Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20240622

Iranian Foreign Policy . Theres a strong case to make that thats the case. Rouhani was elected based on the fact that it was allowed to come to power by the Supreme Leader based on the fact that he would get the sanctions relief, get the nuclear agreement. Hes going to have tremendous credibility now and be leverage. We have parliamentary elections in iran next march. It will be an interesting time in terms of the sanctions relief calendar that richard just laid out to see if the pragmatic faction can pick up more seats inside the iranian system. And were going to have to see i do think rouhani and zarif could have potentially more influence in other areas of iranian Foreign Policy where they havent had as much effect. On the other hand, you can also make the argument that the hard liners are going to double down, that theyre going to want to bat batten down the hatches and not see it lead to more liberalization. Theyll take a harder line. Theyll use some of that money that comes in to increase their support for some of their activities in syria and iraq and yemen and elsewhere in the region. Thats going to happen too. I would argue the most likely scenario is both scenarios will happen where youll end up with them very likely for the next few years. Its a very tense political competition amongst the various factions who ultimately make the final decisions. This is someone who leads towards the hard liner perspective. Very skeptical of the United States, iran, but hes also somebody who rules by consensus. If all of his people come to him and all the key factions come to him and say, boss this is what we should do he usually zsh hes going to pass on this. Think before the expiration of this deal given his health and age. At that moment were going to see what has this agreement done. Who is his successor. What kind of system comes after him. 1989 its been a long time. This will be a major moment to indicate if were going to see a fundamental shifting in irans Foreign Policy. Whether the fundamental shift happens or not, the deal is still implementable. The agreement still happens. This is a potential huge benefit we have to watch over the next few years. Second challenge is israel. What happens there. Obviously the israelis are close partners of ours. I spent years at the pentagon working on iran where one of our primary interests was in dealing with israel reassuring israel talking to them about the Nuclear Program especially at a time where speculation was much more rife that they might consider taking things into their own hands. What i found from those exchanges was a couple of things. One, the israelis its a small country surrounded by a lot of unfriendly neighbors in a very tough part of the world. And the approach that they take is based on the absolute worst Case Scenarios. The joke that american Foreign Policy makers, we do our Contingency Planning on worst Case Scenarios. Israelis do it on worst Case Scenarios and policy based on worst Case Scenarios. This is where you get the difference in perception that has led to i think, the break that weve got here with israel. Its unfortunate that we have this break. I think part of it is personal between president obama and Prime Minister netanyahu and their personal styles. Part of it is the problem weve had historically with israel on differing Risk Perceptions. I think Going Forward one of the unfortunate side effects has been that i always found engaging with the israelis was incredibly useful because they would come in with a group of very smart people who spent all of their time working on this. They would give you all the worst Case Scenarios. They would red team it really effectively and sometimes you could say, well, i dont really believe that thats credible. We dont believe that scenario is credible. Sometimes you could say, well, actually, thats something we didnt think about. It helps improve american policy. Its unfortunate weve had this split and divide which has limited that over the next few months. What happens next there Prime Minister has made very clear that hes going to oppose this agreement and try to yuntd mine it in congress. I think that is a big mistake because i think the end of the day i dont think its very likely that hell succeed. What hes doing by doing that is really hes taking a bipartisan issue and turning it into support for israel into a wedge issue inside the u. S. Congress which i think is very damaging for israels longterm interests. Look, theres a lot of people the political establishment in israel is absolutely against the agreement because Prime Minister netanyahu set the conditions where its impossible to be for the agreement. Even his political critics will say, i dont like your approach to how youre dealing with the americans but i hate this deal. The security establishment is different. Theyre much more subtle about it. I think because they also take that lower Risk Perception theyre ultimately uncomfortable with some elements of the agreement. What were likely to see there is what they do also are very concerned about is the way the Prime Minister has decided to handle himself, very public confrontation with the president going directly into the american media, going directly to congress on this and trying to circumvent the executive branch and thats something that causes a lot of anxiety for israelis. Iran might be an existential threat but fraying of the u. S. israel threat is more existential and more of a threat for the longterm security for many of them. I think the big question is what happens after the 60 days. What happens after the congressional vote. Do the israelis finally say does the Prime Minister which hes being encouraged by many to do finally say im going to take my disagreements quietly and well start quietly engaging with the administration and seeing if the United States can find ways to fill this security gap or does he decide to write off the president and spend the next year and a half publicly confronting him. I would hope he chooses the former and not the latter. There are a lot of people in israel that would hope to see that, too. Well have to wait and