and the future of journalism tonight at 9:00 eastern here on , online at c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. announcer: next, a look at iran and it's rising tensions with the united states. this was hosted at the national press club. it is 90 minutes. afternoon ladies and gentlemen. jahshan, i amlid executive director of the arab center in washington. i welcome you to this briefing focusing on unpacking the recent escalation in the gulf and the prospects of u.s.-iran talks in terms of diffusing the situation. pleased that c-span is covering this event. so i would like to simply --

that is the reason i am starting on time, because i know a few more people coming in on a difficult afternoon in the press building. we will welcome them when they get here. ask foruld just like to your cooperation in terms of turning your phones off to make sure the ringing does not get broadcast to the whole c-span audience worldwide, and to avoid as much as possible walking in front of the cameras, it doesn't look good for people in the middle of conversation, kind of going back-and-forth across from the camera view. i also would like to announce that for those of you who are center, usually, our questions and answers are done in writing.

so anytime you have a question, feel free to write down your yourselfntify and write your question. staff will collect those, pass them on to the chair of the panel and then your will be addressed to the specific panelists indicated . then we say a couple of words quickly about the chairman of the panel and the subject matter a little bit, then turn it over to them. honoredy pleased and that my colleague in good friend for many years, neither one of ,s would like to say how long .as agreed to chair this panel

he is a colleague at the arab center and professor at georgetown, and a longtime resident and active scholar in washington dealing with these issues, middle east in general, but particularly this issue with u.s. policy toward iran. i would like, for those of you interested, to recommend to you the most recent work for us if you go on our website, the arabcenterdc.org, his most recent paper on tunisia and north africa adjusting to the departure of the president and trying to cope with the transition there, and also another one on the subject of today, a paper that was written a couple of weeks ago before that, on the subject of dealing with iran.

let me just say that aside from a nonresident fellow at the arab center, daniel brumberg is a director of democracy and government studies at georgetown university. he is also a senior nonresident fellow at pomed, the project on middle east democracy here in washington. he served as advisor and consultant, special advisor to the u.s. institute of piece between 2008 and 2015. he has worked in various advisory capacities to the u.s. government, including the state department, the u.s. agency for international development, focusing particularly on his specialty, human rights, security sector reform, and governance issues. in terms of the subject matter, aside from the questions that are raised on the invitation and

the announcement, dan will be talking a bit more about that in it has been kind of interesting for those of us who are following the dance taking place between washington and tehran. back-and-forth, it is a dizzying tennis match, diplomatic tennis match, with a tit-for-tat aspect to it which makes it sometimes very difficult to follow. and it is somewhat chaotic. i mean, clearly, the parties have not connected yet in terms of taking the positive reaction many of us would like to see taken to diffuse the situation and prevent war from devastating the region, whether by intention or by mistake. but definitely, the resolution witnessed in washington specifically and also on the

iranian side, it makes you wonder, as my friend this morning had an op-ed piece in which he said, is trump accidentally triggering reconciliation in the middle east? it is kind of funny because my colleague, the director of our research, also wrote a piece a week ago, which i also welcome you to look up in our website called, "the arabian gulf must not sleepwalk into war." and it looks like it is sleepwalking in that direction. the panel today will be focusing on those two assessments, is it triggering reconciliation or is it sleepwalking in the wrong direction? with that said, i would like to pass the microphone onto my friend, daniel, to proceed.

thatl: thank you, khalil, was a very generous introduction to the chair, i very much appreciate it. it is true, we have been friends since graduate school, and i will not mention the year involved. [laughter] i am really delighted to be here today. they look forward to learning from -- i look forward to learning from my co-panelists. i remain mystified about the direction of u.s. foreign policy, as so many of us, and i am hoping, however, that in addition to getting your insights, we can find some arenas where we might differ, because a tenancy, understandably, is often to converge rather than diverge but we will see how that goes. as kahlil said, we will be taking questions, you will write them down, ring them up here -- bring them up here. i will be asking the first question abusing my role as

