 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the New America Foundation. And welcome to those joining us online. My name is Matthew Duss. I'm a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. It's a privilege to be here this morning to moderate this panel. We'll be discussing America, Israel, and Iran. A post-mortem looking at the conversations that took place between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the remarks from both, how the understandings that they achieved or did not achieve might impact the efforts to deal with Iran and events within Iran and how the recent Majlis elections might impact efforts to negotiate a solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff. To my right is Heather Herlbert, the executive director of the National Security Network. To her right is Ali Reza Nader, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation. And next to Ali is Daniel Levy, the co-director of the Middle East Task Force here at the New America Foundation. So to start right off, I'll go to Daniel. Daniel, looking at the remarks from the president and the prime minister both together after their meeting at the White House and separately in their speeches to APEC, what do you perceive, what understandings were reached? Is there some unity? Is there more discord? And what do you foresee coming over the next few months as a result? I think I'd make five observations on where we are with Prime Minister Netanyahu either on his way or already back home in Jerusalem and in the political conversation now probably moving on here but having changed perhaps slightly over the last couple of days. I put it out there, my assumption before the visit is that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not prefer to conduct an Israeli solo strike against Iran. His preference is for, I think he does not see a non-military solution ultimately but his preference is for that to have a stars and stripes flag on it rather than a blue and white flag on it. And I made that claim that Prime Minister Netanyahu is less likely to call a military strike by Israel than perhaps is perceived to be the case. Based on his track record as Prime Minister, he has been a risk-averse Prime Minister. He hasn't indulged in military adventurism. He's been Prime Minister now for six years so we actually have something to base our assessments on. We haven't seen operation cast leads, et cetera, under his premiership. And secondly, this is a Prime Minister who I don't want to be overly cynical and suggest that he only has a political consideration but the guy is a politician and the one thing that is missing I found from so much of the analysis here is that it's as if Israel doesn't have politics and I just wanted to try and reintroduce politics into the equation. Prime Minister Netanyahu is looking very strong for getting a third term as Prime Minister and I'll shock you all, that matters to him. Fair enough. And this is an extremely risky thing for him to do politically. In fact, probably the most risky thing he could do for his own re-election prospects because it could go wrong, the consequences could be dramatic, et cetera. There's a new poll out in the Israeli press just this morning. I think the peace index it's called, although it seems to talk about war more than peace this morning, 62% of Israelis oppose an Israeli military strike on Iran without America and he knows that and the public opposition and the security establishment, senior ex-officials opposition is out there in the public. Okay. How do you balance what I've just said with a speech in which the Prime Minister said essentially this is the decision to bomb the Auschwitz rail tracks and if that and Israeli commentators have said this, if this is 1944, if this is Auschwitz it's a no-brainer. You have to bomb. I do think that Bibi has and I don't want to get too much into pop psychology but I do think Bibi is in a turmoil in his own decision-making because I think he does have this existentialist mindset. Maybe he's trying to talk himself into a lava to actually do it. Maybe he knows, oh my God, I always hesitate. I always don't go over the brink, oh my God, this is politically risky. I've got to force myself to do it. I know this is why my father, who's not inconsequential in this story, why my father put me on this earth. Nevertheless, I think on balance, Netanyahu was here to try and push the US further down the line in terms of the possibility of US action and on balance I still think the emphasis is on that and if you look at the Israeli commentary coming out of the visit, the spin coming out of the Prime Minister's office is we closed some of the gaps. We think we moved closer to a situation in which our discussions are about when rather than about weather and there's some talk of some additional relevant sales that have been agreed to Israel of advanced refueling aircraft and of GBU-28 Bunker Buster bombs. I have one. So that's the first thing I say. Secondly, that Obama Netanyahu dynamic, I think that despite that spin coming out of the Israeli side, the President didn't shift his position significantly. Yes, the Israelis would have been happy to have heard containment being taken off the table, but the President has never endorsed containment before. The way in which the military option was put out there, but that had happened before. We're very used to the rhetoric of all options are on the table and the President gave a kind of chest puffing up, I don't bluff, which I think is perfectly legitimate for him to do, given everything that's gone on under this presidency of him not blinking in taking decisions, unlike Netanyahu, by the way. So I think there wasn't real movement, but the Israelis got some of the rhetoric that they wanted. I think there's disagreement on these red lines, on what constitutes a crossing of a threshold by Iran, and I'm sure others will talk about that. I think there's disagreement on how regional developments influence Iran. I think the President has made a strong case that Iran is in a weaker position and we only enhance Iran's standing if we puff up the military threat against Iran, create more internal cohesion. Ali will discuss that, no doubt. Whereas the Israeli Prime Minister has much more focused on this being an Islamist wave of revolutions that strengthen Iran, I think the extent to which we're seeing a push for democracy, that's not good for the Iranian regime, and unfortunately, I would say, as the region becomes more sectarian, the ability of a Shia power to assert soft power in the region only declines. I mean, a few years ago, Ahmadinejad was a popular figure in the Middle East. Nasrallah was the most popular figure in the Middle East five years ago. Forget it today, the Resistance Axis has lost all its soft power, and I think a main thing is a disagreement over negotiations. I think the Israeli Prime Minister, and here one has to go a little bit deeper, because I think for many on the Israeli side this isn't so much about the nuclear program, and it's a lot about having a rival regional power there, and I don't think they want a deal cut with Iran. So third point, where does this leave us overall? Yeah, I may be wrong, and Amos Yadlin is the former Intel chief of the IDF. He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last week. He said the zone of trust needs to be re-established. I'm not sure whether that was fair in terms of President Obama and his relationship with Israel. My guess is that for the Israeli security establishment and for the broader decision-making circle in Israel, Obama just ticked that box of trust. I think they now come to the government decision-making table and say, well, the President has given us A, B, C, and D, and he's also made it quite clear that he doesn't want X, Y, and Z. And for us as military planners that affects our calculation. And so I think it very much strengthens that side of the debate in Israel. There are many in Israel anyway who find this existential threat talk most unbecoming and unhelpful and irresponsible and push back against that. And to be honest, they're more realist. I mean, there was something a little bit absurd about the Israeli Prime Minister going to an APAC conference of all places to assert just how independent Israel is. I mean, really, think about it for five seconds. Here is Bibi going to the place that is designed to guarantee America