see. The president has reached out. President obama reached out to Prime Minister netanyahu in april and tried to bring him back into the fold and take our conversations quietly back to the back channels that we often consult in those closed rooms as opposed to public spat. He was rejected at the time. I believe he tried to do that again earlier this week and was rejected. Well see if the Prime Minister changes in september. Finally theres a third element which is saudi arabia and the gulf states. They view things differently than the israelis. They have some overlaps and differences. Israel is focused on the Nuclear Program and cares about Irans Nuclear behavior. Saudi arabia is focused on the regional questions. They care about iran support for terrorism. They view whats hatching in theppening in the region as them picking up support. Thats the major anxiety. They speculate that saudi arabia will respond by starting to build its own Nuclear Infrastructure infrastructure. I dont think thats the problem. Thats unlikely. Thats expensive. That takes time. There are costs that come to them in terms of International Reactions and in terms of their relationship with the United States. I think the real concern is that theyre feeling they have this concern that the United States is pivoting to iran and we are rearranging the Alliance Dynamics in the middle east which is not what the Obama Administration is going to do. We have a lot of things were disagreeing with. But feeling that concern the saudis start to lash out in some destabilizing ways and take steps that we think are against our interests and against their interests in the region and i think the best example of that might be what theyve done in yemen recently with this intervention without really a clear Strategic Plan about what happens after you start bombing the houthis and pretty much putting a blockade on yemen with really no end game in sight. So thats i think the more fundamental question for the saudis and one that the United States is going to have to wrestle with both this president and the next because the reality is its going to be hard for this president to do it. Any president whos the one who cuts the deal with iran, which i think we needed to do is going to take a big hit in the gulf and in israel as president obama has done. In some ways its almost the next president who has to come in and start to really do the big hug with some of our partners. So what do we do Going Forward to address these challenges . I would argue there are three or four things. Take advantage of the fact that we have this channel of communications with the iranians for the first time in 35 years. That is meaningful and important. The fact that they have email numbers and phone numbers, there is a channel. Weve wanted to and we were at the pentagon find ways to communicate to the iranians, whether it was lets avoid a conflict here, knock it off, youre about to do something that youre going to regret if we go in that direction. So having those chance i think is very important. Talking is always better than not talking. Seeing if there are ways to start working together on some discrete issues. Interests in afghanistan, maritime and avoiding potential escalation or inadvertent escalation in the gulf are interesting areas for early pursuit. Even as we do that, especially as the sanctions are coming off, it makes sense to push back more forcefully on some of irans destabilizing activities in the region through joint efforts with our partners showing up in saudi arabia for example with the high level delegation maybe led by ash carter and john brennan saying were here to talk, not about the Nuclear Program and not about how we deal with isis were here to have a serious and Strategic Communication with you about how we deal with iran in the region. Lets talk about steps together, joint covert action, aggressive interdiction. Potentially more serious efforts to train sunni opposition in syria and in iraq, sort of partners that we can work with in both those countries. Things like that that will signal to our partners that we mean it when we say were going to push back and important signals to the iranians that, you know, the nuclear deal doesnt give you free range over the region to pursue all of these activities. Were going to push back. One thing ill tell you when the United States pushes back against iran, iran backs off. Iran has no interest in the direct fight with the United States. Sometimes you do need to flex your muscles to show deterrence. I think thats another key thing we have to be doing and the third element, obviously needs to be just reassurance of other forms beyond those two, which for our partners i dont think we need to be selling the saudis f35s. They already out spend the iranians dramatically. Its not about big weaponry. Its about the small stuff, about training them to actually counter some of this low end asymmetric work. Security assurances to some extent. Things like that that we can be doing with our partners and set of activities also with the israelis that can signal to them that were sticking around, that this isnt a fundamental strategic pivot that well push back even as we engage. We can do both. Ill just close by saying that you know, its a very complicated balancing act to pull Something Like that off. Its been some mixed messages. This has worked on irans Nuclear Program. We spent the last five, ten years using a combination of pressure and engagement to get the iranians to the table and get this deal. One on its own wouldnt have worked. Take the basic philosophy and apply it to the problems we face to iran in the middle east and our partners i think you can get there with this combination of tools. Ill stop there. Thank you very much. As i said at the beginning of this agreement this process is complex. This is consequential and i think weve given you quite a bit to contemplate. Its now your turn to ask us some questions for us to answer. I want to start out with some of the journalists here. Virginia, theres a question up here in front if youd bring the mic up. Identify yourself and tell us who you would like to answer the question. Thanks. Michael 2k3w0rd done, New