Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Nuclear Nightmares 20140119

Time but ive been sick with pneumonia. Not quite able to duty, expect to be able by monday to resume work. We are laying still here, and no prospect for an advance on the enemy. Our men are about half that for duty. This is the unhealthiest camp i have ever seen. Western virginia, no comparison to it. You see a soldier and an officer writing home during the war, and the war that he enlisted in. He was not drafted, but it just gives a good historical account of the things that they faced, the obstacles and triumphs that they have. But it was a hard life. A lot of people dont realize that the casualties in the civil war were not battle wounds. It was illness, sickness. And he certainly experienced debt. In the rights throughout the war, im not feeling well. At one point they had to carry him by ambulance, and its obvious from some of these bad when he was in the middle of some of the hardest fighting, he was sick and he was able to still lead his men. And s s that battle was over, apparently he would collapse and he was taken to hospital where he would recover or go home to recover. One thing that i think is a significant in his career, in the fall of 1862, he was sent when he was home in india gathering troops, he was taking them back to the battlefield and was diverted to a little town in western kentucky. Because the confederate general Braxton Bragg was heading north, and he was to go there and wait for the full union troops that was going to be there for a pretty big battle. But he went up there with just a couple hundred troops and got completely surrounded by the Confederate Army of about 50,000. He held them all for several days waiting for the union troops that never came, the union army that never came. Eventually negotiated a surrender by i dont know if this is ever been done in warfare before, he went in under a flag of truce to the confederate camp and sought out the confederate officer he understood was a gentleman, and asked for his advice. Im sure he played something to the effect of on not a militarily trained, what should an officer do in a situation . Was pretty much told not to surrender, but you say you have surrounded me with 50,000 men to my couple, maybe 500, can i see proof that the army is as big as it is . And this officer said, sir, this is not how wars are fought. Later in his memoir he wrote i took an instant liking to this man and wouldnt have come into, led him astray for anything. So they gave him a tour of the Confederate Army and saw that, you know, he was outnumbered. At that point, wilder and negotiated a surrender were sure he negotiated with his men were not imprisoned but sent home. Like i said earlier, he was sent home, at about two or three months later the union army worked out and exchange where he could come back in, and im sure the confederate got somebody in exchange for him. But i thought it was just a very unique approach to every desk that situation, when he was left hanging out to dry and he was able to hold off an army that outnumbered is probably 100 to one if not 1001, for several days. For more information on booktvs recent visit to chattanooga, tennessee, and the many of the cities visited by local content vehicles, go to cspan. Org localcontent. Joseph cirincione talks about the possibility of Nuclear Weapons being used today. He says that the decline in the number of Nuclear Weapons since the 1960s should leave is hopeful that they can be eliminated entirely in the future. This is a little under one hour. Thank you very much for that very kind and generous introduction. Its a pleasure to be with you today. I have to say, im honored to serve on secretary kerrys International Security Advisory Board of the comments to give are purely my own and do not represent the views of the board, at the state department or of the u. S. Government. Im delighted to see so many students here, maybe some of you here have read some of my articles but i would guess that very few of you other than the two who have seen my video clip on a cold their report. When i go speak at a school thats primarily how they know me. Ive given hundreds of hindus in my life and the one with Stephen Colbert was by far the most difficult. Ive never met anybody as smart as he is, quick thinking. As result if you google cold their nuclear, you give me. Cold their nuclear. I show up on the google site. Im the president of ploughshares fund. We are a foundation that focuses solely on Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Weapons policy. We, for 32 years now, weve been raising funds and finding the best people with the smartest ideas around the world on how to reduce the Nuclear Threats. The Public Foundation relies on the foundations of generous donors. So if any of you either have money or need money, please see me after this caucus. Im here today because ive written a new book called Nuclear Nightmares. We built a special website for called Nuclear Nightmares nuclearnightmaresbook. Com which gives you some idea of what the book is about. It helps explore the main themes of the book and you can go up to the website and track the other events ill be doing around the country were see some of the articles ive written. Wenwent out like you did is give you a brief overview of what this book is about, the threats we face today. And i want to particularly focus, probably spend about half the talk on the subject of iran. I think its something all of us want to talk about at this point. Its a news and it is probably the most pressing Nuclear Challenge that we face. I would guess that very few of you woke up this morning thinking about Nuclear Weapons. You know, why would you . Most people think of Nuclear Weapons as a left over from the cold war, the weapons that dont have much to do with our current security challenges. If you think of them at all, you think of them probably insurance of iran, and you may believe that the threat they represented are things of the past or that we have programs in place that can deal with these threats. You would be dead wrong. Its