having Israel's back and Israel's essential dependence on the U.S. to assert that Israel is an island. Israeli military folks see through that. I think the messages that were conveyed here, both the messages cautioning Israeli unilateral action and the messages of America being assertive in having Israel's back should be taken back to beyond the circle who were here in Washington around Netanyahu. And I would urge Ambassador Shapiro and other American visitors to Israel over the next coming weeks to make sure that in all the military to military meetings, which I'm pretty sure will happen, that these briefings are given, but I would sit with some of the other members of the cabinet and just walk them through what went on during this visit. Not that I would suggest for a moment that Bibi may misrepresent anything that happened, but I still think that would be a useful exercise. My one caveat to what I'm giving as a relatively rosy scenario here is I do worry that in the long term the President may have boxed himself in just a little more than I must admit I'm comfortable with. I think all the arguments the President made for why it's not a good idea to have a strike now, apply later on down the line as well. And yet we're still in a discourse here where right-sizing, the Iranian threat is largely out of bounds. And Paul Pilar has a fabulous piece in The Washington Monthly on which I recommend to everyone to read on really why the military option probably should be off the table. Two last quick points. Politics can't be overlooked. I think the President Obama is not naive when he sits opposite the Prime Minister. I think he knows he's sitting opposite someone who has cast his vote in terms of November. And interestingly, Obama hasn't done the opposite. President Clinton, President Bush won, both played internal Israeli politics in quite transparent ways, actually. President Obama hasn't done this. Now you may make the argument he wasn't in a position to who in Israel would have listened to this President anyway. But I think it's right to say he hasn't done it. He has not been playing footsie with the Israeli opposition, which Clinton very explicitly did a decade ago. The reverse is not true. I'll quote you from the Israeli press this morning, Orly Azulay, so under the nose of Obama who is running for a second term, Netanyahu went to APEC and in effect gave ammunition to Obama's political rivals. The Israeli Prime Minister comes to the White House, requests his help, requests his commitment to attack Iran, and on the same evening he goes to fraternize with his friends in the Republican Party. And I think there's just something structural to this. Benjamin Netanyahu has some of the same funders as the Republican side. Benjamin Netanyahu is not going to remove this card from the Republican message box in the election. And if I were to be a bit more cynical, I'd say that, you know, if you want to undermine the economic recovery, you drive up oil prices. And more talk of war, more driving up of oil prices. And I think the President pushed back against that. Last point, there was a faulty towers. Can I, faulty towers? There was a faulty towers element. I'll allow that. Thank you. There was a faulty towers element to this visit. And it's the episode in which Basil Faulty said, you know, the Germans are visiting the hotel. He said, don't mention the war. I mentioned it once. I think I got away with it. And of course there was plenty of mention of war. But it was don't mention the Palestinians. Don't mention the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech and the P word does not pass his lips. Credit to Obama, he gave it a passing reference in his APEC speech and in the press opportunity with the Prime Minister. But the Israeli Prime Minister did not refer to it once. I think it's very fair to say the Palestinian leadership have been complicit in their own self-marginalization. They're the ones who have backed off from having a strategy that would force that issue back onto the agenda. But for Benjamin Netanyahu to be able to go back to his right-wing coalition and say, guys, did you see? Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran. Palestine ain't an issue. Who demand? Am I a great Prime Minister or what? And that plays with the right-wing coalition. Thank you very much. To Heather, the same question. I mean, after the meetings, did Netanyahu succeed in changing the president's position? Was that shift rhetorical? Was it substantive and to what extent? And to Daniel's point, even if it was mostly just a rhetorical raising of the sort of robust treatment of the situation, will that sort of box the president in down the road? Well, I'm going to go, I'm going to take you further into politics and away from substance, as Daniel started to do, to talk a little bit about why the president is boxed in, but not so much by Netanyahu in my view. So the good news first, there were three things that did not happen. Three dogs that did not bark during the last few days. And the first one is that unlike the previous Netanyahu visit with the standing ovation, I've forgotten what the final number was. I know there was an argument about it. You didn't have prominent defections from the president's own party. And indeed you had the leader of Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other prominent Democrats doubling down on the idea on support for Obama's red lines as opposed to Beebe's. So both, frankly, because I think the White House did a better job of prepping this one and because people are sufficiently concerned about the seriousness of what's going on and whatever it is that Beebe's trying to do, you didn't see a split and you saw actually an impressive amount of unity around the president's position. Second, what you also saw was a truly impressive amount of unity from both active duty and retired military folks in support of the president's red lines and the president's caution about an attack on Iran. You know, Secretary Panetta speaking at APAC was the first time that has happened in 20 years. Dempsey going out the week before and delivering a very firm message, not backing off it despite really an unprecedented attack, I think, on a sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the men who are aspiring to be his boss for the first two years of their term. And then some statements from retired senior officers as well in an ad in the Washington Post which interestingly got quite positive coverage in the military press in the U.S. and no pushback on that. So what that should be telling you is that what Dempsey and Panetta are putting forward in the public about caution around military solution is broadly and deeply shared in the military establishment and the level of concern with the rhetoric and level of adventurism that's been featured in the debate in the U.S. should register deeply as a result of the last week's events. The third point which I'm willing to bet, $10,000, has not changed is that you will not see any movement in U.S. public opinion as a result of the last week. Why do I say that so confidently? Because you haven't seen any movement in U.S. public opinion on the question of war with Iran for the past 10 months. Despite the fact that it has been the prominent national security issue in the Republican primaries that we hear about it endlessly, that there was for all of us who live and work in this wonderful city the only topic of thought for the last week, you will still see a situation in which slightly less than 50% of Americans think that it's a good idea to support Israel if Israel attacks on its own. Slightly less than 50% of Americans think it's a good idea to attack Iran if they're not building a bomb. Slightly more than 50% think it's a good idea if Iran is definitely building a bomb. And those numbers, which by the way have a very strong partisan cast to them, Republicans support attacking Iran pretty strongly. Interestingly, independence breakdown like Democrats and are much more hostile. And those have not moved by more than two percentage points. And whether you're looking at Gallup or whether you're looking at Rasmussen in the last 10 months. So I, as I say, I feel if I had an extra $10,000, I'd feel pretty confident that they haven't moved. They haven't moved this week either. Now, why is that? And this is where I think that it's really key to take a little bit of time in the