Friends dont have to be. When youre connected youre not cox supports cspan as Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. Current and former government Officials Join policy advocates to discuss u. S. Policy towast ad Irans Nuclear ambitions from the Wilson Centers 2 and a half hours. All right. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to the iran, middle east event. At i want to introduce you president and ceo ambassador mark green, thank you. Thank you, sir, for the great work that youre doing. He welcome, everyone, to the Wilson Center. So we are a unique institution in foreign policy, we are congressionally chartered. Scholarship driven andte fiercey nonpartisan and independent. That special status brings with it special obligations to not duplicate what others are doing but instead to prioritize most important issuess and those plas which we believeve we can add value and make a difference. So there are few topics that more fit the bill for picking High Priorities than the subject that brings us here today and the discussions on iran, the middle east and u. S. Involvement in the region. Our work is focused on both ends of pennsylvania avenue. I can tell you that weve done more briefings and responded to more requests for on any subject than any other in recent months. Our goal at the Wilson Center is to do our best to provide alliances in the region and implication for u. S. National security and we are hoping in■] our work and todays discussion focus nuance understanding of the geopolitical dynamicses what we bvement in modern history. I invite all of you to partake in todays discussion, to process what you hear, togood qn important time and this is an important topic. I think we could all sense that there are geopolitical shifts underway particularly with irans most recent parliamentary elections and the ongoing war on gaza and the gathering storm ofd economic targets from irans excess of■t resistance. The attacks have significant rarlmifications. Iran is active partner in putins war plan and we know its making new investments nearly every day inn many regims around the world and so this is an important time and importants topic and to get things underway, im going to turn things over to you to introduce the first panel that will delve into iran, allies and its role in the region, good luck with todays discussions which i know will help us all betr multilayed complexities of iran, leadership and its activities and involvements in the regionnd th. Thank you. Leasure to introdue our, first panel for today which will be moderated by ambassadors david hale who is a global fellow at the Wilson Center and formerly ambassador to lebanon, jordannd pakistan. On the panel are First Investor jim jeffrey who was chair of the middle east program, last but upnot least michael who is managing director at the Washington Institute for policy as well as senior and over to david to start the discussion. Thank you. We are very regretful robin unable to join us so im stepping in. But i wanted just open as robind intended bringing everyones attention, the director ofe rept that came last week on iran with the assessment which is quite grim of the scope and region, their continued exitment to work on accelerating Nuclear Program and particularxploitatio so all of these will be topics for our discussion today. My own observation as a diplomat for years state department is that since 1979 our president s and our leaders have tried almost every singl ie National Security sort of rule book from containment to engagement to maximum pressure to even benign or benign neglect none of which has worked in changing behavior or threat to u. S. Interest. On the hope like to start perhaps with you, network of proxies and allies, what it seeks achieve through those relationships as an opening shot. Thank you very much, david. Its great to be back at thei Wilson Center and to discuss this subject with jim and mike. Let meak 3 observations in response to the question and then im happy to delve deeper in every aspect in first point that the war in gaza so far has been a mixed bag for iran. On the one hand, the war has revived e which ways which was unimaginable on october 6th. And iran as the socalled this cause obviously stands to benefit from this reality. Also the conduct of the war has resulted in a degree of radicalization that also iran, f the objective of recruitment and the future. The war has fueled narrative of standards and forcing International Humanitarian law which also grants iran a victory in terms of its discourse. It also damaged israels image and therefore delayed normalization of relations between ar ample b counties and israel and that too is beneficial to iran. On the other hand, hamas attack know and its in the report as owwell, iran did not have any foreign knowledge, path with the United States after math and understanding that both sides achieved last summer which relted in the longest period of attacks against forces in iraq and syria. It has put vulnerability on full suffered multiple cyber and Covid Operations in this period which, again, highlights vulnerability they have at time. It also highlighted iran to sacrifice strategic anything homeland and i think that weakens the credibility of irans deterrence. Second point is that the Overall Concept of irans strategy which boils down to forward defense based on having the proxies and partners away fm iranian borders that would deter attack on iranian soil has proven simultaneously to be successful and yet perilous. Successful because the strategy has basically allowed iran waye indian ocean through the mediterranean through the red sea and the access has operated its a much more coordinated fashion