understandable that we dont think about these weapons anymore. We are confronted every day with formidable challenges in our personal lives, in our family, in our schools, in our community or state. But of all the threats and problems we face every day, there really are only two that threatened devastation on a planetary scale. And thats Global Warming and Nuclear Weapons. Both of these can affect our lives in unprecedented ways. Both of these threaten a dramatic change if the worst should happen in the way we live in a very question of whether we can continue to live. Both of these are caused by machines that we invented. Both of these threats are preventable, even reversible, but they require new ways of thinking and newbold, government leaders to put policies into place. Im going to talk today about the Nuclear Threats that we face. We ignore these threats at our peril. If you think of somebody else is taking care of this or that we dont have to worry about this, think again, think again. The risk of a Nuclear Accident or the use of a Nuclear Weapon is low, but should a Nuclear Weapon be used again in the world it would have devastating physical, financial and medical impact. Theres generally three categories of threats we worry about. The National Security strategy of the United States says that the greatest threat the United States itself faces today is from Nuclear Weapons. Specifically, the risk that a terrorist group might get a Nuclear Weapon and use it on a u. S. City. A nuclear 9 11. Theres also the risk of new states acquiring these weapons, perhaps states of less restraint on use of these weapons and might use them in a regional conflict or to threaten the United States. In this case we often think of iran, which does not yet have a Nuclear Weapon but is building the technological capability to develop a weapon, and north korea which just in the past 10 years has conducted three Nuclear Tests and is on the verge of consolidating the Nuclear Weapons state. For this reason the national street strategy says this has got to be our top rudy. I have to admit the policies of the United States have not matched that announces. The United States itself does not focus that much attention on these three threats. The president of the United States try to change it when he came into office the president obama came into office having worked in the senate on Nuclear Policy. One of the first things he did was speak out to senator lugar and asked them to take him along when he went to the former states of the soviet union to watch how Government Programs were helping to control and contain and eliminate the threat of the leftover Nuclear Weapons, the leftover Nuclear Material that resulted in the soviet union collapsed. Obama was deeply affected by that, and started to adopt as innocent as one of his primary causes. He also worked with republican senator chuck hagel to fashion some of the most comprehensive nonproliferation legislation ever presented in the u. S. Senate. And that relationship as you can see continues today with secretary hagel being his secretary with senator hagel being his secretary of defense and Richard Lugar still a close confidant to the president. In fact, president obama focused on Nuclear Policy in his very first National Security address in prague in april 2009. And there he laid out the vision of a World Without Nuclear Weapons. The idea that we should move step by step to eliminate these weapons, and he married that vision up with a series of practical measures to address the various aspects of the nuclear threat. The first with two i mentioned. He said we have to redouble our efforts to secure all Nuclear Materials around the world. The good news is that a terrorist can build a Nuclear Weapon from scratch. They dont have the facility, the infrastructure to build the material, the highly enriched uranium, plutonium of a bomb. It takes an industrial facility, billions of dollars, gigawatts of energy to make that material. This should be Hillary Clinton next book, it takes a nation to build Nuclear Material. If a terrorist can get that material, its been a relatively easy step to construct it into a Nuclear Device come easier still to smuggle it into the country and, of course, theres a shortage of suicide bombers willing to detonate it. President obama pledged to bring together World Leaders to tighten up the security around the north side files and to eliminate that wherever possib possible. This developed into what he called Nuclear Security summit which continues to this day, a new pillar in our nonproliferation efforts, a new level of unified International Efforts to secure Nuclear Material to prevent that nuclear terrorism. In addition, the president laid out new efforts to prevent new states in getting these weapons. He specifically focus on north korea and iran, and the actions he then took in fact built on efforts of the Bush Administration to build up International Sanctions and restrictions on iran. As a result we now have today the toughest sanctions on iran that if ever been imposed on any country in peacetime. Its a result of this International Cooperation, the patient work of diplomacy that is tightening the noose on iran that is brought iran to the bargaining table in geneva. The third platform, third element of the president s agenda was reducing our existing Nuclear Arsenal. This is something we actually dont think that much about. We used to have 30,000 Nuclear Weapons in the u. S. Arsenal. Back in the height of the cold war of the 1980s. That number is reduced to about 8000, about 5000 any active stockpile. We normally dont think these weapons as part of a threat but they are. Theyre a threat in two ways. One, as long as we maintain huge arsenals of Nuclear Weapons, we are giving an incentive to other countries to build up their own arsenal, the other eight states that have weapons, or perhaps acquire them if they are so valuable, so essential for u. S. National security, they must have security value or other weaker nations. So theres relationship long recognized between existing arsenals and the spread of these