 Good afternoon. I'll just give everyone a minute to get seated. We can get going. All right, welcome Thank you very much for coming today to the Carnegie Endowment. I'm Karim Sajid for a senior fellow here our Discussion today is about the state of US-Iran relations This month marks the 40th anniversary of the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran So we'll talk a little bit about the past present and future of US-Iran relations I wanted to also welcome our audiences who are watching Watching on television both a C-span audience and for the first time we're broadcasting this simultaneously in Iran version Translation with Iran international. So welcome to audiences in Iran and throughout the US Our panel is well known to most of you here, so I'll just introduce them very briefly Let me start off to my to the far right general David Petraeus Who was formerly the commander of US forces in the Middle East the former director of the CIA? He's now in the private sector in New York with KKR To general Petraeus is left is Suzanne Maloney at the Brookings Institute one of the most thoughtful scholars of Iran over the years who was previously also at the State Department and to my right is Ambassador Bill Burns who was formerly Deputy Secretary of State He's the president of the Carnegie Endowment and he's the author of a terrific new book called the back channel And I'd like to start with a two-part question for all of y'all start with you with you Bill and You had several decades working on the Middle East at the State Department You were never obviously based in Tehran But in your book you recount two interesting memos that you wrote to both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Advocating for a different approach to Iran. So I'm curious when you look back over the last four decades Do you think that there were examples? There were opportunities whereby we could have United States could have Engaged Iran taken a different approach towards Iran that may have changed the adversarial nature of US-Iran relations as they are now Well, thanks. First. Let me say it's great to be here at Carnegie I guess I'm supposed to say that as the president of Carnegie But it's a it's especially nice to share a stage with Dave Petraeus and Suzanne and Karine three people from whom I have enormous respect You mentioned the two memos that I had done when I was the number three and state department at the end of the George W. Bush Administration the beginning of the Obama administration in which I made, you know, a quite consistent argument I guess demonstrating that the deep state is capable of making the same arguments to both Republican and Democratic administrations, but You know, essentially the argument was even though the situations are not at all analogous of Containment as it was applied in the Cold War Toward the Soviet Union in American strategy and dealing with Iran since the Iranian Revolution 40 years ago that I think in many ways you can borrow from that Original concept and by that I mean both in terms of diagnosis in other words We're dealing with you know a leadership and a country with whom we have profound differences It's capable in the case of Iran in a regional not a global context Inflicting the fair amount of damage on us and our interests But also a regime that has its own internal contradictions its own historical insecurities a huge amount of Baggage and mistrust and grievance on both sides. So that's the diagnosis the prescription I think is similar in the following respects that what I thought then and continue to think today is that What you need to do in terms of American strategy is push back Against external overreach by that leadership in this case Iran in the Middle East You need not to be shy about your concerns about human rights But it also makes sense to selectively engage on areas where you can help manage a largely adversarial Relationship in the case of Iran it had to do you know in the Obama administration Especially with the most imminent threat, which was an unconstrained nuclear program So the short answer to your question in my view is that I was always skeptical that there was some grand bargain out There are some overnight transformation in the US Iranian relationship that was possible I do think we missed some tactical opportunities to better manage the relationship one example is right after 9-11 When we dealt pretty seriously and extensively Brian Crocker was the first of the American diplomats whom Dave and I both know well Working with the Iranians who had both a stake in what came after the Taliban in Afghanistan and a fair amount of leverage as well And that was a useful cold-blooded Partnership in that era we might have used that as the basis to begin engaging on the nuclear issue Remembering that at that point, you know Iran was spinning dozens of centrifuges not the thousands that they were spinning when we later engaged So I do think we missed a moment then because after the axis of evil speech in early 2002 that effectively cut off That channel so that's one example of a place where we weren't in a position I think to transform the relationship was going to be largely adversarial, but I think we could have managed it in a more effective way In the cold-blooded interests of both sides So you played a critical role in the back channel negotiations with Iran and Oman which then led to the JCPOA Which you negotiated the first part of that and I'm curious What was your biggest one or two takeaways from your dealings with Iran that perhaps you would share with the current Trump administration? Sure, well, I'm not sure anybody's looking for my free advice these days as a recovering diplomat You know, I think the lesson for me anyways that notwithstanding the largely adversarial relations nature of the relationship It was possible through selective hard-nosed engagement to produce tangible results And I think what I took away from you know long experience in dealing with senior Iranian officials was Several things first that you had to deal with the Iranian leadership as a unitary actor We always got ourselves in trouble in previous administrations when we tried to gain the Iranian political system searching for moderates and Hardliners and others were not very good at that And I think it's important to deal with the leadership as a as a unitary actor Recognizing that there are all sorts of factions and differences, but it doesn't make sense I think to try to game at second leverage matters And it wasn't a coincidence that we began the secret talks direct bilateral talks with the Iranians in early 2013 their oil exports had dropped by 50 percent the value of the Iranian currency had dropped by 50 percent So you would set the stage I think for a more serious negotiation But then third and not least you had to connect that leverage to realistic aims And that's where I get concerned about the current approach, which at least on the face of it Seems to suggest that the aims are either Capitulation or Implosion and I think those are aims that are not tethered to history at least as I've understood it Thank you general patrice. I want to ask you the opposite question. I asked ambassador Burns, which is Were there opportunities in your opinion that we miss perhaps to either? Counter Iran to to check the regional ambitions in particular one of the questions which comes up was perhaps an Opportunity for the United States or Israel to assassinate the Iranian Revolution guard commander awesome. Soleimani. So here's how you would respond to that Well, first of all, let me also say that I feel privileged to be on stage with three individuals for whom I also have great respect Second I want to add a tiny bit to what bill said because as he will recall We actually did reach out and conduct negotiations with the Iranians in Baghdad During the course of the surge Ambassador Crocker was the negotiator The challenge was we had three