U.S. political context. That is because in the U.S. context this is not a debate about Israel. This is not a debate about Iran. And this isn't a debate about the future regional architecture of the region, those being the things that it actually should be a debate about. And Daniel, I thought you did a great job of listing off topics where there are legitimate political disagreements that we could be having here, but we're not actually having any of those debates. Instead, I think the most substantive cast you can give this debate in American politics if you're feeling generous is that this is a debate about how the U.S. leads in the world and how we solve problems. And that we are in fact re-having the same debate we had in 2008. And that I think many people thought had been decisively won by Obama the candidate in 2008, but interestingly we are now re-having. Second, this is an effort to get a certain swath of the Republican base excited about a set of not very exciting candidates, none of whom has any significant national security credibility of his or formerly her own, but all of whom have basically had to compete with each other, to come up with more and more hostile rhetoric on Iran, more and more Israeli politicians they can do appearances with because there's really very little else that they have on these issues. And it gets forgotten that the most hawkish constituency on Israel in the U.S. now is not the folks who were at APAC, but it is a subset of evangelical right-wing voters who are not getting very much to make them happy in this cycle where the focus is on the economy. So that is one of the key reasons during the primaries that this has been such a vivid focus of debate which has nothing to do with the actual politics. Now the third thing which it's important to understand and why this issue is not going to go away after the primaries end is an article that Carl Rove very obligingly published about 10 days ago pointing out that there's a wonderful time-honored political tactic which is you don't avoid your enemy's strengths, you go straight at them. And if Barack Obama is a national security president, if his highest marks are on national security, if, as he finds a way to subtly remind us every now and then, he killed Osama bin Laden, then attack him on that. And Iran is clearly the target of choice since you can't attack him on terrorism and you can't attack him on Iraq and Afghanistan because Americans are done with those wars and want the troops to come home. So you attack him on Iran, you attack him for being weak, you attack him for being indecisive, you attack him for not supporting our allies and you attack him for not getting it. Now those attacks may or may not be appropriate when it comes to Iran, but they tie very neatly back into domestic politics and they also tie back into this vague sense that Barack Hussein Obama is not really one of us. And without having to go to some of the crazy racist and offensive places that some people have chosen to go, this is a line of attack which raises those questions in some voters' minds and that is why it has been so popular and will continue to be so popular. Now from a purely political point of view, this is actually pretty smart because it worked pretty well against John Kerry in 2004, war hero, worked pretty well against John McCain in 2008, war hero. So again, just from a purely political point of view, this is a smart thing to do, it's not going to go away. Now as I said, it doesn't seem to be working, so that would lead you to think, well maybe it's not such a smart thing to do, but if the economy gets better, then what other attacks do they have? Point one. And point two, if in fact you're using Iran to mount a kind of subtle backdoor attack on leadership, not so clear where that will first start to show up and I think there's clearly been a politically strategic decision that it's cost free to keep chipping away at this politically. So despite the fact that, as Daniel said, this visit went off quite well in the immediate term that the White House handled it, I think about as well as they could have, the decision going away from American politics anytime soon and it's quite likely to actually become more and more and more and more disconnected from the reality on the ground, which we'll finally get to as our last presentation. And that's going to have three or four consequences that are really troubling that I want to just draw out. And the first point is that of course the rest of the world sees our political debate. And if you were a leader in any country, we won't name any in particular, you do have to do some contingency planning that these guys might actually mean what they say. And you would also have to do some contingency planning, as Daniel said, that down the road, the scope for maneuver by a second term Obama administration has been somewhat narrowed and that you would actually face a military tack at some point in the future. So words matter, which I think is something that has gotten entirely lost in the U.S. political discourse this time around. Second, and this is really my key concern about the situation in the region, is that this rhetoric ratchets up tensions everywhere. It ratchets up tensions here, it ratchets up tensions among, you know, American service members sitting on boats in the Gulf are watching Fox and CNN and they're seeing this stuff. And similarly, as I mentioned, and we're going to hear about the political complexities inside Iran, there clearly are at least some forces in Iran who think it might not be a bad thing if somebody could be goaded into dropping some bombs or doing something else. So imagine if the alleged Cafe Milano attack had actually succeeded and an ambassador had been assassinated in Washington. Imagine if some guy with a boat blows a hole in the side of a U.S. Navy ship. Imagine if a terror attack goes wrong, if another one of these mysterious attacks on Israelis goes wrong. Imagine if there's a big attack on U.S. service personnel that can somehow be linked to Iran in some way. At that point, I think the point about Obama having less maneuverability is significant and real. And so this question of whether intentional or unintentional heightening of rhetoric and tensions and spiraling into a place where at some point someone cannot avoid the use of force I think is very significant. Third, and this is really less about Iran, Israel, U.S., and more about the relationship, the triangle of politics, policy, and the U.S. military. The degradation of how we use, and I'm using the word use very deliberately, how we use the military in our public life is really troubling, that on the one hand you have presidential candidates going out and basically saying I don't trust the judgment of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs because he says that Iran's a rational actor. Well, how are you going to work with the military under that circumstance? And then on the other hand, oh, well I'll always listen to the commanders before I make a decision. Well, that's not what civilian control of a democracy is. Similarly, that we all have so frequent recourse now to military voices, military validators to tell us what we ought to do about non-military, frankly, political problems. While our military leaders keep telling us these problems have political solutions and then we say no, no, tell us what you want to do. So we really need to ask ourselves as a democracy with a really strong tradition of civilian control exactly what it is we're doing from a non-partisan perspective. And the last point I want to make really circles back to the points that Daniel just touched on, which is that there is a debate that we really need to be having in the U.S. and that frankly we are not well educated enough to have at a sophisticated level within either political party. And that is this question of what in the world is the regional architecture of the Middle East going to look like in five or ten years? What do we want it to look like? And what should we be doing? What should we be doing differently? What do we need to stop doing in order to make that the case? Can we in fact tolerate an Iran with a nuclear capacity? If so, how? If not, what are we going to do about it? If not, what are we going to do about the Saudis? This comes up in the long term but it also comes up in the short term and frankly I don't think there was a lot