration that their intent was changed because the capability was going to be so reduced, they went, instead, to producing verification. A variety of verification means it would allow us to know what they were doing. And if they were cheating, we would have enough time. That was the value of one year’s breakout time if we caught them cheating. And there was reason to believe we could catch them cheating, because there were a variety of steps that, all of which were monitored. You know, when you’re producing the process of enrichment, you go through a series of steps. First, you have to acquire uranium. You have to mine the uranium. Then, you have to turn the uranium into a gas. That’s known as conversion. And then, you have to feed what’s the gas, which is hexafluoride. You have to feed that into a centrifuge.
So we were able to monitor, according to the JCPOA, where they mined the uranium. We were able to monitor where they converted the uranium. We were able to monitor the assembly plants that they had to create their centrifuges. And we could monitor their enrichment. So the main argument about why it was okay to change the objective away from producing such a reduced size of their nuclear infrastructure was that we would still know what they’re doing because we had intrusive monitoring, including, according to the additional protocol, we could monitor declared and undeclared sites. And we would have a year’s time to catch them if they cheated. And that was plenty of time, given the different intrusive means of monitoring that we had. So that was the main argument pro. The main argument against was you’re legitimising a very large nuclear infrastructure that the whole world will feel is legitimate.
And after 2030, the breakout time would be zero. And they might well, the Iranians might well be in a position where they could, in effect, present the world with a nuclear weapons fait accompli, and there wouldn’t be much you could do about it. In addition, lifting all the sanctions meant that Iran would have many more resources available to them, not only to pursue this programme and its infrastructure, but also to engage in threatening behaviour, destabilising behaviour, in the region, which they were already doing.
Dennis, I wonder if you can try raising your chair, 'cause we are still , we are still losing you. The more enthusiastic you get. There we go.
[Dennis] Okay. So before we turn to 2018, you know, obviously, you’ve referenced the ability to monitor and assess what was going on. One of the cons and the concerns that the Israelis and others shared was how much you were really going to be able to monitor and verify what was going on. So just to push a little on that, in addition to, you know, the concerns around legitimacy, it was whether Iran could be trusted as the partner in that deal. So if you can just reflect on that for a moment.
The deal was never based on trust. The deal was always based on being able to verify what they were doing. And according to the IEA and everyone else, including our own intelligence, and even the Israeli intelligence, no one said that they were cheating on the deal. So we, you know, the fact that we had this insight into every phase of the process made it very difficult for them to cheat. One of the reasons that the, you had the monitoring on every phase is we wanted to be sure that when they took the uranium, they didn’t divert small parts of it away to create some kind of hidden enrichment process. Same with the conversion. We wanted to be sure they couldn’t divert any of the gas away. Same with the enrichment. We wanted to be sure they couldn’t divert any of the enriched material away.
So there was, there was pretty good insight, and there were multiple ways. Look, in addition to the overt monitoring, we obviously had our own means. The Israelis had their own means. So we knew we had a pretty good picture of what they were doing. And if they cheated on the margins, the cost to them was going to be high because we would catch it. There were times they did cheat, by the way. They claimed it was misunderstanding. We caught them every time, you know? They were enriching to 5% instead of 3.67%. We caught them. They were, They didn’t dispense some of the heavy water they were supposed to. We caught them. So these were, you could see them testing the limits of the verification system by cheating along the margins and always having explanation, “Oh, you know, this was, we just misunderstood.” So we caught them. And you know, I had made an argument in advance of the deal that every time we caught them cheating, we should impose a penalty. It wasn’t enough to catch them. They had to know, if they cheated, no matter how small the violation, there was a penalty. We didn’t do that. We should have done that. There were a number other things I wanted us to do that we also didn’t do.
So now, two years into the deal, the Trump administration pulls out with no alternative mechanism or other solutions on the table. And you know, what transpires over the years that follow is, you know, increasing tensions, you know, concerns as to what was lost when the Trump administration pulled out. And, you know, now brings us under the Biden administration to an attempt to reintroduce the deal. So what do you think the effect was of the Trump administration pulling out in the way it did, and how does that bring us to where we are today?