York Times. I have a question on the sequencing of sanctions relief, a technical question but just to clarify it in this 150 plus page document. The broad conclusion to be issued by the iea is not going to come for a period of years but the director general amano on the day the agreement was promulgated presented a roadmap thats to lead to an assessment by december 15th and he articulated a number of steps that are to be taken. As you understand the agreement, what sanctions relief can be provided prior to this december 15th assessment of where iran stands on possible military dimensions and what sanctions relief can only be provided after this assessment is completed and if its a favorable resolution . Richard . So thats a great question and its ee special whether i complicated because weve now got two processes that are working simultaneously. I would say very simply i dont see any sanctions relief happening before pmd has been laid to rest. Thats in part because the obligation on iran is somewhat different than the obligation that the iea has taken unto itself, right . The timing of the obligation that the iea has accepted is that it gets iran compliant, irans cooperation by the 15th of october, right . Well based upon the structure of the Implementation Phase of the deal, there is zero chance that any sanctions relief can happen before that cooperation has been given, right . Its written into the document as an obligation of the iranians to have done this by adoption day and so as a consequence of that, if they didnt provide the cooperation, the United States and p 5 plus 1 partners would be in a position to say, you youre not fulfilling the terms of the deal. They could walk away you could theoretically go to the dispute resolution process, so on and so forth. Bottom line, i dont think theres any chance that any additional relief could be given. There is potentially a theoretical world in which adoption has taken place the iranians speed through implementation, right, and the director general has not issued his report by the 15th of december. I can see that as a theoretical possibility. I think that is highly unlikely. I put it almost at impossible because of how long it would take them to do things like removing centrifuges but that is something that could theoretically happen. This then goes to the question of what are you going to get out of a report from the director general, right . There are only two conclusions that could potentially come out of the report. Iran had a Weapons Program iran didnt have a Weapons Program. In either circumstance we think we know the answer to the first and we think its the first. So theres nothing really thats going to change the timing of relief and the timing of what goes forward because we already know the answer to it and the access and transparency to verify its not ongoing will already have begun. I dont see in reading the documents that there is an explicit bit of sanctions tied to the explicit bit of p and d but i think the way the sequence works and what the requirements are on each party of this means that there wont be any relief until irans done its part and then the report itself will be icing on the cake. Let me just ask you, richard to clarify one aspect of this which is when we say iran does its part with respect to the iae investigation, that means what . As i understand it, and im reading it that means the iranians need to provide the cooperation, the information, the access that the iaea believes is necessary for it to close out its investigation, right . But not necessarily the time it would take for the agency which could take a long time, to draw conclusions from that information. Is that correct or what is your am i wrong on this . Well, according to the roadmap, iran has to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with the information at best to answer all of the concerns that the agency laid out in the annex to its november 2011 report and it needs to provide that information by august 15th. Then iran or the iaea will evaluate that information and by september 15th if they want to ask iran any followup questions, then that information can then be then iran has some time to follow up with that information and ideally this process is all concluded by october 15th. Then by december 15th the iaea has said it will issue its assessment about the sort of the full system of irans past pmd work. So thats according to the separate roadmap that the iaea in iran agreed upon and announced the same day as the deal, which was tuesday. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. All right. Other journalists with questions . Yes, maam . Thank you. Jessica shulberg huffington post. This is mainly for richard. Theres a contradictory message that can be said if congress imposes any sanctions immediately after the deal. There were efforts to expand the 1996 iran sanctions act for ten years. I saw that part of that was addressed in the nuclear agreement. What kind of message would it send to extend sanctions under the guise of it being related to terrorism or human rights in the region . I would definitely say theres always a risk of mixed messages here. I think that theres a risk that acting to some degree precipitously with respect to imposing new sanctions is a real problem. That said, i mean lets be clear, the iranians are not agreeing anywhere in this that they wont engage in things that look like to us terrorism or violations of iran human rights or other interactions that we have problems with. They arent changing their fundamental behaviors either. What i think will have to happen is navigating attention between the iranians doing bad acts in the region but not pursuing Nuclear Related bad acts that give us cause to walk away from the deal, us addressing iranian bad acts including through the use of sanctions but not doing so to such a degree that the iranians say forget it, were going to get our nuclear Weapons Program back in effect because we think that the deal is coming unhinged at the back door. I think the text, its interesting, tries to deal with this. The parties agree not to do things that are at variance with the purposes of the j dr oa. The parties agree