rounds of this and we thought there might be some opportunity to make some headway with them But the fact was that it was very clear that there was no room at all for the negotiators They literally would have to leave the room and make phone calls back to Tehran literally to ask How do we respond to this particular? Particular point or question from Ambassador Crocker's so they had no latitude. They weren't true negotiators. They were just a mouthpiece And that was disappointing. We thought there was some opportunity Beyond that, you know look I couldn't either confirm to deny that we ever contemplated Doing something to cost him Soleimani I can tell you that cost him Soleimani never set foot in Iraq during the time that I commanded the surge nor the time That I was at SENTCOM I Forget where he was during Afghanistan and he was very careful when I have just happened to be the director of the CIA He really traveled only in two countries that I recall and those were obviously Iran and then in Syria There were some other opportunities You know if you always got to get the big ideas right and I think the biggest of the big ideas with Iran Was that you have to be firm? They will probe you they will test you if you don't respond. They'll push a little bit further And there may have been some opportunities The challenge was always the politics within Iraq So for example when the Erbil five were detained by our special operations forces in January of 2007 These are five could source operatives who were up to no good in a very significant way And I was not yet the commander. I was still going through the confirmation process at that time I remember it though, and I remember the pressure was enormous From I believe from both the president and the prime minister of Iraq at that time that we had to release them And I talked to general Casey and my predecessor about that later on And it seemed as if we just had no real choice again. It was a moment of real inflection here We are we need the prime minister's support for the surge The biggest of the big ideas of which were all contrary to what he had just agreed to accelerate with President Bush In a meeting in Amman, Jordan in late November of 2006 so again I think the politics were just very very difficult the same is true When it came to releasing Ali Musa doc Duke remember he was a very high-ranking Lebanese as Bullah official who was detained together with Kaisa Kizali and late Kizali who were Part of the Asaba Hawk later on they were militia leaders who had carried cold-blooded murder of five of our soldiers We found the very detailed evidence not just intelligence on that That's what prevented and frankly the prime minister from demanding that we release them after they were detained I was very disappointed to see Some five years after they were detained that they were tried by an Iraqi court and basically found not guilty of anything Despite the extraordinary evidence that we had Connecting them with those murders. I'm frankly the same with Kaisa Kizali Who is now a militia leader and despite a constitution that prevents? Militia leaders from being in the or the law that prevents them from being in the council representatives is a member of the The COR so, you know welcome back to the land of the two rivers It's an interesting place as always so I think you know there were some of those those are still pretty tactical opportunities in the same way bill I think talks about the others there was the outreach from of course Kasim Soleimani to me through President Taliban in March of 2008 When we were fighting against the Shia militia a very significant battle in Basra and He wanted to be sure that I knew that he Haji Kasim Soleimani and also Haji Kasim Controlled the policy for Iran when it came to Iraq Syria Lebanon Gaza and Afghanistan and now presumably probably put Yemen in there as well Let's never forget that it is the Quds force that controls the policy Not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or some other state organization Again, there was no real opportunity for constructive dialogue at that point in time though You know there's as I said audience is watching in Iran and as the former director of the CIA I think they'd be very curious to know I'm curious frankly to know how you would rate American intelligence on Iran both in terms of Assessments our understanding of Iranian societal political trends and our you know technical capacities First let me actually say hello to the Iranian people Believe it or not We used to have a lot of interaction with them because I would go to the border crossings between Iraq and Iran There were a lot of reasons to inspect those frankly and we had quite careful procedures for that And I wanted to make sure that they were being followed But inevitably we would encounter a flood of Iranian religious Tourists who were going to Najaf Karbala the other holy sites of Shia Islam, of course Najaf is the holiest and Coincidentally it was the division I was privileged to command the 101st Airborne Division that liberated those sites during the fight to Baghdad When I was a two-star general so I felt a certain continuing connection to Najaf and to Karbala And it's pretty well known that we worked very hard To make sure that there wasn't even a nick in the famous gold dome mosque in Najaf even though we are being shot at quite significantly from areas near that So we used to engage with them and it was fascinating. They actually were very positive in fact Iranian old Iranian women women would come up and they would always want to grab you by the cheek and you know General Petraeus, you know so good to see you and my security needless to say Thought they were going for the jugular on most occasions. It was not the case when it came to ours our Intelligence I have always felt that it was really quite solid There are some very specific examples of this that the so-called Secret site say at Fordow at near-gold I mean we knew about that for I think it was years and it was they Declared it when they discovered somehow that we were about to out them on this We were going to announce it to the world that there was this secret site that they had not declared And generally again it comes and goes as methods and sources and all the rest of that are Good or you know not turn out to be not so good over time inevitably But together with other countries who also have really quite good intelligence inside Iran I felt that we had quite a solid understanding There's a tiny degree of sense of black box about the supreme leader and the Inner circle needless to say But I think that's not unlike other countries where again trying to truly read the mind of a leader Has always been more than in imperfect science So then I want to ask you to bring us to the present state of play Obviously you can feel free to reflect on some of general Petraeus and ambassador Burns comments about the context But in particular, I'm curious for your Assessment of the Trump administration's current approach towards Iran. I wrote a piece this morning in which I argue I think this perhaps never been a greater discrepancy between a president and his national security advisor and that President Trump has made it pretty clear that he Has no interest in conflict in the Middle East. He's not a democracy guy He has an affinity for autocrats whereas John Bolton has has a long history of advocating for conflict Regime change with Iran. So your assessment of the Trump administration's approach And then how you think Iran is most likely to respond in the coming weeks and months Great. Well, thank you so much, and I'm really honored to be part of this discussion with such a distinguished group of speakers I think it's important to talk about the Trump administration's policy with this backdrop of the history of US-Iran relations and with the awareness that while there have been moments in time in almost every administration since 1979 