National captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] things are winding down here at the press club. If you missed any of the discussion of discussion with the chancellor at unc, you can find it online at cspan. Org. The herald newspaper today reporting that Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell thinks the senate could pass along stalled Cyber Security bill before leaving for august recess, but that it will take cooperation. Could see a procedural vote to move forward on that measure tomorrow. Party lunchesin right now. You can catch the White House Briefing on cspan2. And of course, the senate with a gavel back in. More live coverage is coming up in about one hour, talking about the future of afghanistan with general John Campbell, the general of Operation Resolute support starting at 3 00 eastern time. Throughout the month we are looking back at the cities we visited this year their histories and cultural life. Tonight a look at austin, texas. Tonight at 8 00 a discussion on the threat of ice. Posted by the Aspen Institute with retired general john allen. Here is a look. Isis is losing. Theirou listen closely to tactical communications, they have got problems with morale right now. Not long after they burned captain [indiscernible] of isil foreign fighters rebelled against that kind of brutality and were summarily executed. By the central element. There was the. Atime within kobani, moment in the campaign where it was said we would lose that, but they impaled themselves on terrified about being sent there because they knew that there was only one outcome. Recent activities along the border in syria have led to other, similar messages. There are many places within the dutch infrastructure where the morale is not good. As we begin to strangle the defenses and finances, it becomes more difficult for them to sustain their operations and pay their fighters. General allen, currently the special president ial envoy for the Global Coalition to counter isis. You can watch that entire conversation tonight at 8 00 eastern time. Also from the aspen forum a discussion about a nuclear iran from the former acting cia director, john mclaughlin, and panel of experts to recently held an Agreement Panel on what an agreement might hold. Good afternoon. My name is claire york and im a phd student in the War Studies Department at Kings College in london, and i am also a 2015 aspirin Security Firms caller aspen Security Firm scholar. This month, we witnessed the agreement of a deal between the p5 plus one and iran on Irans Nuclear capabilities, however, many questions remain. Is it a historic agreement that sets the term, and will it strain nuclear ambitions, but what does it mean for the region more broadly . This panel will address the threat of a nuclear iran. It will assess how best to cancel them and how this deal already constrains our mission. Moderating this session is michael probably, probably, a politico senior correspondent. Besides joining politico, michael was chief Foreign Affairs correspondent with time magazine. He is reported from more than a dozen company countries, including iraq, egypt, mexico, saudi arabia, turkey, lebanon, and ukraine were things are often busy from time to time. Michael thank you so much for coming. I am glad to see a good turnout. This is going to be a great panel and needless to say, this is a topic on everyones minds. We are going to go little bit beyond some of the things you have been hearing for the last 10 days and try to look forward at what the iran deal means for the u. S. , iran, and the region. We will talk a little bit about the mechanics of the deal and if people want to ask about that, that is fine. For this panel, we will not spend too much time on centrifuge count and 24 days. Starting on my left is john mclaughlin, former Deputy Director and acting director of the cia. Next to him is matthew spence, who recently departed the pentagon where he was Deputy Assistant secretary and a special assistant to the president , advisor to two National Security advisers. Alan spent 25 years in government, including as vice chair of the intelligence council. John, let me start with you. Secretary kerry got quite a grilling from committee, in which, among other things he was told he had been fleeced, bamboozled, and was likened to a hotel guest who left nothing left with nothing but the hotel robe on his back. Do you agree . Give us your take on the deal. John i would say, leaving aside all the details about centrifuges and percentages of enrichment material, we can come back to that. I would say this deal is not as bad a deal as the critics think and it is not as good a deal as we would like. I think on the whole that it is better to have this deal than to not have a deal. And i can see it unfolding in about three different scenarios. Anyone who tells you they know exactly where this is going to go in todays middle east is delusional. We can come back to the scenarios later, but i would leave it at that, it is better to have this deal than not. Host ellen, we will get to you. Give me your initial take on the deal and im going to follow up with something you wrote about what the deal could become. Just measuring the agreement for what it is. Ellen i think it is a remarkable diplomatic achievement. I think the iranians still has some hard choices to make of whether they will comply as fully as the agreement obliges them to do, but i look at it through the prism of, does it change the dynamics for Regional Security . I think once we get past this position of theory alex their tricks and drama, and people have an emotional reaction as to when as to whether they trust the iranians are not, i think this is