The New Deal - Iran & its nuclear program, with Mark Dubowitz
What is happening right now in Vienna with the negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program? What was the significance of Putin’s recent trip to Iran? What is the nature of China’s relationship with Iran, and what can it tell us about Beijing’s grand strategy? And if Iran continues to build its nuclear program, what is Israel’s Plan B?
These are some of the questions we explore with Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC. We sat down with while we’re in Israel.
Mark has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures.
A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
According to The New York Times, “Mark Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader.” According to The Atlantic, “Dubowitz has been helping design and push forward sanctions on Iran…establishing the FDD as D.C.’s ground zero for research and policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the flaws in the nuclear agreement.”
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] Putin needs help from some country that is experienced in sanctions busting. The Iranians are very experienced in sanctions busting. And so he's gone to the Iranians. He's asked for, uh, for Iranian expertise in helping evade Western sanctions on his country. And it's a clear indication that, uh, if we lift sanctions on Iran, then all of these banking channels will open up for the Iranians, all these energy channels.
And Russia will use Iranian channels to sanctions bust. So Putin has a lot of interests in this deal, and to depend on Putin's man in Vienna to negotiate this deal is geopolitical malpractice.
What is happening right now in Vienna with the negotiations over the future of Iran's nuclear program? [00:01:00] What was the significance of Putin's recent trip to Iran? What is the nature of China's relationship with Iran and what can it tell us about Beijing's grand strategy? And if Iran continues to build its nuclear program, unabated, what is Israel's plan B?
These are some of the questions I explore with Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D. C. Although I have this conversation with Mark here in Israel. Where I sat down with him while we're both here, Mark has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and testified more than 20 times before the U S Congress and foreign legislatures.
He's a former venture capitalist and technology executive that has a master's degree in international public policy from John Hopkins university school of advanced international studies for his fine work. In 2019, Mark was sanctioned by the government of [00:02:00] Iran, and earlier this year, he was sanctioned by the government of Russia.
According to the New York Times, quote, Mark Dubowitz's campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader. Close quote. And according to the Atlantic magazine, Quote, Dubowitz has been helping design and push forward sanctions on Iran, establishing the Foundation for Defensive Democracies as D.
C. 's ground zero for research and policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the flaws in the nuclear agreement. Close quote. So there's nobody better to check in with on all things Iran. I'm glad I bumped into him here in Israel This is call me back
Pleased to welcome my longtime friend Mark Dubowitz the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies I [00:03:00] would say one of the most important and impactful think tanks in Washington DC, but I'm meeting with Mark and having this conversation in person Mark, welcome to the podcast. Ah, wonderful to be here with you, Dan.
Uh, it's wonderful to be with you here. No more sirens, right? The last couple days we were having, uh, uh, sirens because of rocket attacks. Uh, here, uh, the sirens were in Tel Aviv. Most of the attacks, the rockets that landed were South of us, but let me start with that and then we'll talk more broadly about, uh, Iran because no one is in the thick of what is happening, uh, not only with the negotiations in Vienna, uh, with Iran and also what It's happening globally, geopolitically with Iran, Iran Russia, Iran China, Iran U.
S., Iran Europe. We'll get into all of that. But I just, the here and now, what happened over the last few days with [00:04:00] the Gaza Israel flare up? Because I think people think Gaza, they think Hamas. When in fact, this wasn't actually Hamas, I mean, it may have been implicitly Hamas, but it was this other group that is in the news less, which is the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
So can you talk about who they are and what was going on here over the last few days? So Dan, that's exactly right. It wasn't Hamas, though. Hamas is the governing authority in. In Gaza and is responsible for anything that comes out of Gaza. So certainly, as you say, implicitly gave a green light to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations.
Islamic Jihad is an Iranian proxy. Uh, they're paid for by Iran. They're. armed by Iran, and they don't do anything without a green light from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and his Revolutionary Guards. So, Islamic Jihad has been operating mostly out of Gaza, but increasingly out of the West Bank, and along with Hamas, has been trying to do to the West Bank what they did to Gaza, which is take it over, and [00:05:00] actually undermine, uh, the Palestinian Authority.
and launched terrorist attacks from particularly the northern West Bank. And that's what's happened over the recent couple of months. There are actually 19 Israelis who were murdered, uh, by Palestinian terrorists. And, uh, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, went into the West Bank over the past couple of months and has been trying to stop that terrorism.
In the process of over the past week, they arrested the northern commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And the Islamic Jihad began to threaten. to mobilize against Israel. So Israel didn't wait to get hit. They moved preemptively. And they started identifying key targets, both in the West Bank, but particularly in Gaza, and began to move against the operational and military capabilities of Islamic Jihad.
Uh, with three day operation, it was actually very successful for Israel. They killed a number of senior commanders, took out most of the senior leadership, and degraded Palestinian Islamic Jihad capabilities. Significantly huge [00:06:00] loss for Islamic Jihad. And a big loss for Iran that continues to, uh, to try to mount terrorist operations against the Jewish state.
And is Palestinian Islamic Jihad considered more strident, more extreme than Hamas? Are they, like, how does one think about them on the, on the kind of ideological spectrum within the Palestinian ecosystem or within the Gaza? The Gaza ecosystem, they're as extreme, they're as violent, they're as dangerous, uh, they're as murderous, uh, but they have no governing authority.