Look, I may not have been a total fan of the deal, as you might guess, but I was against pulling out for two reasons. First, we isolated ourselves and not the Iranians. Big mistake. The political isolation of Iran actually matters, but we isolated ourselves. The threat to pull out was fine, because you could have used it as leverage with the Europeans. The truth is, for four and a half months, the Europeans negotiated with us to address concerns we had so that we wouldn’t pull out. And then, President Trump just made the decision to go ahead and do it anyway. That was problem number one. Problem number two, we had no plan for what was going to replace it. So we created a justification for the Iranians to walk away from the deal, to walk away from all the limitations in the deal. We adopted what was maximum pressure, which was really maximum economic pressure.
And then, they began to create their own version of maximum pressure on us by putting limpet mines on ships, not claiming they did it, but we knew they did it, by attacking oil facilities, oil processing facilities using their proxies. So we didn’t have a plan for what was going to replace it. They created their own counter pressure. And then, they walked away from all the limitations. Now, the most severe part of this was not just that they began to accumulate enriched material, but they, you know, they began to do things that greatly reduced their breakout time. To be fair, they violated all the limits prior to the time Biden came in, but after Biden came in, they ratcheted up the character of the violations. So they were already working on their advanced centrifuges. So that wasn’t new.
But they began to enrich with their advanced centrifuges. You could argue that it took them a while to work out the bugs, and then they tested it by enriching. So today, by the way, their IR-6s have been producing enriched uranium to 20%. 20% is a dividing line between low-enriched uranium and highly-enriched uranium. To go from 3.67% to 20% is a big deal technologically, because once you’ve done that, to go to the 90% takes you much less time. But they didn’t stop there, they began enriching to 60%. And it didn’t draw a response, other than a rhetorical one. Now 60% is extremely close to 90%. Right now, I would tell you the breakout time is two to three weeks. And we don’t have the IAEA in there. That’s the other thing. By pulling out, not only did they violate the limits, but they denied the IAEA access.
And so, even now, the IAEA does not have access to a lot of the facilities. And there, you know, there’s a deal where they still allow the cameras, which operate 24/7 to be on, but they don’t allow the IAEA access to the data of the camera. And they won’t do that unless we reach an agreement. Well, who knows exactly what they’ve been able to hide that we don’t know? You know, you had good verification during the deal. Once they started violating and once they began to deny the IAEA access, we don’t have anything like the full picture of what’s going on. So, now you have a breakout time of two to three weeks.
Now, you have advanced centrifuges that they spent the last couple years working out all the bugs. These are very delicate machines. You know, they spin 700 miles an hour. They use, you know, they have a very delicate construction. A lot of what was done in the past related to sabotage of these machines, it’s not hard, you know. Because they’re delicate, it doesn’t take a whole lot to have them basically implode, which oftentimes happen. They’ve worked those problems out now. So here we are, a two to three week breakout time because we never had an alternative plan. It was as if the Trump administration felt, either they’ll simply give in, or they’ll collapse. Well, they did neither.
So, now to come to current day, under the Biden administration, the aim as it were, is to return to the original deal. Now given what you’ve just described about what’s changed in the three years or so since the Trump administration pulled out, you know, how is it possible to return to the original deal, and what is actually the goal of the Biden administration here?
When they came in, the Biden administration said, “We want a longer and stronger deal. We want to go back to the JCPOA, and have that be the point of departure.” But here we are, how many months? 17 months into the Biden administration, and we’re not back. And in the meantime, the Iranians completely changed the baseline of their programme. They are at a point in their programme that is dramatically different where they were supposed to be today. So the baseline is different. Now the question where the Biden administration is still hoping to be able to do is at least reestablish all the limits. So, if you reestablish the limits, what you would do is the Iranians would have to ship out all the 60% enrichment, which as I said, that’s what allows them to be so close.
All the 60% material they have, it would take two to three weeks to turn that into 90% weapons-grade. But, so they have to ship all that out. They have to ship out all the 20%. They have to ship out, they have more than 10 times the amount of low-enriched uranium than they’re entitled to have under the limits of the JCPOA, so they have to ship that out. They have to, again, go back to, on the heavy water plant, they have to, again, go back to respecting the limits of that. They would have to stop, I mentioned, one thing I didn’t mention, they’ve been producing uranium metal. When you enrich to 60%, there’s no justifiable civilian purpose for it. When you produce uranium metal, there is no justifiable civilian purpose for it.