weapons. Theres another danger that they represent and thats the danger of accidental use or miscalculation. Let me give you just two quick examples. In 2007, a b52 bomber was on a routine mission flying on the miner air force base in north dakota carrying six cruise missiles on its wings, cruise missiles that they were flying to Barksdale Air force base in louisiana for destruction. To eliminate these missiles are being put out of commission. They accidentally loaded not conventional cruise missiles on obama but Nuclear Armed cruise missiles on the bomber. There were seven different safety checks fisher prevented this. They were all broken. The crew didnt know they were loaded on. Up high that didnt know they were there. That plane flew down to Barksdale Air force base and spent the night on the tarmac guarded by just the normal security of a guard and a barbed wire fence. It wasnt until the next day that a crew member looking out noticed on the cone, the nose cone of these cruise missiles that there was a red dot that signified is a nuclear warhead, not a conventional warhead. He went to his command and his commanding believing. Finally, they realized what a series mistake had been made. The really bad news is up in minot, they never knew they were missing until they got the call from barksdale. A colleague of mine, former commander of the Strategic Air command said i he would ask and before whether this was possible, he would have said absolutely not. But this is the kind of accident that can happen with Nuclear Weapons. If this kind of thing can happen in the United States, where we have the best command and control system in the world, whats happening in russia . Whats happening in pakistan, a country with 100 Nuclear Weapons, unstable government, a collapsing economy, strong fundamentalist influences in its military. Oh, al qaeda operating inside its national territory, and an ongoing conflict with Nuclear Armed neighbor india. The risk of accident or miscalculation or collapse of security that could allow terrorists to get these weapons is a real and present danger. But it gets even worse. In 1995, the government of norway was firing off a whether rocket, a routine whether rocket that could take at material testing. But when Russian Military forces detected this rocket, it looked at him like he was the u. S. Launched submarinebased Nuclear Armed missile, and they interpreted it as the first wave of an attack. And the fact under some attacks in there, thats exactly how it would start, a single missile coming across detonating a nuke weapon to blind russias radar, followed by a salvo of u. S. Weapons. They alerted president Boris Yeltsin, leader of russia at that time, and for the first time in history, opened up the nuclear football, thats the case that follows the president of United States and president of russia around with the command and control buttons to launch the Nuclear Arsenal of either country. They told Boris Yeltsin that russia was under attack and he should launch the Nuclear Missiles. Fortunately, yeltsin wasnt drunk. He didnt believe what he was being told. He waited for more information, and they waited and waited and it became clear that was not an attack. They closed the football. We dodged a nuclear bullet. A very Large Nuclear bullet. This kind of misunderstanding happened at a time of actual relations between u. S. And russia. What would happen now over in some future scenario when theres a conflict, when things are tense and theres another failure of the Early Warning system in russia . Its this risk of accident, miscalculation, or madness that we still live with. The Nuclear Sword of damocles john f. Kennedy warned us about still hangs over our head. We have to take out to secure all the Nuclear Material to the greatest extent possible and to take the strongest possible action to stop new countries from getting these weapons. You have to do this all together. Ukip just the one. If you think you can stop new countries and you can keep your own, youre sadly mistaken. You cant go around playing nuclear whackamole knocking down the next guy who wants a nuke. Youve got to do this all together. Reducing our Nuclear Weapons builds up the International Cooperation you need to secure Nuclear Materials, and so the present new countries getting them and securing a preventing builds up the security condition that you need to give countries of the confidence they can reduce. I believe we can eliminate Nuclear Weapons. These are obsolete the weapons that no longer serve a valid military purpose. I cant think of any military missions that now requires us to use a Nuclear Weapon. There hasnt been for 68 years. No one has used a Nuclear Weapon in 68 years, despite being involved in ferocious wars, some of which we lost, having a National Interest at stake, having our allies at risk. Not once every relied on a Nuclear Weapon to solve the problem. But you dont have to believe me. You dont have to believe me and we can safely eliminate Nuclear Weapons. Maybe im wrong, so lets keep one weapon. Or 10, or 50. Weight. Lets keep 500 Nuclear Weapons just in case. We have 5000 in our active arsenal. It is wildly out of proportion to our needs. You may think that the margin is the safety of like to have, but theres a cost to this. Not just the cost of what other countries think, not a cost of whether we can get other countries to cooperate. No, no. I mean it costs. Nuclear weapons are not cheap. The United States today spends about 55 billion a year on all the Nuclear Weapons and related programs. That includes operating, maintaining, developing, building the antimilitary system, the cleanup nonproliferation, environmental consequences. Nuclear weapons cost us about 55 billion a year, but thats not really the bad news. You have to start considering is what the future costs are. And we have a nuclear financial tsunami headed our way. We are about to make decision on whether to replace the existing triad that we havent submarines, bombers and missiles. They are reaching the end of their operational life. And the contractors in charge of this come the service