So Hamas is always trying to balance, uh, its objective to annihilate Israel with the reality that it has to govern Israel. Millions of Palestinians in Gaza and deal with, um, day to day challenges of taking out the garbage and providing electricity. Exactly. So Hamas is always more cautious and they calibrate more carefully before launching these kinds of operations, whereas Palestinian Islamic Jihad has none of these responsibilities.
Uh, [00:07:00] acts at will and at the will of Iran's supreme leader. And it was, uh, it was fitting that this took place, uh, Dan, there was sort of a split screen, amazing split screen that while this was going on in Gaza, in Vienna, the United States was negotiating with Iran about a return to the nuclear deal and about releasing up to a trillion dollars of economic relief.
To the same supreme leader who has been arming and funding Islamic Jihad. Right. Interesting split screen over the weekend that I'm sure we'll talk about. Yeah. And, um, it is, I was, you know, FTD, your organization had been putting out a lot of really interesting research over the analysis over these last few days.
Is it your impression that Hamas didn't want this war now? I mean, they just had a war in May of 21, uh, against Israel. We can debate whether or not they viewed it as a success or a failure or somewhere in between. But here we are in August of 22. And it's Hamas looking at Palestinian Islamic Jihad saying, [00:08:00] we have to sort of support you when you're under siege from Israel, but we actually don't want you doing this right now.
That's exactly right. And, and the clear indication of that is Hamas did not jump into this war, um, even though there was probably a lot of domestic pressure. Within Gaza to do so. I think Hamas is sort of again playing the long game here and saying, look, we're moving to take over the West Bank. We can work closely with you Islamic Jihad to do that.
We're setting up these terrorist centers in the West Bank. We're neutralizing the Palestinian Authority, which is either unwilling or afraid to take us on. So let's just move slowly and incrementally. Why this War with Israel. Why would we give Israel the opportunity to be to begin to rally public opinion against us and as well?
degrade your capabilities So slowly slowly the Islamic Jihad decided that they were gonna jump the gun and again under orders from Iran Okay. So now let's talk about Iran. So I [00:09:00] want to talk about the current negotiations, uh, about getting back into the Iran nuclear deal, what was called the JCPOA. Uh, but before we do that, I just want to rewind the tape and go back to 2015.
So this is a little bit of an explainer. For for our listeners before we get into current events, because I think it will provide the proper context. No one is closer to these issues than you are and you've been following them and you're a phenomenal explainer because they get really complex really quickly.
What was the initial impulse behind the Obama administration and most of continental Europe in the UK and Russia wanting to get into this Iranian nuclear deal? Why get into the deal? An understandable impulse. I mean, the Obama administration and the Europeans, and as you say, the Chinese and the Russians, were very concerned about [00:10:00] the expansion of Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranians have been expanding their nuclear program for decades. The program has been expanded first As a clandestine program, and that was revealed by Western intelligence agencies. And then the Iranians decided that they were going to build a nuclear program, uh, ostensibly as a civilian nuclear program and build their own enrichment capabilities and plutonium reprocessing capabilities and turn this program into an industrial size nuclear program under the cover of which they could develop nuclear weapons.
So understandable impulse, Obama administration comes into office in 2019, runs a, a, what they call the dual track. process of both pressure and diplomacy, and it takes between 2009 to 2013, where a lot of sanctions are being imposed, primarily, by the way, by the U. S. Congress, sometimes opposed by the Obama to be, like, dragged along.
Dragged along, and some of the most tough, some of the most, uh Punitive sanctions that were imposed by Congress on central [00:11:00] bank and on oil exports and on key sectors of the Iranian economy. But the Obama administration uses the pressure to negotiate an interim agreement in 2013. Uh, and then that becomes the final JCPOA in 2015.
Understandable impulse. How do we figure out a way And it's the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Of action. Correct. JCPOA. Uh, typical Washington acronym that's, that's meaningless and it says nothing. Um, and some would say it did nothing. And so this became the debate and the debate became between those in the Obama administration and supporters of the deal who said, this is a deal that permanently cuts off all pathways to Iranian nuclear weapons.
And those in the opposition who said, well, wait a second, if you read this agreement, you know, 150 pages of this agreement, you'll see that there are key restrictions that actually disappear or sunsets. In this agreement. So let's, let's focus on those. Right. So can you go, can you just give a couple, two or three examples of those restrictions that sunset?
Because I do think there was a tendency at the time to focus [00:12:00] on these restrictions and a number of analysts, a number of folks in the media were saying, this is great. There's these restrictions. This is going to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear capability, which prevents Iran from imposed being this massive threat in the region, not only to Israel, but to the Gulf states and potentially beyond.
Uh, and, uh, and it sort of brings Iran, integrates Iran into the, you know, League of Nations, not literally what was the League of Nations, but like a community of nations. And then there are others who are like, well, these, the only problem with your theory is the restrictions sunset. So explain what the restrictions did and then how they sunset.
Yeah, well, the most egregious of the sunsets, Dan, are actually in 2030. In 2030, most of the restrictions go away. In fact, the prohibition prohibits Iran from Developing weapons grade enrichment, right? So that the materials that you need for a nuclear [00:13:00] weapon, that prohibition So just explain what those, those materials are, what?
What, if you had to simplify it, what are the key ingredients to build a nuclear weapon? Key ingredients, you need enriched uranium, enriched to weapon grade, 90%. Yeah. Um, you need a, you need to fashion that into a nuclear warhead. And then you need to fix that warhead to a missile. that can be delivered either against, uh, U.