of thought given to what it looks like to call for bombing Syria the same week that half of Washington is calling for bombing Iraq. So the Syria and, I'm sorry, Iran, the Syria and Iran debates are going on as if they were two disconnected issues instead of there being two utterly connected issues. And those have, there are important, as Daniel said, differences of opinion about the Islamist, non-Islamist character about where Israel fits going forward about how the Palestine problem fits going forward, about what role the U.S. even should play, frankly, in the region going forward. Those are all debates that we could be having here that are critical for us to have that have a really important political cast, but we're not having them except for a few people, many of whom I see in this room. And a large part of the reason we're having them is that we're having these other political debates instead. So I'll just end there. Thank you. Thanks, Heather. And the bombing Syria panel will be at noon if people want to... So Ali, keeping with the political theme here, the Islamic Republic of Iran had its ninth parliamentary elections over the weekend. The supreme leader, as he always tends to do, seems to have won. But really, what's your take on the situation? Do you see the regime, the supreme leader, Hamine, in his inner circle, feeling more confident now? And if so, what might that mean for efforts to negotiate some negotiated outcome? I think that's a very important question because politics are important in Iran as well. I think there is a common perception that is incorrect, that Iran is a monolithic actor with a unified political system going toward a nuclear weapons capability. And that's just simply not true. Iranian politics deeply shape Iran's foreign policies and its nuclear policy as well. Of course, Iran is not a democratic country. It's undemocratic and it's increasingly becoming an authoritarian system, but there's still a political process in Iran and we witness this process during the recent parliamentary elections. And basically, I think to call it an election would be also incorrect. Before the elections took place, a lot of Iranian officials claimed that voter turnout was going to be 65%. Weeks going into the election, there was constant messaging, turnout will be high, 65% of Iranian voters will turn out. And guess what? According to the government, 65% of Iranian voters turn out for the election. There have been a lot of reports from within Iran that election turnout was actually very low, especially in the cities, the reformists and the green movement boycotted the election. And of course, if they hadn't boycotted the election, they would have been excluded anyways. The regime had indicated months before that they didn't need to run. They're not part of the political process. So basically, the election was a contest between the Supreme Leader supporters, Khamenei supporters, and Ahmadinejad supporters. It was depicted as such within the Iranian elite and also outside of Iran. And Ahmadinejad fared very poorly. A lot of his supporters from the beginning were disqualified and not allowed to run. So he had to rely on relatively unknown candidates. A lot of actually former supporters distanced themselves from Ahmadinejad and formed separate factions because they don't want to be associated with them. And the reason for this is that Ahmadinejad last year publicly challenged Khamenei as a Supreme Leader. He fired the Minister of Intelligence, despite Khamenei's objections. And when Khamenei reinstated the Minister, Ahmadinejad skipped his cabinet meetings. And ever since, his supporters have been called a deviant current within Iran. And he's been relatively isolated. If you notice, his profile has gone dramatically down in Iran. He doesn't do as many media interviews. He doesn't talk to the Western press. His foreign travel is relatively restricted. So Ahmadinejad essentially is a very much diminished figure. I wouldn't say that in terms of Iranian politics, he's finished necessarily because there are things he can do to make himself more relevant. He has actually threatened to air the government's dirty secrets, corruption cases, and he's warned publicly that if things happen to his close supporters, he'll go out and speak and reveal the government's secrets. But in terms of his influence within the Islamic Republic, I think for the most part he's finished. And if I were him, actually I would be careful after his presidency because in a lot of ways I think he's a marked man. He's created a lot of opponents. So basically the parliamentary election consolidated Khomeini's power as a supreme leader. And before the election, Khomeini even spoke of getting rid of the presidency. So in Iran where you're having problems with your political opponents, you just eliminated their office. It could be relatively more efficient, I guess in some ways, for the decision makers. So there's a real possibility that Iran will not have a presidency in the future. And Khomeini's consolidation of power and the possibility that the Islamic Republic won't be a republic anymore because you need a presidency to have a republic have a major influence on Iran's question on the nuclear program. Now we can assume that decision making might be more consolidated and more streamlined because Khomeini will be making the decisions. He won't have to deal with Ahmadinejad as president or a president in general. And going back to negotiations with Iran, one of the difficulties has been finding a key interlocutor. Who do we speak with? Who makes decisions in Iran? Is it the president? Is it the supreme leader? Is it the national security advisor? So I think we can speculate that might simplify decision making in Iran on the nuclear program to some extent. But I think the unfortunate part is that the key decision maker is Khomeini. And Khomeini has not indicated that he is interested in any sort of negotiations or compromise on the nuclear program. Actually, I think Ahmadinejad, sadly, is much more open to compromise on the nuclear program than Khomeini is. So in some ways, Ahmadinejad was our best hope. And so we've lost it, not to endorse him as a political figure, but he had certain interests in pursuing negotiations on the nuclear program. Of course, Iran has indicated that it wants to resume talks with the P5-plus-1. There's been some speculation that it will open up sites that are associated or assumed to be associated with nuclear weapons testing, like the Pachin site. And Iran has also overturned the death sentence of the former Marine in prison in Iran. And these are all positive signals. And I think actually it shows that this regime is calculating and is very well aware of politics because it is making these signals as Netanyahu is visiting Washington, D.C. So it's trying to play the game as well. But we have to ask how serious is Khomeini about negotiations? And if we listen to one of his most recent speeches, his Friday Prayer speech, he's very explicit and I think honest regarding his intentions about the nuclear program. And when we look at Iran's alleged pursuit of the nuclear weapons capability, we have to understand why Iran is doing this. And it's not because of Israel. It doesn't want to destroy Israel. In reality, Iran is motivated by insecurity and insensitive fear. And the source of that insecurity is the United States. The Iranian regime, Khomeini specifically, believes that the United States is committed to overthrowing his regime, that the nuclear program is just a manifestation of the conflict between the Islamic Republic and the United States. And Khomeini has even stated that it doesn't matter if Iran compromises on the nuclear program, the United States will find another excuse that the United States is after excuses, basically. So from his standpoint, some sort of nuclear capability, even a virtual weapons capability where Iran has the capability to assemble a weapon but chooses not to do so, but serves Iran's interests in terms of deterring a U.S. invasion or changing the regime in Iran. But also the nuclear program is motivated by a sense of pride in Iran. It's a sense of revolutionary and to some extent nationalist pride. And Khomeini, during his Friday prayer speech, spoke of making great progress on the nuclear program, achieving scientific objectives despite the sanctions and the pressures. And when we look at Iran's