 Good morning, everyone, and welcome. My name is Bill Burns. I'm the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And I am truly delighted to be working together again with Michelle Flournoy and our remarkable colleagues at the Center for New American Security. I want to thank David Di Bartolo, a visiting fellow at Carnegie for coordinating this project with great skill. I want to thank the authors, some of the most thoughtful experts that I know, for tackling this very complicated landscape so rigorously and so creatively. And I want to thank colleagues from Washington and around the world who joined the workshops and seminars where the ideas and arguments in this report were tested, argued, and refined. As all of you know very well, the United States ended a 35-year diplomatic vacuum with Tehran with one objective in mind, to stop it from developing a nuclear weapon. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action did precisely that. It cut off Iran's pathways to a bomb, sharply constrained its nuclear program, and subjected it to an unprecedentedly strict monitoring and verification regime. Reaching this historic agreement required coming to terms with painful realities and making difficult compromises the inevitable outcome of tough multilateral negotiations. Thanks to the agreement, Iran today is much further away from a nuclear bomb and the prospect of direct military conflict between the United States and Iran is forestalled. We are safer. Our partners in the region are safer. And the world is safer. The JCPOA, however, is obviously not the end of the diplomatic road with Iran. It is merely the beginning, the cornerstone of a broader, longer-term strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to diminish and counter Iran's threatening behavior from its growing ballistic missile arsenal to its dangerous use of regional proxies to its human rights abuses at home. This report outlines the key elements of such a strategy, a tough-minded approach to playing a strong American hand against an adversary that is formidable but hardly 10 feet tall. It calls on the United States to continue to enforce rigorous implementation of the nuclear agreement, to embed the agreement in a wider regional strategy, to limit Iran's ability to meddle in the internal affairs of our regional partners or threaten Israel, and to engage Iran to avoid inadvertent escalation, make clear our profound concerns about its behavior at home and abroad, address the eventual sunset of some of the nuclear deal's limits, and test opportunities to advance shared interests. This is all obviously a lot easier said than done. There will be no avoiding complicated trade-offs. But it is an honest and realistic guide for US policy today and in the difficult years ahead. We cannot underestimate the risk posed to this strategy by President Trump's decision to decertify the agreement. With the pin pulled out of the Iran grenade and not so gently tossed to Congress, the unwinding of the nuclear agreement is a rapidly increasing risk. But there is still a chance to correct course and avoid a strategic own goal of historic proportion. We can and we must push back on Iranian misbehavior without destroying the nuclear agreement, without dissolving our diplomatic leverage, and without dismantling the international coalition that the two previous administrations worked so hard to build. The truth is that we are far better able to push back against threatening Iranian action across the Middle East with the JCPOA in place than without it. A unified international community and the unprecedented pressure that it generated was essential to tipping the balance toward compromise within a divided Iranian leadership. Now we run the risk of dividing ourselves, fracturing the international community and isolating the United States, and unifying Iranian opinion around the hard line of the Revolutionary Guards. Success will depend in large measure on whether we can keep the burden of proof on Iran, demonstrating American good faith and seriousness of purpose, and preventing Iran from painting the United States as a diplomatic outlier. Threats to abrogate the deal or call for its renegotiation, reimposing nuclear-related sanctions, provocatively threatening military action, or otherwise failing to uphold America's end of the bargain would leave the United States in a weaker, not stronger position to deal with Iran and other looming crises, especially North Korea. The strategy laid out in this report offers a roadmap that should appeal to leaders of both political parties, and hold those serious about being tough on Iran and confident in America's continued strength. The decisions made over the coming days and weeks will shape the trajectory of the region and of America's role in the world for years to come. So let me conclude by congratulating once again my Carnegie and CNAS colleagues for a terrific report and thanking all of you for joining us today. So now it's my great pleasure to turn over the proceedings to today's moderator and my newest Carnegie colleague, our Vice President for Communications and Strategy, Jen Psaki. Thank you, Bill. And thank you to all of the report authors who are joining us today. We know we're gonna leave plenty of time for questions from the audience, and we know that during that time, we'll likely have questions about the big elephant in the room, which is of course, decertification and what's happening in Congress. So we're gonna dive right into the report recommendations from the top here. So let me start with you, Ellie. Can you walk us through, you write in the report about Iran's nuclear ambitions, what we should do in the short and the long term? Can you take us from now to eight to 10 years from now? If you had a magic wand, what would we be doing? What would Europeans be doing to address the long term challenges? First of all, thank you, Jen. First of all, I think that the most important aspect we wanted to highlight is that the US is pivotal to what happens next. That's point number one. That's why we thought that the US would be well-advised to have a comprehensive strategy that thinks of the nuclear and the other things around the nuclear complements the nuclear and the relation between the nuclear and the other thing. And so what we are trying to suggest in terms of US strategy touches the following things. Number one is effective implementation. The deal has some innovative aspects, some things that were necessary as a result of inevitable compromises made in the course of negotiations and so on. And a very complicated machinery put in place that involved both the Joint Commission and the IEA to try and implement those. There are obvious issues out there, some of them being resolved over time, some have not, but the most important thing going forwards for the short to medium term is effective implementation of that machinery. There's things that need to be done. Obviously, if it doesn't look like the US is trying to wreck the agreement, but merely leverage it and make it