S. forces in the Middle East, against U. S. partners in the Middle East, or if you affix it to an inter continental ballistic missile, you can hold American cities hostage. Right? So the enriched material, the warhead, and the missile. And the JCPOA Uh, dealt only with the, the material. Okay, the enriched uranium or, uh, reprocessed plutonium, which are two ways that you take a, a route to a nuclear weapon.
Didn't deal with the warhead, didn't deal with the missiles. So by 2030, Iran doesn't, is no longer under a restriction that it can't produce. Weapon [00:14:00] grade uranium, which is insane because so restriction is put in place. It basically said between 2015 and 2030, right? We the international community are gonna put serious restrictions that if Iran complies with Won't let them to enrich this uranium to the level to the grade level that they need to do to build a nuclear bomb but your point is but it was written into the agreement that at 2030 The restriction goes away so that it can just resume assuming they don't violate the agreement between 2015 and 2030.
It means that all they have to do is comply with the agreement and then in 2030, they get to start enriching at that level again. Right. Now, some would say, Oh, come on, but you know what? Iran is Got obligations on what's called the nonproliferation treaty. They shouldn't. They're not allowed to go to 90%.
Uh, Iran is not allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, so they still be under international restrictions. Well, the problem with that is outside of the agreement outside of the agreement. Well, the problem with that is if you thought Iran was going to comply with this international treaty, you wouldn't need the agreement in the first place.
And everybody, everybody recognized that Iran [00:15:00] would not comply. Absent a agreement with tight restrictions now we're talking 2030 and I wanted to start there, but actually before 2030 between 2015 and 2030, a number of other restrictions sunset on Iran's ability to do research and development on advanced centrifuge on Iran's ability to install those advanced centrifuges on Iran's ability to over time build up this enrichment capability.
This advanced centrifuge capability and ultimately that industrial sized nuclear program. Now why are we worried about advanced centrifuges? Because they're very powerful. And you actually need fewer numbers of them to enrich the same quantity of weapon grade uranium. Well, smaller numbers makes it easier to hide.
And what we know about the Iranians is over time and, and the, the history of Iranian nuclear program is they always look to hide their program. It's much easier to hide 500 advanced centrifuges than 20001st generation centrifuges. So this was the concern. So under that agreement, Iran could take [00:16:00] patient pathways to nuclear weapons, not by cheating, but by complying with the agreement.
And on the other side of the deal, get hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief to fortify their economy and giving the supporters of the deal the benefit of the doubt they argued. When people like you and me and others would say, wait a minute, this whole deal, all Iran has to do is comply.
And then they're, they're, they're not, they're, they're not in violate, they're not in violation of the deal by getting a path to the bomb. They're just, they're just following every step of the deal. And at the end of, and then the end of the restrictions, they get, at the sunset, they get to, they get to effectively build a bomb.
The advocates for the deal would say, yes, buys it, but it buys us time. Right. And then, at those particular off ramps, like at 20, 30, we go back to the table, and we Negotiate anew. Was that, was that basically the argument? It buys us time to the next negotiation. Yeah, there are two arguments and you alluded to one previously.
The [00:17:00] first was we're going to integrate Iran into the global community. We're going to flood them with cash. We're going to turn the hard men of Tehran into responsible global stakeholders, right? Um, problem with that, of course, that that strategy has never worked. Certainly never worked with the hard men of Beijing.
Never worked with the hard men of Moscow. Um, we have no actual evidence that we could take a hardened dictatorship, flood it with cash and turn it into a moderate. But this was the view that President Obama and I think John Kerry, former Secretary of State, uh, at the time articulated as a reason why we shouldn't be that concerned about the sunsets.
Because flood them with cash, integrate them, get to 2030 by the time they actually can emerge with this industrial sized nuclear program with near zero nuclear breakout and with a much easier clandestine sneak out option, they will look less like North Korea and more like South Korea. That was sort of the rationale.
Um, the second, and again, you alluded to this, is don't worry about 2030 [00:18:00] because we will then negotiate another agreement, a longer, stronger, and broader agreement that addresses some of the fundamental flaws of the existing JCPOA and addresses some of your concerns. 2015, no one acknowledged on that side that there were any flaws to this agreement.
The Ben Rhodes, who at the time was the deputy national security advisor of strategic communications, who kind of ran the strategic communications campaign on the JCPOA for the Obama administration, came out consistently and said, this permanently cuts off all pathways to nuclear weapons. And anybody who actually disagrees with this is on the side of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran.
So the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, they, they've got their hardliners, we've got our hardliners, meaning Republicans and opponents of the deal. Um, but anybody who's moderate and sensible and wants to avoid war would support this agreement because it permanently cuts off pathways. Of course it doesn't because it has sunsetting restrictions.
Two major arguments for why the deal in 2015 [00:19:00] was worth having. And didn't President Obama himself give some famous interview on NPR where he acknowledged that at the end of these restrictions, We're basically back in the Wild West. Yeah, you have a great memory. It's exactly right. I mean, President Obama, it was actually an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, where Obama said, look, I am actually a little concerned because around 2027, 2028, these restrictions start to come off.