reaction, for example, to the assassination of nuclear scientists and all the sorts of pressures Iran has faced within the last few months and years, not only has Iran backed down, but it's accelerated this program. It's Khomeini's policy, and he said this explicitly, has been to meet pressure with pressure. So in terms of having a military option on the table in terms of Israel threatening Iran militarily, I think this is very counterproductive. It feeds Iran's and Khomeini's sense of insecurity and I think it's logical to assume that instead of Iran stopping uranium enrichment, that they're going to dig better sites, better protected sites, that they're going to create additional sites like Fordo, which is built inside a mountain and is relatively invulnerable to military attacks. And with sanctions, I would argue that sanctions are having an effect on the Iranian economy. Every day Iranians are hurting because of the sanctions against the central bank and the European oil embargo, and this increases the pressure on the regime, but we shouldn't necessarily assume that Khomeini is going to back down just because of sanctions. As president and as supreme leader, Khomeini has survived years of sanctions, hostility, assassination attempts, insurgencies, sabotage, et cetera. So he's not a man that's going to easily back down, especially as this would damage his prestige within the system, which is already pretty damaged. So to think that if we put enough pressure against Iran and expect it to back down and come to the negotiation table, and for that to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis in the next several months, I think, is very incorrect. Going forward in the next several months, even if Iran comes down and sits down on the negotiation table, I don't think we should expect very quick results. And I think part of the issue with U.S. policy is we expect very quick results, that the policy in the last few months anyways has been, well, if we threaten Iran enough, if we increase military pressure, if we increase sanctions, then we can achieve a solution in the next however months, that we only need to increase the pressure, but the Iranian political system doesn't necessarily work like that. Yes, they understand the pressure, they respond to it, but they have their own set of domestic interests that they have to keep in consideration. So I think the picture is relatively bleak, but I think there's one bright spot, and that is that Iran has not made the decision to weaponize this program. And this is the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, and a lot of Israeli analysts and policymakers even. We know that Iran is building the capability to produce nuclear weapons if it chooses to do so, but the nuclear program also has a civilian dimension. So it's incorrect to just assume it's geared toward a nuclear weapon. And I think that means that Iran has not crossed the U.S. red line of weaponizing. The U.S. red line, as President Obama has articulated, is Iran crossing that line? It's not the capability to build a nuclear weapon. It is Iran's decision to build that weapon. And Iran has not made the decision, and because the costs of that decision are increasing due to sanctions, I think there's a good chance that we have the space and time to basically dissuade the Iranian leadership from crossing that red line. That nuclear weapon is not eminent, and it's not inevitable. Thanks very much, Ali. I'd like to go to questions now. Please introduce yourself. Please make your questions a question. Right here in the front, please. Just wait for the mic. Yes, my name is Mike Hager, and I want to thank all of the speakers for really putting a lot of light on this issue. I have just three quick questions, which I haven't really heard in the press or from other commentators. One is sort of, haven't we been here before in 2002-2003 in terms of the kind of talk in advance of attack? Secondly, does Article 51 of the UN Charter mean anything these days? And number three, a what-if question. What if Israel were to offer to dismantle its nuclear facility and open up to IAEA inspections if Iran were to dismantle its facilities? Thank you. Yeah, go ahead, Heather. Why don't you take the first? Yeah, so it's been a very popular trope of both analysis and activism to say this is just like the run-up to the Iraq War. And I'm a little bit of a contrarian on that, and that I actually think it is not just like the run-up to the Iraq War for several important reasons, one of which is the U.S. media is doing a much more careful job on checking what it's reporting. It's not perfect, but it's much better than we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. Second, you have a much more vigorous debate among security experts. There's not the same degree of fear of opposing a war that there was in 2002-2003. So you're seeing, and then, you know, the debate in Israel, which, Daniel, I don't know if you would say anything about, but you've really never seen anything like the degree of public and vigorous debate in Israel about whether attacking Iran is a good idea or not, and, you know, there was nothing like that anywhere in the world in 2002-2003. So I, as I say, I'm a little bit of a contrarian about the, oh, it's just like Iraq meme, because I think that doesn't give enough credit to ways that our system is actually better than it was in 2002-2003. Now, having said that, there are certainly some similarities in some of the glib argumentation that's being made about how easy this would be and how great it would be for the region. And so in that sense, I certainly see the similarities, and I think it's been, of course, some of the same folks who thought Iraq was such a great and easy idea. So I think it's certainly legitimate to raise a whole set of questions of, yeah, that's what you said about Iraq. But the other difference, which is really important, is this problem of the chance of miss, of inadvertent war or of spiraling, which you really didn't have, because frankly, Saddam didn't make any effort to provoke us, and I don't at all think you can rule out that there will be whether they come from the government in Iran, whether they come from elements within the government, whether we can never tell, but you can't rule out that there will be provocations. Daniel, on the third question about Israel's own supposed nuclear weapons, I was reminded of a story I saw last week. I think it was later. Former Mossad chief Efraim Halavi at a meeting in Europe with a meeting on nuclear issues in which Iranian representatives were present, and there was the Iranian representative who had gone off on a speech about Israel's nuclear weapons and the hypocrisy, and Halavi, I think, made it a pretty clever point, was, well, when it comes to WMD, you recognize Israel because you're willing to mention us in terms of our nuclear hypocrisy. So on a more serious point, I've heard others mention the possibility of using a regional nonproliferation architecture as a way of integrating Israel into the region. Is that in play at all, or are Israelis just simply not interested in talking about their own nuclear weapons? I mean, I think it is much closer to the latter. I think in their own terms, it's a remarkable achievement that this entire conversation about Iran can take place without that issue being part of... close even to the mainstream conversation. I mean, when one listens to the president walk through his arguments for the inadmissibility of Iran to cross a certain threshold, he really pressed a lot of his case on the nonproliferation argument. And it seems that that can be done while keeping a straight face. And I think as long as no one else is raising that, I wouldn't expect the initiative to come from Israel. I do think, which is kind of a slight tweaking of this, I do think that one of the considerations for Israeli decision-makers in terms of their own action on this is could this generate pressure vis-a-vis our own program, which right now doesn't exist. And I do think that plays into their decision-making equation. Certainly there are people in Israel who do make the argument that this has to be part of a regional security architecture arrangement. And I think eventually we will get there and it will be mainstreamed as a conversation point. But we're clearly not there at the moment. Just to follow what Heather said, I agree with what you've