than anything we had seen in all of these years and yet the fact that and arms these groups, of course, creates a degree of complicity regardless of how much irannts e and these groups operate g÷■xautonomously and vulne retaliation against itself and on its soil. We came very close to that several times during the Trump Administration. We came very close afterlo the tower 22 incident back in january or february. And this completely undermines the concept of the existence of this forward Defense Strategy which, again, is the protection of the helnt to make at athe beginning is there are two elements that help with the deescalation and one that risks further escalation ut nder the n tower 22 is a good example of that. In oman between iran and thest u. S. Even if there werent channels, i think this would lead them to cautiously. The degree of domestic constraints in each of the territories of the stakeholders involved is■jv certainliulated to their appetite for risk. Does not want to take major risks in regional foreign policy. Same applies to hezbollah. And finally the main risk which im worried about the most although the tower 22 incident did not in grief but it has increased the risk of miscalculation. Ive had conversations with american officialsnd weeks which indicate that the perception or interpretation of what happened is almost mirror image of one■6 another. The u. S. Seems to believe that they are much more assertive reaction to an incident in which 3 service■8■eem killed has had deterrence and therefore if theres another iis the u. S. Isn respond stronger thinkinghaon to iranian asset was directly targeted, they have interpreted that the u. S. Has appetite for risking too much and this also, i think, create possibility of m especially wheu have an actor like the houthis over which iran does not have as much command and control as the case with some of the shiite malik ace in iraq and scenario where you have a high number of casualties. I leave it here and to the conversation. Thank you, ollie, im struck sby recalling the history when the United States iranian proxin beirut and two embassies, we didnt retaliate at all. There was a lot of talk but there was no actual action and i think that the iranians have a long memory and have seen a pattern of behavior touching on your last point about how we react which brings know mike and howch do you see e evolving pattern of iranian various responses over the years. They saw david,f great to be hee with everyone and i elliot did a great job on what iran has been up to in the region and the reasonstrategy ws important to understand that, in fact, iran has a strategy in the region and the things we are seeing from iran random malign acts and they do fit together in a pattern and sometimes u. S. Actions, i think, are fitting less of a pattern in a sense and actually have more randomness and you mentioned marine bombing and i think thef. They missed. Had highly variable responses and i think what we have seen is that the u. S. Has never, i■ think, had a very sort of decisive strategy towards iran. Iran has never really been the number onee priority inin the ri would argue but we have changed our strategy over time so when i came in to nsc, National Security cnc■ky director one of the things i tried to do to determine what had come before me and what was i inheriting and onehitual servn government differs from say, you know, what youve learned in a Public Policy school as youknows youre never creating a policyou from a blank sheet of paper. You have a policy handed and yoe can tweak it at the margins andu rewrite a policy and what i found in the early 2000s there was many policy debates on irany really never resulted in much. They didnt result in any consensus on what should our the priority was iraq in the middle east at the time. Even though you had arguably much more compelling evidence of iran developing Nuclear Weapon, certainly a long track record of iran being involved in terrorism against the United States iraq was the clear priority and broar global war on terrorism. Alqae w t focus at the time. So these debates never really result. Talk of different strategies but the Nuclear Program, at least, was to sort of trust the un and the e3. The uk, france and germany to d] other matters as youll recall. That may have changed say 2005 when Irans Nuclear program became a much greater concern where iran support for terrorism time, maybe even through say the early 2000s, it was irans support for terrorism, priority with regard to this threat. Even after that, we settled into a strategy which was, i think, a strategy which is familiar to everyone here which was the dual track diplomacy and coercion strategy which was adopted by around 2005 with the aim of sort of compelling iran lets say to abandon its Nuclear Weapons aspinegotiation table with the a that then perhaps we could have some kind of some sort of accommodation or deal withthat y years between the u. S. And iran since 1979. That policy was by president obama. We have this sense that president obama had a radically different iran strategy than president bush. I would say its not actually tr that he changed in some ways, he engaged especially in direct outreach to the Supreme Leader of iran by writing letters but fmentallyesident oba pursued at first was the same dual track offering carrots andn to the table largely to negotiate over the Nuclear Program. All the while the backdrop was that we had obviously the u. S. And iran sort of killing each other actually in iraq but i would argue that never really was the focus of american big sort of element of the policy but i think there was a sense that, you know, if we could get and jim will have a view on this, if we