By the way, you don’t have to take my word for it, though my word’s good, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Rafael Grossi, who is the Director of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, they, he has said explicitly, “There is no justifiable civilian purpose for uranium metal.” You only produce uranium metal is if you’re trying to create that sphere I was talking about before, a metallic sphere that is the way you encase the enriched material. So all that has to stop. So what you’re doing, in effect, is you’re buying time. Now you’re not buying nearly the amount of time that you might have bought. You do have the IAEA back in there, and so you can monitor what they’re doing. And you’re basically buying time until the year 2030. The Israelis suggest the time is less than that for a couple reasons. One, there is a snapback function.
One of the things that was built in the JCPOA is if the Iranians violated the deal, there was a snapback function. Now, the other members who agreed to the JCPOA, they said you couldn’t invoke the snapback function because the U.S. pulled out of the deal. But, so the idea now is, in 2025, built into that agreement was the snapback function, meaning you snap back sanctions. That ends in 2025. So the Israelis, some of these Israelis, are saying the deal, the clock really only goes to 2025, and you’re only buying two and a half years. I think it’s wrong, because, I will say, the deal is so good for the Iranians, they have no interest in pulling out of it. If they pull out of the deal, by definition, they’re then violating, and then we have a justification to snap back all the sanctions. So even if it’s lapsed, it’s only lapsed, it lapses if they continue to fulfil the deal.
But if they pull out of the deal, it doesn’t. And they have no, as I said, they have no incentive to pull out of the deal at that point because it lines them up as of 2030 to pursue their programme with no limitations whatsoever. One of the things I should have said is, after 2030, there is, for another 10 years, there is monitoring, but there are no limitations on the size of the programme they can have or the quality of the programme they can have, as of 2030. There’s no limitation on the level to which they can enrich. If they want to enrich it to 90% or 20%, there’s nothing that will exist that prevents them from doing that. We can warn them and we should, but there’s nothing that limits that. So the reality here is, I do think the 2030 is still the time to think about the limitations on them. But the deal, so the deal basically buys you time, but it’s a deal that, you know, now they’ve already consolidated an entirely new baseline.
And so, you’re buying much less time to do something about their programme than you originally had in 2015. One of the issues I think that we should be focused on is if this deal takes place, what are we going to do to counter their programme and what are we going to do with what is the main downside of this? The main downside is when they have sanctions relief, and they’re enabled to do everything they’re doing in the region right now, think about the fact that they’ve been under sanctions. The economic penalties have been severe. And yet, they have developed a whole array of drones, transportation drones, reconnaissance drones, weaponized drones. All the trouble they’re causing in the region, all the missiles and everything they’ve been providing, they’ve been doing this even when they’ve been under sanctions and they’ve had severe economic difficulties as a result.
They’ve managed that, and now if they have sanctions relief, they’re going to have access to dramatically more resources. And that means they have dramatically more resources to cause trouble in the region. If they’ve caused all this trouble when they were under sanctions, imagine what they can do with dramatically more resources. That’s the main criticism of the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, and the Israelis. And so, what is required is an administration’s strategy of deterrents. How do they raise the cost to the Iranians of doing this? One way to do it is to say to the Iranians that you don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to say, “The nuclear issue is here, and the regional issues are totally different, and we can do whatever we want.” Our response should be, “Fine. The nuclear issue is here, and we are entitled to do whatever we want to raise the cost to you to counter you for what you’re doing in the region.”
That should be part of what the U.S. is saying, what the administration is saying, assuming there is a deal. Now we shouldn’t assume there’s going to be a deal, because an issue came up, and it fits with what I just said. The Iranians are insisting that the Revolutionary Guard need to be delisted. The Trump administration, in 2019, put the Revolutionary Guard on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organisation List. And the Iranians are saying we have to delist them. Now the administration, to its credit, is saying, “No.” Here, I would say think about it. It gets back to what I was saying about the Iranians wanting it both ways. They say the nuclear issue is here, and yet they’re insisting that one of the sanctions not related to the nuclear issue but related to their terrorist behaviour is one they want delisted. You know, on its face, it’s wrong. They can’t have it both ways, and we should stick to that. Now, we will see if we will. So far we have.