is in charge of us are doing their job. They are coming up with replacement programs. Thats what we charge them to do, to make sure our Nuclear Weapons are the best possible weapon, safest possible can conditions and can do the missions we assigned them. So now we have proposals for replacing these systems and theyre working their way through congress. In the budget that the congress is considering this month on the Defense Authorization act, its almost 1 billion for the development of a new submarine that will launch Nuclear Missiles well into the middle of the next century. The Current System of 14 trident boats due to retire starting in late 2020. So if you want to have a replacement for that you have to start now replacing projected something as big you got to start working on so in 2029, 2030 the new book and slip into the water. Theres a plan for 12 noon Nuclear Armed submarines. The navy estimates that the total cost of a lifetime of operating those 12 subs is 350 billion. If you include all the programs being considered for new cruise missile, new bombers, new icbms, we will spend 1 trillion on the triad over the next 4050 years. A trillion dollars. Is that we want the money to go . Is that our most urgent defense need, or are there other conventional military needs that can be better serviced by those funds . I believe there are. I believe these are the choices we have to make. Former vice chairman of the joint chiefs something i said . [laughter] former chairman of the joint chiefs james cartwright, vice chairman of the joint chiefs and former head of the Strategic Command said that over the next three or four years were going to make 50 year decisions, meaning congress can decide on these contracts, on these programs, and once you lock them in, everyone knows they build a constituency. They build a contract. They build of union jobs. Its hard to turn these programs off. So for no other reason than your own financial consideration, Pay Attention to this. Tell your members of congress whether you want to build these new Nuclear Weapons or if you agree with me we can do with fewer, you want to slow this down. You want to wait for the policy to catch up with the procurement. You want to close this gap, get a policy in place that gives us a Nuclear Weapons we need and no more than we need. So this is a big consideration, a big budget buster that im worried about. Another kind of threat that we face from these Nuclear Weapons. Let me turn to iran. What we talk about iran because its clear the most pressing issue we face today. These other issues that i discussed lurking in the background. In fact, we funded a group called we think immediate and they did a survey for us, and of all the stories over the last several years there on Nuclear Policy, 70 of them are on iran. So we could think of ran is our greatest threat, you have a reason to think that the most of what you read on Nuclear Policy, i dont happen to think the. I think iran is a concern but im much more worried about pakistan than i am about iran, a country that always has 100 Nuclear Weapons. Theres a chapter in Nuclear Nightmares called the most dangerous country in growth and its not about iran. Its about pakistan. Iran is the most pressing issue. It becomes now a critical policy point, if we get this right there are enormous benefits that can play out, that go beyond solving iran Nuclear Program. Strategic openness that could develop in the middle east. Openings on other Nuclear Policy issues. But the point itself is could we stop iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon . If we dont we risk destabilizing the middle east, and its a risk that other countries will follow iran in developing Nuclear Weapons of their own. If we do we can solve a problem that has vexed american president s on the Nuclear Scale at least the last 10 years, and has vexed american president s since jimmy carter first tried to make a deal with the iranians. Every president has wanted to make a deal with the iranians. This president is the first one has been able to do it but its a temporary deal. Its fragile but it was just included in geneva, two weeks ago. Is what it does. Iran agreed in consultation with the five permanent members of the u. N. Security council that the u. S. , united kingdom, france, russia and china, plus germany, the socalled p5 1, in negotiations with these six countries, that they would basically freeze their Nuclear Program. They do not have an overt Nuclear Weapon program. Its not like the Manhattan Project. Its not like the north korean project. Iranians have been fooling around with Nuclear Technology since the time of the shah. We believe that in the past according to u. S. Intelligence estimates they did do dedicated work on Nuclear Weapons, that they did some work on warhead design, on fabrication of uranium into the middle which is now suing application. It is only used in warhead. This is a repressive regime that is guilty of numerous, vicious acts over its tenure. But u. S. Intelligence concludes that that dedicate Weapons Program ended about 2003 and has not been restarted. But what iran does have is a program that allows it to acquire the technology to building the material that could go into a Nuclear Weapon, should it decide to build one later on. Its an open program. They tried to hide the facilities be out of. I have a long history of trying to hide facilities and we have a long history of winding. So they have several sites in iran, whats called enrichment facilities. Because their students here im going to pause and do a physics, chemistry, Nuclear Technology lesson. What is in reaching iranian . Its important to understand this and know to understand what the threat is. Iran uses centrifuges to enrich uranium. Centrifuges are about the size of and look like water heaters, thinner and are made a very tough modern alice to withstand the pressures that they encounter. The way you enrich uranium is you do get out of the mind. Iran has minds where they can get the uranium, but when you dig out its socalled natural uranium. You cant really use it in Nuclear Power