On iranr a discussion now with the man who has advised democratic and republican president s on middle east policy, ambassador dennis ross, now a distinguished fellow and counselor at the Washington Institute for near east policy. Here is the headline on the front page of todays washington journal. Iranians threatened to break nuclear record, trump orders another 1000 troops to the middle east after irans morning on uranium. Your reaction . I am not surprised. The iranians guest i am not surprised. The iranians said they were going to quadruple the amount of uranium they were enriching, so it was only a matter of time that they would exceed the limits they are restricted to according to the brand new your deal, the jc to the iran nuclear deal. One thing to know, they have an argument to make, that the u. S. Is the one who withdrew from the accord. Second, sanctions the u. S. Has been imposing make it difficult for them now to send their excess amount of low enriched material out of the country. In the past, they were sending out the excess material so they would stay below the limit of 300 kilograms. Getting natural uranium in return for that. The sanctions we have imposed made it impossible to do that. Your argument in part is we did not leave us a choice. They have a narrative right now with many europeans are sympathetic to, so it makes it more difficult for the arenistration to say, they violating the limits of the agreement, we need to build up pressure on them. We are in a very complicated environment right now. Host explain what the u. S. Maximum pressure strategy is and what the goals are. Guest i will tell you what i think the goals are, because the administration in some respects has not been that clear. Let me explain. Maximum pressure is driven by the idea that the iranians, if they are under sufficient pressure and they see the price is too high, as they measure the price, will look to come back to renegotiate the deal. There is some logic to that, because historically iranians, when they have faced pressure from the outside that becomes in high, it can affect, their minds, social peace within iran, they have looked for ways to reduce that pressure. The original leader of the Islamic Republic, he declared during the iraniraq war they would fight the war forever, however long it took. When the fight became too hard, he said it was like drinking poison, but he ended the war. In the 1990s, the Iranian Regime was assassinated dissonance in europe. The europeans threatened sanctions, so they stopped. Defeated the u. S. Iraqi military in three weeks, a military the iranians could not defeat in eight and a half years , and the iranians thought they were next, not only were they prepared to make proposals that were very farreaching in terms of not only their Nuclear Program, which was fledgling, but also cutting off military support to hezbollah and hamas. The Bush Administration have tested that incident. They thought iran was on the ropes, so why should they risk it . In the Obama Administration, when iranians said, we will not negotiate on the Nuclear Program as long as we are under sanctions, the administration and congress dribbled down on sanctions tripled down on sanctions. You can debate whether the sanctions went the way they should have, but historically the iranians have given into pressure. The logic of maximum pressure is to play on that. The problem is you also have to leave them away out. Host you tweeted that you believe iran is doing their own version of maximum pressure and response. Explain. Guest they are under maximum pressure. If the Administration Made a mistake i think it made a number of them but one key one was, if we apply maximum pressure, there is nothing the iranians can do about it. Of course, there is plenty. Indirectengage in attacks against our interest for oil, meaning you can carry out an act of sabotage which it is pretty clear they did, not just the two most recent ships, but the four tankers bombed before. Basically a proxy of theirs firing rockets they have provided and also a Cruise Missile against targets in saudi arabia, including a pumping station. What the iranians have as an option is proxies in the region that can attack american interests, or their own ability through their small boats to lls ofminds on the hu these ships and to deny it. Disrupt theally can flow of oil, raise the price of oil, which from their standpoint when they are under maximum pressure and are able to sell less and less of their oil, poses pushes the price of oil up, a good thing for them. Leaving that issue aside, it shows american interests can be put in jeopardy, shows that american friends can be under threat. The iranians do it indirectly, so the fingerprints are hard to identify. They dont create the kind of provocation that becomes easier to justify a response. Because the administration does not have great relations with our allies, partly the result of if you break your allies if you berate your allies, dont be surprised that they are not willing to answer the phone. Because of that, we dont have support for the charges against iran. I believe the administration is right. The iranians did this, but they are saying they didnt, and the rest of the world isnt so quick to embrace the american position. You have questions about the middle east and iran and you want to talk to a man who has advised several president s on these issues, phone lines are open. Ambassador dennis ross with us until the bottom of the hour this morning. Attacksxpect more ship in the coming weeks . Think we are likely to see more, but the iranians may wait to test the temperature. From their standpoint, they made their point and can resume this at any juncture. The risk is they miscalculate. We dont have direct conversations with the iranians, so it is hard to try to reduce what could be misperceptions on their part, or our part. Right now i think they believe they have us on our back foot. We dont have an easy response to it. The fact that the secretary of state says we are going to continue with the diplomatic and economic approach, obviously that hasnt prevented this in the first place. We dont have allies who are rushing to us, other than the british. The only country outside the region of americas traditional allies in europe or asia