So far they’re saying that, you know, there’ll be no deal unless we delist. At this point, we’ll see what happened. Now I’ve heard rumours that they, that the Iranians might look for a way out on that issue. If they do, it speaks volumes about how much they want sanctions relief. There are some signs, by the same token, that the Revolutionary Guard doesn’t want the deal, doesn’t want sanctions relief, 'cause the Revolutionary Guard handles, it gains more and more control over the Iranian economy if there is no sanctions relief. If there’s sanctions relief, and businesses in Iran are able to do business with the outside world, and there can be investment from the outside world, then it’s not the Revolutionary Guard who focus everything on skirting the sanctions and focus everything on industries that they have developed. They already controlled close to 40% of the Iranian economy, and they use the existence of sanctions to build up all their industries.
They have bought up a major part of the Iranian economy. So they are less enthusiastic about the deal because, in a practical way, they gain more economically so long as Iran’s under sanctions. The problem is that Iran as a country suffers, the Iranian public suffers, and the political side of the leadership may worry about the level of alienation that is occasioned by what is the, in a sense, what the Iranian public is denied.
So let’s just talk about the delisting of the Revolutionary Guard for a minute. You know, in the last three days, Mossad has said that it’s foiled a plot by the Revolutionary Guard to assassinate a diplomat in Turkey. You know, that’s just one example from this week. Why do you think, for the Israelis, delisting is obviously such a concern? And what’s the danger if they’re actually delisted? Does it really stop them operating? You know, up until now, listed or not, they’ve continued to wreak havoc across the globe.
Look, there is a legitimate argument to be made that the delisting is mostly a symbolic issue, because all the constituent parts of the Revolution Guard are designated. They’re not being delisted, so the Quds Force is not going to be delisted. The major industries, Khatam al-Anbia, which is the basic military industrial construction industry which dominates a major part of the economy is designated. So it is somewhat symbolic. But I think the Israeli complaint is, partly it’s, “At a time when they’re engaging in terrorism, how could you possibly take off the list a group that is so intimately involved in terrorism?” And think of the signal it sends to everybody, including the Iranians, that you concede on that point.
So they’re against it partly for that reason. The truth is the de-listing doesn’t affect, ultimately, what the Revolutionary Guard does. As you said, one of the major Israeli concerns that I heard from Mossad and from Shin Bet is that the more money that the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force has, the more it spreads it around. It’s not just the creation of weapons and the transfer of weapons, drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles. Obviously, that’s a part of it. It’s not just that. It’s also that they use money to pay people to carry out acts of terror. So I heard for example, you know, they use Hezbollah to spread money around among the Israeli Arabs, among the Bedouin in the south, the same with Hamas.
So I heard from them, both around the world and within Israel itself, on a daily basis, that they are having to stop or blunt such attacks, not just the one that you described that’s been publicised. All sorts of attempts that are not publicised at all, and one of the concerns is if they have much more money to spread around, they’ll become more effective at this. So that’s the concern. That relates to the issue of, not the delisting, but it relates to the whole issue of sanctions relief. And that’s really the issue of the concern for countries in the region.
So obviously, we’ve touched on the fact that, you know, this deal only comes to 2030, and really it’s about buying time. Now, you know, we’ve all heard the argument on both sides. You know, from the the Israeli point of view, if you’re pushing the problem down the line while the Iranians get to, you know, finesse their skills, how does it really help? And from the rest of the world’s point of view, you know, we’ve all seen what happened. The Arab Spring is often quoted as a good example of, you never know when regime change may be around the corner. But you know, from your point of view, does giving us time till 2030 really help the world in the long term?