Iran's breakout time drops significantly from one year. Breakout time from, if they decide to go for a nuclear bomb, how much time they, they need to pull it off. That's what you mean by breakout time. Yeah, the technical definition of breakout time is the amount of time that Iran takes to weaponize one bomb's worth of enriched uranium.
Okay. So not the warhead, not the missile, but just to get a bomb's worth of weapons grade uranium. And he said at the time, We may be at one year with the JCPOA, but the time we get to 2027, 2028, [00:20:00] we're going to be at a few weeks. So I, I'm, I, President Obama, concerned about what happens down the road, but you know what?
12 years away. Lots of things can happen in 12 years, including I won't be president. It's going to be somebody else's problem. And, uh, but I think, again, Obama believed in this. idea that you can moderate the regime through engagement and cash. And he also believed and hoped that you'd be able to negotiate another agreement with the Iranians down the line, even though at the time, interestingly, in the defense of this agreement, the Obama administration never said publicly, our intention is to negotiate a longer and stronger agreement, because that would be an admission that this was a shorter and weaker agreement.
And they would need to fix it at some point. And then he was thinking, you know, that'll be the end of the first term of the Harris administration. And, you know, exactly. It'll be her problem. It'll be her problem. Uh, okay. So now let's, so then the Trump administration withdraws from the agreement and what was the basis for the argument?
Or [00:21:00] what was the basis for the case for withdrawing from the agreement? The case was very much the one we've, we've been discussing. I, I think the Trump administration was deeply concerned that if you run out this agreement, that not only could Iran take these patient pathways to nuclear weapons, but that at the point that you had to deal with Iran, when the agreement had expired, Iran would be a much more dangerous target.
It would have an industrial sized nuclear program. It would be closer to a nuclear breakout. It would have multiple sites across the country buried deep underground, hardened with concrete. So the, Very difficult to take those sites out, even using U. S. military power. Trillion dollars of economic relief would harden this economy, right?
Increasingly immunize it against our ability to use peaceful sanctions pressure to deter it. Uh, they would have hundreds of billions of dollars to spread. around to fund their proxies like Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah or Hamas or Shiite militias in Iraq or the Houthis [00:22:00] in Yemen. And at the end of the day, the regime would not have to make the fundamental choice between guns and butter.
They could have guns for terrorists and butter for their people. Um, so you're looking at a regime Now, in 2030, where our options would be severely limited in, in addressing Iran's nuclear weapons march. And by the way, it would give the Iranians more time to develop internet continental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, to hold our cities hostage.
So the Trump administration looked at this and said, no. We cannot allow that to happen. It's our responsibility to address this now. We can't do the typical Washington thing and punt the ball down the road. And we are going to address this now. We're going to withdraw from the agreement. And we're going to impose, quote, a maximum pressure campaign on the regime.
And staying in the deal precluded the maximum pressure campaign. So they had to get out of the deal. I often hear critics say, well, why do they have to get out of the deal if they wanted to impose pressure on the regime? But your point is to, to, [00:23:00] to remain in the deal precluded options that Washington had to put pressure on the regime.
And so the administration decided if we really want to do maximum pressure, then we got to get out of the deal. So I think there may have been a third pathway. There may have been a pathway where they could have stayed in the deal, reimposed all the sanctions. Based on Iran's support for terrorism and missile proliferation and human rights abuses.
In fact, the Obama administration in 2015, when they defended the deal before Congress, said, Look, nothing in this deal precludes our ability or a future administration's ability to impose sanctions based on Iran's other malign activity outside of the nuclear realm. So, there was a possibility of staying in the deal.
reimposing maximum pressure based on Iran's support for terror, uh, using their leverage under the deal to squeeze the Iranians and force the Iranians out of the deal. And that was a position that [00:24:00] people who were called the fixers at the time were promoting, as opposed to the nixers who wanted to nix the deal and get out.
At the end of the day, it's sort of academic. President Trump decided. He wasn't a fixer, he was a nixer, and he was going to get out of this deal and impose a maximum pressure campaign, which became primarily a campaign of economic pressure. Uh, and other tools of American power were used selectively, but you didn't see a comprehensive policy.
For example, like Ronald Reagan ran against the Soviet Union in the 80s, where it was military power and cyber power and diplomatic power and using other instruments of American power to roll back Iran in the region, hit them hard inside Iran and support Iranians who are on the streets. Uh, protesting against their regime.
It became a sanctions campaign, which did severe damage to Iran's economy, put a lot of pressure on the regime, ran for about a year and a half, and then obviously lost. President Biden came in with a very different strategy. [00:25:00] Okay. So then Trump leaves office 2021. We get a new administration in the Biden administration.
What do they see as their options before them when they come into office as it relates to Iran? Because they go quickly back to the negotiating table. But before they do that, I want to I want you to explain why. What was the sense of urgency? What do let me put it this way. What do they what did they think was the risk?
In just continuing with the Trump policy because it's important for people to remember, recognize the Biden administration has maintained a lot of Trump's foreign policies around the world. So for all the criticism of the Trump administration, it's not a defense of the Trump administration. It's not a criticism of the Trump administration.
The reality is that the Biden administration has maintained a lot of policies of the Trump administration, including the Middle East, including the country we're in right now in Israel. Right? They haven't changed, uh, the embassy status of the U. S. Embassy in Jerusalem. They haven't changed U. S. policies that relate to the Golan Heights.