a net positive. Let me follow up from the getgo, because you had a pretty ambitious take on what it could become. You said this deal is a great moment of opportunity for the arab world, israel as a silent partner, to strike a deal with iran. Can you explain what you mean by that . Can we really expect more arab cooperation . The agreement in a way is a narrow Technical Agreement on only some of the rons irans behavior that we found problematic and most harmful to american interest. We would have security obligations and the need to respond if iran went further along the path of becoming a Nuclear Weapons capable state. The countries in the region were telling us it was an existential threat for them. We then jinned up a very high Risk Strategy with our u. N. Partners and got to the finish line on a plan that does limit irans, and virtually prevents them from becoming a Nuclear Weapon state for at least a decade to a decade and a half. It is still a little bit confusing to me, and as you say, the other reasons why there is turmoil and violent and distrust in the region are clearly creating an environment where people are only looking at the downsides of the agreement. They are not looking into potential up sites. What i was trying to do in april, when we look out over the horizon, how might this change regional relations . I think arabs should see a net security benefit to them to know that there is not another Nuclear Weapons state in the region, but it will be a. Of adjustment. It is not the first a period of adjustment. It is not the first time the United States has tried to establish a new modus operandi. How they talk about the agreement and their longterm relations with iran. Met, you were on matt, you were on the inside as this in folded. Did you think the deal would go through russian mark were you surprised go through . Were you surprised and what should we be thinking about . Matt the one conclusion, had the negotiations been in aspen instead of switzerland they would still be going on because no one would have wanted to leave. It is a far better place to talk about these hard issues. The way i think about it, i was pessimistic about whether a deal would happen because i was not sure if the iranians would get to the place they needed to be. If you look at the tremendous amount of pressure they were under, manifested by the election of the president which showed the dissatisfaction of where the country was going, they were definitely under pressure. It was unclear if internally test internally iran could reach a place. I am thinking about the adage that this is really at the very most, the end of the beginning and only got. The two things im most concerned about, verification and inspection, and what happens if there is cheating. Second, recognizing that any arms control agreement is just dealing with that, arms control, but the nuclear piece is just one part of broader issues of the ron irans behavior in the area. How do we deal with their other bad behavior and how do we think about a strategy past the Nuclear Agreement . Dealing with a whole other range of things that iran is trying to do. I want to go away from that and talk about it in more detail. I want to talk about events this week. Ash carter just visiting netanyahu and then he went to riyadh. What do you think those conversations were like, and what could at carter be telling the israelis and saudis that they have not heard 50 times . Matt i think probably i have been there 30 times in the last few years, and in a sense, something similar to what they have heard before but it is important that they keep hearing it because it has the advantage of being true. The United States knows that you ron more than an arms control issue. Iran has regional hegemonic interests. They have the largest conventional military in the region and a huge amount of asymmetric threats. When all this means is that the United States is not going anywhere just because a deal has signed. In some cases, even though i think the likelihood of war has decreased and the likelihood iran will get a Nuclear Weapon has rapidly declined, americas commitment is still there. The message to israel and the saudis, the United States will have an enormous commitment in the area. We have 34,000 American Forces stationed in the reason, over 10,000 deployed troops, some of the most advanced aircrafts, missiles, and technology that that region and the world has ever known. That is not going anywhere and because of that, theres a huge amount of concrete manifestation of americas commitment to resisting the range of the rons irans behavior. We will be there to deter them from doing bad things. John, talk if you would about the role of the Intelligence Community. Two different types of intelligence that will be important. One is the kind of close monitoring of iranian facilities and suspected facilities, and the question of verification, will we catch them if they try to cheat. The other is an analysis about iranian domestic politics and what its intentions are. Do we really have visibility into what direction the country is headed . Why dont you take on the first question and talk to the extent that you can about the role the Intelligence Community will have in backstopping this deal in a way that the administration cannot talk about in a lot of public detail . John let me just elaborate on one point that that made. I find that israeli opinion is a little more very gated on this issue than one might think. As far as i can tell, those israelis think this is not a good deal they do not all speak of it quite as harshly as you netanyahu does. They see a shortterm advantage and the basic fact is that iran will be less nuclear, after a 90 