reactors because there isnt enough of a special isotope, the rare isotope in your in called u235, uranium235. Less than 1 of natural uranium is u235 the u235 is the adam that goes pop. Unit that thing with the neutron, it splits in half, it shoots out of the neutrons back and it other u235 isotopes and most importantly it releases nuclear energy. One pattern isnt much. Trillions and trillions of atoms, thats what youre after. Youve got to get more u235 in your uranium. Youve got to get the uranium235 addins close to together. You take it out of the ground, mix it up with florid, turned into a gas and you put that gas in a centrifuge. The centrifuge spins it around and the heavier elements go to the outside like every Good Commission student knows, and the lighter u235 element stays in the middle, siphon out that no testing a gas that is a slightly higher ratio of 235. Slightly enriched but only slightly. You have to feed it into another centrifuge, and another and another and another. You line up a few thousand centrifuges and to do this for three or four months, now at the end of the process you can take that gas out and get that gas that is three to 5 u235. It is enraged, three to 5 . You can stop right there. You can take out that gas, turn it into a powder form, take that out and put into public. For the post in fuel rods, put the fuel rods into Nuclear Reactor and they start undergoing fission. They get hot. Naked real hot. They turned the water around them into steam. The steam turns a turbine, bang. Electricity. 20 of electricity in the United States comes from Nuclear Power. Iran says thats all its doing. Its just making fuel. It just wants Nuclear Power like the big boys have. It doesnt want to burn its oil and gas. They can sell that but it wants Nuclear Power. Whats wrong with that . The problem is if you keep those same centrifuges going, you can enrich a higher grade, 20 . That forms our reactor fuel for a different kind of reactor that iran is doing that as well. You can keep going all the way to 90 . If you stop there and you take that fuel gas out income you can pound into a metal and you can form into the size of a grapefruit and joe the core of a nuclear bomb. Same machines, same facilities, same process. Fuel or bomb. Do you trust iran . The question obviously is we dont. Why would you trust iran . Look at their track record. This is not a question of trust. Its a question of finding a way to stop them from doing that. One way to stop them is to get rid of all the enrichment facilities, the socalled zero option. That would be ideal. You raise it to the ground, you make sure they can never do it again. We couldve had the idea back in 2003 when iran first came to us when they werent operating anything in the future. We couldve had that deal in 2005 when it only had a few hundred spending, a test facility. They actually proposed talks to the United States, we were not interested at that point. They view and the United States government under the Bush Administration as Vice President dick cheney said, we dont negotiate with evil. We defeated. That strategy didnt work out so well but we didnt talk with iran. Iran built centrifuges but by the end of the Bush Administration theyve gone from zero to 8000 their stupid and. Thats why we have the problem at this point. No politician in iran cant possibly agree to give up this facility that they spent tens, maybe 100 billion on, and has become a huge source of national pride, supported across the political section across iran. You got to find what to back them down, give them a face saving way back out, to shrink this facility and make sure that they only use it for enrichment for fuel and never use it for enrichment for bomb. Can you do that . Thats the diplomatic challenge. Thats whats going on in geneva. Its off to a good start. This is an agreement freezes the program in place. So while we continue to negotiate for a final solution, which is said to have to be completed in six month, we make sure the iranians arent dealing and march on this. So they are not advancing while we are talking. It freezes the program in place. They are now prohibited from making any more centrifuges, from installing any more centrifuges, from turning on any of the thousands of centrifuges they put in place but are not yet operational. They also have agreed that any further lowenriched uranium they produce, they will turn into this powder, into this oxide so it cant be used later, makes it much more difficult later to be used for a bomb. Theyve also agreed in other areas, stopped work on another kind of reactor come whats called a heavywater reactor that could make plutonium, another possible component for a bomb. So they stopped any major work on that facility. Most important, they have opened up more facilities to international inspectors, inspectors from the aei and theyve agreed to do inspections. So instead of these guys going around every week or every two weeks, they now go every day for will be able to go once the deal begins in the beginning of 2014. Daily inspections so we can make sure theyre doing what they say they too. The really good news is part of the program they brought back. You all remember israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu going to the u. N. Podium in september 2012, and had a cartoon drawing of a bomb. A very dramatic, very use on the front page of every paper around the world. In that cartoon drawing me had a red line editor on top and he warned that iran was building up a stockpile of 20 enriched uranium. And if they build up a certain amount they would have enough to quickly convert intimate who in a bomb in weeks or months he said. Thats what we had to stop. This deal stops the threat. This deal drains mr. Netanyahus bomb. Iran agreed to get rid of the 20 enrichment they have by diluting it down or converting it into a form that cant be used for bomb. They have pledged not to make anymore. The way we will verify that is by the inspectors going there everyday making sure they are not doing it. What that does is it lengthens the fuse. It makes it harder for iran to make a dash