[00:26:00] Um, if you, if you, they obviously haven't done anything to unwind the Abraham Accords. If you, or weaken them, if you travel more broadly, a lot of the policies vis a vis China. China, the Biden administration has not changed. So they've they've chosen that is a policy decision that they in more cases than not have chosen to maintain the Trump administration's foreign policy rather than amend it except here.
So what was the sense of urgency on this policy that the Biden administration thought was they thought was before them? Dan, you're exactly right. And it's not a partisan point. I mean, I think partisans on both sides would like to say that there's been a huge change in policy from from Trump to Biden.
But But you're exactly right. It there hasn't been except here, right here, uh, President Biden throughout the campaign campaigns on a position that this was a terrible mistake to withdraw from this agreement, that it was a great agreement, that it was doing what it was supposed to do, which was permanently cutting off all pathways to nuclear weapons.
And, uh, and that maximum pressure has [00:27:00] failed. And then I, President Biden, when I, if I win, and then when he wins the election, when I come into office. We are returning to this agreement, we're going back to the pathway of diplomacy, pressure does not work. Now what's interesting is if you actually track the political timeline and the nuclear timeline, you will discover something very interesting that is not, that is never reported.
And that is that the Iranians escalate their nuclear program in a much more significant and dramatic way. As soon as Biden is as soon as he wins the presidential election, so they incrementally expand their program. In the last year of the Trump administration. They're sending a message to the Trump administration.
Look, we too can play this leverage game. And they carefully start to build up their nuclear program in an incremental way. Biden's elected in November. And they begin to expand their program. And then all [00:28:00] through November until Biden takes office in January. And then all through the first year and a half of the Biden administration.
Iran significantly expands their nuclear program. Why? Well, they want to build leverage. But they also know there will be no price to be paid. In, in terms of serious sanctions or anything else in terms, of course, of American power for nuclear escalation. And they know that Joe Biden is not prepared to use pressure.
And the Iranians know that without American pressure and without the, the perception of American power or the reality of American power, that the Iranians can do what they've done in the past, which is they can move slowly and deliberately to a nuclear weapon. And so they begin to do so, but not even slowly.
They begin to do so rapidly. They start to enrich to 20%, to 60%. They get close to that 90 percent threshold that we're talking about. They begin to install advanced centrifuges in clandestine, uh, sites. Operationalize advanced centrifuges [00:29:00] in known sites, and they begin to stymie the efforts of the U. N.
Weapons inspectors who are there trying to inspect their program. And so you see a significant nuclear escalation as soon as Joe Biden says pressure doesn't work, and we're going back to the deal. And so that's where we are today. We are at a situation today where Ron is, uh, very close to being a threshold nuclear power.
And being able to break out to a nuclear weapon, and the Biden administration is desperately trying to get them back into the nuclear agreement, and that's what the negotiations in Vienna are all about. Okay, so before we get to the negotiations in Vienna, I remember seeing about, um, eight months ago, ten months ago, maybe it was even last summer, uh, an interview by the, of the head of the IAEA in Vienna, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who said, You never see in the world of nuclear.
development, nuclear program [00:30:00] development, nuclear energy development. You never see a country trying to enrich uranium at the level that Iran is enriching. And you never see a country, a government, making it more difficult for international inspectors to inspect the programs like the government of Iran is doing.
In which that government wants a peaceful program, right? In other words, this is the head of the IAEA. He was saying countries that want a peaceful program don't enrich at this level, or they don't try to enrich at this level, and they don't stymie international inspections if it's truly a peaceful program.
This has all the signs of a government intent on doing something. Uh, developing a program, uh, uh, developing means that are not peaceful or not for peaceful objectives. And I sort of read this interview and I thought, why isn't this banner to banner news? This is the head of the IAEA. This is not just some rah rah pro [00:31:00] America or pro Israel, you know, uh, uh, government chief.
This is, this is an international body that has no skin in the game other than preventing escalation of a, you know, a nuclear Nuclear brinksmanship. And he's looking at this and saying, this is not how a country intent on peaceful outcomes. Behaves when they're developing a nuclear program. And it was like crickets.
Yeah. Crickets, uh, certainly from the international media. I mean, the Iranians have been playing a, uh, really sophisticated kind of influence operations game from, for many years, and they've been in full denial that they have a nuclear weapons program, despite the overwhelming evidence, um, not only from Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, but the Mossad, which, uh, snatched the, uh, what became known as the nuclear archive from Tehran and a daring operation a couple of years ago that revealed that Iran was indeed.
Engaged in a nuclear weapon. This is really important. This is this is Israel revealed Mossad agents went into Tehran and lifted a [00:32:00] warehouse like yeah, you know of Disks and papers and all that and Israel unveiled it and said it's all here, right? And what it demonstrated was something that the Obama administration denied in 2015 when they closed the nuclear weapons file that the IAEA had on Iran.
Um, at the time they said, we know everything there is to know about Iran's nuclear weapons program. All of this is in the past. We don't need to keep it open. We're going to close this IAEA probe of this nuclear weapons program in order to do the JCPOA. Well, a few years later Mossad comes out. Here's the warehouse.
Here's all the evidence. Oh boy, there's a lot you don't know, CIA. There's a lot even we didn't know in Mossad about how far along they were in developing nuclear weapons. All the more reason why the IAEA needs a full investigation of Iran's nuclear weapons program. And today, Dan, there are outstanding questions.