, chair and from there we will look at the cards of your questions and have a good discussion. our panelists will roughly talk ten minutes. my job, along with my colleagues from the arab center is to enforce those rules, 10-12 minutes vigorously, so we can finish on time and have the discussion. without further ado, i will briefly introduce the panelists in the order that they will be speaking, which is the order that is printed on your handout. universityer, associate at hurston university, katzman, congressional research service, he has been written on issues about the gulf for many years. research fellow in the iranian-american council, she is based in california, very happy to have you with us today. and my friend and colleague, barbara slavin, director and nonresident senior fellow of the future iran initiative at the the atlantic council.

so without further ado, i think we will begin with shireen. shireen: thank you very much, dan. it seems to me that the order of the speakers is that age goes before wisdom. [laughter] but that also means that i have been doing this whole iran business unfortunately for it seems, 40 arduous years arguing , about this. i also think academics are like peddlers, intreet terms of giving a bit more credentials for my talk. my latest book, w ich called "arab-iranian relations, dynamics of conflict and accommodation," is available everywhere. having said that, let me just start with a few points, raise a

few points, then hopefully we can have discussions later on. before doing so, i want to say that i got two sets of before doing so, i want to say that i got two sets of instructions, one from the organizer of the panel, the meeting, and the other was from respected gentlemen, dan. so what i have tried to do is try to combine those and hopefully come up with something that is not entirely incoherent and has some use for pointing that. one of my earlier instructions was, how serious is the risk of war in the persian gulf?

and certainly, what is iran trying to do, and obviously the other side of the conflict, what is the u.s. doing? i can say something with quite certainty, that iran doesn't want war. whether or not the strategy that it is pursuing, including the so-called tit-for-tat escalation that was mentioned is another matter, and that could happen. wars generally happen sometimes because of the cumulative effects of such actions. we have to remember history since certainly the first world war, it happened like that. germany did not have a plan to conquer europe, so they were accumulations of certain actions that eventually went out of hand and led to that. but, iran doesn't want war.

ayatollah khamenei, let's be clear, increasingly, the center of decision-making is ayatollah khamenei and the irgc. in fact, the irgc has become the master of iran. i think that the sanctions come been crippling sanctions, as hillary clinton put it, have actually increased the power and especially the rule of the irgc in the economy. and as the economic problems lead to the potential for social tensions, the regime will have to resort to some kind of pressure, and i think this is where the irgc will become more important. but therefore, if something comes from ayatollah khamenei, we can credit that. whereas with hassan rouhani,

increasingly, i think he has become like a bag carrier, not even a respected bag carrier. i was much better treated when i used to carry the bag of the prime minister. but anyway, that is something we have to keep in touch, iran doesn't want war. on the other hand, he has also said that we don't want talks. once in a while, rouhani and zarif say that they don't want to talk about that, but if the time comes up, we will talk about what is happening there. he's also said that we don't want talks. as i said, foreign minister zarif and president rouhani have said that if the americans return to the j.c.p.o.a., we will talk, but i don't think the trump administration is going to

return to the j.c.p.o.a. in order to have talks with iran, unfortunately. it would be wise, but maybe some in between measures that can be agreed upon, but i don't think that is going to happen. increasinglyng happening is that, the issues and problems in the persian gulf are becoming much more internationalized than they have been before, in part because the trump administration, together with this more aggressive policy iran, has- towards also picked fights with both china and russia. one thing that to me personally,

i am of a generation of iranians, i come from a region that has been very much pressured by russia historically, for at least 300 years, so what is alarming to me is the growing closeness of iran and russia. if some rumors are to be believed, iran might allow russian fleet bases in the country. if that happens, their dream will have become realized. so i think that as it happens with the syrian conflict, it is no longer iran versus the united states, it is becoming internationalized. and i think that they say that iran and russia are going to have joint maneuvers towards the end of the year. so we shall see what happens. i am trying to say, the more we delay some kind of compromise with iran, the more this becomes internationalized, and we will

get more cooks trying to get into the stirring of the soup. the other question i was asked is what a war would mean for the region. it is quite obvious, and everybody has said, iran cannot win a conventional war in the sense of bombings and so on and so forth. but, when you are fighting for your life, or if you think you're going to be destroyed or obliterated, i think that was the word president trump used, then you will try to do whatever you can to extend the damage. in fact, iran's biggest deterrent, which is a double-edged sword, including with the strait of hormuz, the biggest deterrent is what i call the samson option. in other words, if i go down, i will bring the temple down with me. indeed thereat if