not to back door things with the regulation that were lifted as part of the deal. I think theres a tension here. I think it would be better to let the deal implement itself and get started before anybody on any side starts trying to rock the boat, but ultimately the true test really of the deal will be can we keep it going . Can we keep this arms control arrangement in this nonproliferation arrangement together notwithstanding the fact that we have all of these other problems. Weve been able to do so with the soviet union, the npp if you think about it in a broader sense. I think we can do that here but i think we all have to be careful about what we do. All right. Other questions please . Why dont we go over here on this side. This gentleman. And then nancy. Hi adam with Senate Foreign relations minority side. This question is mostly for you kelsie. Like you said, this is not a perfect deal but im wondering are there significant loopholes in the monitoring regime in your opinion, maybe specifically with regards to abilities or past undeclared nuclear efforts or are there no significant loopholes . Thank you. I dont see any significant loopholes in terms of the monitoring and verification, and thats in part because of it. Also i think its important to remember with the accelerated time line with the pmd investigation, the agency can still use the information gathered to inform its future decisions about what it monitors, what it looks for and where it goes. When you consider sort of the entirety of iran Nuclear Program with the expanded declaration under the Additional Protocol the iaea will have much more regular access to every element of irans Nuclear Program that are far expanded from what it has access to now. That includes the mines and mills, centrifuge production sites, heavy water plants for the iraq reactor. All areas theyve had very little access to in the past. Theres modified code one and that ensures early notification or if they decide to have any nuclear facilities. When you consider early nuclear and short notice access to all of the facilities in the expanded declaration, when you consider the flexibility that will allow the iaea inspectors to allow access to sites if concerns arise within 24 days and then you layer on top of that the Continuous Monitoring use radio seals and you add on top of that u. S. Intelligence, the intelligence of other countries including israel i think you have a system that is soliaiered that even if no one element is 100 guarantee an alarm bell will trip at some point because iran would need to recreate the entirety of its process in order to covertly pursue this. The regime is as strong as it needs to be to provide some of the highest guarantees that there are, that there will be no illicit activities, or if there are, that they will be detected very quickly. And then the u. S. The skbrer national cumulativekmuncumulativekmun International Community will have the time to respond. Very good explanation. Reminder of one of the fundamentals of monitoring and verification that i think people lose track of. Theres no such thing as 100 certainty of compliance with an agreement. And one of the major purposes is to increase our confidence into the high 90s that we can detect a militarily significant noncompliant activity and so what does that mean for the cheater . It means the potential cheater is looking at a high 90 chance that theyre going to get caught. That means that they have to weigh the benefits and costs and so in that sense it can serve as a deterrent. Especially when you factor in what the losses are. So, you know, there are going to be critics who are going to say, you know, this could be better here, that could be better there. And those may be valid criticisms but as a whole as kelsie said the system needs to be considered as a whole and we need to consider what monitoring verification is designed to do. Its into the 100 certainty but it is getting to the high high 90s that we can catch major violations. I would just add, too, before this deal was reached, before the interim deal was reached, James Clapper said with high confidence that the United States would be able to detect would be able to detektd any iranian attempt to divert material for a Nuclear Weapon before they were able to accumulate enough material for one bomb. So that is before all of these additional measures that are being put in place. So i think that really does speak to how much the u. S. Could do in the past and when you add all of these other elements on top of that it provides an Even Stronger guarantee. All right. We had another question up front here. Wait for the microphone please, nancy. Thank you. Nancy gallagher from the university of maryland. One of the issues that became a public controversy in the end game during the negotiations was what was going to happen with the u. N. Sanctions on Ballistic Missiles and conventional arms and some people have in effect said iran tried to reopen something that had been settled at the very last minute you know, other people say, no this was an open question all along that wasnt settled. Given that the framework itself was never made public but both sides in effect said Different Things about what was in it and they had agreed not to say anything that was inconsistent with what they had actually agreed, what i would like to know was was there actually an agreement on that issue reached as part of the lausanne framework that the iranians tried to reopen or was that one of the things genuinely an open question at the time . Richard you want to take a whack at that. Folks read the newspaper in the New York Times that speaks to that issue this morning. Richard . Yeah. I guess my sense would be frankly, youd have to talk to the negotiators themselves. I havent been in the room since december. I dont know to what degree it was agreed in lausanne. I do think that there probably was a promotional or provisional agreement on this point. I think the way that it erupted as a problem, particularly with the russians coming in as hard as they did in support of the iranian position it struck me as something that was being reopened or if it wasnt already closed, it was pretty close