The Iranians are refusing to [00:33:00] answer questions that the IAEA has about undeclared nuclear material and undeclared nuclear equipment. And we may be heading There again, where if there is a deal, uh, the Iranians are now demanding today, we will not return to the JCPOA unless you close all of the investigations into our nuclear.
Activities, and the IAEA has to close the file. So this has really become the major obstacle in Vienna today. Okay, so let's talk about Vienna today. So what's going on in Vienna today? Where do these negotiations stand? So it's been a year and a half of, uh, you know, what I've called sort of maximum deference instead of maximum pressure, where the Biden administration has been trying to give deference to Iran, has been providing concessions, has not been vigorously enforcing sanctions, to try and encourage The Iranians to go back into the table.
Um, they've refused. And they refuse to even negotiate directly with the United States, Dan. I don't know if your [00:34:00] listeners know that. But they're sitting, we're sitting in separate rooms with the Iranians. And the Europeans and the Russians are hopping back and forth communicating messages. Because they will not deign to sit in the same room as U.
S. negotiators. By the way, this is also something that just doesn't get enough attention. That blows my mind. So, so we are quote unquote in negotiations in Vienna. We the United States. To your point, not only are we not in the room with the Iranians, because they won't negotiate with us directly, but we are depending on the Russian diplomatic channel to negotiate between us and the Iranians, at the same time that Russia is bombing Ukraine to smithereens, and we are imposing this, you know, very, we are, we are on the, let's just say we're very intensely on the side of the Ukrainians to protect against that, while we are dependent on the Russians.
In a, in a series of conference rooms in Vienna. Exactly right. Putin's man in Vienna, Ambassador [00:35:00] Ulyanov, um, has. Putin is negotiating on behalf of the Iranians, has come out publicly and bragged about the fact that he has negotiated an excellent deal for the Iranians. At the same time that Vladimir Putin is not only invading Ukraine and inflicting massive casualties on the Ukrainian people, he's threatening to use Russian tactical nukes in that process.
So again, Putin's man in Russia, in Vienna, negotiating a, quote, nuclear deal. that is supposed to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons while his boss in Moscow is threatening tactical nukes. It, it's quite surreal, but it's also, it's deeply concerning because the reality is, is what's taking place in Vienna today is not just embarrassing for the United States because the Iranians won't be in the same room as us.
It's not just embarrassing for the United States because we're depending on Putin's man to negotiate a deal that will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but the Russians are going to play a major role in this deal [00:36:00] in many, many ways. The, the JCPOA itself, you'll, I know you know this, but your viewers might find this quite striking.
Listeners. Listeners, sorry, listeners, might find this very striking. We're, we're, we're, we're, are this conversation are earbuds in people's brains? Yeah, I thought, I thought we were being televised, which is why I dress so nicely for you today. You're full Israeli style, flip flops and all. All right, the um, you know, the, the reality is, is this deal is going to depend on the Russians.
The JCPOA itself. Under the deal, the Iranians were required to ship their enriched uranium. Remember that enriched uranium that they need to build a nuclear weapon? Guess where? To Russia. To Russia. Right. Now, I don't know if it'll be under this deal again, but Putin was going to be the custodian of Iran's nuclear material.
And they were also going to have to be paid for that, right? Russia was going to have to be paid for providing that service. Paid for that and also Russia was paid ten billion dollars to help retrofit an Iranian nuclear reactor So we were going to [00:37:00] depend on the Russians to actually help Retrofit these reactors to make them nuclear weapons proof and the Russians are getting ten billion dollars for that now Why else do the Russians want this deal?
Well, we are imposing sanctions right now on Russia. We, the United States, the Europeans, much of the world now, is imposing sanctions, pretty severe sanctions on, Putin needs help from some country that is experienced in sanctions busting. The Iranians are very experienced in sanctions busting. And so he has gone to the, he's gone to the Iranians, he's asked for, for Iranian expertise in helping evade.
Western sanctions on his country. And that was part of his recent trip to, to Iran. Correct. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. And as well, um, there, it, it, it's clear indication that, uh, if we lift sanctions on Iran, then all of these banking channels will open up for the Iranians, all these energy channels. And Russia will use [00:38:00] Iranian channels to sanctions bust.
So Putin has a lot of interests in this deal, and to depend on Putin's man in Vienna to negotiate this deal is geopolitical malpractice. Okay, so in terms of outstanding issues, the negotiations are now. So, so one of the outstanding issues is The Iranians want an end to these investigations about all that was discovered in this 2018, 2018 Israeli operation.
Uh, and the IAEA, from what I understand, do not find Iran's explanations. For, uh, for what was discovered as quote, the exact words where it's not, their explanations are not technically credible. Uh, and so the Iranians That's IAEA speak for they are lying to us. Right, they are lying to us. And the Iranians are saying we want this investigation shut down.
So that's one outstanding issue. Okay. Uh, another, uh, outstanding issue is the whole issue of the status of the IRGC, right? The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So, can [00:39:00] you spend a minute explaining who the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is, why they are so important in this broader discussion about Iran, and then where the IRGC fits into this negotiation?
Yeah, the IRGC are really the stormtroopers of the regime, and they're actually constitutionally were created to defend the regime. Uh, and defend the Supreme Leader. So they are the Supreme Leader's instrument of internal security, um, and external aggression. IRGC Quds Force are very active in the region sowing, uh, terror and, uh, proliferating weapons and globally, uh, run a global terror network.