is a war in the region, that -- then iranians would, with whatever means they have, they will create as much chaos as possible. but most importantly, even if iran doesn't do anything, the very fact of the shock of the war to the global economy and so on will negatively affect everybody globally. but certainly, countries in the region are going to suffer a lot more. and i think that all the iran strategy in the persian gulf, down in the so-called drone, taking ships and so on, it is to show basically, and this is -- in thisn this era, this is right, if you want to use the strait of hormuz, we have to use it too, and part of that is that we have to be it will to have a living.

and with all the sanctions and so on, our living is completely disappeared. let me add, i read a very interesting analysis about the so-called intakes of svp, whatever, it was excellent. i never had any hope for this, but it shows a chapter and verse, how this cannot hold. let's not be complacent about the potential damage that the war can do in the surrounding areas. and i think that it may not be limited just to the persian gulf, and that definitely it would impact iran. so yes, i think it would be quite damaging, to the u.s. economy and also the global economy. the other thing i would like to add is that -- i think i covered the view for iran.

-- from iran. now, i will talk about the talks. let me first say that talks are not a panacea. one of the things i have been surprised in recent times to see is a dichotomy has been created, a false dichotomy between war and diplomacy, as if the two are absolutely separate. war is a type of diplomacy, or as it is said, war is diplomacy by other means. diplomacy is also a conscience of power and how one can get what one wants. the question becomes, under what conditions in he talks between the talkse -- can between iran and the u.s. can be productive? here comes the issue of what the united states wants, and what iran is willing to get.

why don't we call it the way it is, what is it we are complaining iran is doing, iran's nefarious regional activities? the most important problem i think is iran's attitude toward the arab-israeli conflict and its actions within the levant, whether it is the hezbollah, whether it is support for hamas, to me, it is unacceptable talk, although it is talk about israel but does not have a right to exist politically, or in the -- not in the middle east, and so on. these are the main issues. i think there are a lot of tensions in the persian gulf that derive from that. there has always been a connection between the levant and the persian gulf. anyway, i don't want to go too

much into that, this is a problem of age, you have too many historical memories. i think that as long as iran is not willing to change policy, and i don't think they are yet willing to do that, it is going to be difficult to talk. the iranian regime does not show any sign that they are willing to do that. they are willing to come to an agreement with the arab states, all arab states, from egypt to even saudi arabia. recently, there have been lots of talks, maybe even bin salman is changing, so that can be done. but that would mean leaving the persian gulf politics from the levant politics. but this has been, both the policy that started with george w. bush that created much greater linkage in this. frightening the arabs

of iran might make them more accommodating to israel and so on. and i think iran is just lost in this thing, they don't know what they are doing. part of the problem is that iran -- is that iran, unfortunately, in an article recently argued regime, thenian islamic republic, needs a new basis for its political legitimacy. raison d'etre. i said they have to change the revolutionary framework into a framework that is basically national, not nationalist, but national, which means that -- priority,to safety, whatever it is they are doing. that would mean doing away with the irgc, doing away with ayatollah khamenei, and a lot of those clerics leading iran.

so i will end it with this before my two minutes are up, i will end with a quote from the former commander of the irgc. a general. -- a general. he said, if you talk to america, nothing will remain of revolution. so the problem becomes here that we have to find a way of trying to de-link persian gulf politics and eventually in time, things will work out. but as long as we keep this point, -- and the other of the u.s.estion and the problem with iran has become one of pride. iran is, forgive me for using the metaphor, but iran is the

rebellious party that so far has escaped punishment. iraq is gone, syria more or less is destroyed, but iran has yet. so there are elements in the united states who really want iran to cry uncle. prefer if they would they did that through talking. that is why you have 12 points. this has been the constant policy in the united states at least since 1988. i would go even to 1987. this is not primarily a trump problem. if we think of it in terms of trump -- unfortunately, iranians are thinking in terms of trump. i keep telling them, they shouldn't expect anybody else to do much better until unless they change some of the domestic issues. you can't challenge a country