That the US and Iran might have come into a different opportunity for some kind of more productive dialogue I think it's overly romanticized often that if only we had accepted or permitted the Oil deal that was offered to Conoco the first upstream deal in Iran since the revolution in 1995 or if only we had made good on talks that began or avoided language like Like axis of evil somehow things would have been different. We have been confronting with Iran Regime which is very much formulated around a presumption of anti-Americanism a Regime that for most of its post-revolutionary history has been unwilling to engage directly in public Authoritative fashion with the United States with only a couple of exceptions Which of course have already been referenced here in the post 9-11 opportunities some of the dialogues that took place when general Petraeus was in Baghdad and Most recently of course the negotiations that led up to the JCPOA We have become accustomed I think to seeing Javad Zarif on our television screens the Iranian foreign minister speaking directly to the American people and to the American President but of course that is a relatively new feature of the bilateral dynamic and and it's important to remember that for Most of the past 40 years. We've been laboring with the difficulty of an adversary that has often Saw it to avoid any direct dialogue with us I think that's no longer the case today and that is one of the few advantages to the situation That we find ourselves in in the aftermath of the trump administration's decision to walk away from the iran nuclear deal As kareem points out very eloquently in the piece that he's published today in the atlantic There is this divergence. That's Very obvious between the president and his national security cabinet and it's been a consistent one almost since the the campaign period Remember President Trump campaigned on renegotiating the Iran deal He distinguished himself even back then in 2015 2016 from the other Republicans in the race who are all promising to rip up the deal on day one the president sees himself as a negotiator This is his background as a wheeler dealer in the real estate business And he is quite convinced I think genuinely that he could somehow produce a better bargain with the iranians then was Negotiated after more than a decade of talks through two administrations from both parties here in in washington And with the cooperation of the other permanent five members of the un security council plus germany President trump thinks he can do better than that Let him have his opportunity. Of course what he has staffed himself with Is a national security cabinet and I I don't uh limit this simply to the national security advisor john bolton But a cabinet that really is invested in this notion that pressure on iran will work if sufficiently applied And I think we're living in a real-time experiment You know, we all remember at least those of us in washington and certainly those of you and iran will remember the intense debates that took place around the negotiations that began with iran at least in public fashion in 2013 and then around the nuclear deal once it was concluded in 2015 Was it enough should we have gone for broke? We for the first time in post-revolutionary history had assembled a multilateral coalition That was in fact applying real economic pressure to iran This had never happened before in any serious fashion not even when american diplomats were held hostage in iran For the first time this economic pressure was working It was appearing to produce some new readiness on the part of as I said a regime that had been unwilling to engage In a serious way on this issue or many others for many years Why didn't we simply push it to the natural limit and try to get everything try to get a much bigger better deal I think what you're seeing right now in terms of the kind of strategic impasse that this Administration is facing with respect to iran is that's fine rhetoric and that pressure for the sake of pressure may Keep iran in a box for a period But it doesn't actually produce a resolution to the situation and so long as you have iran Facing a virtual economic war With his back against the wall with no serious opportunity for engaging with this administration Although obviously foreign ministers are reefs recent appearance on fox news and his trip to new york last week I think was evidence that they're open to trying As long as this regime is backed into a corner We are all very much at the mercy of the decision making in tehran And that is quite a worrisome thing because there's really only one Alternative that the regime has to its at its disposal at this point in time that can work to its advantage people worry about will iran Break out of the nuclear deal will they retaliate again? Retaliate against us forces in the region. These are all reasonable concerns legitimate concerns But the real advantage to iran doesn't come from either of those moves the real advantage comes to iran If in fact they take some step to disrupt energy supplies coming out of one of their neighbors So long standing strategic precepts for the iranians that if we can't export our neighbors won't be able to export either And the one thing that any disruption to energy supplies would do for iran is raise the price of oil Improve their own bottom line in terms of whatever revenues They're able to repatriate and hurt the president's political capital here at home in terms of being able to continue to apply sanctions And that's a real risk that we face Well, I think that is a real risk I think though that the prospect of president trump responding With military action against iran in iran proper Rather than elsewhere, which has generally been the approach that we have taken not always obviously there's certainly reports of alleged covert action in various locations But I think that that that the situation is different. I think president trump presents Sort of an unknown risk to them He has taken action in syria when red lines were crossed. It was proportionate measured and so forth But I think that's a concern but There's no doubt that this is going to hurt a country that already is in a very significant recession Already has very significant inflation really substantial inflation and already is Watching the real its currency declined very precipitously And so it is going to be in a very tough spot And the question I think is just whether or not they're going to grit their teeth and try to Bear this and tough it out noting that there are there have been lots of signs of unrest Not coordinated but just somewhat spontaneous demonstrations throughout the country Unlike in the past where they're generally with some organizing feature or function or you know in the wake of the election for example in tehran in this case And there's also environmental degradation that's now starting to cause real movement of people inside with again mismanagement of water On and on the challenges I think are very very substantial and again Do they just tough it out till november 2020 hope for someone other than president trump to be elected? Or do they actually come to the table sometime next year and say hey, well, let's uh, let's talk about this Because then you wrote a book about iran's political economy worked at eggs on What's your sense of whether they can sustain they could conceivably go below or at 500,000 barrels per day exported is that something that iran can sustain until november 2020? I think it's an unanswerable question in the sense that iran can muddle through an enormous amount of economic duress We've seen this over the past 40 years on repeated occasions most notably during the 1980s When the war with iraq was raging and the saudis for reasons that had more to do with market share than to do with iran decided to try to break opec and Expanded production to the point that drove iranian oil revenues down to less than 10 million Less