people were pretty confident that it was going to be closed and then it came back open. But that said, the fundamental principal negotiation was always that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So i am quite sure that the way the iranians probably both described it to themselves and described it to the americans if, in fact, it is true that they tried to reopen something is that, no, other parts of the deal necessitated us coming back on this point. And so in the end i while its certainly interesting to know the back and forth i kind of look at the end result. Keeping a fiveyear conventional arms embargo in place against iran when it was only adopted by the u. N. Because of the Nuclear Related issue i think is pretty good especially when you have the complimentary u. S. Sanctions that will permit us to impose some pressure on people providing those systems to iran Going Forward until whenever. All right. Well, we have a lot of questions. All right. Lets go here on the left. This gentleman. Go ahead, steve. Im steve clegy with the u. S. Conference of catholic bishops. I have a question, but id like to make a brief comment first. I think one of the things we have thats going to be in the discourse is hope versus fear, right . Hope versus fear. And as a person of faith, of course id like to speak for hope a little bit. I think we should not under estimate what implementation, painstaking implementation of this agreement will do to transform international relationships, particularly the u. S. iranian relationship long term to build trust to approve verification, not just through good feeling but my question is this. We keep talking about the date by which iran could rush to enough material for a bomb, thats one year. It seems to be like the assumption that then in a year they could have a bomb and threaten their neighbor. Well, they have to test it they have to deploy it they all right. Presumably youd want to have more than one bomb if youre going to become a nuclear power. After you use the first one, then youre kind of out of luck you know . So what is what is what is the realistic i mean, it seems to me we have a great deal of time even after that material is acquired before this becomes a genuine threat to the u. S. Or anyone else. Real quick on that. The reason why the oneyear breakout time line has been used as a measuring stick for the success of this, one of the reasons is that once a country has enough fissile material its tough to keep track of what theyre doing with it. Youre exactly right, 25 kilograms of uranium does not a Nuclear Arsenal make. It has to be fashioned into a workable device. The country probably would want to test it to make sure it works though there are some designs that dont have to be tested. It has to be made with a delivery vehicle delivery system. So theres more time that would be necessary and, of course one Nuclear Weapon doesnt do you too much good as a strategic weapon maybe as a terror weapon. So but whats clear is this agreement does block all the pathways to acquiring even that much material to the so iran cant do it in less than one year. We znt mention the plutonium route in the beginning but the plutonium path to the bomb is for all intents and purposes completely blocked because the iraq reactor will be modified with chinese assistance so they cant be producing a sufficient amount of plutonium in the spent fuel. I mean, this is very strong in terms of preventsing iran from a magsing even that much material. We have a lot of questions here. And so im going to try to get to a few of you. Were not going to get to all of you. Why dont we go with lets try the back a little bit if you could, virginia, the gentleman on your side near the middle row. Thank you. Yes. Im from weks ler university. My question is to mr. Nafu. You know one of several red lines have been the main concerns have been sanctions the sanctions as well as the sanctions against the central bank. Of course because theyre european initiated followed by americans, but in your view what would happen to the entities, especially you spoke of the bank, but mostly the central bank, which is the monitor of all of the local banks in iran, how that would be work out . The second question if i may. Very quickly. Mr. Goldenberg is that what do you make of the comments that the president made yesterday about, you know, stereo as perhaps an example of he mentioned it could be considered by iran and United States. What do you make of that comment . Richard and then elan. So the terms of the deal basically remove the sanctions that are the most pressing in the central bank of iran and permit iran generally speaking to have access to the swiss system with respect to institutions that were previously designated. So this will permit the iranians to have broader financial ties internationally as well as access central bank of iran money that is located in Bank Accounts around the world. When the iaea verifies it. The question of syria, i would just say that i would argue that probably syrias not where we want to start in terms of cooperation with the iranians. Thats probably the area where we have the most tension. If youre trying to sort of overcome 35 years of this taboo of not talking to each other, this seems to be an area where our interests are pretty fundamentally opposed unless theres a recalculation where we move where they accept the transition away from assad. At the same time, i also think if we were to go tomorrow to the iranians and say lets talk about syria, were reinforcing the saudis and their minds the worst assumptions. So i would argue that probably it makes sentences sense to start issues that are less broad and also to think about if were going to first spend some time pushing back on syria and building up american leverage and investment and then coming to the negotiating table. At the end of the day civil wars only end three ways one an outside power comes in and sits on the whole thing. Not happening. Two, one side wins. Again, very unlikely at this syria. Three, a negotiated political solution. Iran will have part of that negotiated political solution but i think first expectations on the ground. Their calculus