or a bomb. They still could do it if iran decided today that they wanted to take the lowenriched uranium and put it back in the centrifuges and spin it up more and make enough for one bomb, they could probably do that in a matter of three or four months. But now we know they were doing it, we see them doing it and we have time to take appropriate action. So thats the benefit of the deal. It doesnt stop, doesnt eliminate irans capabilities. It caps a, roles are back, opens it up to greater inspection, greater transparency. In exchange, we have unfrozen, we, the members of the Security Council in germany and the United States, have unfrozen some of irans assets that are in our foreign banks that have been frozen as a result of the sanctions of the United Nations and in the United States and the European Union have impose on iran since 2006. We have given them about 7 billion of their own money. Thats a lot of money. But its not that much. Its not that much. If iran wants the 100 billion that is still frozen, if it wants to get rid of the sanctions that have blocked iran from doing any international business, frozen out of the International Banking system so that you can transfer money from your Checking Account to your savings account online, iran cant do that. Iran cant transfer money from a bank in pairs to bank in toronto they were cut off. That is crippled or international economy. If they want relief from the sanctions on their oil sale, sanctions that resulted in irans daily sale of oil going from 2. 5 Million Barrels a day to less than 1 Million Barrels a day, theyve lost almost 60 of the revenue from oil. If they want to get that back theyve got to come back and sign a comprehensive deal. In addition, they will be left with some enrichment capability that substantially smaller, substantially contained, some facilities will have to close. We will have to do without reactor, preferably closing that higher and much tougher inspections than any nation is now so inspectors can go anywhere and can see anything and make sure there are no secret facilities going on, things we dont know about. Thats the outline of the do. Thats what theyre working on. This is going to be tough. This is going to be very tough but i think were going to get that deal. I think well get it for several reasons. One, irans economy is crippled. The sanctions brought iran to the table. They worked. They did their job. The sanctions can solve the problem. Dont think you can crush a country into submission by sanctions alone. Its never happened. Never happen. No country has ever been coerced into compliance by sanctions. Sanctions are a tool. It brought them to the table, great, now use that to make it do. The oil sales have plummeted. The value of their currency has dropped by 60 . Unemployment is up 35 , among the youth, 60 of irans population is under 35. 50 of them are unemployed. Remember those numbers, 60, 35, 50. That is a machine threat. Theyve got to do something about this. The Economic Growth last year was negative 5 . Thats why the iranian people elected president , as their president bush on rouhani. Its not like Saddam Hussein ruled iraq. Theres a certain amount a democracy that happened and some of that happened in these elections. The regime didnt pick rouhani to be its present to you running people do. They elected him over the other five candidates that were much closer to the hardline views of irans Supreme Leader, how many. He was the most Supreme Leader khamenei. He was the most moderate candidate and elected him with over 50 . He trounced his next opponent to do one. Two to one. Ive met rouhani. I had dinner with him in new york in september, a small group of 30 or 40 of us gathered and we met the president when he was a. I met him previously in tehran when he was a nuclear negotiator. I would not call him a moderate. I would not call him a report. I would call him a pragmatist. Hes a cleric, a regime man. He has the confidence of the Supreme Leader. Hes not like president ahmadinejad, a holocaust denier ideologue who is really an outsider who is going to develop a power base to challenge the clerics. Rouhani is a regime man. He understands the mandate is been given. He understands he has in their window to fix the economy. He knows theres a consensus among irans elite to fix the economy. In other words, i believe theres been a strategic shift in iran that recognizes that the regimes survival depends on fixing the economy and reintegrating with the west, not on pursuit of a Nuclear Program. So thats why they are willing to do, for their own strategic interest. Theyre willing to deal on this program in order to gain what they believe is a more sound basis for continuing the regime. I look at that strategic driver as the main reason why i think were going to get a deal. Its also because the people who are negotiating for iran, president rouhani and foreign minister zarif, are very good negotiators. Understand the west, understand the limits of what we can give. And arent going to make unrealistic demands. On our side, john kerry has proved to be a remarkable secretary of state. Tackling very tough missions and accomplishing a series of things that people thought were impossible. For example, getting rid of syrias chemical weapons stockpile. Something people considered impossible and the beginning of september. It will happen by the end of this month. One of the largest remaining stockpiles in the world of chemical weapons is being boxed up, shipped out of syria by february 1. And an amazing deal. John kerry is now in charge of a very able state department team. They have driven a very good bargain. I also but this is going to happen because thats what the other nations of the world wants. And you see a United Nations that is united, a u. N. Security council that is unity and purpose to history tells us when it is united, very few countries can but it. Its only when the Security Council splinters as it did, for example, in the run up to the 2003 iraq war when Saddam Husseins splendor depicted within that youll see sanctions used to resulted thats what is important to