It depends on what you do. I mean, so let me give you examples of what I would, what I have been arguing for and continue to argue for. We need to reestablish deterrents. The Iranians have lost their fear of us. We need to reestablish deterrents. They don’t believe we will ever act militarily against them. Worse, they believe that we’ll stop the Israelis from acting militarily. So I want us to reestablish deterrents by doing a number of things. One, we should change our declaratory policy. We should make it very clear. In the preamble of the JCPOA, there was an Iranian commitment never to seek, acquire, to develop nuclear weapons. Our declaratory policy should be, if we see them violating that, we will take out their entire nuclear infrastructure. Right now our posture is all options are on the table. That’s been so routinized that I think it has no effect on them.
So I would change the declaratory policy. But because, even if we change the declaratory policy, they still don’t believe that we’re going to act. But they know the Israelis would if, but they think that we’d stop them. So I want us to give the Israelis the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, and I want us to lease B-2s to the Israelis 'cause they don’t have a plane that can carry it. What is a Massive Ordnance Penetrator? During the Obama administration, we realised that we needed to have an option to take out their enrichment sites. Now one of their enrichment sites is actually built into a mountain. It’s called Fordo. And the only way you could destroy that was with a nuclear weapon. Now you don’t want to have to use a nuclear weapon, so we created the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which is a 30,000 pound bomb. It has a fuse that doesn’t ignite until it penetrates deep underground. So it basically destroys the mountain, destroys what’s within the mountain.
Now the Israelis don’t have, they not only don’t have anything like the MOP. You hear people talk about “bunker busters.” It’s not a bunker buster. It’s a mountain buster. But the Israelis don’t have anything like that, and they don’t have a plane that could carry a 30,000 pound bomb. So I want us to provide them the MOP. And I want us to lease them B-2s, because if we sold a B-2 it would take up their, almost their entire budget, annual budget. So lease them the B-2. Why is that significant? Because they may question whether the U.S. will act, but they won’t question whether the Israelis will act. And they no longer will have reason to believe that we won’t support the Israelis if they do, because we’re giving the Israelis to carry out such an act. So this could do a lot to restore deterrents. I would like us to do more. I’d like us to punctuate the words that they’ve put their whole nuclear infrastructure at risk. We have, in Central Command now, Israel is there with all the Arab states.
We should be running exercises that rehearse taking out hardened targets. So when we say, “You would be jeopardising your entire nuclear infrastructure,” the Iranians pay very close attention to our exercises. They can see that we’re rehearsing exercises for air-to-ground missions against hardened targets. And they’ll see that the words are being backed up by preparation. Now, there are other things that we can do, but this is a starting point for reestablishing deterrents. We need to do, that’s the way you take advantage of the time. The reason I think it’s so important to do that, come 2031, the end of 2030, there will be nothing to stop the Iranians from thinking they can proceed as I said, towards presenting the world with a nuclear weapons fait accompli, unless they understand that, “Here’s what we’re prepared to do. We won’t permit it.”
And if it isn’t in their agreement, I mean, the more we build up the, and make credible our deterrent, the more we actually give them an incentive to negotiate a follow-on agreement. They have no incentive to negotiate a follow-on agreement unless they feel the pressure. So for me, the way you buy time, you take advantage of the time you’re buying by building your deterrent. And the more credible you make it, the more you give them an incentive to say, “Okay, let’s negotiate a deal that, basically, is a follow-on one that corrects what is the major flaw on this one.” The major flaw on this one was the sunset provisions that lapse in the year 2030.
So given that, you know, nothing can be seen as a vacuum, and we can’t look at the JCPOA as this, you know, the only issue with regards to Iran, I want to take our last 20 minutes or so and zoom out on some of the issues both in the region and more broadly. So this week Iran and Saudi had their fifth round of talks between officials. You know, big picture issue on the agenda for the Saudis is the war against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. You know, how do you see those talks as being relevant in the broader way the world is interacting with Iran and given the Israelis hopes that, you know, Saudis and others may be allies in pushing back against this, you know, “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” kind of thing? How does this fit into that picture?
I’m not sure it changes things much. The Iranians try to portray this as they’re making progress. There is a two month truce in Yemen, but I think it’s mostly for the Houthis to be able to rebuild what they’ve been losing. From the Saudis I talk to, they’ve seen no change in the Iranian behaviour. And they’re saying, “Look, this doesn’t go anywhere unless they prove that they’re prepared to change. If they stop the support for these militias who attack us, then, you know, then this has meaning. And if they don’t, and they continue to use the militias as a lever on us, you know, we’ll talk to them, but nothing is going to fundamentally change.” I think the Saudi expectations, every time you’ll see the Iranians will go ahead and they’ll be positive about these discussions, the Saudis say nothing.