needs to change. Our sunni partners calculus needs to change. We need to do some things to set the table for that through a policy of pushing back towards iran finding ways to reassure our partners to do that. All right. I see jessica matthews, former president here at carnegie, now senior fellow. Why dont you go ahead, please. Thanks, darryl. I wondered from all four of your points of view where are the soft spots in this thing by which i mean the opportunities for one side or the other to fail to clearly meet their obligations that will lead to the kind of muddle that led to the unraveling of the north korea deal, for example. Well, you violated first. You fell short first, no you did. You know, where where are we likely to get in trouble in that respect . Thats a good question. I havent thought about it deeply since i woke up a at 4 00 in the morning to look at the agreement, but why dont we ask each of you to give your take on that. Thats a good question starting maybe with richard and then kelsie and elan. Sure. I think the biggest risk is that because of the regional issues and terrorismrelated issues, human rightsrelated issues we have to continue an active sanctions policy that eventually chips away at the benefits provided in the relief. And when you combine that with iranian fiscal mismanagement and ip ability to do with their economy what they could do either because of corruption or just because they screw up or because Oil Prices Remain low or investment doesnt flow as fast, that the iranian government says were not getting what were supposed to get. This might be honest that theyre not getting what theyre supposed to get because of some interaction of other sanctions. It may be just a front to cover what is bad Economic Policy on the iranian part but that could make the iranians and certainly a populus figure like ahmadinejad say were going to pull out of the deal. Its sadile, rouhani even though hes now in retirement. Can i the factions relief thank you, might come after the parliamentary elections thats a major problem here . I dont see it as a major problem, but certainly from an iranian rouhani political stance. It would have been better for him and his guys had he started to have it beforehand. I would say this though. The celebratory mood in tehran is i think hes going to get a boost anyway through the parliamentary process. Frankly, it would have been worse for him if the relief was six months in place and they hadnt seen money coming back in. The timing might be okay for him. Can i add one point on richards in particular. I very much agree thats the greatest risk of the deal. There is an american policy solution to it. A lot of times we have multiple tools to go after terrorism. Some of it are the Intelligence Community, d. O. D. Some deployed by treasury. Oftentimes the treasury approach lets sanction something because thats the lowest risk approach. It involves least kinetic action, least risk of military escalation, things like that. It might actually be the given paradoxically given we have this nuclear agreement, defaulting to sanctions to respond to iranian terrorism might be the riskiest approach because it undermines a broader interest we have in perpetuating the nuclear deal. Maybe d. O. D. And the Intelligence Community need to be thinking more and those tools need to be used more aggressively in some of the steps we take because theres risks associated with that, too, obviously, but its a way to compartmentalize and try to separate and protect the agreement and our nonproliferation interests and other interests. I would certainly agree with both what richard and elan said and add another concern about any party intentionally exploiting the review process and the ability then to go to the u. N. Security council with the intention of not resolving the dispute but actually trying to kill the deal because essentially if a party does not think if any one of the states does not think that an ambiguity or a concern has been resolved in the joint commission or then through the ministerial level or using sort of an arbitration panel, then they can go directly to the u. N. Security council and for the permanent five members vetoing a resolution, well start to put the sanctions back in place. And that could be deliberately used adding to prevent the agreement from moving forward. That often will remain open sort of past this administration and when you hear some of the president ial candidates explicitly talking about wanting to unravel the deal, there certainly is an opening there that gives me some concern. One other quick thought. This is not so much a big threat to the implementation of the agreement, but its something that i think Everyone Needs to Pay Attention to, including the congress and the other governments involved in the negotiation, the p 5 plus 1 which is that the iaea will need additional resource toss do the work. The iaea has a rotating team of 50 people, they do a good job. They need more people, need more resources and there is a zero budget growth policy affecting all u. N. Agencies and so its going to require voluntary contributions, additional contributions from key states, United States to give the agency the resources they need. We probably will be hearing from director general amano in the coming weeks about now that he knows exactly what the terms are and hes had a chance to look at what they need to do, were going to be hearing more from him probably about what kinds of resources he thinks he needs on an annual and ongoing basis. I think it can be done its just going to require governments stepping up and providing those resources. Can i just one small point because i wanted to add on to just one other key vulnerability in the agreement that kelsie got at is what happens with our president ial transition and i dont think that even if its republican or somebody who opposed the agreement if its plemt implemented for the next year and a half. They will implement it. Will they implement it holding their nose . Will they have direct access to the president of the United States when something come up or will it be Deputy Assistant secretary of state deep inside the state department that nobodys