So, uh, very dangerous terrorist organization. So when we hear stories about the, uh, about Iran Either directly or indirectly fomenting terror operations. Uh, globally, it's it's the IRGC who's [00:40:00] often in the middle of it. It's the IRGC and with, you know, with assistance from the Ministry of Intelligence and other agencies.
But the IRGC that's driving it and the most famous IRGC commander that people may have heard of is a guy named Qasem Soleimani. He was the head of the IRGC Quds Force, which is their external operations. And President Trump ordered the CIA. In cooperation with Mossad to take out Soleimani a few years ago, which was a which was a huge, um, I think victory against the regime and certainly rattled the regime really in some pretty profound ways.
We can return back to that. But at that point, the regime sort of saw the Trump administration and thought Trump administration. President Trump was willing to do something that President Bush wasn't willing to do. President Obama wasn't willing to do. And that was to take out custom Soleimani. And when when he did that, It paralyzed the system, and the system feared what was next.
It was at that point, actually, that the United States had a lot of leverage. [00:41:00] So fast forward to the negotiations, um, the Trump administration had designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, and the Iranians insisted that must be lifted. And the importance of that is that once you are listed by the U.
S. government as a terrorist organization, you're subject to a whole range of sanctions. You know, make it increasingly difficult to operate. So the Iranians want that, that designation lifted. Yeah. And, and, and the most important part of that designation, it makes it incredibly risky for international companies to do business with Iran.
Cause the IRGC is a dominant, not only military player. And, and terrorist prox, uh, terrorist force, but they are also the dominant economic force inside Iran. So if you're going to do business with Iran in key sectors of the economy, your counterparty on that deal would be the IRGC, and then you will be in violation of U.
S. law and you will face significant criminal and [00:42:00] civil penalties for doing so. So the ROGC, with its economic hat on, realized they've got to get rid of that designation or it's going to limit the flow of international funds into Iran and therefore into their coffers. So they insisted on this. The Biden administration was willing to do it until there was a huge uproar in Congress from U.
S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And, uh, eventually the Biden administration said, No, this is where we draw the line. We are not lifting the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of the IRGC. Now, without getting too technical, there are a lot of ways that they can vitiate it, neutralize it, uh, weaken it by delisting key IRGC economic entities.
And I think that's where they're heading. You know, there's, there's major economic entities inside Iran, like Khatam al Anbi and others that are huge holding companies for the IRGC's economic interests. And my [00:43:00] fear is that they'll keep the IRGC on the list, but they'll take all of these other subsidiaries and delist those so that the business community, particularly in Asia, but in Europe as well, would find it less risky.
Uh, and If you had to crystal ball it, uh, where, what do you think plays out now in Vienna? I mean, is there, is there a, is there a deadline at which you, you, there needs to be some kind of resolution to these negotiations? Can they go on indefinitely? I mean, at what point do we say, no, it's not happening or it is happening?
Yeah, it depends on on how you look at the issue. I mean, technically speaking, there has to be a deadline. We've passed the deadline. I mean, technically speaking, and I think even the Biden administration will admit this, that we have reached the point where the benefits of the JCPOA and the benefits of returning to the JCPOA.
are no longer worth it because Iran has so advanced their nuclear program [00:44:00] that for the extra couple of months of breakout time that we're gonna get by going back into this deal, because, by the way, going back into this deal now doesn't mean a one year breakout time. It probably means a breakout time of about four months.
So we're gonna get a few more months of breakout time. We're gonna give the Iranians a trillion dollars. They've centrifuges and they're moving ahead. The technical benefits Are no longer worth it. However, politically speaking, I think the by administration keeps this open for as long as the by demonstrations in office.
I don't think they ever shut the door on the diplomatic option, and they continue to say we're willing to negotiate with the Iranians. We have an agreed upon text, now all you have to do is, uh, make that decision in Tehran and we can move to an agreement. There's one other issue which is a big, and it involves American politics, uh, and it's a big issue for the Iranians.
So the Iranians have said, look, we went into a deal in 2015, Trump came into office, Trump withdrew from the agreement. We're hearing from [00:45:00] Republicans. Senators, members of Congress, presidential candidates that if take back power, they're going to withdraw America from the deal again. So why would we go back into a deal when the United States is going to whipsaw us once again?
We want guarantees, inherent guarantees, in the agreement that if the United States withdraws, we will be either paid in terms of penalties or we will have, quote, an inherent guarantee to then Escalate our nuclear program, get back to 60 percent enrichment, install these advanced centrifuges in a legal and legitimate way.
So there's negotiations going on on these inherent guarantees trying to prevent, from an Iranian perspective and from a Biden administration perspective, a future Republican president from withdrawing from the agreement again. I want to talk about Russia and China and then we'll wrap up. You talked a lot about why Russia has an interest in learning from the Iranians on evading sanctions.
Russia's also getting, [00:46:00] from what I understand, based on Putin's visit to Iran, there are reports that Russia, uh, that Iran would provide Russia with armed drones and also a satellite to be launched by Russia and used to support Russia's war in Ukraine. And maybe other bells and whistles. Yeah, and by the way, uh, the Russians have said to the Iranians, you can use our satellite, uh, for intelligence gathering over the Middle East.
So it'll be a reciprocal deal. Okay. Russia's reliance on Tehran and Tehran's reliance on, on Moscow makes some sense, uh, in a real politic sense from each of their perspectives. What's China's play in all of this? China's play is economic, uh, particularly relating to energy, uh, and its, uh, desire for Iranian oil.