said and you even have the same former Mossachi for Friam Halevi coming out and saying just yesterday I think about Mitt Romney's talk being irresponsible and unhelpful, which I mean literally this is just playing politics on both, this is coming into the politics on both sides in ways that we haven't seen before. And I also think the fact that you have so many of the senior ex-security establishment people on the record in Israel, I've made the argument that Nattanyahu when he looks at this and says well if I once I issue the order then they'll all shut up because once the planes are in the air it's a whole different, you know, we have this expression in Israel, when the cannons of war are rumbling the internal dissent is over. I don't think that would be the case on this because people have come out and made such an assertive argument against it. The flip side to all of this is is there beginning to be a sense of if you don't act off the back of the kind of rhetoric from two nights ago at the APAC conference when do you lose your own credibility as Israel in Crying Wolf? And that's my own fear and the counter-argument to what I've said I think that features strongly. Before we get to another question, just Ali very quickly, you co-authored a recent report on Israel and Iran and to what extent does that, you know, Israel's nuclear program play in the Iranian, you know, their protests about the unfairness? I think actually Iran takes advantage of that within the Arab world. We hear a lot of reports about Arab populations resenting Iran and how Iran is a new enemy in the Middle East and to some extent they may be true but I think certain Iranian policies and actions still resonate in the Arab world and the argument that why should Israel have nuclear weapons but a Muslim country, not an Arab or Persian country, but a Muslim country should not, I think, resonates in the Middle East, especially in countries like Egypt and some of the other major key Arab players and Iran uses this to its benefit. You know, there's this concept of a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East and I would argue this does not interest Israel and Israeli interests and it doesn't really benefit Iranian interests in the long term either because Iran I think wants some sort of nuclear capability even if Israel did not have nuclear weapons in order for Iran to defend its territory and protect their regime and it feels that it needs some sort of nuclear weapons capability and so at the same time Iran uses Israel having nuclear weapons as basically a source of leverage. Thanks, right here please on the second row. Thank you very much. I'm Benjamin Tua. Against the background of the upcoming P5 plus 1 talks which have kind of provided some relief to the ratcheting up of the tension over Iran there are two themes out there that come up pretty regularly. One is the need for sustained negotiations rather than episodic talks where people besides simply present their positions and the second is something that the military in particular has been pushing and that is the need for channels of communication and more communication. So against that how do you see the prospects for something like sending some Americans to the interest section in Tehran which would help them for example with citizenship services people who are arrested and so on visitations and plus increased communication and also the possibility for some kind of incidents that see agreement to avoid the possibility of inadvertent clashes that could lead to something worse through inadvertence miscalculation and so on similar to what we had with the and still have with the Soviet Union, still have with the Russians and also have with the Chinese. Thank you Heather. I'll go for the second part of that. I mean what is your read on the American political situation can it countenance a sort of sustained engagement and attempt to build some trust that would be required over a longer period of time? So I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong in what I'm about to say but both because of the political situation but also my read on how the administration has chosen to approach this and the fact that those ideas were considered in 2009 there was instead the choice to try to go for the nuclear confidence building agreement first which then fell through back in Tehran and there is I think I don't get the sense that there has been a decision within the administration to change up and go back to that approach which a number of prominent thinkers people who've done track to work with the Iranians ambassadors lures and pickering have written quite a bit about this recently suggesting that you would do those kinds of confidence building measures maybe you would try to engage the Iranians on other issues such as Afghanistan such as narcotics so there's that whole approach and then there's the approach that says start showing that you can make some headway on the nuclear thing first and then do all the other and I think there's a number of politics that we're still in the nuclear first zone I'd love I'd be delighted to be proven wrong because I think that approach would be more fruitful now having said that if I were if I were sitting in Chicago I'd say yeah can't that wait till after November but which then raises the question if that waits till after November then do you have you have a failed potentially a failed round of talks in April or a round of talks in April that you meet again although I'm interested to hear your perspective I'm not sure what's in that for Tehran and then you run into in the summer the deadlines where the new rounds of sanctions both from the U.S. and Europe start kicking in and then that's another significant ratcheting up so I hope I'm wrong but my impression is that we're not in that place right now I think ideally the solution is sustained diplomacy with Iran there's so many challenges and problems and that it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel from the Iranian side but also the U.S. side I think from the Iranian side there's deep distress for the United States and U.S. intensions and Iran has consistently asked that all the issues with the United States be put on the table not just the nuclear issue because they don't see the nuclear program at just being the fundamental problem the fundamental problem are is the state of relationship between or the state of hostility between Iran and the United States and as long as that's not solved I don't think we're going to reach a solution to the nuclear program we can tinker with how much uranium Iran produces or not but I think fundamentally the relationship is very flawed and it's going to remain flawed I really believe as long as Islamic Republic is in power and Khamenei is a supreme leader we're not going to see any fundamental changes in Tehran that could lead to negotiations and I think in this country there's also very negative perception of talking to Iran that if you engage with Iran somehow you're appeasing Iran and basically acknowledging its nuclear program and its policies I think that's a major obstacle in this country as well that we'll have to overcome and it's just hard to see the United States and Iran overcoming those obstacles in the next few months and I think we said the next few months as a deadline and we keep actually pushing the deadline without really addressing the core issues if they can be actually addressed I mean all I'd add to that because I agree with what Alan just said if I were to be super optimistic I'd say the messaging one started to hear from the president yesterday perhaps suggest that there's a little more space here but I still wouldn't on the American side to move forward but I still wouldn't want to oversell that and I think anyway it would bump up against problems on the Iranian side my concern is failure of another round of talks you know could leave us a bit more in the lurch there's just one other factor that I want to throw in here which is the French presidential election which I think is not an irrelevance to the subject we're talking about because the French have probably been the most out there for reasons that I have to admit are still not clear to me and I think if you did get a change of approach in France you might get a somewhat different E3 approach and I think that you know that could also give us some new opportunities and some new breathing