who has said they agreed that the iranians were responsible are the british. Absent that, it does not create a context for the u. S. To be doing a lot more. I think at this point, the iranians feel, we have the americans on their back foot. We can go after ships again, can do something else, test the limits of what the american response is likely to be. The key for the iranians here is where they can overplay their hand, not just miscalculate by reaching the limits within the jcpoa, even if europeans feel that a lot of this is in response to the United States, the fact is they will have a hard time not doing anything, if they simply do nothing in the face of not reaching the limits, even if this is an incremental approach to not reaching the limits, they will feel they need to do something nor more. If the iranians overplay their hand, they will trigger more coalescence around the United States, more isolation of iranians. Right now i am not anticipating attacks, but i wouldnt be surprised by them. Host you mentioned mike pompeo. He talked about what he sees as the Trump Administrations accomplishments on iran on fox news sunday. Sec. Pompeo we took over an administration that allowed iran to create enormous wealth, build their missile program, a pathway to a nuclear weapon. The Trump Administration wisely withdrew from the jcpoa and put in place an Economic Pressure Campaign that continues. We put a ban on a number of Petrochemical Companies just this past week. President trump has done everything he can to avoid war. We dont want war. The iranians should understand that we will continue to take action to deter iran from this kind of behavior. Host ambassador ross . Guest i think what the administration has done is put a lot of pressure on iran, and iran is feeling it, no question. They were going to have an economy projected by the imf to grow 4 , it is going to decline 6 . So they are being squeezed. But i think the administration didnt think about, what they may do in response. I think we were caught flatfooted by that. Host lets chat with a few callers, jeremy from kansas, independent. Caller i wanted to ask mr. Ross about a comment that his fellow at the Washington Institute for near east policy, Patrick Lawson , made years ago about using covert operations to initiate aggressive warfare towards iran. First i would like to educate the cspan viewers about the context and background here. This is basically the israel lobby. Mr. Ross was identified as israels lawyer when he was in the state department. If people watch the film israel lobby, it shows that the actual ministry of Strategic Affairs in israel is working with certain institutions in the United States to wage Information Warfare against even jewishamerican and other activists of palestinian solidarity. Host you made your point. Ambassador ross, give you a chance to talk about the institute for near east policy and what it is. Guest it is a nonpartisan think tank. It has a wide variety of scholars covering every issue in the middle east, from energy, terror, arab israel, arab politics, iran, turkey. There is a variety of different viewpoints because anything tank , if it is effective, has to have a certain dynamism. You cant have everybody thinking the same way. It doesnt have one point of view. What the caller suggests does not fit the reality. Host you have advised several president s. Which administrations . Guest i was a political appointee for two republican president s, reagan and bush, and two democratic president s, clinton and obama, so i guess i am an extinct species. Caller thank you for cspan. The whole thing smells like a false flag. The japanese Prime Minister was visiting iran. What advantage would iran have in damaging a japanese supply ship . Superpower, but i am sure they have missiles. If they chose to, they could go up those shifts, sink those ships. A small amount of damage like the japanese ambassador was having a conversation with the mullah, or whatever. How does this benefit iran, this situation . Thank you. It was the japanese Prime Minister who was meeting with the Supreme Leader at that time. The iranians have a system that hatted. Of dual for government and the revolutionary guard. During the iraniraq war, the revolutionary guard took actions not authorized by the leadership. I am not saying that is the case this time around. The fact is, if you want to send a signal that you can create problems, you want to do it in a deniable way, a way that says you are not going to be constrained. Au even happen to hit japanese tanker when the japanese Prime Minister is there. All of this is kind of an easy way to do it. It fits the style of the revolutionary guard. They dont take credit for these kinds of things. But you send a message, you drive insurance rates up because of the risk to shipping. You dont have to sink the ships to make your point. Sinking the ships creates its own set of problems. A big slick can affect the traffic through the strait. They acted in a way to show they have options, a range of activities they can undertake. In a strange way, during it when the japanese Prime Minister was there signals, we will do what we want when we wanted. Callers, first two suspicious of a false flag operation. Does that surprise you guest no, because i think there is a lot of distrust. The fact that the british are the only american ally outside the region to come out publicly and say the iranians did this suggests there is a lot of suspicion out there. There is not a lot of trust in the Trump Administration. What you are seeing on the outside is reflected with the two callers domestically. Host michael in lubbock, texas, republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. Dealing with the iranians seems to me to be a little bit like dealing with isis. For a long period of time, the Administration Prior to trump while to be dillydallying isis gradually grew stronger and more threatening. And then suddenly that all reversed and isis was basically eradicated. Iraniansto me that the dont follow the playbook that is traditional, but rather it is the cowardice and terrorism, brutality and ignorance. Strategy likeif a was used against isis would work against them. Host are you talking about some sort of military intervention . We lost michael, but go ahead. Guest