than 10 billion dollars a year This was an enormously painful episode for iran and yet it did not produce a change in iran's approach To the war with iraq at least not in the near term And it did not at that time provoke the kind of internal debate within the system about What are the choices that we face today because that simply wasn't permissible I think that we are in a different position today in iran we've seen these kinds of debate about the choices available to the regime and the alternatives that the system faces if in fact it cannot sustain the degree of economic productivity and at least some sense That there are going to be that there's a light at the end of the tunnel There's a debate both within the regime, but there's also a debate on the streets as general patreus suggested iran has been experiencing a considerable degree A very small scale but persistent unrest almost entirely driven by economic considerations And so to the extent that the sole priority for the leadership of the islamic republic is the preservation of the system They have to recognize that any amount of economic duress Particularly one that doesn't have a natural end state. There isn't a war that can be ended There isn't a drought that can simply be resolved by a change in weather patterns that this is in fact A long-term economic siege that the system has to muddle through My sense is that the the leadership will not try to simply wait it out until 2021 They are trying to demonstrate that they have some staying power that they're not going to collapse immediately And I think it was important, you know, you didn't see Zareef here in september saying that they were Open to a prisoner negotiations. They waited until it was clear that maximum pressure had been applied But if you think back to to the 20 to the 2013 negotiations even the back channel conversations That wasn't it was a period of months between the application of the full weight of american financial sanctions targeting iran's energy exports And the beginning of some of those more productive conversations with the iranians And I think it was a recognition at the time that they simply While they might be able to muddle through they simply didn't want to because it endangered the long-term vitality of the system Today those pressures are even more acute with 80 million iranians and 160 million sim cards a cell phone in every hand The fact that information disperses very quickly the fact that there is already a jockeying for succession Around the future of the supreme leader who has recently turned 80 This is a system that recognizes that it doesn't have time to spare And so I think they're looking for a way out of the impasse that they're facing Unfortunately the administration despite the fact that the president himself may be interested in a negotiation Hasn't created any kind of a credible platform or framework for negotiations It's possible. They're doing this behind the scenes by oman. There were many Worried about what the obama administration was doing back in 2012 Before it became clear that some of these conversations were already underway But it we don't see any evidence of it either from iran's behavior Or from this administration And I think again that lack of a of a direct channel to try to find a way out of this impasse is going to be something That turns the iranians away from potentially some kind of diplomatic dialogue and in the direction of trying to provoke a crisis They don't have to join well I I think it's entirely possible this time that they're driven down to below 500 000 barrels Maybe even lower. I mean there are going to be some That are produced by sino peck and another chinese company that are actually doing the production presumably export. Maybe that slides through But I think again the situation is different. This administration is different The waivers that were allowed obviously are going away. There were still some there and you know, both bill and I were in position back The last time this was done And this was very carefully calibrated and then as we were reminiscing I was the one who went to the saudis and asked I'll I'll jubore the ambassador To convey the need to produce additional one million barrels and to Either tell the market or go out and individually tell countries so that the market wouldn't spook and by the way it did not I think The saudis will pick up the slack again this time along with the emirates, perhaps the iraqis and then our shale producers But I think you're going to see this It's entirely likely that it could go well below 500 000 barrels that chinese At a time of these very sensitive trade negotiations don't want to pick a fight with the us over a few hundred thousand barrels The boil that probably can be replaced again by the saudis the emirates or others India I don't think again wants to to get crosswise either So I think this is a very different situation for the iranians and the other factor I didn't mention of course is as a result of all of the Developments that I mentioned There's increased unemployment in the country that already was suffering from a lot of unemployment So this is a very very difficult situation that they face I'm sure we'll get back to some of those in the q&a But I want to we'll go to the jcpa iran deal, which was one of the most hotly Debated geopolitical decisions of the last decade in the US Notice that and is Coming to the fore again Certainly the democratic primary debate. It seems to be one of the chief Foreign policy questions the decision whether or not the united states should should go back to the jcpa In the event that the jcpa is is sustains itself over the over the next couple years So my question to you is how would you? How do you see the future of the jcpa? Imagine it is able to survive Which is not a foregone conclusion over the next two years And a democratic administration comes to office. What would you be? What would be your advice in terms of how to think about the future of the jcpa? Sure, let me before I get to that question. Let let me just make two points on on What david susanna been saying First, I do think the situation is in some ways different today I do not underestimate the capacity of the united states through the unilaterally in position of sanctions To do an awful lot of economic damage to iran and you're right. The energy market is different too However, I come back to a point. I made at the start and that is that that kind of leverage and pressure only works If it's connected to a realistic set of aims and my concern right now is what's on offer For the iranians the 12 points that secretary Pompeo laid out Is in effect aimed not at producing a better deal But at producing either the capitulation of this iranian regime or its implosion Neither of which I think is is tethered to history as I suggested before So that's one point the second is just simply to state That you know, I believe that the president's decision to pull out of the jcpa way was an historic mistake And I think that for the following reasons first You know, it's done a lot of collateral damage not just to our credibility in terms of negotiating with other countries Against a pattern of retreat not just from the iran nuclear agreement But from the paris climate agreement from the trans pacific partnership the big trade agreement in asia That's first second I think it does actually widen the fissures between us and our closest european allies who are trying to Hold the agreement together in effect doing vladimir putin's work forum Third I think it is eroding over time the efficacy of sanctions because sanctions worked in the run-up to The talks that began in 2013 because they were widely shared However grudgingly on the part of russia and china and some others It was it was an international effort that brought real pressure to bear And I think by unilaterally reimposing sanctions You have even the foreign minister of germany one of our