more effective, then everyone is better off. We are zeroing in on things that ought to be done for effective implementation. So that's issue one of both the JCPOA and the related UN Security Council Resolution 2231, particularly on the dual capable missiles, which is a very big concern looking ahead. Second thing is, whereas everyone is talking about sunset provisions beginning to kick in within say six years or so and then gradually becoming more and more meaningful in terms of the sunset, our conviction is that you can't wait until these things begin to phase out in order to try and deal with those nuclear issues. Because what is required, if you wanna spare yourself the need finally to look at, we do nothing or we resort to very extreme coercive measures, is that you need to think about this diplomatically supported by intelligence, work multilaterally and work systematically and explore several options rather than one because we're not sure which one will yield. And so what the report is trying to suggest is that we should start thinking both a follow-up agreement with Iran as one possibility, but not the only possibility. That we should think about sub-regional arrangements, a regional arrangement and a global arrangement. The last three are not Iran specific but have a strong impact on what Iran may be entitled to do once they agree and once these clauses begin to phase out. So what we are trying to suggest is that this requires heavy lifting, it requires concentrated effort and by the United States and above all it requires a strategy. So what we think would be helpful is if there was a strategy, the strategy was bipartisan in the United States and that the implementation started right away with the goal being we don't want Iran, not just to have nuclear weapons, we don't want Iran to be a nuclear threshold state with an ability to convert it into an arsenal within a matter of weeks which would either leave us with a situation where it could happen overnight or they can blackmail us or whatever or have to resort to extreme measures like military means and so on. That means diplomacy, it means now and it means several efforts. So does it mean in your report, in the report's conclusion, keep the JCPOA, build on that and negotiate now for what is going to sunset later on? Build on it, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be exactly the same structure of the negotiations. A different format for the next one. And second, let's not forget that we do have implementation issues right now. And the third aspect which I think kind of, sort of that we don't get into much detail on the report but we imply needs to be reflected upon is can one create a climate that encourages the peaceful transformation of the Iranian nuclear program? Whether that can happen through engagement, through other types of both incentives and disincentives and so on is something we try to address in the report but the point is to say as Ambassador Burns put out, put it, one is to keep the program in check. There is also a streak there that says can we get Iran cooperatively to engage in peaceful transformation of this program? That's I think is the longer term goal that we have. So we don't just have to use deterrence and coercion and so on to try and keep it in check all the time. Thank you, Ellie. And I wanna go to you, Alon, next. The report talks quite a bit about the role of military assistance, military engagement. Can you take us on a quick walk around the world with Iraq, Syria, Yemen? What are we doing well? What should we be doing differently? And how will that help us leverage change in the concerning actions of Iran? Sure, thanks, and it's great to be here as part of this CNAS Carnegie Joint Operation which is really sometimes a rarity in the think tank world. And also just wanna quickly recognize our two other co-authors, Alisa Catalano, yours, and Jared Blank, who are here in the front row too, but not on the stage since there wasn't space for six. But in terms of, so what do we do now in terms of the region? Interestingly, I'll just start by saying that I think our report is actually tougher on Iran's regional behavior than the president was in his speech. He talked a lot in very firm notes about all the long history of difficulties between the United States and Iran as he saw it in a pretty tough way, probably a little too tough in my opinion, but the actual recommendations that came out really weren't all that meaningful. You didn't really see all that much. And so I think we're trying to put some meat on those bones of what does it actually mean to counter Iran in the region. So just a few examples of that. I think one, we make the argument that across the region dealing with the IRGC could force the Hezbollah and countering them through a combination really of some sanctions, which Liz will talk more about, operations where you simply expose what they are doing in certain places, which can sometimes be quite embarrassing for them, and also help generate international attention on those types of actions. And combining that also with some covert direct action, military action in cases where it makes sense and isn't too risky, but can actually send a signal to Iran. You don't have to go all the way up to the escalation ladder with Iran. What you do have to signal, and sometimes you do these relatively small, directed steps, and then you send a message along with it, which is, you've gone too far here, you're about to get yourself in a confrontation with the United States if you keep going. In my experience, at least when I work on these issues, the Pentagon is, when we employ that type of approach that the Iranians, the message always got through. They want no part of a direct confrontation with the United States, and there would be sort of this pullback. Specifically, and so what does this mean in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen? In Syria, I think, look, Iran is there for the long term, and the US in many ways isn't, at least in Western Syria, will be in Eastern Syria, but we still have leverage to do some very specific things. The report recommends really focusing on ensuring that in any negotiated outcome, and whatever steps are necessary to keep Iranian-supported proxies off of the Southwestern border with Israel and with Jordan, which could be really destabilizing. That is something that's achievable. The Trump administration has been negotiating. There's a difference of views right now between the Israelis and the United States about how effective it's been in doing that, but that's a very specific objective you can point to, and another one in Syria is looking, for example, at ensuring Iran doesn't have, there's a lot of talk about a land bridge, and the idea that Iran is gonna have this connection all the way from Tehran to Beirut into, that's, I think, a bit of a stretch. That's 1,000 miles through some very tough territory that you're not gonna be moving a whole bunch of supplies through, but the more places and key, sort of what are called