i think thats when he was talking about. I dont think the two situations are analogous, because isis, though it claimed to be the islamic state, was not the country. To put this in perspective, what the Trump Administration did is basically follow the same basic approach the Obama Administration had adopted. It is true the Obama Administration was late to pick up the indications that isis was emerging, but when it did adopt a strategy, it adopted a strategy where edited to find a local partner on the ground, in this case Syrian Democratic forces within syria and the Iraqi Military within iraq. We did a lot of the intelligence and bombing, but they did what was the real fighting on the ground. You dont have quite the equivalent when it comes to iran, number one. Number two, when the Trump Administration came in, the only real change they made from the strategy adopted by the Obama Administration towards isis was to give commanders in the field much greater leeway. It put us in a position where local commanders could direct the use of force without having it vetted back here in washington. That created greater leeway in the fighting, but it was basically the same strategy pursued with greater intensity, was the approach visavis isis with trump versus obama. You are dealing with a real country, a rogue country. Henry kissinger said iran has to decide, is it a country or a cause . What i described before, there is a duality. Although it has a president and foreign minister and the foreign speaks very fluent english, is very effective as a spokesman, and of course he denies anything the revolutionary guard was doing. When i was our negotiator in the 1990s between the israelis and palestinians, we had information that the iranians even though a reformist resident was in iran , clearly had no interest in it we had information that the revolutionary guard was providing not just the means, but was providing rewards for hamas and Islamic Jihad if they would kill more israelis. At the very time we were trying to negotiate, and at the very same moment the president of iran was saying, we will support whatever the palestinians agree to. There is this duality of a government that seeks to be normal and a revolutionary guard that seeks to extend iranian influence and ideology. Dealing with that requires firmness, pressure, but in any case, when you engage in diplomacy, if you corner somebody, dont expect they are necessarily going to respond the way you want them to. The key is, how do you strike the right balance of putting enough pressure on them, especially the revolutionary guard, so they see the prices high but you leave them away out . Host what should be the way out . Guest there has to be a negotiation. President trump keeps saying he wants to talk to them. He has made it clear he is not about regime change. In japan, he said he is about no nukes. No Nuclear Weapons is a really vague standard. You could argue if you asked president obama, he would say the jcpoa was designed to ensure no nukes. I think the key for President Trump is he wants to have a deal better than obama had. That seems to be the key criteria. Secretary pompeo laid out 12 conditions for negotiation. Now he says there is no preconditions for negotiations. I dont believe those 12 conditions are what would constitute a deal. I think President Trump, if you can get Something Better than obama there were sunset provisions, meaning the limitations on the program would lapse in the year 2030. If he could get those extended for 15 years, i think he would take the deal. Whether that is the deal that should be struck is a different question, but the answer is at some point, there needs to be a negotiation. The iranians want to make a point. You put maximum pressure on us, we are going to build maximum pressure on you. Using maximum pressure to soften us up, we will put maximum pressure on you to soften you up. At some point i think they will turn to negotiations, but probably through someone else. Prime minister abe from japan was there trying to begin to play that role. He is the wrong player. He was not a member of the five plus one, the members of the Security Council plus germany who negotiated a deal with the iranians. I believe there is a high probability that the iranians will turn to the russians, where the russians may approach them. You could see Vladimir Putin being the one to come to trump and he says, i have a deal for you. Host woodbridge, virginia is next. Richard, a democrat. Caller does anyone remember back in the vietnam, the gulf of tonkin . Get man is setting us up to in another confrontation with another country. Talking about negotiations, who in the world would want to negotiate with the most corrupt scumbag we have ever had in the white house . Guest he raised the gulf of tonkin. The gulf of tonkin was a by the Johnson Administration designed to create justification for us to escalate what we were doing in vietnam. I dont see this as a parallel at all. The Trump Administration, what everyone thinks of as policy, it was applying maximum pressure. From its standpoint, it was working. The iranian economy is truly being squeezed. The currency is being devalued by about 60 . The savings of iranians have been completely devalued. The price of normal goods has skyrocketed. Life is becoming very difficult within iran. The whole idea from the Trump Administration was, make it difficult enough that they will come back to us and we will negotiate better terms. The iranians are trying to create a kind of pressure on us that will get us to find a way to back off as well. I wrote at one point, both sides are applying maximum pressure with an eye to at some point getting into negotiation. The danger is the danger of miscalculation in advance. Host we have shown the video of the suspected iranian mine being removed. Do you think it was a good idea to release that video that viewers are seeing right now . Guest i think the administration obviously has a case to make. The question is whether or not it might have made more sense to quietly share all the intelligence with key allies privately first, and even work out with them statements they might make so that by putting this out first and it is grainy and subject to different interpretations. Yeah, they were there, but maybe they