retain that unity and thats what its very important that we do not rest that unity by imposing new sanctions now. So heres another thing i would like you to Pay Attention to. The debate in congress about whether we should pile on new sanctions. Bears some very wellmeaning senators who believe that now is the time to squeeze iran more. Im telling you, if you pile on new sanctions you were not only break the interim agreement in which agrees no new sanctions are put on until we negotiate a final agreement, you will break the unity of the u. N. Security council. We will be seen as wrecking ideal that iran wants. If the deal falls apart because we are seeing as wrecking it, then the sanctions regime he hoped to strangle iran with, that will rapidly unravel. Because remember what sanctions are. We are penalizing other countries who are trading with iran, who are buying iran oil. Thats what our sanctions do. If you buy irans oil, we say you are not allowed to do business with the United States. You are not allowed to do business with our financial institutes. So if we pile on more sanctions and the deal falls apart, were going to then put sanctions on south korea and japan and europe and china. That is just not going to go down. So when you think this out, it sounds like a good idea, if sanctions brought them to the table lets pile more on until they give us the deal we want, it kills the deal but it unravels the regime and youll see ive been choose not to make a deal with the west, choose not to decrease their Nuclear Program but shift the other way and go back to the other hardline position that a good part of the Iranian Regime wants to pursue anyway. Thats whats going on in the next few months. If youre a student and youre following these issues, if you care about National Security, i congratulate you on your timing. There is rarely a moment in u. S. History, in americas history, World History that is a this exciting where you can see the hinge of history moving. We are now in such a moment. If this deal goes through, if one tends the Nuclear Program and opens up not a friendship but a way to manage our differences and a way to cooperate on a strategic interest that iran and the u. S. Both share, stabilizing afghanistan, printing a return of the taliban, stabilizing iraq, stabilizing, control of the situation in syria, maybe even israelipalestinian peace, this could transform the geopolitics of the region, can transform the geopolitics of the world. Those are the kinds of things that are invalid. None of that is automatic. Its always the things that open up the things you thought were frozen, that you thought were impossible are now in play. Now, i know you may think im an optimist but im an optimist because of what ive seen. Ive lived long enough to see the impossible happen. It happens routinely. Ive seen the vietnam war and, the nonunite and welcome back to people who bombed it and seek reconciliation. Ive seen in germany unite. Ive seen Eastern European countries over the dictatorships that ruled them for generations. Ive seen the soviet union collapse. Ive seen protestants and catholics who swore never, never, never, sheikh hands and roll a United Northern ireland but ive seen a man walk out of a prison cell that was held for 20 years and become elected president of a majority ruled and free south africa. Ive seen the Carolina Panthers win eight games in a row and go perfect in the south division so dont tell me this isnt possible. Its just hard. Thank you very much. Its been a pleasure talking to you today. [applause] great stuff, joe. Spectacular. As you are queuing up questions, weve got a boom mic in the back that would bring them around to anyone who has questions. Were not going to leave until we get questions from a student or two. So get those cute a. Im board member of the World Affairs council, and just as youre getting rid ask your questions, let me say one thing, and that is, if youre not a member of the World Affairs council, we need you to be. Thats especially true of everyone in this room, but also true for those of us watching on cspan. Sign up on a website. We will be glad to send you out a large to our members that come out regularly. You can follow whats going on with some of the exciting things in our community. This is what a spectacular place. Theres some remarkable global thinking going on here. So with that lets open it up for questions. We have one right over here. We wait for the mic to get there and then we will recentered after the question and get the answer from joe. Thank you very much. That was very interesting. I have a question for you. My father was a marine in the 40s, and i wanted to hear your take on how we did use the bomb back in to end the war. In a lot of ways we save millions of people. Just want to see what youd you point out that part of history, goes along with many of your passions. My father served in world war ii as well. He flew Bombing Missions over normandy in europe. Died of a war related injury. One of our Advisory Board members is george shultz, secretary state coming he was a marine on a transport ship heading to japan for the invasion of japan when they heard the news of the new weapon that they believed had ended the war. To this day he believed that saved his life and the lives of many others. This is an ongoing the store controversy. Whether we needed to use the bomb. I completely understand why we did it, and by the time we used it, this weapon that we never intended to use, when we started building the bomb it was to defend ourselves. We only built it because we thought hitler was building up and we had to get a device in kind to deter them from using it. It was the scientist to start the Manhattan Project couldnt conceive of anybody using the weapon like this. But by the end of the war, we had immolated hundreds of thousands of people interested in, fire raids over tokyo, Nuclear Bombs like one more weapon in a terrible, terrible war. So it wasnt that. As it turns out, it wasnt that strategic or a weighty decision to use it. It was almost automatic. Historians say that trip and never actually