lines of communication, Iran controls and key nodes, the more flexibility it has to move its forces around the region, so as we think about our own military strategy, making sure that areas that our partners retake are held by those. In Iraq really quickly, I think we're not really looking at a military competition, we're looking at a political competition with Iran. They are there. They have a long-term history of a relationship. They're gonna be there. Their relationship is cultural, it is political, but we are also going to have troops in Iraq long-term, a few thousand of them, probably, to continue to support Iraqi security forces, and we are also an influential player, and we have a lot of leverage with the Iraqi central government, and so this is gonna be really a game of political competition. Us using our leverage, them using their leverage and influence, in some cases agreeing on things and negotiating with the Iranians to get to arrangements that work for both sides, and in some cases, trying to counter steps Iran is trying to take, such as support for various Shia militias in Iraq. And finally, in Yemen, look, I think Yemen is interesting because it matters the least to both sides in some ways, but matters the most to our Saudi partners, which is complicated. It's not, Iran is not as strategically engaged, nor are we, but I think there is an opportunity to just take more aggressive stance in how we interdict weapons shipments into Yemen and how we signal the Iranians, particularly on any kind of weapons that could impede the passage of, basically the transit of commerce through the Babel Mandeb, which is a key choke point. And so again, there you have specific limited opportunities, but I think this is one of the things our port overall is trying to do, is actually look at specific opportunities because there's been a lot of talk. We've been talking for years about how we're gonna counter Iran in the Middle East, but when it actually comes to action, it becomes a lot harder to do and you actually really have to pinpoint and zoom in on specific steps that you can take. So I would argue just finally on the regional question, we'll hear more about it from others is, even as we take all these steps to push back, as Ambassador Burns mentioned as we'll hear from others, the report also really emphasizes, pressure is one half of the equation and the other half has to be engagement on all these issues too. And that's what worked on the nuclear deal and can work in this context as well. So let me just follow up on the Yemen piece because the report is pretty forward on Yemen and what our role in engagement should be there. Are we too engaged in Yemen? Is that hurting us? Should we do more? But giving more military assistance to Saudi Arabia seems to be conflicting to most people. Are they not? So can you talk just a tiny bit more about that? That's like the hardest question. It's one that I think- That's what I'm here for. Honestly, even amongst the authors, we had some pretty intense debates and sort of views of, and I think it's the same thing to struggle in the U.S. government. Because on the one hand, you can't look at the Yemen crisis and not think that in many ways what Saudi Arabia is doing is problematic and sort of, in my view, against its own interests long-term and how it's gotten engaged in a war that's really not healthy for the region and doesn't seem to have good outcomes for them. But on the other, you're trying to get the Saudis in some ways to back down a little bit in terms of their confrontation with Iran. And one of the ways you do that is by reassuring them. You know, letting them know the U.S. is actually there for them but also then trying to send signals that come along with that that say, we are there for you. We will support you. But don't go here, there, or the other place. And maybe that's a better way of dealing with it than simply trying to walk away or press the Saudis, which would send that signal. It's also, you know, this complicated situation because even though we're not as strategically invested, neither are the Iranians. So it's a place where you, if you actually push back and signal to the Iranians, we're gonna get more invested. They're much more likely to back down. And that's beneficial to us and also beneficial to our partners who care about it. Where in place like Syria or in Iraq, if you were to say get out of Iraq or get out of Syria, I think you'd get a shrug from the Iranians and a double down on what they're actually trying to do. So yeah, but that's not a very good answer because I don't think there are very good answers. Maybe someone in the audience will have one to offer. Maybe a Q&A. Let me go to you Liz next because there's quite a bit in the report on economic levers. Can you talk, and obviously this report was written long before recent announcements by the Trump administration. They did make an announcement about some economic sanctions. Are those the right direction? Should there be more? What would be most impactful now in the view of the authors? And thanks to our Carnegie colleagues for being here. Thanks to all of you for coming to this conversation. I like that you use the phrase economic levers because what that does is encompass the concept Alon just mentioned and that you'll see in this report for thinking about pressure points as well as engagement opportunities, recognizing that no strategy is complete when it just involves pressure and that the United States reaps the kind of strategic advantage when it can be prepared to say take yes for an answer. And which hopefully in our view will give greater options and more flexibility in the execution of this policy. So the current administration has come forward with some good sanctions, in my view, some good sanctions policies and delivery of new sanctions on Iran related to they are non-nuclear in nature. So ballistic missile activities for terrorism, recognizing Iran's support for terrorism in its targeting of these sanctions, as well as actually human rights-related sanctions related to Iran. That's good. And what we would suggest as authors of this report is that there actually needs to be much more and it needs to be more holistic or expensive. So more sanctions, more aggressive posture when it comes to identifying IRGC targets inside and outside of Iran. There's a strategic value in identifying its front companies and agents and signaling therefore to Iran's leaders an economic advantage, even a strategic one for them, of allowing its independent economy, so that is to say non-IRGC controlled economy to grow. Given the pressure IRGC-linked companies will be under. Additionally, we talk about more sanctions targeting missile Iran's missile program and other terrorist proxies in the region. We call out further sanctions for further sanctions targeting Hisbola companies, bankers, financiers, facilitators, and support to Assad. Another thing that we identified here that must be part of the strategy, and this hasn't come through from President Trump's discussion