You know, if they agree that there was something real here, you’d probably hear them say it. They’re not saying that. So an indicator of where these talks are is the continuing Saudi silence. And they are, you know, they’re living up to the truce. There are violations of the truce, but they just released 163 prisoners. Now they’re supposed to get some prisoners in return from the Houthis, so we’ll see. My guess is it’ll probably happen. But the real measure of this is that, after the two month truce and the time is up, that it continues. If it doesn’t continue and you suddenly see drones, and rockets, and ballistic missiles going into, cruise missiles into Saudi Arabia again, you know, you’ll see where you are. I have low expectations, because not only the Iranians, but the Houthis.
The Houthis, there’s only one thing the Houthis know how to do, fight. They can’t govern. They mostly are, this is a poor country, and they’re basically, they’re incapable of governance. So, you know, putting them in a position where they have to govern, that’s the last thing they can do. I have low expectations here.
So now looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and you know, the Russian relationship with Iran. I read an article today where the Russians are actually now looking to lean on the Iranians to make repairs of their planes, and that kind of thing, due to sanctions. I’m not sure I’d want to fly on a Russian plane repaired by Iran, but nevermind. And, you know, what do you think Iran is learning from the situation in Ukraine? And is that putting the world in a weaker or a stronger position?
Well, it’s interesting, I saw some reports a little over a week ago that the Russians were actually turning to the Iranians to help with weaponry, which speaks volumes, I think, about the weakness of the Russian military and their dependency on parts from the outside for their defence industry. Which they now, they’ve run out of parts. So, that they would require help from the Iranians, probably is not a source of great reassurance to the Iranians that, you know, this is not exactly a world power that you can depend on or count on. But I think the main thing for the Iranians is, “Okay, we’re, you know, we’re cementing our relationship with the Russians.”
I think the more important relationship for them is the one with China. And I think what is going on in Ukraine is demonstrating that to the Iranians. The Iranians had a strategy which the supreme leader wanted them to have an Eastern strategy to be able to be independent, completely independent of us. I’m not sure that what’s going on with Russian and Ukraine is demonstrating that the Eastern strategy can be everything that he would hope and expect it would be. When I say independent, I mean being free of being able to be pressured by us through sanctions. So, you know, this is probably not, it’s probably not a great time for them. And what Russia is demonstrating is it may, you know, it may have all sorts of missiles, it may have all sorts of aeroplanes , but it has a pretty hollow military.
So the fear of that military, I think was overstated. I’ll say one other thing. It’s not a response to your question, but it’s worth making the point. Our intelligence was really good in terms of determining that they would invade. Our intelligence was not very good in terms of depicting what would happen. We clearly bought the same kind of mythology that Putin did, that they would succeed in two or three days. I mean, why else would we offer to evacuate Zelensky? You know, he said, “I don’t want to be evacuated. Just give us the arms.” So had our intelligence been better about the Ukrainian ability to resist and the weakness of the Russians, we could have provided much more to the Ukrainians much sooner than we did. And the losses of the Russians at this point would be a good deal higher. So it’s worth recalling that.
So to turn to another ally that Russia’s been cultivating over time, Venezuela, you know, in the last eight to 10 weeks, the Americans have made overtures to engage with Venezuela, you know, with a government that they don’t recognise. All that’s done is push Iran to further cooperate, you know, with a visit by the Energy Minister this week. Which way do you see Venezuela going? And is there really an opportunity for the U.S. to engage?
Yeah, I found that a kind of remarkable outreach on our part. All the things that Venezuela that, you know, that they’ve done, the idea that they’re going to help fill in the gaps for the loss of Russian oil? It is interesting that a deal hasn’t been done. So it says there are some real constraints here. I don’t think that’s a very smart way to go.
And what is the danger if Venezuela goes further towards Iran?