China's play is also building out, um, its regional and global platform, and, you know, the [00:47:00] Middle East is a key element of its sort of bridge and road, uh, strategy, and it's, you know, building out, uh, telecommunications networks, it's building out land corridors and sea ports, it's trying to replace American dominance with its own, and, uh, and Iran is a key place geographically, it's a big economy.
It's 80 million people. And again, you know, with with large oil and natural gas reserves on which the Chinese economy depends, it's a key strategic and economic partner. And again, the Chinese are always looking for ways, of course, to undermine American influence. They sense a vacuum in the Middle East as both Trump and now Biden talk about withdrawing from the Middle East and pivoting to Asia.
And so while they're We're pivoting to the Indo Pacific to take on China. They're pivoting into the Middle East to undermine American influence. Iran is a vital ally in that respect. And finally, Europe seems eager to get back [00:48:00] into some deal. And I'm, I'm speaking generally about Europe here. Obviously different countries have different interests, but as a general matter, what is their perspective on all of this?
What is their, why do they have that sense of urgency? The Europeans, and particularly, uh, we talk with the Europeans, the French, the Germans, the UK, part of the E3, they were part of the negotiating team back in 2015. Um, they were actually, particularly the French at the time, were much tougher than the Obama administration in the negotiations.
But once the deal was done, they all rallied together and, and defended the deal. Again, they, they make the arguments that we talked about earlier, which is the sort of short term, um, Proliferation limitations are, are better than the alternative. They're better than war. They're better than an Iranian rush to a bomb.
So, let's deal with the JCPOA now and let's figure out a strategy down the road. The Brits have a much tougher position today within the European Union and [00:49:00] certainly within the E3, uh, than the French and the Germans. And I think the, the, the Europeans are growing very frustrated with the Iranians because they've put a lot of diplomatic capital, particularly the EU itself, uh, in Brussels has put a lot of its own diplomatic capital and resources behind trying to get the Iranians back into the deal.
So, there's a, they've said there's a deal on the table. The Iranians now just have to acknowledge that the IAEA should continue to investigate their military nuclear program. And if the Iranians aren't willing to acknowledge that, then there will be no deal and there will be serious consequences. The problem is serious consequences, Dan.
We could spend a whole podcast talking about what real serious consequences mean. Because really, I don't think there's a plan B that the Biden administration has. There's an Israeli plan B. We actually see it taking place every single day with Israeli operations inside Iran, assassinating nuclear scientists and IRGC commanders and nuclear infrastructure, uh, going after Iranian proxies.
I mean, the Israelis are rolling out their own maximum pressure campaign, and it's using all instruments of Israeli power. There is [00:50:00] no American plan B. Could you, just to give the American, Americans the benefit of the doubt, could, could, could one argue that Israel wouldn't, the U. S. is quietly blessing these Israeli operations, that if the U.
S. was actually strongly, Objecting to them, it would, they probably wouldn't be happening with the same level of intensity that they're happening from Israel. I think that's right. But I think, you know, the reality again, and we got to look ahead to 2030, we'll have a revolutionary regime, um, that says death to America, that is committed to building nuclear tipped ICBMs that will, those ICBMs are not directed to Tel Aviv or Riyadh, uh, they are directed at New York and Washington and, So we are a superpower, we should not be subcontracting our national security to a country of 10 million people with a small air force and a small intelligence community, highly effective, mind you.
But again, it's Israel, it's a small country. We should [00:51:00] be taking upon ourselves the responsibility to send a clear message to the Islamic Republic that we will use all instruments of American power. And at the end of the day, Ayatollah Khamenei fears He only fears one thing, and that's the end of his regime, and he's an old man, and he will be passing, uh, into the next world in, uh, in a short period of time, and he wants to guarantee the stability of his regime.
He may decide nuclear weapons is the way to do it, but the one thing he knows is that if he triggers, War with the United States will be the end of his regime. We should be using that fear, and it's the only thing that has ever changed the Iranian calculus since the 79 revolution, is when they fear that the United States is going to take down their regime.
We should be using that fear to send a message, we will use our power. Not Israeli power, not Saudi power, not Emirati power. We'll use our power to bring down your regime, unless you compromise and you reach an agreement. That permanently cuts off all pathways to [00:52:00] nuclear weapons. And we're not gonna play games.
Come sit in the room with us, face to face, let's negotiate. We're looking for a longer and stronger and broader deal. Tell us what you're looking for, Ron, and let's reach a peaceful compromise. But at the end of the day, to subcontract to the Israelis to, to, to do this, I think is, uh, again, geopolitical malpractice.
Uh, Mark, we're going to leave it at that. There's a real tour de force. Uh, uh, no one is as close to these issues as you are and as FDD is. So I'm grateful for your taking the time. I want to pick back up and have another conversation with you. Cause I feel like. As you said, each one of these subtopics could be their own podcast, so we'll either do it here in Tel Aviv or in Washington or somewhere in the near future.
Until then, thanks for joining the conversation. Wonderful. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it.
That's our show for today. To keep up with Mark Dubowitz, you can follow him on Twitter at M [00:53:00] Dubowitz. That's at M-D-U-B-O-W-I-T-Z, and you can also go to the FDD website@fdd.org. Call me back is produced by Ilan Benetar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.