saw the minds and said, we should take that off the ship. The question of whether the iranians did this, grasping onto Something Like that. I dont have any doubt the iranians did this. If you listen to people like adam schiff, a democrat, head of the Intelligence Committee in the house, a critic of the Trump Administration, he has no doubt the iranians did this. It comes back to, because the Trump Administration does not have a lot of credibility internationally, it raises the bar for what it has to do to convince others, so it requires it to be more careful in terms of when it is going to release information. It needs to do its homework in advance with others to set the stage better. Goodmorning paying morning. Is, wouldrst question leave really be in this mess with iran, had eisenhower and detat not staged a coup for a democratically elected president for iran . They overthrew him in the 1950s. Did thend question is, japanese owner of the tanker that got damaged by the alleged explosion, what he is saying contradicts what the officials are saying. He saidg something about a projectile hitting his ship from the air. That just makes it seem suspicious. When you hear the owner of the tanker, he said it was something different. That is what makes this whole thing seem shady. You for the question. Context, where you have an administration whose word is not well trusted internationally lend self to different interpretations. When you have the owner of the ship saying that crewmembers say there was flying projectiles because of this, if you look at the damage from the ship, it does not fit that explanation either. Fits thee its explanation. Think the first part of the question was the u. S. In the british that were responsible for bringing the back into power. Most of it was the Prime Minister and he was ousted. Would we be in the same position . 1979. In power until you have the Islamic Republic the cayman and went through real turmoil in the first couple of years, killing lots of iranians by the way. Revolution,h of the there was a hunt for counterrevolutionaries. They still focus heavily on the recall, the used to british are pulling the strings of the americans, they still find them somehow the archenemy but i think the fact is, you have a regime that has a view of the world that also believes it is entitled to dominate the middle east. The iranians tend to look down on the arabs and think they should dominate the middle east. They say israel should not exist. They employ terror. To say it is only because of what the u. S. Did in fact Eisenhower Administration is a reason we still have a problem. That suggests there is too much of a deterministic approach to International Relations and foreign policy. We have in a rainy and regime that we have been a rainy and regime an iranian real politics taking place not between moderates and conservatives. Those terms dont apply. You have pragmatists in the iranian leadership and what is known as the principal lists principalists. Believe what happens outside justifies for control of the economy. Further control of the economy. It strengthens their position of control and power. The pragmatists believe the Islamic Republic is more than likely to survive if it is not a confrontation with everyone else on the outside. It is not that they dont believe in having an Islamic Republic, but they believe if you have a more normal relationship with the rest of the world, you have more capacity to flourish and that will build legitimacy for the regime. You have a real struggle. They have really lee politics. Real elite politics. One has to take into account those politics. Host one more call. Catherine is in ohio, a democrat. Caller good morning. My question is this. This administration does not know how to speak to people. He will openly castrate anybody, individual, even a person on his staff. If you think in your mind that this man has the ability or even the will to speak to the iranians or any other muslim country, he cant even speak to most americans because he thinks he is an emperor or king. He likes oligarchs. He likes to openly humiliate people. When you are trying to come up with logical thinking from this administration, it is the last thing on his mind. He does not know how to speak to people. Even people who are his equal. The only people he idolizes is utin from is p russia, the man from north korea, the man from turkey when his people came into this country and beat americans up. He liked that. Host let us catherine on President Trump as a negotiator and dealmaker. Guest he obviously sees himself as a dealmaker. We are still waiting to see examples of it. Will he would like to be the one who strikes a deal but the deal has to, in his mind, he has to do better than obama did. The problem at this point is he is doing it largely alone. The fact is if you really want to be able to move the iranians, you have to have the whole world with you. You have to have them isolated. The iranians also have to see not just what they lose but also what they get. Trump clearly understands instinctively because when he was in japan and afterwards, he asserted talking about what iran could gain he started talking about what iran could gain. He understands he has to offer them something. The whole logic of maximum pressure as he sees it was to try and bring them around to the table. What i have tried to suggest is the iranians have adopted a mirrored posture towards us and that can lead towards a negotiation at some point but it can also lead to a conflict if one or both parties miscalculate. Host dennis ross, a washington journal mugs are available at the new online story. Go to cspan store. Org. Check out the washington journal mugs and see all of the cspan products. In honor flight advertising on television. We have about five seconds to capture the viewers attention and another five seconds to sell the product. With television, you are selling a product. Q a,ncer sunday on Michael Vermeer is on his career , his book of satirical cartoons. The clintons are probably my favorite political family. Take a caricature of somebody, you are changing the dynamics of their features, not only to make them into a cartoon, but to show the dynamics of their personality as well. 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