of the topic so far, but we must all hope that it is behind the scenes contemplated or will shortly be executed. Thinking about how to coordinate closely with allies on how to reimpose sanctions if there is an actual nuclear breach. So interestingly with what has just gone down recently and the President not certifying to Congress, Iran's, it's actually the language used here is that sanctions relief is proportional to the concessions Iran is making a deal so it's not actually the President saying that Iran is in breach of its nuclear commitments, but nevertheless, the administration must be on the same page with allies about how to calibrate sequence and work together to reimpose nuclear sanctions if and when there is a breach by Iran. And what that will mean is that the United States isn't facing a confusing situation of moving forward with sanctions unilaterally which would really risk the cogency and effectiveness of sanctions. We've seen that discussed recently as people are contemplating what it would mean for the United States to walk away from the deal and proceed unilaterally with the reimposition of sanctions which would come at the expense of a lot of their force. The other lever here that we talk about in the report when it comes to economic issues or sanctions issues has to do with the way in which the United States could engage with Iran. So beyond ideas that are in here for keeping channels of communication open at the government level as appropriate and at a non-governmental level as well and other people-to-people contact, there's ideas that we suggest the offering of certain concessions where there's certainly trade space with Iran where a give from the United States would be meaningful to Iran and in exchange for which they may make meaningful concessions to the United States in our interests. And those include contemplating, restoring the U-turn license to allow non-U.S. financial institutions to, on behalf of legitimate Iranian clients, clear dollars through U.S. jurisdiction, through U.S. banks. That's something that Iranians have said they really would like. It would be meaningful for them economically which is of course a major priority. So it would be good to think about what the trade would be for the United States to give a major concession like that but actually taking that in hand and moving forward with that instead of only preferring a strategy that involves pressure. So very quickly, before we go to Kareem who's been patiently waiting with brilliant thoughts over here. Can you talk briefly, you talked about partners which is a really important point, hopefully we'll get into more with the Q&A. Russia's role here in working with them as a partner and staying aligned on sanctions and kind of what should be done or the state of that I guess. Well, it's a complicated issue for anyone who's watched over the last couple of years or since 2014 during which time the United States was both in lockstep with Russia with respect to Iran sanctions but of course the United States and European allies impose sanctions on Russia. But during that time those international relationships between Europe, European partners of the United States, United States and Russia this worked out. There was the opportunity for both pressure in one domain on Russia with respect to sanctions as well as maintenance of the Iran sanctions policy. It would obviously be very important for the United States to keep Russia on side when thinking about how to move forward with Iran. Another good reason why unilateral sanctions in any instance are a bad idea but when it comes to how to move forward on sanctions with on Iran, European partners must be the first ones with the United States as closely aligned and then I think the priority is from there to bring Russia and China as a party to the JCPOA into the same place. This is, I'm talking about this in terms of the at the meta level whether we have a deal or not and major follow on or amended addendum agreements but when we're, Russia hasn't been a close partner at the level of more targeted ballistic missile sanctions or terrorism one so I'm just talking about the bigger strategic issue. Great, thank you. So Karim before we go to questions from the audience the report talks quite a bit as Liz and others have touched on about the importance of pressure and engagement. Can you talk a little bit about the levers of engagement that are discussed in the report with Iranian officials indirect and also people to people? Where could we be doing better? Where are the opportunities there to open lines of negotiation about some of the issues touched on in the report? It's a great question, Jen and thank you all for coming. For me, one of the most important strategic takeaways of the report is that over the last four decades there's been very few instances in which Iran has backed down, it's compromised but those instances have been when it's faced with external pressure, unified external front and it's divided at home and the dynamic which President Trump has created is exactly the opposite. He's splintered the international community against Iran and he's unified Iran's internal factions both its internal political factions and the gap between the regime population. So there are many things that Iran is doing in the world which are bad, it's domestic repression and the rights abuses, it's complicity and the mass slaughter and dislocation of Syria. But instead of focusing on the bad things that Iran is doing, the President has put his finger on the one thing that Iran appears to be doing right and the eyes of much of the world and for that reason I think that international public opinion on this issue has really isolated the United States more than has Iran. So what would a different approach look like which would also include engagement? I think that again if you take the model of the nuclear agreement which Elon talked about it was a combination of significant unified international pressure coupled with rigorous US-led diplomacy and I think that formula really hasn't been applied to the regional context or even to the Iran domestic context to basically go to our partners and allies to the Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians and say okay listen, we don't really love this nuclear deal but we'll continue to respect it if you play a much stronger role in helping us counter Iran's regional behavior if you show a louder voice and condemning Iran's internal human rights abuses. But again instead of focusing on the things that Iran is doing wrong, we've put our finger on the thing that much of our partners believe Iran is doing right and for that reason I think we've been somewhat isolated. The final thing I'll say is that the supreme leader of Iran Ali Khamenei has said for three decades now that America is untrustworthy and arrogant and for the first time I think he feels vindicated in the eyes of his population and those more pragmatic factions in Iran who favor better relationship with the United States and I think that again rather