really listening to and in that case i think the agreement just falls apart via neglect. We have lots of cases where i think thats an example that is north korea. Another example of that is the Different Levels of prioritization of the iraq issue and the bush and Obama Administrations. I think obama in many ways executed the draw down plan on the Security Framework agreement but the level of senior level engagement, nobody watched the issue for a few years. This matters a lot. Its also an example another example is the clinton bush handover on al qaeda. This is a problem that we have and that well have to deal with. And i need to point out one other thing, too. Weve talked a lot about the risks coming from the p 5 plus 1. We have to bear in mind the iranians have cheated on their pre treaty obligation for 30 odd years. It is not at all outside their capacity to either cheat intentionally, have some guy do something that hes not supposed to do and have it ultimately become a much bigger problem. There are a variety of things on the iran side that could also make this deal fall apart, too. Just bears to be noted that i think we were thinking more about our own perspective here. Certainly we have to make sure the iranians do their part, too. I think we were thats part of our concern and we simply werent expressing it because its quite obvious. There will be problems. This is a longterm agreement. There are going to be disputes and there are mechanisms available to deal with them. It will take continued good judgment, Political Leadership and good faith effort particularly on the part of the iranians so we dont have a major blowup and along the way. We are almost out of time. I want to see if theres one more quick question that we can answer and then were going to be closing. Why dont we go with this gentleman on the right side please if you could get over to him, nate. Right there. Your mic is right in front of you. Jonas with the embassy of denmark. I was actually going to talk about the stumbling blocks. Thats been pretty well answered. So the second one to richard was on the sanctions. There are stipulations agreement is there anything inconsistent at the u. S. State and local level the u. S. Federal government do whatever it can in its power to ensure that. I was wondering whether you could clarify that that would be possible whether you could have local State Government would put in their own iran sanctions and if you see that as a stopping block . There are. There are state and local divestment campaigns and primarily that deal with iran that could be and i think are considered to be sanctions both by the people who come up with the idea as well as by the iranians. Frankly under our federal system of government there are limitations as to what the federal government can do here. I think thats why the language is stated as it is. There is no commitment on the part of the United States federal government to force the states to abandon divestment strategies and things like that. There are laws on the books in the federal system since sada is it that give cover to divestment that state and local officials ought to be able to do. I think you could see some attempt to modify that. I think more broadly theres going to be two things. One is a general statement of advocacy that, you know, divestment decisions that are inconsistent with the terms of the deal are not helpful under the Foreign Policy authorities given to the federal government. There should be supremacy clause should grant that to the federal government, the state and local officials ought not do things inconsistent with that. Theres a big use of overuse of federal authorities by local jurisdictions, including sanctions that may be suspended. What this is intended to say is if youre a financial regulator, for instance, and the federal government has suspended sanctions, this covers you, too. What this may set up is legal challenge between the federal state, local levels especially if the iranians were to complain that a particular case was inconsistent with the deal. Well have to see how the courts will deal with that if and when that comes up. Thanks. As we said, its complex. Theres a lot to this agreement. We hope weve clarified a good bit about how the agreement is supposed to work whats at stake. What are some of the other considerations down the road and also we hope it provides some insights as to why so many believe this is in the on balance in the u. S. National security interests and a major step forward for the Nuclear Nonproliferation efforts especially in the worlds most volatile region, the middle east. I want to thank everybody who came here today in our audience. I want to thank the audience on cspan and more than anything i want to thank our speakers for the great presentations. The transcript of this event is going to be on the Arms Control Association website within a couple of days. Theres more information about the agreement, irans programs the time line, history of efforts to get to this point. So please join me in a round of applause for our great speakers today. [ applause ] and we are adjourned. Thank you. Now British Foreign secretary Phillip Hammond talks about Foreign Policy challenges facing his country. He also took questions about the Iran Nuclear Agreement from members of the British Foreign affairs committee. This hearing was held last week in london. Order order. Welcome to the first public evidence session of the Foreign Press committee of the 2015 parliament. Foreign secretary, thank you very much for making yourself available to be our first witness witness. I think it would be appropriate for you to invite you to lay out your view of the state of the world and britains interests in it. To begin this session. I know this is necessarily short. Were grateful youve made yourself available to come back again in september. Thank you. Its a pleasure to be here today. It will be a pleasure to come bang and have a fuller session in september. I appreciate the committee has only just been appointed. My congratulations to you, chairman, on your election and to all members on their appointment. Our key Foreign Policy objective is to strengthen that