could get strong and competent government in iraq that was ultimately the solution to that problem in they should we not push back harder or retaliate and i would say we are not seriouslylating, not seriously considered. I think what changed around the middle of the obama how we looked tat threat and how we looked at our own capabilities changed a bit. I think there was a sense after sort of the amoun o had spent again in sort of proxy combat with the iranians in anticipated, they made a lot of progress in the Nuclear Program. We had suffered a lot of casualties in iraq at the hands of. Iranians or iranian proxies but there was a v to deal with it. President obama campaigned in parton that idea that we werent, that we werent being successful in iraq and so there was a real shift in our strategy towards iran away from the dual track policy and more towards president obama sort of secondpe bilateral with the iranians because we are worried that thii is headed towards war and frankly we dont want that wante east to the extent we can. Not out of the middle east in a grand sense that is exaggerated but i think by that period of president Obamas Administration 2011, 2022 there was a sense that the risk here that necessitated change in strategy and that ultimately, i think, is what produced the jpoa and jcpoa. It was the that was the most risky, dangerous issue, lets just sort of get it, put to the side a east strah is what we want which is ultimately decreasing commitment to the region. Thats a strategy that, you kn, wachanged. The United States, you know, still isnt looking to increase our footprint in the middle east for sure. Thats been a matter of■a■y■÷set obviously the approach towards iran has changed because there has been a view that that strategy of, well, lets, you know, gage avoid war hasnt really been successful and i think thats actually not just a republican view, its not just a trump view but you can see that from the de extent as well, the sense that somehow we would come to a Nuclear Agreement and that would lead to a warming of■l relations between United States and iran has really sort of fallen away. So in a way we are back to idea of dual track policy, dangling the idea of diplomacy while pairing that with threats but i think with perhaps ultimately a bit of a lower estimation of what we can oultimately achieve in the regn and with respect to iran, so we have seen sort of the different eras of american policy towards iran but i would argue in none of the eras was a priority of the United States. So even today if you look at m■ whats unfolding in the middle, yes, iran is at the center of all the Different Things that elliot was talking about. Iran i■ast the center arguably of the houthi atooks. There the center certainly on the israel hezbollah border. Why do we not see hezbollah firing all of its missile hezboh has held and reserve and is something that is there to protect iran and iran certainly at the center of the story of shiite militia. So little of it has had to do with iran. Iran has arguably made significant gains throughout oc. It is isolated, u. S. And israel on the world stage. It has elevated hamas i would say in the palestinian sphere and the price that iran has paid, the price that we thexactn iran has been pretty iran is never really the top priority for the United States which i think suits iran just fine. Yi think if you go back to what elliot was talking about■artf tp adversaries including the United States preoccupied with other things so that theyre not focused on iran. Let me i think that we again are seeing, we are seeing interesting things follow iran in terms of stratege question that is raised is what will it produce from the United States and from the west in general so we interestingm shifts. Alignmenth from iran with china and russia which is something that i hope we will talk more about. Iran has always been sort of diplomatically available in a in a sense, we havent gotten very far with diplomacy with iran but iran is always sortkepy have to do with their desire for trade, it may have to do with populations, inclination towards the west, there may be multiple reasons for it but as seem as the door is increasing shut for lots of reasons and aligning much me closely with china and russia and all the other actors that are part of that sphere. We see iran increasingly becoming a player in the global arms market providing drones and maybe Ballistic Missiles to russia and we see at the same time iran being ier conventional centers that it hasnt really fueled before, fighter jets and things like that. Thats a big shift from iran as iran not just a crackdown on the populist but what i think most western diplomats describe a well as preoccupation withur success and we may find ourselves dealing very different. Something like military dictatorship or Something Like that that is more aligned withdt has been in the past. So im not sure david what the conclusion is from my initial remarks. Had shifts in american strategy from one era to the next never i would say a very close focus on iran which is in part why you see scattered the reluctance to sort of go all in and to take big risks in our responses to iran but at the same time shifts andnd strategis from wonder whether those shifts in strategy will prompt Something Different from the United States and the west going forward. Thank you, mike. Very helpful, jim. I will turn it to you. Lett me comment briefly ic attention on the situation today and what do you think u. S. Policy should be addressing in terms of the threats . I agree with everything aulie and mike said. I will answer your question but a frustrating two minutes. Okay. Okay, so here is the scenario. A powerful hostile <