than the goal of engagement, whether or not you think engagement can be successful is to create a debate in Iran along the vast majority of a population who wants to be integrated, not isolated amongst political factions in Iran who no longer believe that death to America makes sense in terms of Iran's national interests and again to make the case to all of our partners worldwide that the United States is trying to play a mature role or responsible role here and Iran is the rejectionist party, not America. So last quick question just because I've trust everybody else. So if the current government were to reengage with Iran at what level should they do that? Who should be engaging with whom in Iran? But one of the perennial challenges we've had with Iran is Ambassador Burns knows well is that Iran's most powerful officials are often inaccessible and its most accessible officials often aren't powerful and the reality is we don't have the luxury of choosing our Iranian interlocutors. I know this is a frustration that many people, many Saudis for example have, they say our problem isn't with foreign ministers that even President Rouhani, it's with Supreme Leader Khamenei and Qasem Soleimani and we don't have access to those people. But so on one hand you don't choose your interlocutors so I think that our previous interlocutors being the foreign ministry will have to continue but at the same time we sometimes make too much of the gap between these factions and at the end of the day Javad Zarif is the foreign minister to the Supreme Leader and if you want to relay a message to the Supreme Leader he's as good a person as any to do that. Well great, well now we're gonna spend the rest of the time taking questions from the audience. If you'd simply raise your hand I think we'll come around with a microphone. We'll come around with a microphone. Okay, Tom Countryman, good to see you. Thank you. You've convinced us what should be done as Jen predicted. We wanna talk a little bit about what will happen. It's probably easier to predict the score of the next two World Series games than to predict what the White House will do but in the event that the Congress is unable to decide anything meaningful or anything at all, which is very possible, do you expect that this White House will simply pull out of the agreement? If they do, does that undermine or erase everything else that is in your strategy? I'll start with a comment on Congress and then you can take the White House piece out of it. Yeah. I pivot from that one. I feel like I've got the easier one in this case but I think there are low odds that Congress will, in this 60-day window, following the president's non-certification, act on their legal opportunity or parliamentary opportunity to reimpose sanctions. I also don't think that all nuclear sanctions by simple majority, et cetera, as is allowed for in our as a piece of legislation. I also don't think it's likely that they will attract enough support to pass a piece of legislation akin to the currently articulated cotton corker set of provisions, which would, I think as is widely interpreted, unilaterally up the ante on the deal, imposing a series of new trigger points or conditions, therefore also in eyes of many by default being violative of the deal and have the effect of pulling the United States out of it if it was put into law. I think Congress, I think odds are that Congress won't do anything in the nuclear realm before January and that there may be a legislative proposal to address non-nuclear concerns with Iran, not that it will necessarily be finalized and passed into law at that time. And that's something that I think many people would get on board with in Congress and broadly speaking in the administration and others who watch this space. So which then kicks the can back to the White House contemplating what they will do. And I'll just offer my two cents by saying I don't think the administration's hope is to pull out of the deal in January at the next best legal opportunity to do so when many of the sanctions under the 120-day or 180-day waiver timelines come up for renewal. So the one thing I'll add, I'll agree with everything Liz just said, I'd add a couple of things. One is I don't think it's just about Congress, I think there's also an opportunity here for Europe to play a role in giving the administration an out. The president needs something. The president needs to be able to say, I'm working on these problems, whether it's the sunset provisions or Iran's regional behavior. And so if he's able to say whether it's January or soon thereafter or before, I have agreement from our European partners from France and the UK and Germany to start discussions on how we're gonna deal with the sunset provisions to start, we're gonna work together more on dealing with things like Hezbollah. It's up in some ways to our European partners to help create that out for him, but only under the condition that he stays in the nuclear agreement. To me, that seems like the best outcome for the deal and the best outcome for our policy. It's not easy for our European partners to do that because they've already been making the case to that, that case to him saying, why don't you not decertify? He's ignored them. He's not politically popular in Europe. So for them to essentially be seen as giving in to the president and for him to declare a victory off of this is pretty unpalatable for them, but might be the best way to save the deal. The two scenarios I'm worried about is most realistic for how the agreement falls apart is one is Congress does, Congress has said, at least Democrats have said, they're not gonna move anything that in their view violates a joint comprehensive plan of action, but they move something and the administration interprets it a certain way and there's disagreements and you get to a point where they pass something that Europe or the Iran views as a violation of the JCPOA and slowly things start to unravel. So that's one scenario, something that could happen, whether it's before January or after. And the other scenario is we do get to January or president waves in January and it's 120 days later or whenever and eventually he does have to sabotage the agreement unilaterally because reality is he could do it all by himself. He doesn't need Congress for any of this. All he has to do is not wave sanctions and the agreement goes away. One of the odd things about this whole rigmarole, we went through a couple of weeks ago, he doesn't actually need Congress for any of it. So there comes a moment where whether, even if all the people around him are saying, don't do this, which sounds like many of them are, and even if it's not the full reimposition of sanctions, he goes far enough. He kills the Boeing and Airbus, which I think would potentially destabilize the agreement certainly, something like that. And so those are the two scenarios I worry about and I think I'm most happy if Europe is the one providing him political cover more so than Congress because I think less can go wrong there, but we'll see, it's gonna have to be some combination. Well, you wanted to add a few thoughts? Yeah, I mean, from the perspective of a naive Israeli, I want to say the following. There is one perspective that says, do no harm for Congress. Thirdly, desirable. There is one that one says, maybe we have a window of opportunity here. Well, regardless of what triggered the crisis or whether we would have triggered the crisis in the first place, isn't there an opportunity? And that's why I'm saying maybe that only naive Israeli could believe that this could be a favorable outcome, that there will be a bipartisan imprimatur to US-Iran policy that would not address the DHTPOA as such, but would address Iran's nuclear behavior, regional behavior, lay down some markers of things that are acceptable for the bipartisan and then the operational aspect of this we discuss in our report. Okay, all right, other questions? Okay, we have one in the way back. Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry, way, way back there, yes. I think you have a maroon sweater on. Dan Lieberman, I read here that healthy forces have launched a number of missile strikes on ships and the United States should hold Iran responsible these types of attacks, but of course it's clear that capability is not in dickiness. Now I just have two questions. Why are US ships off the Yemeni coast with the foreign coast? And if the US is concerned about some harmless missiles that fall in the sea, why are they not equally concerned about the Saudi Air Force attacks on the Yemeni people, which are really destroying Yemen and which is as clear that the Saudi capability is not in dickiness? I can start on the issue of the, we're talking about the Babel Mandeb, which is an international waterway and a key choke point where the large portion of the world's commerce go through. So what we're worried about is not US warships being shot at, what we're worried about is insecurity that makes it impossible to move anything through that territory and through those waters, which is critical for just global commerce and the global commons. And so I think for the US, that is a different level of strategic interest. Not that we don't have an interest in making sure that humanitarian crisis in Yemen isn't brought to an end, not that we don't have an interest in some of these other concerns, but I think it's a question of, if you just look at the American national interest, that question of keeping these waterways open and that being a norm, whether it's the Babel Mandeb, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca, these are critical points that have global implications everywhere. In Asia, the US or Middle East and Europe that really need to remain open and free and not under any kind of a threat. And that's why I think we put such an emphasis on that report. That is some more questions. I saw you sort of raising your hand here, right in the front, go ahead. Oh, we need a microphone? Okay, go ahead. Yeah, Nazan is here with IHS. I have two questions if I may. First question is, let's say that we move beyond the immediate issues on the outlook for JCPO with the certification and everything. Do you think that the US can live with some of the expirations of UN Security Council restrictions on Iranian rearmament and the ballistic missile program in 2020 and 2023? It seems to me that those are earlier timelines than let's say renegotiating on Iranian, on those issues with Iran once some of the nuclear restrictions sort of expire. And the second question, it has to do with IRGC, targeting of IRGC economic network with the terrorist sort of designation that has just been put on the IRGC. It seems to me that the targeting, the enforcement of sanctions on IRGC entities is going to be accelerated and expanded. What happens if we push so much that the IRGC no longer sees benefit from the nuclear agreement and they have the capability to get Iran to withdraw from the agreement? So in an indirect manner, undermine the JCPOA. Want to start with that? Yeah, although actually I wanted to put that question first to Karim about, in thinking about domestic dynamics within Iran, the role of the IRGC as an influencer in that kind of highest level commitment, international commitment to agreement. In some ways the paradox of the revolutionary guards is that they have thrived much more in isolation than they would in an integrated environment because when an F-Iran truly opens up to the world and you have major international corporations and investing in Iran, you maybe have more qualified diaspora people coming back. That's much more difficult for the revolutionary guards to compete in that environment. And so in some ways they're a mafia which benefits from darkness more than sunlight. And so I could see a scenario whereby, and frankly I think, just to make a personal point, I have a close friend, Sial Maknamazi, who has been in prison in Iran for two years now. He's an Iranian American. And he was encouraged by the Rohani government, like they encourage other diaspora Iranians to come back and bring in foreign investment. And four days after he arrived in Iran, the revolutionary guards took away his passport. A couple months later he was in prison. He's now been two years in jail. And so I think the IRGC actually feels in some ways much more threatened by Iran's integration than its isolation. So when people say that Khomeini hasn't seen the economic benefits of the nuclear deal, therefore he's unpleased with it, will Khomeini give speeches saying that foreign investment is a trojan horse for regime change? So it's never been his priority to bring in foreign investment and have an economically integrated Iran. So the question is if people aren't seeing the benefits, the economic benefits of the nuclear deal, what does that do to the fate of people like Rohani and Zarif? And frankly, I think that the population will give them the benefit of the doubt because they'll see that they really made an effort, but they didn't have the power. It was either President Trump in Washington or hardline forces in Iran who helped sabotage them. Can I just add one more piece to the end of this? I think you may have indirectly made our point about the value of pressure and engagement because if you contemplate a strategy where there's an intensive, by the way, I don't agree that the designation of the IRGC last week, on the 12th, 13th, whatever that was, was an indication that we'll see much more aggressive targeting. I do sort of hope that's the case, but I don't know that I believe that that is our bellwether here. But if you see only an aggressive targeting of IRGC targets in front companies and proxies and agents internationally, but you don't also see the opportunity preserved for other foreign companies, these would not be US companies, but Europeans and others to go in and conduct what is legitimate trade and legitimate investment in Iran, then you might be courting that scenario, which is why it doesn't work out well to only lean hard on a pressure