and its interests, you cannot say you are going to drive the united states out of the middle east and hope that they will give you the lead to do that. i think that what we are seeing is a gradual combination of the crisis that has been going on for 40 years. i will stop here and hopefully later in questions, i might add a couple more things. thank you very much. daniel: thank you very much, professor hunter. i think you put your finger on one of the key issues here, the question of the heartland there's. -- heart landers. for them, it would be the end of the revolution. obama's solution was focused on the nuclear issue and trying to break them apart, but now that policy has been jettisoned. it is one question, where do we go from here? to would be be willing engage in that particular issue? ken, go ahead. ken: thank you.

thank you to the arab center. sometimes i am in a crs capacity, sometimes i am not. today, i am not in a crs capacity. i will be speaking in english. [laughter] host: i like that. karin: i think shireen was correct that iran doesn't want war, but in my estimation, in my analysis, iran is in the strongest position i have seen in many years. they have basically rescued assad from the brink of extension. hezbollah is stronger than it has ever been. iraqi shia militias in many ways the preponderant power in iraq. the uae has in some sense left yemen, leaving the campaign in houthis -- backed

by the houthis hanging by a thread. iran has backed the houthis that is very clear. iran doesn't want war, i totally agree, however, iran is being strangled by sanctions, its oil exports are 10% of the baseline of 2.5 million barrels a day, it has been shut out of the international banking system, and it is estimated that the gdp gdphat it's gdp -- that its will sink about 6% or 7% this year, which would be a severe recession in the u.s., not a mild recession. it would be a severe recession. so iran is feeling, in my estimation, extremely confident that it can make a tremendous amount of trouble for the united states if there is a conflict, and iran is going to go to the mats to try to achieve the lifting of sanctions. a succession of mediators appear to have taken their chance and struck out. -- chance at the plate and

struck out. there was not a tremendous amount of active mediation appearing to bear fruit. i want to talk a little bit about the fact that this puts a big burden, i would say, on the european countries who continue to support the j.c.p.o.a., the nuclear agreement. they feel this was a victory for european diplomacy. they saw no real credible rationale for the u.s. to leave the accord, they are trying mightily to preserve it and they may succeed or they may not. i will talk a bit about what they are trying to do and what others are trying to do to keep this agreement in place and perhaps salvage the situation and maybe pull us back from the brink of conflict, which i think is the point of our meeting today, to talk about, are we on the brink of conflict, and can it be avoided? -- and maybe how it can be

avoided? shireen mentioned instex, a european union vehicle, sort of like a barter exchange. basically, the europeans have started it. it has processing transactions. it has not yet completed a transaction and is so far limited to humanitarian affairs and issues, goods which are not sanctionable under the u.s. sanctions law. it is a vehicle whereby basically european exporters to iran will be paid by european importers, and iranian exporters will be paid by iranian -- the money stays on each side of the divide. basically, the money doesn't go from iran to europe or europe to iran, it stays on each side of the divide, and therefore, presumably, it avoids dollar

transactions and avoids sanctionability. that is the thesis. now, it is going to have difficulty. the europeans are considering a number of ways to make it more effective and maybe make it viable. they are considering expanding it to oil transactions, very difficult, because under u.s. law, indirect transactions, if somebody buys iranian oil, that is a sanctionable transaction. instex it went through or not. whoever took the delivery of iranian oil could be subject to u.s. sanctions. so, oil maybe a little difficult, but it is under discussion. the other near-term option that is being explored is that the europeans appear to be exploring a plan where they will basically be pumping capital into the

transaction. they will make advance payments to european exporters so they are not waiting for iran importers to pay. it is a little hard -- i am trying to make sense of it myself, but it looks like what the europeans are doing is they are trying to pump capital into the mechanism to accelerate it. the other issue under discussion is for others outside europe to join the vehicle. china is talking about joining the vehicle, obviously, china is flush with cash. other ideas -- china still does buy iranian oil, yes, a lot less than they were, however, you know the u.s. and china are in a very, very significant trade conflict now. is it beyond thought that china as a way of messaging the trump administration might try to buy more iranian oil? that certainly is on the table, i would say.