system. To do that we have to draw in the major emerging powers to show them that it is in their interest to work with the rulesbased system rather than to kick the traces over. We have to look eventually and this might be a longterm project, but eventually to draw russia back into the rulesbased system. Over the next five years i have no doubt that our priorities will be the renegotiation of our relationship with the European Union, the defeat of the military expression of violent extremist islamism in daesh and then continuing to undermine the narrative of violent extremist and the challenge to responding to russias more aggressive stance towards the International Community and its major program. If i deal with those three things things. The Prime Minister set out his broad areas of concern where he believes reform is necessary incidentally not only in britains interest but in the interest of making the eu competitive, accountable relevant to its citizens in the future. At the june european council. Since then weve agreed with european colleagues there will be an official Level Working Group looking at some of the potential roots for resolving the issues that the Prime Minister identified, looking at the legal constraints and perhaps opportunities. That process will continue through the summer and into the autumn. We will continue our engagement with all eu counterparts. Im pleased to be able to tell the committee that all 27 Member States have told me clearly and categorically they want britain to remain part of the European Union. Some have said a European Union without britain in it would not be recognizable as the European Union they know. And they are prepared to work with us to try to ensure that the changes are made that will be necessary if britain is going to be able to remain inside the European Union. And thats the key because we have set the test not of a deal in a smokefilled room with politicians, but of a referendum where the british people will make the ultimate. Decision. Our partners in europe know that the offer they come up with, the package of reform thats agreed has to be enough to satisfy the demands of the british people for change and the strong sense, i believe, in britain that the European Union, the european project has changed dramatically since they last made a democratic decision on this in 1975 and in many peoples view not for the better. So its about resetting the dial so the European Union better represents what the british people expect to see of a european structure, and i think that is a focus on economic delivery, growth, jobs, the prosperity, helping us to defend our Living Standards in the face of a globalizing world. If the eu can show that it is organized to do that, it will have relevance to the people not only of britain, but the people of all 28 countries of the European Union. Chairman, keeping britain safe is always the first duty of any government and the immediate major challenge that we face is that of islamistinspired terrorism, whether were talking about come plerks plots hatched in the spaces of the middle east or lone wolf attacks inspired by daeshs online propaganda. Tackling ice illdaesh in iraq and syria remain it is key to tackling this challenge. The Prime Ministers described it as a generational struggle. The military defeat of isil in iraq and syria will not take a generation, but defeating the underlying ideology will be much more complex. The Prime Ministers speech yesterday outlined our need also to emphasize and reenforce British Values to make sure people feel empowered to speak up for British Values and to combat not only terrorism, violent expressions of that islamist extremist, but to combat extremist ideology itself because it creates the Fertile Ground in which violence and terrorism can take root. In addressing the challenge of islamist extremism currently represented by daesh but if we defeat daesh, i have no illusions there will be other manifestations of islamist extremism in the future but while we take on that challenge, we must not for get and we must not sacrifice our ability to respond to a more conventional statebased threat to our security. Russia we have to remember what russia is and isnt. Its a Major Nuclear power. It z has very large armed forces but it has a smaller economy than the united kingdom. It has a e declining population and ageing population. It has an economy thats severely structurally imbalanced with a huge dependence on massive corruption and a huge state influence over the operation of the economy. That makes it a very challenging adversary and over the coming years it will, in my judgment, remain a very challenging adversary. The russians are also developing Innovative New capability ls. There is a tendency in the west to characterize russia as a rather bureaucratic, rather clumsy opponent. They have been agile in exploiting new technologies like cyber in blend. Ing those offensive capabilities into conventional capabilities and creating what we call a full spectrum effect capability using cyber operations, for example, and we are being challenged to rethink the way we do defense and we have to think about how we respond to an adversary in which all Decision Making power is concentrated in the hands of one man. I have heard it said that russia is a more centralized state today than it was where at least under Leonid Brezhnev where there was at least a politburo that had to be coupled in some sense. That means its a power that can make decisions very effectively respond very rapidly to a changing situation, that can exploit opportunities very rapidly and we as a nation and as part of a western alliance in nato have to think about how we deal with the challenge of our relatively cumbersome decisionmaking processes and our much broader need to get by for any course of action from a wide range of actors. Parliamentary opinion, media opinion, public opinion, civil society, in 28 countries across nato. So this is also a very big challenge for us and its not just a challenge of being ready with conventional forces. Its a challenge of thinking outside the box in responding to russias innovative approach to warfare. Meanwhile, the prosperity agenda