voted to drop the bomb. He just didnt stop. This was a train that was in motion. Some the scientist who built the bomb wrote a report a few months before the first test after hitler was defeated, urging the government not to use it. They said do a demonstration shot. Show the world what will happen. If you use it and there isnt in place an International Control regime for controlling this weapon we will see a flying start to a nuclear arms race. With a few years delay, that is exactly what happened. One of the consequences of using the bomb if we let off this Insane Nuclear arms race between the United States and the soviet union which developed a bomb a few years after we did. He ended up by the 1980s with 70,000 Nuclear Weapons in the world. Not puny little atomic bombs but hydrogen bombs, 10, 50, 100, 1000 times more powerful than what we dropped on hiroshima. We went nuclear nuts in the cold war. We are not working our way down. I honestly think a lot of that couldve been prevented if we didnt use the bomb. So on balance, on balance i think we should have used the weapon. We should not have dropped it on hiroshima and nagasaki. We were winning the war anyway. The emperor of japan was preparing to surrender. I dont think it would have caused a land invasion of japan. At the very least we could have waited a few more weeks to see if those surrender talks were, in fact, going to succeed or not. But i recognize this remains a very controversial area, but you asked my opinion. Thats it. Questions. A student question up front. Tell us what grade youre in. Junior at providence day. What would the worlds response to Ballistic Missile attack on palestine and israel because since israel has not signed a proliferation of them were in agreement on that sort. Its a tricky question because, well, israel actually wouldnt attack palestine. By palestine, you mean the occupied territory of the west bank or gaza with a Ballistic Missile to Ballistic Missile our long range weapon. Vagal hundreds or thousands of kilometers. If there is a conflict between israel and the people who live in palestine, it would probably be tanks and mortars and airdropped bombs. But lets take the ballistic part out of it, and youre asking what would happen. Well, weve seen what happens. Israel did and encourage an attack on the gaza strip while back in response to repeated rocket launches the coming out of the gaza strip on the israeli towns. The world doesnt like it. The world in general sees israels occupying these parts of palestine and wants it to be through negotiations but the world tolerates it. Theres not much the world can do about it except urged the two sides to make a ceasefire. So what you see, especially the last couple decades, is what used to be very long, tough, brutal wars and now often very short incursions. Three or four days, a couple of weeks. I think that the people of israel are tired of war. I know, i have family in israel. They are tired of war. If they thought they could get a deal, they would trade land for peace. The question for most israelis is can they get a deal. Is there a responsible negotiated that can deliver a deal on their behalf. But as you raised this question, secretary of state john kerry is in israel today trying to get the israelipalestinian peace talks going again. He has taken on this mission, and i give them a lot of credit for this. This is a tough, unrewarding job to nobody asked them to do it. He went and did it. As a result of his efforts is become one of three u. S. Goals in the middle east. We used to have lots of them. Now we are down to three. Stopping iran from getting a bomb, ending the conflict in syria, and getting an israelipalestinian peace settlement. Thats one of the things that encouraged me about there being talks is it didnt get diplomacy to succeed there, it may spill over to a possible resolution and it can give some life, into the diplomatic efforts that are the only real solution to the israelipalestinian peace process. Tough, tough work. Diplomacy takes time but im delighted to see the leaders of our country take on that conflict. We have time for one more question. Im from south korea. I would like to ask you about north korea. There have been different opinions about it the country has ability to create a nuclear bomb. What is your opinion about that . North korea has a demonstrated capability of producing Nuclear Weapons. They have done three Nuclear Tests. The first two were not successful. The last one clergy was successful. They now have the ability to produce what they call a first generation Nuclear Device, Something Like hiroshima, not the sake. They use plutonium for their devices. They probably have enough national we dont know how many weapons they have a with pretty good idea of how much plutonium they have produced so we think its somewhere between three to eight bombs worth of material. We did have negotiations during the Clinton Administration that froze the plutonium program for eight years where we stop the north Korean Program but it was a difference of opinion beginning of the Bush Administration north korea with her cheating on that agreement and the Bush Administration pulled the plugs on the talk but as result they then moved ahead with the three Nuclear Tests and now declared themselves a Nuclear Weapons state. If we can solve the iran problem, if we can demonstrate that diplomacy can make a deal with the regime, that to change the regimes behavior rather than change the regime, that might have some benefit with the situation with north korea. It partial influences the north koreans, but more important influencing the partners around north korea, particularly china to assist in diplomatic efforts. We could go on all afternoon, im confident. Actually chill will be here most of the afternoon. So what we will do is we will take a break now and joe will be outside signing books and reading you, and im sure would be happy to talk further with you. So if you would please, join me in thanking joe for his time and for visiting us in charlotte. Thank you very much. Its been a real pleasure. Thank you. [applause]