china has basically said they are going to continue to buy iranian oil. there was a chinese company sanctioned last week, i will have to look up the name, they were sanctioned a few years ago for selling gasoline to iran, a minor chinese company. it was now sanctioned last week for transactions with iran. then, let me just briefly discuss another idea that is out there, even though i am not in a crs capacity today, i cannot recommend options. -- i do not recommend options. that is not what i am doing. i can talk about options and debate them, but i can't recommend anything. another idea out there is --

after the trump administration left the j.c.p.o.a. last year, the e.u. announced a $20 million development grant to iran. $20 million is a very small amount. iran is out maybe $40 billion or $50 billion a year because of the oil. to make iran whole, they would staked to about $40 or $50 billion, is my estimation. can the europeans simply pump that much cash into the iranian economy, $40, $50 billion a year? tough. probably not. could china pump half of that? probably, yes. is injecting capital into the iranian economy through cash grants, loans, is that sanctionable? i don't see that it is. there is a sanction for countries that aid countries on the terrorism list, which iran

is on the terrorism list, the sanction would be to cut aid to that country. china does not get u.s. aid, the europeans do not get u.s. aid, so i don't see a way that pumping capital into the iranian economy would be sanction able. -- would be sanctionable. i am not an attorney, this is my first blush assessment. these are the ideas that are out there. the europeans did pump some capital, i believe, into the turkish economy for the refugee issue. again, i am not speaking on turkey, i don't cover turkey. so, i think my point is, there are ideas out there. and i saying the j.c.p.o.a. can be salvaged? i am not assessing that, that is not my base case right now. are there ideas being explored? yes. could these ideas potentially salvage the situation? possibly. and i think i will end there. thank you. daniel: that is really sobering.

i think one recognizes that iran's regime depends on the sale of oil. if you can't sell oil, you have a gun put to your head -- gun put to your head, essentially. if none of these arrangements work out, particularly in terms of oil sales, iran has very few options. walking away from the agreement completely is one option out on the table now, and escalating the gulf, as a response predictable to this situation. so, i think that is really very important. all right. >> i would like to thank the arab center for giving me the opportunity and the platform to share with such respected people in the field. i will take a slightly different approach to what we are talking about and talk about the framing of the issue. the reason i take that approach is i think one of the things that has informed the way we have a discussion -- i believe a discussion like this is very important to have, because what we are trying to

gain at the end is a resolution, or else this is just an exercise in us talking. and when trying to gain a resolution, we have to a full understanding of where the problem comes from and stems from and how we talk about it is quite important. the framing we have seen in washington and in the media very often in the last 40 years, when it comes to iran specifically, but also the broader middle east, we have a baseline assumption that iran is a bad actor and the u.s. is a good actor. when we talk about this in this sort of useless dichotomy, we don't get the nuance of discussing, why is iran behaving the way it is? to say that they are only behaving this way because they are bad actors, we have no way of getting a resolution because we assume they are irrational actors. but if you look at what is -- what has happened over the last year, what he will seize a very rational approach from the iranian side. there's also a bizarre paradox in talking about iran. where on one hand, we have the argument that it is so powerful,

its hand is in every pot in the middle east, it is controlling everything, yet, it is so weak, that we can with one or two strikes, take them out. that paradox is again, problematic in finding a resolution. the interesting thing about the paradox is it's steeped in history of orientalism. this is the exact type of orientalism discourse that has long been used talking about the orient, as being docile, weak, effeminate, even, and simultaneously, hyper masculine, aggressive, and dangerous. and so, this is not something new to the discourse, it is something we have seen. and in the same reason that orientalism impeded our ability to have a conversation, it is still problematic in this framing as well. i talked about why i think the framing is important, because we are trying to gain a resolution,

today, what i would like to talk about is, we have two threats that are global and can threaten our species. one is climate change, and the other is nuclear weapons. what the j.c.p.o.a. did was not address climate change, but the idea that both these things required global cooperation. the j.c.p.o.a. is a model for global cooperation and a model for nonproliferation. it should have been something that rather than abandoning it, we should have used it as a model of how to denuclearize the entire middle east, to make sure it is used globally and tackle -- and to actually tackle the problems we are going to face in the next 10, 20, 50 years. we are seeing data out of the united nations that talks about food scarcity, water scarcity. these are the problems of that we really should be focused on rather than having a sideshow about iran and how iran is simultaneously an existential threat, and then no threat at