strategy. You must also complement it with, and there's a couple of other recommendations we have in this report, including the United States using its influence in the IMF for the team that is helping Iran to clean up a number of its domestic economic problems to go ahead and do so, which will have the effect of fostering greater legitimate investment and trade in and with Iran to counter that effect that you've pointed out. Just to comment on the ballistic missile issue. I want to desegregate the ballistic missile issue into three components. Component one, the dual capable ballistic missiles. I think this is the issue of utmost concern because the country doesn't invest in such, make such a massive investment in developing those capabilities unless you actually have nuclear capability in mind to marry it with. And the problem is that as the beginning of the restrictions of the JCPOA begin to kick in, this could take us from a threshold state just based on fissile material that could produce a device quickly to one that would have an arsenal quickly, no DPRK style. So I think this ought to be the highest priority and the US should leverage the UN Security Council and do a unilateral step and that's what the report is talking about. On the other extreme is the transfer of ballistic missile capabilities and other cruise missiles capability to Hisbala and deployment in Syria and so on which is a great concern. The moment Israel is doing the burden of that work and so on, I think the US by itself together with Russia, together with Israel, together with, and so on should focus a lot of effort in this, Ilan has already implied on some of the instruments that should be implied here, intelligence, military and others, but also not just the US doing itself working with allies. The third component is, and I'm saying this reluctantly, some of the ballistic missile capability of Iran is something we have to come to grips with and accept, not because we love it, but because at the end of the day, if we want to try and accomplish some result on the first and the second, and we also push on the third, we would get nothing. So I think we need to prioritize and what the report is trying to prioritize and basically says the most stabilizing things in the region are the long range things that could be used with nuclear weapons, the ones that are transferred into Syria and Lebanon and potentially used around Yemen and so on. The last category, which is they think they could legitimately argue is for self-defense given their air force weaknesses and so on, we simply have to accept. It doesn't mean we don't do anything but we have to generally accept that category. I wanted to get to as many people as possible. Go ahead here on the front. Numerous times you've talked about the United States being isolated. Does that mean much more than it's in a minority or what happens when the United States is isolated? Does Europe refuse to trade with the US or do they become takeaway sanctions on Russia? So about 100%, correct me if I'm wrong, Liz, about 99%, not 100% of Iranian traders with countries other than the United States. Is that right? 99 plus. Okay, so if 99 plus percent of Iranian traders with countries other than the United States and US and acts very strict unilateral measures against Iran but the outside world, China, South Korea, Japan, European partners, Russia don't adhere to them because they feel like Iran has been wrongly censured. It's much more difficult to pressure Iran if Iran has exit doors in all those places. And part of this is, as I said, kind of the court of international public opinion. During the era of Mahmoud Ahmad Jod, it became very clear to the outside world that President Obama had made these unprecedented but unreciprocated obritures to Tehran and it was Ahmad Jod that was the problem. And I think he really in some ways doesn't get the credit he deserves. Ahmad Jod doesn't get the credit he deserves for helping to bring about this coalition against Iran. And we now, I don't want to overstate this but to some extent, we have an opposite dynamic which is that Iran's leadership, in my opinion, wrongly but in my opinion, Iran's leadership, President Rouhani, foreign ministers that appear to be reasonable and pragmatic people. And it's America's president who appears to be the intransigent actor in the equation. And again, history has proven over the last several decades that when it's only unilateral US pressure and it's not followed by, it's not accompanied with a full court international press, Iran doesn't feel compelled to compromise. We have about five minutes left. So let me go just to the woman in the back right there. Oh, yes, right there. Hi, I just wanted to get a sense of what is the current state of play with respect to the military sites? My understanding is that under the JCPOA, there is access. As a technical matter, but that the IAEA has not actually sought access thus far. And there have been statements by Iranian officials that they wouldn't provide such access if there were a request. If such a request were made and they denied access, it sounds like that would be a material breach. I could someone comment on this? Well, the things are relatively simple. The IAEA has spoken out and made it abundantly clear that they consider military sites to be part of these sites that they could inspect if necessary. And that they haven't seen a reason to visit them as yet, but that if they need a rose, the IAEA sees no reason why they couldn't do it. Should the US do it or others push the IAEA to do it provocatively, we don't think so. Should the US hold back if actually there are concerns? We don't think so, even if the Russians are particularly upset about the information that triggers such an action. So that specific thing about access, there is an issue out there which regards to how does one interpret the implementation of the additional protocol and so on, but I think the IAEA is very clear and the US is critically important in steering the IAEA towards that position that says military sites are in. Off one ad? Okay, let me, let's gonna try to squeeze in two more. Go ahead in the front here. Matt Yang, I'm a contractor with the Foreign Service Institute, so kind of touching on the point of how historically when Iran has been domestically divided is when they've been most willing to capitulate, come to the table. So the United States president right now has voiced very clearly that he has opposed this deal on the campaign trail. He said it's the worst deal the United has ever gotten into, maybe ever. And as we approach the kind of congressional, you know, public aspect of this, I can see the possibility where he individually uses social media, other platforms to kind of speak out on this issue and attempt to undermine it so he can kind of fulfill his promise to dismantle it. How do you kind of see that affecting the Iranian domestic sphere? And could it have possibly affected enough to where Iran could kind of itself unilaterally take actions to undermine the