closest allies standing up a year ago and saying All of us need to reduce our vulnerability to the u.s financial system. So that's a cost. It's not going to be Seen overnight or next year, but we'll wake up five or six years from now and find that that tool Which we've not always used wisely in the past is less effective. So to answer your question If you assume That the agreement holds together, which is a big assumption because I do think there's a real danger of inadvertent collisions I take general patreus's point that the iranian regime may be very careful in dealing with this president But you know as we both know the middle east is the land of where stuff happens things happen You can escalate very quickly We've been all very fortunate in the last two and a half years in this administration that the united states has not faced The prolonged international crisis I never served in an administration where you went that long without a prolonged international crisis But I worry about the incoherence that kareem mentioned, you know between the president and some of the senior advisors And our capacity to manage that kind of an escalation. So but if you assume The agreement is still living and breathing You know in january 2001 and you have a different administration I think it would make sense to do two things first to resume You know our compliance with the jcp jcpoa to rejoin it But simultaneously you would have to start, you know a serious negotiation a kind of follow-on negotiation, which You know, I've always experienced any arms control process that I've been involved in Which would deal with some of the obvious challenges in the jcpoa Some of the provisions in that agreement the so-called sunset clauses would be much closer to their expiry We'd have to begin a conversation about a range of other issues that are not dealt with in that comprehensive nuclear agreement And ballistic missile development To begin a conversation about challenges where we bump into each other across the middle east So I think so long as we were able to couple a resumption of u.s participation in that agreement with a serious negotiation Simultaneously about follow-on understandings. I think that's what would make sense Thank you. I want to move in a second to audience questions. So please Think about what you'd like to ask, but I'd be remiss for If I neglect Following question, which I'll oppose to all of you two part and you can feel free to to take Each question or ignore them, but it was the decision to Trump administration's decision to designate the revolutionary guards a terrorist organization This is a decision that I know the bush administration was contemplating Bomb administration was contemplating But it was You know revolutionary guards have over the last decade become Iran's most important economic political institution What are the ramifications of that designation? Do you agree with it? And then second What we've seen over the last decade and a half in the Middle East is kind of Iran trying to McDonaldize the Hezbollah model, you know to to franchise Hezbollah from Lebanon to Iraq to Syria to Yemen And at a time when most Americans don't want a greater presence in the Middle East How do we contend with you also prop general portrays we can start with you and then we'll come well sure first of all I am not sure that the this latest designation is as significant as it sounds Because they had already irgc had already been designated by the treasury department, which is the one that frankly most counts and there are already some I if you call them exceptions or explanations of what the latest designation actually means um, given how Entwined the irgc is as you mentioned in the economy the diplomacy and all the other activities So i'm not so sure that this is a This is very important in rhetorical policy and that does matter That is not insignificant For the state department and so forth Uh, but again the big designation is the one that generally follows the treasury and that had already identified The irgc not just the coups force again as a essentially a terrorist entity um, the second Look, I think it's very important to understand that iran has for some time Wanted to lebanonize iraq and syria as you Described it and in other words they want to do in those countries what they have done successfully Uh in lebanon, which is to create a very powerful Paramilitary force which gives them enormous muscle on the street particularly in syria Areas of a country And then to follow that by getting that same force enormous power in the parliament In the legislature of a country To the point that lebanon its coalition around his bullet actually has a blocking veto if they choose to use that More difficult to do this in in syria certainly where there's always been some differences to begin with And it's not quite the same kind of structure and so forth But iraq, I think this is a a significant challenge The council of representatives does have some members as I mentioned earlier Who actually are leaders of the militia the hash tashabi the popular mobilization forces One of the big challenges that this very impressive leadership team of the president the prime minister and speaker of the council of representatives in rock have is how to Deal with the fact that not all of the entities That have Force if you will as you all know, you know a government has to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force This is a problem if you have an element such as those in the hash tashabi Noting by the way, and we should all acknowledge that they did serve iraq At a time when the islamic state was literally knocking on the doors or on the walls of bagdad And did come to the service of their country and tragically The situation was allowed to reach that point where The grand ayatollah in najaf actually had to essentially say Now is the time to come to the aid of your country Which legitimized the return of these militia to the street militia that you will recall have been destroyed Back during the battles of march and april 2008 In basra throughout the southern provinces in sodder city and khatami and a variety of other places So with that understanding Again, what do we have to do it comes back to what bill was talking about with actions to undermine the effectiveness of elements that would like to again take control of iraq In iraq a country that has to have a relationship with iran again It's always going to be its bigger neighbor to the east. We have to understand that we have to try not to be an obstacle to that But it should be a mutually productive Mutually beneficial relationship not one in which iran can lean on iraq And get what they want done through various levers of power that they control Now what else do we need to do? Well, we should certainly make sure That whatever our plans for syria are That we do not allow the establishment of a ground line of communication And i'm talking now about a hardball road. You can go through the desert in various places Iraq and into syria, but we're talking about big trucks that would carry major items of equipment And we should ensure together with our iraqi partners that iraq does not become a line a ground line of communication from Iran through iraq through syria and down into southern lebanon in hezbollah or to iranian military industries in syria, which clearly israel Our ally has shown that they will not allow So to avoid that turning into a bigger crisis again I think we can make a major contribution By staying as we have at the border crossing at al-taf Which is one of the two hardball crossings the other one obviously being of al-qaim and husaba And in this reasonably well covered i think by iraqi security forces together with some of our Coalition forces, so that's a very very significant goal It was something that could have been called into question by a complete withdrawal from syria, but reportedly is very Much in the forefront