day transition. The deal does not really take effect for a while yet, but it will be nice less Nuclear Capable than they were. They were two to three months away from a bomb. They will be a year away from a bomb if the steps occur. He is really concern is more about the longerterm and we can talk about that, because at the end of 15 years, the game is up. On your question, i think what we will see here is a kind of and let me make clear, i am not speaking for the Intelligence Community so im not giving away something that i should not, but i probably will because it is hard not to hear it hard not to. Please do. John i think you will see a synergy between the technology the intelligence world and technology. Intelligence will be looking very carefully at iranian behavior, and we are pretty good at this, to detect suspicious activity or cheating. I would remind everyone that in 2002, that is exactly what we detected in the case of north korea, which had an agreement with the United States made in 1994 to stop their Nuclear Activity. We detected they were preparing to acquire the materials for a uranium enrichment path. They have been using plutonium. I think intelligence will be very good at this. I want to say a few words about the iaea. They are pretty good. Theyre probably undermanned for this job at this time, but they have a record and they are going to be, by virtue of iran at some point in the next three months, accepting what is called the Additional Protocol to the nonproliferation treaty, they will have authority to be much more intrusive in what they do in iran that they have been now, which is something that israelis have noted to me that has an advantage. There will be more intrusive monitoring. If you look at, even the issue here is where the problem will come on that side. The first time we detect some sort of suspicious activity somewhere, and iran does not want us to look their there, there is an elaborate procedure that can stretch out over 24 days of negotiation about whether we can look, and everyone is assuming that during that period of time they would sanitize that site. I want to say the iaea has pretty good records of that sort of thing. There are instances in both iran and syria where they have gone in after israel had bombed a suspected nuclear facility, and managed still to determine that Nuclear Activity had been underway, largely because what they do is take miniscule squab swabs of various things that could be suspected to be nuclear associated. They did this in iran when they were previously lying to us about an electrical factory that was also nuclear related. The bottom line here is, it all works as it is supposed to work, the intelligence and inspection part of this i think will be pretty effective. But i also suspect that is the first place where it can break down. Because of iranian objections to somewhere we want to go. One of the most worrisome aspects of the iran suspected program was that a place, where it was thought that they were doing conventional explosive testing with a substitute for nuclear testing, and they have not allowed us to go there. In the agreement it says very little, other that there will be a separate arrangement between the iaea and iran. There are a lot of negotiations. A separate agreement has become a point of contention in congress. Ellen intelligence coverage of the iran issues may shift a bit in the good direction. As you all know, think about capabilities and intentions. At least on the softer human side, there are at least some relationships. We have been able to establish some kind of human contact with at least some of the key players in iran. Were not anywhere close to the Supreme Leader, we do not know what happens in the inner sanctums, but at least there are now channels that i think will be a breath of relief after so many decades where we were following iran remotely and knew that we could follow large movements of military forces, but we really felt handicapped at not knowing enough about the internal politics. We all know this agreement was negotiated by the good guys of the ron, if you want to believe that, the president and foreign minister, but there is a whole other part of the iranian system that probably takes a whole another view. I am not suggesting that the time secretary kerry has spent that somehow that is sufficient, but it is a big improvement on what we have had. I think intelligence people are certainly aware of what others are aware of. Those who visited a ron and spent a lot of time there. There is nothing in this agreement that guarantees a transformation in iran. Having said that, iran has competing power centers, it has a quasidemocracy. 40 of the University Graduates are women. It is still very repressive at the top, that we saw as recently as 2009, a Reform Movement the got squashed but hovers the need the surface. And i think the election of rouhani, he was not supposed to win. The expedient council determines who gets to run. In the last go around, they did not even let ross on johnny run r afsanjani run. Rouhani was the one person who is thought to be a little offcenter in terms of the regime, and he won, which tells us there is some sort of yearning there for engagement with the outside world. That being said, those of the top still call the shots so my point is, there are competing power centers. And if this agreement goes well, what do i mean by goes well . If rouhani gets what he was bargaining for, sanctions relief, which can also be seen as a detriment, but if he gets sanctions relief, and the parliamentary election i would expect his faction to have some traction and maybe gain some votes. What does that mean . Maybe the balance in their Parliament