deal or to let it unravel? I think, frankly, anything President Trump says is dead on arrival in Iran. He, no U.S. president has alienated the Iranian public more since 1979 for several reasons. One is the visa ban, the travel ban. You know, the second is that people in Iran for the most part, a vast majority, want the nuclear deal. They want to be integrated with the outside world. They don't want to be isolated. And third, and this was, you know, it sounds like a minor point to everyone in the room, but for Iranians, it's a big deal calling the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Gulf, you know, because the national conniption in Iran. And so I think that he has very little leverage. He only has really the impact to affect the popular mood in Iran negatively, not positively, kind of, as I said, vindicated, in some ways, the cynicism of the Iranian regime that America is arrogant and can't be trusted. Now, I think the danger is if Congress passes new sanctions or we decide to block the Boeing deal to Iran, which was part of the nuclear deal. Iran will rightfully be able to say that America has violated its end of the agreement. And that they will then reconstitute their nuclear activities. Now, my speculation is that they won't go from zero to 100. I'm not gonna say we're gonna go after nukes and kick out the inspectors, because they know that then that will exercise international public resolve. But they'll go from zero to 10. And we talk about in the report some of the things they may do in that context. But it would be enough to cause enormous concern in Washington and Tel Aviv that Iran is moving forward with this nuclear program. But not enough to get China and Russia and many of our European partners sufficiently exercised to counter it. So it becomes in some ways the worst of both worlds because Iran becomes in some ways unencumbered by the nuclear deal. And then they're moving forward with the nuclear program, but international unity doesn't exist. Anyone in the back just to be equal here? Who had a question? Okay, why don't we go to you? Go ahead. Thank you very much. Very interesting session. Firdas Maudad with the IHS. My understanding of the Iranian nuclear program was that it was more or less a negotiating tactic in the sense that we've been hearing since the late 90s that the Iranians are two years away from a nuclear weapon. And you either believe that all the intelligence agencies that said that didn't know what they were talking about or that the Iranians chose not to go after a weapon while building up the knowledge. The deal as I understand it allows them to continue obviously with the ballistic missile program, but it also allows them to continue researching methods to enrich faster without actually building up a stockpile of enriched material. So does the deal in effect take us from a position where the Iranians would break out and build two, three, four weapons to a position where Iranian breakout at the expiry of the deal would involve building 20, 30, 40 weapons? There is a, it would take more than time that Jen would allow us to actually go through the history of the Iranian nuclear program. But let me say it gone through different phases. I would say that as a rule of thumb there was a period until 2002 that they actually pursued a nuclear weapon as such. After that they wanted to keep a nuclear option open and a very robust option so that even if they are being attacked or whatever they would be able to resuscitate it relatively quickly and at a more advanced stage of development. Lots of things got into the question. What they didn't have was a credible nuclear energy program. And the program that they have in place doesn't meet any of the international benchmarks on what the peaceful nuclear energy ought to look like. And it makes no economic sense whatsoever. But that doesn't mean that one cannot live with such an activity if it were in general if a peaceful purpose. I'm not saying promoted because some people don't like nuclear energy and some people do, but on the whole this is so. So if the Iranian nuclear activity in the peaceful domain, which by the way Europe had taken upon itself as an extension of the JCPOA to work on was and there are pieces of this where Russia and China come in and so on to continue to develop in a serious way. I would say whether regardless whether it's done on its merits or to divert its scientists from doing the first nuclear activity, let them do it. I wouldn't say that I would encourage them but I wouldn't be uptight about it. And I had a couple things. One, just on that two year timeframe, like the way Iran, the whole calculation of understanding how close Iran is to a bomb is based on the fact that the numbers always, if tomorrow they were to drop any pretense of not going for a nuclear weapon and just do everything they had to do to get to a nuclear weapon, then in two years they could have one. That's usually how breakout time is calculated using everything that they've got. And so their whole strategy over years and years and years as Ali said was to sort of leave themselves an option by continuing to build out this infrastructure that got them closer and closer without sort of hitting the starting gun, which forces you to start doing things that very clearly becomes apparent to everyone including intelligence agencies, the international community, others that they're going for a bomb. So it was, I'm not sure it was just a negotiation. It was an option and they were, you know, like when I started at the Pentagon they were a year away and when I left a few years later they were about two months away. Like this number that, you know, and now they're under the deal, they're a year away again. That's I think just important to understand that number. And the other thing is, I think it's really important to understand is Iran is still in perpetuity under the agreement committed to being in the additional protocol. It is committed to no country in the world has ever developed a nuclear weapon under the nose of the additional protocol. The notion I think that I think as Ali talked about that any of us really see and I don't even think the negotiators believe this. Although, you know, if Ambassador Burns was here we could ask them again if we really saw, you know, when the sunset provisions come off every, it's just a free-for-all. I mean, that's not how non-proliferation agreements and international agreements generally work. Most effective international agreements do have sunsets and if they're working you renew them or you find something new to do. So I just don't think that there is a scenario where the world allows that to happen or a scenario where the United States is okay with that of just we go by the nuclear agreement and then as the provisions come off they're just, it's a free-for-all. So I just, so I don't think that the deal actually legitimizes or creates that situation at all. All right, well thank you to our panel. Thank you to all the authors and to everyone attending today. Thank you.