of the mind in the white house state and defense Because then i'd also like to ask both you and bill There are some concerns, you know arab gulf officials claim that they've picked up intelligence that iran is planning to Go after them in the region as a reaction to U.s escalation obviously go after them be a proxies So in addition to the earlier questions i posed if you can talk about maybe some of your concerns of possible escalation in the coming months But in terms of the designation itself i tend to be with general patrice i think It it doesn't really change the game in terms of pressure on iran I think some of the reaction here in washington and elsewhere may have contributed to this over hyping of the Of the issue itself Both from the administration, but also from its critics those who immediately Left to the presumption that this was a slippery slope to war I think are reading far too much into the reality of this mechanism And there is a temptation a tendency that i've seen at least for the past dozen years for every group in washington And it again it's deep state it's applied both through republican and democratic administrations To see every evidence of pressure on iran as a step toward war I don't think that has been the case it hasn't proven to be the case to date And i think the fact that you have a commander in chief that for whatever his other flaws It seems to be deeply averse to any kind of military us military intervention in the middle east Is at least something of a check on a deliberate move toward a military crisis in the region As i said i have great concerns about the risks of inadvertent escalation But i don't think this administration is trying to Jump into a war and i'm I don't quite buy into the the hype that the president's advisors are trying to trick him into a war because that's what they're after So i think we have to be careful to analyze the specific steps and their particular implications Rather than to read too much into them In terms of the broader regional influence question and how iran may retaliate against some of its adversaries across the region I think we're left with this you know perennial dilemma What we've found is that Engagement with iran hasn't in fact ameliorated iran's Capacity to extend its influence often in ways that are destabilizing Often in ways that are inimical to us interests and to the broader interests in a peaceful prosperous middle east But we've found that pressure hasn't yet produced A significant change for the better either whether it was under the bush administration Whether it's under the current administration There is some evidence that the sanctions are having an impact on iran's capacity to provide financial support to hezbollah Possibly also on the oil subsidy that has been a long-standing feature of the relationship with syria But ultimately it's not really undermining iran's posture across the region and what we've seen You know if you thought back 20 years ago When i first started working on iran the the idea that iran could in fact be the ascendant power across the levant Would have been inconceivable And so i think we have to begin to look at the other factors obviously they're there and obviously There are lots of folks who spend a lot of time thinking about this But we often have these conversations almost in disjointed ways about iran that is inevitably hegemonic and One that is seemingly all-powerful But we ignore the rest of the the factors that our friends like michelle done spend a lot of time on in terms of leadership and governance across the broader middle east and i think If we want to really address the crisis that iran has contributed to is benefiting from It really is incumbent upon us to think about how we address the vacuum of good governance and and Enlightened leadership in the arab world because that's exactly those those vacuums that iran moves into takes advantage of Sets up these parallel institutions that then in effect hijack and strangle The institutions of the state itself very good points bill Yeah, and i guess that returns me to the original point i've made about containment as a sort of framework for thinking about american strategy toward iran However imperfect the analogy to the soviet union in the old cold war because what Suzanne said is exactly right i mean Part of what animated containment in george kennan's view was the importance of shoring up You know neighboring countries reducing their vulnerabilities and you know, i think right now In an era in which you can see the deeper drivers have changed through how much of the sunni arab world in particular Accelerating and the dysfunctions getting worse. You know, we're doing too much indulging I think of authoritarian regimes who aren't paying attention to those internal problems which create Opportunities for what is essentially a counter punching regime like iran which is not 10 feet tall That takes advantage of the vulnerabilities and dysfunctions of others. So that's an extremely important part I think of a sensible american strategy, which you don't see much in evidence today Beyond that i think it's the point also i've made that of course pressure matters You have to push back against external overreach But that has to be combined With a willingness to selectively engage and not see diplomacy as a favor or a reward for bad behavior But rather as a smart investment because by engaging you're better able to mobilize lots of other countries Who when we can demonstrate? We're not the problem. That's iranian behavior. That's the problem That's what animated, you know a large part of what president obama tried to do and they run up to the nuclear negotiation Good point. So we have about 20 or so minutes for questions and if we can get quick questions We can get quick answers and fit in as many as possible So i'll try to take two at a time this gentleman in the front wait for the microphone and if you can Be brief and introduce yourself as well My name is sufi lagari with the sindhi foundation Just report today came in religious freedom And iran has 300 sufis for sentences Bahai is in problem kurdash is in problem avaz is in problem baloch is in problem I think Administration should take not just to as a regime, but this mullahs is a problem everywhere if we Countering the iran we should not forget about the wahab islam I'm from that region Both are major problem. I don't know how to when you're countering the iran. Also, we have to Not forget about this wahab islam. Okay. Thank you very much. There was a gentleman here Hi, my name is benjamin while up until recently the international policy advisor for the israeli minister of energy who's a security cabinet member My question is regarding The peace talks that we were talking about in the agreement Uh, that seems to tackle one of the legs that iran stands on which is the nuclear program But then there's the other regional problem, whether it's his bala, hamas, khutis, etc And I think that the sanctions are geared to tackle that problem. I was wondering If uh, you see one Solution for both those problems or maybe there needs to be a more complex solution that'll tackle the internal Nuclear problem and the more regional one of support to terrorist activity in the region. Thank you Why don't we take one more is there any anyone in the back? Please in the front here Barbara plescher from the bbc could you all maybe just briefly Talk about what you think the game plan Of this administration is you've you've alluded to it in different ways But if you would just say what you think that the administration is actually up to if indeed it does have a game plan Sure, just very quickly. I mean on game plan You know on the face of it the game plan would be as I was suggesting before Producing through maximum pressure either the capitulation of this regime not the negotiation of a better deal Or it's implosion. Now. I don't think I share the views of my colleagues