space so I'd be very seriously paying attention to what might happen if there is a post Salkozy political reality in Paris I totally agree with that and Oland has been very cagey that's why I don't know said really anything about Iran but it sets up and it also I think in order not to repeat failed round of talks too many times which I think is an important thing it sets up a situation where you could imagine talks going into other talks and where you could imagine Europe taking a little bit of a leading role while Washington thinks through a new approach and lives through the election season so I think that's the optimistic scenario that you're pointing to please right here on the aisle Steven Stern it can be said that the Middle East Awakening let's not call it the Arab Awakening started in June 2009 in Tehran is there any you've talked about Iranian politics is there any hope in a timeline that might have some weight on this not that it would mean giving up some sort of nuclear program if that timeline of quest for reform in Iran could play a part in all of this I think that's the key question I think in the long term I'm hopeful for Iran and what could emerge out of Iran because in 2009 we saw that there is a real desire for increased democracy in Iran a stronger civil society and secular politics as well and I think the US goal is to facilitate that not by directly becoming involved in Iranian politics and supporting the green movement necessarily but taking the military option off the table if there are military threats against Iran and if there's a military attack against Iran that's a setback for democracy in Iran and unfortunately sanctions also hurt the democratic movement in Iran as well but I think at this point the US doesn't have much leverage so it has to rely on sanctions but I think the major US policy goal toward Iran should be not just to stop the nuclear program I think that's important but help more democratic Iran emerge in the future because if there's a more democratic Iran that's relatively more amenable to US interests even if it's led by the green movement then a nuclear armed Iran or a virtual nuclear Iran is not as big of an issue we have to remember that the nuclear program got its start in the 60s with US assistance we didn't want the shot necessarily to have nuclear weapons we weren't as anxious before regarding Iran having nuclear weapons I think again the core problem is the regime in Iran but I think a lot of what we're doing right now the almost obsession with the Iranian nuclear program really hurts our core interests regarding Iran and that is to see a more democratic Iran emerge in the future will it happen in the next few months or years most likely not in the current process it could take years or decades and the key is to have the patience I'm not sure if we could have the patience given our political interests and process on that point of the green movement, the reform, the pro-democracy movement and Iran, one of the main points of criticism that you hear from GOP candidates and others is that although the president lost squandered a very important opportunity in 2009 if only he had supported an agreement more vocally and vigorously I mean I've never seen anyone actually describe that process so it's sort of a free a free hit that they're able to give what's your take of that criticism how should, did the president respond appropriately well in 2009 we're still trying to stop the Iranian nuclear program through engagement so what is the United States going to do tell the Iranian regime we want to sit down and talk with you but in reality we don't want you at the table but I think in 2009 the U.S. made the right decision there was still some hope that compromise could be made on the nuclear program and that's why we didn't have very strong advocacy from the White House in 2009 I think hopes for the green movement have diminished so there is a stronger pressure on the United States to advocate for democracy movement in Iran and this is something the United States can do through even rhetoric alone if the United States condemns Iran's human rights abuses for example I think that resonates widely in Iran if we keep telling Iranians they can have a nuclear program that could have more of a unifying effect in Iran I'm not saying Iranians want a nuclear weapons program but the way the regime has portrayed the program is a matter of national pride but I think if the United States concentrates on human rights for example not just saying we support the green movement but we support Iranians right to democracy I think that resonates with Iranians much more so than being focused on a nuclear program because I think Iranians have the impression that the United States is solely concerned about its security interests in the Middle East and protecting allies like Israel and doesn't really care about the Iranian public very much whether that's true or not I think it's open to debate but the perception is there and I think that hurts U.S. policy Up here on the aisle the lady Dan Perlman School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution as you've suggested sanctions probably has the opposite effect and one problem is the public's belief that if they're not working then we have to make them more willing and more biting so my question is about what about other kinds of tension reducing approaches and also like the Turkey, Brazil intervention during the 2010 nuclear non-proliferation treaty that was a significant accomplishment and also Finland and you mentioned like France what about other parties sort of intervening and helping also with a face-saving way out for Iran rather than kind of coercion, humiliation backing into a corner Can I just correct a premise of your question which I think is really important it's not the case that the public thinks that about sanctions the public doesn't think about sanctions there is a sector of the foreign policy establishment and our political establishment that think that either because they genuinely believe it and I think some of these folks do genuinely believe it and there is a sector of folks who have picked up more and more and more sanctions either to cover themselves politically or because they genuinely believe that it's an alternative to war but it has nothing to do with broad public opinion and I'm going to let you comment on what else we should be doing I think using third parties has a very limited effect I think the United States and Iran solve their issues directly if you bring countries like Turkey yes it's good in terms of opening communication but right now Iran doesn't really trust Turkey it sees Turkey as a regional rival and it doesn't see Brazil as a major player in the region so going through other parties I just don't think it's going to be that effective it can open up communication which should be the case but it's not going to necessarily lead to a solution and achieve that solution but they have their own foreign policy objectives and interests at heart there's been this idea of getting the UN involved how does that play I just don't think broadening negotiations really works I think you can make the argument the P5 plus 1 mechanism is faulty because again you don't have bilateral dialogue with Iran the United States always filters communications and engagement through other parties and I don't see how that can be effective for example let's say if Iran obtains a nuclear weapons capability and the US fails to destroy the Iranian regime and we have to move toward a policy of containment and regardless of whether we want it or not that's a possibility that we can be moving toward containment we still need to communicate with the Islamic Republic to prevent accidental war being the primary reason and we just can't do that through other parties we need direct communication with somebody in Tehran I just think it really plays into the hands of the current regime in their own self-perception and gives that nice diversionary foreign enemy to push back against where Iran is so high on the agenda I think there are much more important issues in the Middle East to be addressing right now I think it's what I call right sizing I just think this ain't gonna happen but I just think a much more chill out approach to allow, give the breathing space for some of these things to percolate inside Iran and also in the region let's see the lie of