I don’t think there’s a big danger. They already went, they’re already, you know, they have a relationship with Russia. They have a relationship with Iran. It’s not so much that they’re going further. They were already dependent on Iran. Iran was already helping them, you know, when they had their own problems, helping them with repair of some of their facilities, their oil facilities. At certain points, when they had a problem producing, the Iranians actually sent them oil. So it’s not, I don’t see them moving closer. I mean the Iranians already have, through Hezbollah, a presence in South America. They’re, I mean, they’re very active, you know, around Argentina and Uruguay. They’re very active in the drug trade there. You know, so Venezuela, this is part of what they’ve been up to all along. So I don’t see this as a major, it’s a problem, but it’s not a new problem.
So one of the somewhat surprising things this week, or actually, sorry, last week, was UAEs engagement with the Syrian government. And you know, the feelings of Washington on that. And one of the articles I read from the region implied it was the UAEs attempts to pull Syria away from Iran and, you know, divide that. Do you see the UAEs engagement with Syria really having an opportunity to pull them from Iran? Or is that just a good excuse to look to relieve Washington of its concerns?
I think the prospect of them weaning the Iranians away is zero. I won’t mince my words. I think in the case of the UAE, it’s a hope, you know. They want to have a strategy against Iran that weakens Iran. And look, I’ve heard Israelis say, you know, “We can wean them away. We can wean them away from the Russians, wean them away from the Iranians.” I don’t believe it. This is a, Assad has depended on the Iranians all along. Go back to the Iran-Iraq war. What’s the one country that allied with Iran against Iraq? The one Arab country? Syria. Longstanding. Iran intervened early on to help Bashar al-Assad. I don’t see, I don’t see much potential, for A, I don’t see the Iranians giving it up. And they have leverage on Assad through Hezbollah, through the other militias.
You know, they have invested very heavily in Syria. You know, they invested at a time when they had a real squeeze on the resources. This is, it probably is no more important priority that the Iranians have, at least in the region, than to preserve their position in Syria, because it’s the key to their being able to support Hezbollah. Hezbollah is the only place where they’ve successfully exported the revolution. So they’re not going to, they’re not giving this up. And the idea that, you know, that Assad will say, “Okay, thanks. Thanks and goodbye,” and they’ll simply say, “Ah, could have had a V8. Yeah, time to go. No problem.” I don’t see that. They’ll resist.
So in the last 10 minutes, we’ve obviously skirted around Israel’s concerns, and I’d like to focus on Israel. The current Israeli government has taken a slightly different approach to voicing its concerns for as long as the government may last, and has, you know, not been as vocal and visible as Prime Minister Netanyahu was. Is that approach getting them any further in their engagement with Washington? Does that mean the current Israeli government is, you know, got a better seat around the table? And how do you see Israel in terms of its options? Should the deal actually take place?
I think the, look, it has done a couple things. Israel’s not being surprised by this administration the way it was by Obama. And the way Netanyahu approached things, it also had a lasting effect in terms of Democrats on the Hill and their view at the time of the deal. And also there, you know, it affected, certainly part of, the Democratic party’s relationship with Israel. There’s a, you know, there still is a legacy from that. It was a misguided approach. It was misguided because Israel could have gotten something. You know, this Israeli government opposes going back to JCPOA. Netanyahu’s opposition to the JCPOA, he could have gone to Obama, and when I say this, I know this. I’m not speculating. I know it for a fact. He could have gone to Obama, and he could have requested.
For example, I was pushing to, at that time, for the Israelis to get the MOP then, Massive Ordnance Penetrator. Because this is something that, this was going to be Obama’s signature achievement in foreign policy, and he didn’t want to fight over it. Bibi could have gone to him and he could have said, “You know, we’re never going to support this, but we won’t go to war over it. But because you’re actually increasing the threats that Israel will face, we need you to provide us some means to enhance deterrents.” And that’s what this Israeli government is approaching. And this administration has already said to the Israelis, if there’s a deal, and then right now there’s still, they’re not optimistic there will be a deal because of the issue of the Revolutionary Guard. But they’ve already said to the Israelis, “If there’s a deal, we need to talk about what you might need, given the threats that you see may become greater.” Now that wasn’t a conversation that was had with Netanyahu.