I don't think president trump himself as a military interventionist, but it it remains You know sort of opaque to me about whether there's a serious negotiating strategy here or not So that's how I'd respond to that question I think that there is a Consensus within the administration that includes the president that pressure is good and pressure for the sake of pressure may produce a desired outcome Now the president would prefer negotiations Much of the rest of the senior cabinet appears to prefer either something that looks like a capitulation or an implosion But for the moment, they're all agreed upon A strategy of maximum pressure and it plays into this presumption that that many hold that you know Iran will bend but it won't bend to a little bit of pressure. You need a lot On the question about whether there's one solution for everything with Iran. I think again This is the experiment we're living out in real time The criticism of the jcpoa was that it didn't deal with the non nuclear issues and that was of course by design It was designed in fact by the bush administration President obama took most of the criticism for it But the negotiations were never intended to address the wider array of issues What I worry about is the fact that the trump administration's action in terms of withdrawing or walking away from the jcpoa Has tainted the idea of transactionalism with Iran the concept that you can solve one problem Continue to disagree on others and and look for solutions on them I think it's going to be much more difficult to strike and sustain A narrow bargain narrow meaning to one set of issues rather than the others and I say that though i'm completely Completely pessimistic because throughout the course of my career that there is a grand bargain to be had with Iran It simply isn't there, but I think we are facing a structural problem in engaging with Iran in the future in that we have now I think Validated the fears and the paranoia of the senior leadership that One small set of concessions will only lead to pressure for concessions on everything else I'm on the first question. I think look there is a legitimate concern about Wabist influence the Saudis in the past obviously have funded A variety of initiatives that promoted that we have seen all of us. I think you've seen The effects in places in europe Bosnia where I spent a year There was an influence of this What has been encouraging Certainly, there are Some issues that give you great disquiet, but what has been encouraging With the vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia is an explicit commitment To dial that back quite considerably and to promote a degree of moderation In the practice of Islam even inside the kingdom and it's not as widely recognized because it was Not broad news, but the the crown prince Also replaced some 50 or so clerics hardline clerics I don't know a year a year and a half ago somewhere around that time as part of the effort to again promote a degree again everything is relative of moderation on the The regional activities are on I do want to Just build a little bit on what susan said about this earlier I do think it's a reasonable question to ask whether or not the sanctions are finally going to reduce iran's capacity to continue to fund Lebanese isballah Bashar al-Assad Militia in iraq militia perhaps the houthis in yemen Some other actors in Bahrain or wherever Again a smaller scale This is going to become I think increasingly difficult In a sense to sell to the public not that they do have to sell it, but it does ultimately come out There have been disclosures about how much money has gone to these different activities And the iranian people are going to say my gosh look what you have done to our economy because of your nefarious activities or your Support of these different groups abroad. We're the ones who are tightening the belt At least spend the money at home and don't keep digging ourselves a bigger hole And then when it comes to the game plan for the administration I think the big question here is are the 12 demands that secretary pompeo announced in his speech? I guess at heritage Not long after he became the secretary of state Are these Opening positions for negotiation or are these absolutely non negotiable? I tend to think that they are the former But again, we will have to see over time whether that's the case And I don't expect anything in the next few months Perhaps even in the remainder of this year The big question is at a certain point in time in the next year Whether or not the iranians calculate that they just again Grit their teeth until the election In hopes of a change or if they agree to come to the table then Some more questions this gentleman here in the center Working Thank you Peter shortly retired state department foreign service. What is the risk that net and yahoo Will look at the situation and say we have a limited window of opportunity Trump may not be around after two more years now is the time to take some military action against iran And we've got the us on our side. What's the risk of that? Can I answer that very quickly and just say that the window of opportunity closed back when Bill was I think still the undersecretary and I was the director of the cia Gentleman here in the front A slightly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely Chairman Howard Berman's leadership of the foreign affairs committee You didn't have the mics just briefly introduce yourself Jim Moran And serving the congress for the while I wanted you to address a couple of issues One is the concept of an arab nato And whether this is not problematic in terms of our long-term objectives and other is The fact that the president has supported mbs's support of general hafter's Assault on the government of libya, which we have Supported as has the united nations seems to be a precedent for further mischief and And dissolution of our long-term plans for the region, but let me just say I couldn't agree more with your insight that Iran Seizes opportunities that are created by these authoritarian enlightened arab leaders And and that may be the source much of the source of the problem. We have thank you. Thank you I was going to say I guess my answer to your two questions congressman would be first I think the first is an illusion the idea of an arab nato in any formal sense We've seen this movie before going back 60 years. It rarely pans out That's not to suggest that there aren't as general patriots knows better than anybody lots of ways in which we can coordinate militarily But the idea of a formal alliance like that is an illusion and the second on Support for general heftar. I think it's foolish You know, I think you know libya lord knows has more than its share of fragilities and insecurities right now But I think it's foolish to assume that there's a military solution here that general heftar is going to produce And so I think all anybody who's supporting him is doing right now You know including the president's phone call to him and you know apparent support Is just going to produce more hardship more trouble for a society that has more than its share already I just build on the first one and great to see you again congressman and former chairman You know when I was a central command commander We thought that the most important way in which you could integrate capabilities And this is without any kind of alliance structure or Military force Was just to start by integrating the ballistic missile Threat warning system Which was not integrated by the way it was a common system generally unbuilt on us Early warning radars and patriots and a variety of others and we had a lot of As you may recall we had batteries of patriots in just about every country up and down the gulf This was at a time when cutter was still a member in good standing of the gcc That is obviously not the case now And frankly we could never actually get them to even allow the