the land I think Iran has taken a very serious hit in terms of its capacity to project its power in the Middle East in the last few months and I don't think we have factored that in the last year we have not factored that in to our approach to Iran it's like everything has changed around it we're head against the wall banging and banging as if nothing had happened I think that's a great point Ali and I discussed this a few weeks ago in terms of the sort of bargaining process that the United States and as far as I've been in with Iran it's a very strange way of bargaining because we've been telling Iran for ten years how valuable those goods are and how little we want to pay for them and given the events of the last year these goods became potentially much more valuable to them I think we can take one or two more questions I know that Ali has to step out so why don't we just go ahead and take two together Khaled, the two gentlemen right here in the front row I'm Dick Klass, retired Air Force Colonel I think we're not making the proper distinction between an Iranian nuclear program and an Iranian nuclear weapons program there is this arcane argument within the bounds of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IEAE about whether or not Iran is entitled to a full fuel cycle peaceful nuclear program some of the lawyers say no and some of the lawyers say yes it seems to me that in fact someone recently made a statement that any Iranian nuclear program is a red line and intolerable well they've got the reactor we gave them in the 60s they've got to react to the Russian setup that I guess is now operational but if there is a solution to this problem in my mind and I want to know if you agree it has to be that Iran is allowed under proper inspection some sort of peaceful nuclear program in order to save face or prepare for the future when their oil runs out so my question is is there a way to structure a solution that gives Iran a civilian nuclear program under proper safeguards and can avoid directly facing the issue of a nuclear weapons program my question is on something that Heather raised an I2M struck by the absence of discussion or debate on the regional dimension particularly implications for Syria so my question to the panel is how does the Syria dynamic effect the current sort of stalemate even in thinking about what to do with regard to Syria how does that affect Iran's calculations in its crisis or in its discussions whether with the P5 or sort of the US-Israel Iran triangle and vice versa how does the Iranian Iran nuclear issue affect Bashar's calculations with regard to his crackdown in Syria don't you want to answer that first on the question of face saving measures I mean the possibilities for that Ali Iran is entitled to enriching uranium that's not the question the issue is that the Iranian government has been very dodgy about its intense regarding potential nuclear weapons capability it hasn't opened up its sights it hasn't come clean to the IAEA about whether it's been conducting nuclear weapons tests designing warheads to carry nuclear weapons so I think that is a major issue that we can't verify what Iran is doing fully and of course Iran claims that they're not going to open up their military sites because it could open them up to sabotage I think that's an excuse to some extent but at the same time their nuclear scientists are being killed so what kind of message does that send if they open up their sites again it's the issue of Iran losing face having its credibility damaged but lots of countries are have the capability to enrich uranium the problem is that the Islamic Republic we suspect the Islamic Republic of having a nuclear weapons intent we don't suspect Japan of doing that so we're comfortable with Japan's intentions against I think the core issue is the Islamic Republic and its intentions so on your question this to me is the key problem for the next few months and we have not started thinking about it at all because one thing that actually makes this different to go back to the very first question from 2002 to 2003 is in the US and international context Iran's outrageously bad human rights record has not been part of the justification for using force at all that in part because Iranian human rights advocates and democracy activists have spoken out against war there hasn't you haven't had the kind of human rights case for war with Iran the longer that we see atrocities going on in Syria and the longer that it's clear that Iran with Russia is Syria's last patron the more that is going to become another source of indictment for the Iranian of the Iranian regime and that it's how can you argue with that so that is going to make politics of it a lot more complicated in the US and also in the region second if you think about it from Assad's perspective if he still seems to believe that he can ride this out and but that he needs Iran's support to do that then you are the two problems are inextricably yoked together as I said I thought it was incredibly poor timing of John McCain to call for bombing Syria the week that everyone else is here in town bombing Iran but if it moves us more quickly toward that discussion which I think we need to have that there's just a huge geopolitical problem there and then the third point I would make which I'm not the expert on and which I wasn't kidding when I asked if you wanted to answer your own question assume that there's not an easy quick answer to either Syria or Iran and that in three or six months you have had maybe no major breakthroughs on the nuclear program but continuing sputtering along continuing carnage in Syria continuing frustration in the region and at a certain point sectarian spillover which Iran is perceived rightly or wrongly to be implicated what do we do when the arms deliveries start trickling over into Lebanon and Iran is implicated in that and what's the plan for preventing a regional conflagration that pulls Iran in and pulls Israel in and pulls the US in in a way that actually has very little to do with Iran's nuclear program but then brings these arguments back together and I actually think that in a funny way we may find ourselves missing this nuclear argument in a couple months I think that's one of the problems is and I think it's one of the problems in the Syria situation right now is we're in no position to even try and do business I mean it's been a problem in Iran and now as you look at you look at an arc of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and I mean the this is being played this is a regional clash being played out primarily in Syria now but not exclusively and you know our inability to do anything transactional with them I think is I'm assuming Kofi Annan fails on Syria which isn't really going out on much of a limb but but I imagine that the options that he will be looking at is there anything one can do with Russia and with the Iranians to influence the Syrian outcome if he can achieve anything I think that takes us into a new place and that would be very interesting but you know I think some in the Gulf and also some in Israel do tend to play very fast and loose with their designs for deploying the American military and I think that is a question America has to ask itself and I think Heather gave us a brilliant analysis of the ways in which to think about that and to understand that but I don't think it's as simple as we get rid of Assad and that weakens Iran it changes I mean it could get really really messy so it is messy your use of the word transactional actually I want to come back on that because what that suggests is that the thing my human rights friends are going to kill me when they see this what Anan should be doing is going to Tehran and going to Moscow and saying what are you prepared to do to avoid a regional conflagration that brings the US and Israel in with no choice and what that looks like is really ugly and it's not the responding to mass killings frame that we've been given for Syria and I'm not sure coming back to the US political context and also the European political context and also the Arab street political context that that's going to be an acceptable frame but what you've both just said suggests that that's the best that could be done alright well thank you very much to each of the panelists for this discussion thank you all for being here and thanks to the new America Foundation