Now it is true, in 2016, which was a year later, the administration reached a 10 year deal with Israel on assistance. It wasn’t tied to the JCPOA, and the truth is, it was premised on the fact that the JCPOA would last for 10, I mean not JCPOA, that this, that the JCPOA, A, would last. And therefore, and this was true, the Israeli military readjusted its budget on the assumption that the JCPOA would last. Now when Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, all the assumptions related to the 10 year provision of assistance, suddenly, they got thrown out the window 'cause Israel had to become more active in terms of dealing with Syria, even though that was very costly. The Trump administration never gave Israel one penny more. So it was facing a bigger threat because Trump pulled out of the deal, but it wasn’t given any additional means to deal, or cope, with that threat. And all the attacks that the Israelis carry out in Syria, they cost money because they use very sophisticated, very costly munitions. A lot of them are standoff munitions.
And in terms of the last month of Ramadan in Israel, and Hamas’ incitements to the tensions on Temple Mount, and their remarks yesterday against Mansour Abbas, you know, and the very clear attempts to interfere and incite Arab Israelis again, how much of that do you read as being pushed by Iran? And how much of that is just, you know, Hamas being Hamas, and the month of Ramadan always being a time for tensions?
You know, Hamas doesn’t need a whole lot of encouragement to do that, obviously. But Iran, again, Iran has been providing money to Hamas, even though its economic circumstances are difficult. So, you know, are they encouraging? Are they pushing the Hamas to do this? Are the Iranians pushing it? Absolutely, they are. Now that’s, you know, Hamas may have its own reasons, but they’re absolutely being pushed and they’re seeking from, you know, from Iran, more money, some more resources, more weapons. And they’re getting it.
So I don’t want to ask you to consult your crystal ball, but if we are looking ahead to the months to come, how long do you see as the Biden administration, you know, continuing to hang on and hope that we may see a deal? And do you think there’s a timeframe by which, you know, everybody decides this is over?
You know, the Biden administration said in November that we’re running out of time and the time left to produce a deal is measured in weeks, not months. Well, we’re about six months later. So, I don’t see the administration walking away, per se. It’s as if, you know, it may be dead man walking, but they’re not prepared to pronounce it. You know, I think the Iranian approach is, “We’ve put pressure on the administration in response to the pressure.” I would say, I don’t think the Iranians have given up on doing the deal. They’re going to increase the pressure on the administration by accelerating their nuclear programme and by saying, “Okay, no deal. Here’s what’s going to happen,” and see if that leads us to concede. Now, I think if that’s what they think, I think they’re miscalculating. ‘Cause I think Biden, at least on the issue of the delisting of the Revolutionary Guard, Biden just views that as wrong, and I don’t think he’s going to do it. Now, you know, we’ll see.
If they keep raising the pressure on us, you know, do we face more than one front, given the preoccupation and Russia/Ukraine taking up all the oxygen? Maybe the administration looks for a way out. Certainly, the Iranians are going to test that proposition. If they come to the conclusion that we’re not going to concede anything more, then they have to decide, How important is sanctions relief? And then, we’ll get an indication of, How important is the Revolutionary Guard to decision making in Iran? If there’s no deal at this point, it’ll be largely because of the Revolutionary Guard. If there is a deal, it tells us something about Raisi, the President, and the Supreme Leader deciding the sanctions relief was more important than satisfying the Revolutionary Guard.
So, I would keep my eye on, you know, if we see some movement from the Iranians on the issue of finding a way to resolve this issue, then we’ll know that the Revolutionary Guard’s not calling the shots.
Dennis, thank you so much. That was an absolutely fascinating hour, and I know our audience really appreciated it, being brought up to speed and navigating our way through a lot of issues to consider. And we’ll keep our eye on the months ahead. And the Washington Institute has fantastic briefings for those of you who don’t get them. I thoroughly recommend them. And thank you, again, for joining us.
[Dennis] My pleasure.
Thank you, Carly, and Dennis. Thank you very, very much. That was extremely interesting. And thank you, Lauren. And thank…
Bye for now.
Thank you to all our participants for joining us. Yes, bye for now. Thank you.