others to see their feeds In other words what their radars the radars on their soil that they owned Were actually identifying and so I mean that seemed to me to be a relatively low bar to get over if you really wanted to coordinate activity There's nothing offensive about it. It's entirely defensive And in the end central command ended up by default being the integrator in other words We had the feeds of all of them and then we would put it together in our own ballistic missile defense system So gosh if you can't get to that back in the days when again, generally the gcc was together there were always some reservations by some of the The gulf states that cutter Had relationships with the ron that were a bit concerning Some of that again is just reality They share the biggest one of the biggest gas fields in the world and had to have a relationship But if you couldn't get that Gosh, it's really hard to envision something like a nato And especially now that one of the key gcc members has really been cast out from the fold Not from the gcc, but certainly is being cut off in a variety of other ways Wait, we have time for two quick more questions in the way back. I see a hand Hello, this is gabriela barbatti with voice of america for general patrice I would like to know what's your take about the comments by rance foreign minister georgia reef about the fact that The u.s. Administration may be lured into war By quote accidents and I would add also what if Iran intervened somehow in the Strait of Hormuz. Thank you very much I think it would be very very unwise We're iran to Precipitate some kind of activity in the Strait of Hormuz In general iran has been quite restrained in the kind of activity that characterized some of their actions In the past Where they run a lot of speed boats or these high Capacity speed boats at our ships and all the rest of that and turn out off at the last minute They did however run a apparently Put a uav unmanned aerial vehicle over one of our large ships in The past week or so Least according to a press report and I haven't had that confirmed from elsewhere But I think they've got to be very careful about this action. Again as was mentioned earlier President trump from their perspective presumably A bit less predictable Perhaps less restrained If they provoke something and you don't know where that goes as we all well know. I mean when you roll the iron dice Who knows where tell me how this ends as someone said on the road to Baghdad In the idea that that the administration will be lured into war again, I again think that that is pretty unlikely As I mentioned earlier I think opportunities by any other country in the region to Do significant damage to some of the components of the Iran program This was limited all the way back in again 2010 or 2011 And the idea that again that when someone would Try to calculate what could happen I think is Is really somewhat questionable I just don't see this happening Suzanne bill we're in as I said the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Republic and I guess for both of your Final thoughts. I'm curious Suzanne. It's never wise to make predictions about Iran But where do you envision we could potentially become the 50th anniversary the Society of political trend lines and for bill What would be a wise u.s policy to ensure that it it does transition to something more positive I have tried to steer away from making predictions because as anyone who knows Iran knows It's absolutely impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy what may happen in that country I also recall being part of a group of people who are watching Iranian president addressed the un Secure the un general assembly back in 2000 when it was the year of the dialogue of civilizations and we took a Set of predictions about when a u.s. Embassy might reopen in Tehran. I was the least optimistic of the group And I predicted 2009 and I will note that one of the one of the people who was part of that conversation is now sitting in a prison cell in Iran So let me With that caveat say that I think that Iran is well positioned To make a stable transition to some sort of better governance It's it's simply unparalleled in terms of the The capacity of a system that has already had this sort of wrestling with authoritarianism Wrestling with the role of religion and politics in which there is now a really well-honed experience With the mechanics of democracy if not the the realities of a truly representative government There's been more than a century of debate among Iranians about how to get accountability from its from their own leadership But that said when and how that transition happens. I think is entirely impossible to predict And I think it's very unlikely to come under the type of Catastrophic economic pressure that is being applied to Iran today and is going to be applied for the foreseeable future There's simply no precedent for that kind of hardship producing A transition to a more responsible set of leaders and what I think we haven't really thought through Are the potential inadvertent consequences of the current policy Outside of the the real risks of some kind of military escalation. What does it do to the the prospects for some kind of much more positive transition in Iran in the long term and if regime implosion brings regime change of a type that actually produces A less responsible and a more dictatorial and a more dangerous Set of actors led by some of the people that general patreus has had to deal with before I think in fact we could be facing Potential outcome, which is much worse than the one that we faced today I actually just wanted to qualify the Very quick response I gave earlier about the window of vulnerability That's based basically on an assumption that there is not a resumption of the nuclear program Okay, but it I mean it is a reality About the capability through the the qualities of the different elements of that program But assuming there's not something now if that happens then I think All bets are off perhaps even with the United States And that's when I think you start to get really concerned So build your diplomatic efforts help prevent Iran from becoming like North Korea Is there a u.s. Policy that could help Iran become like South Korea? No, I mean I think the one thing I've learned over many years in the Middle East is the limits of u.s agency And our ability to affect regime change in a sensible way Or Even to predict that susanne was trying to do the evolution of another society having said that I share susanne's view that you know I do think we ought to approach Iran's future with a certain amount of confidence in the following sense I don't think the Current theocratic leaders in that regime have answers for what's on the mind of a very young population 70 percent of which today is under the age of 30 Having said that I just think there's a smart way in a dumb way for the united states to manage What is a very complicated and largely out of this era relationship between now and then And you know as I've suggested before I think the smarter way Is not to operate with illusions to push back on behavior Which threatens us in the interests of our friends not to be shy about human rights issues But to selectively engage and susanne said be transactional in places where you can reduce Not eliminate but reduce some of the most imminent dangers that an unconstrained iranian nuclear program would pose And and I think that's that was the essence Of the iranian nuclear agreements both the interim agreement and then the comprehensive one They did not solve the totality of threats that this iranian regime imposed But I think they were a way of managing that relationship. And I think that Approach that broad strategy still makes sense for the united states Well, I want to thank you all very much for coming and thank those who have been watching online in iran and in us And join me in thanking the panel