all because we can take them out easily. the crisis we are currently in is based on this kind of framing, and that is whether -- why we see the trump administration have an incoherent policy. they don't have a coherent framing. the other reason we have an incoherent policy is because his policy advisers are not aligned with his vision. we have talked about now how iran doesn't want a war, and i agree. absolutely. iran does not want a war. the violations we have seen, the small breaches that are calculated that iran has gone through in the last few months are easily reversible. if iran wanted to abandon the deal, they would have followed suit with the u.s. a year ago. but they did not. they want to stay in the deal. i do not want a war. i believe president trump has made it clear he doesn't want a war. unfortunately, his advisers arguably do. so, incoherent policy is coming out of the fact that they have a vision that is not aligned. the way out, and we will get into this more when we have

questions and answers, but i think there is some concern of, iran has said they don't want any talks. ayatollah khamenei has said they doesn't want any talks. nothing will remain of the revolution. while that mentality is certainly potent within the hard-liners in iran, of course, iran did negotiate and talk with the u.s., we did have a nuclear agreement, so it is not an impossibility to return to that status quo, it is that we in the u.s. are not acting in a way that would make it possible. again, if we go back to the original point, if you look at the iranian side as a rational actor, we see one year of doing absolutely nothing but complying with the deal, because they wanted to stay within the deal. this is what we call strategic patience. , we want to talk about the view from tehran.

i spent personally 10 years doing field research in iran during my phd program. from my understanding, as someone who has done field research in iran, the iranians are suffering currently under sanctions, and while they absolutely have rightful defense -- dissent and disagreement, and disdain even for the government they have, what the united states is doing is actually helping them to unify with -- behind something that they don't even necessarily like. that is what is so frustrating for someone who is an iranian-american in the diaspora to watch. to see people who are outspoken against the government now thinking, at least they are protecting us. right? things like drone strikes, tanker seizures, the assumption is that iran is the aggressor. that is the problem in the not understanding why they are behaving the way we are.

in fact, our drones, our tankers are close to iran. none of this is taking place anywhere close to the united states. so from their point of view, this is something i heard from a friend in iran after the drone strike. they were happy to know that they could defend their borders. a war in iran is not a far-fetched memory. war on their soil occurred in the 1980's. a generation was defined by the war. they still remember it and still understand it. the fear of not being able to defend their borders was a very potent fear. now, they are seeing their government having stepped up and being able to defend their borders, it's not something being seen as negative. we would never want to feel that our borders are not being protected by our government. in theam hoping is that rest of the conversation, that we can answer more details of how we can actually move forward. but i believe that the point of origin has to be the united states, because the point of origin that put us on this path was the decision by the united

states and the administration to abdicate the deal. if we want to talk to iran, if we want to negotiate a more formal deal, we have to go back to the origin and reconcile that. the iranian side has to come back into full compliance, and then you can have a discussion about more for more. i will leave it there. daniel: thank you very much, that was tremendous. it seems to me that whatever the long-term framing of iran as a bad actor in the u.s. is a good -- and the u.s. is a good actor, the d.c. framing these days is that the trump administration has provoked this problem and in that sense, it's not positive. iran is acting as the rational actor. this seems to be the widespread point of view, and maybe fox news does not share that point of view, but the narrative suggests that the ending of the decision by the u.s. to exit the nuclear deal was a precipitating factor of getting us to where we are now today. barbara.

barbara: i am not sure there is much left for me to talk about, but let me try. first, i think the arab center and i thank my co-panelists. i agree with a lot of what they said. i wrote a piece the other week for the axios websites, that said basically, when it comes to iran, the means has become the end. found i think that is what we have seen from the trump administration. there is disagreement within the administration about iran policy. although, not as much as there was at the beginning of the trump administration, when he you had people like jim mattis and h.r. mcmaster, actively urging the president to stay in the nuclear deal. the president fired those advisers, got new advisers who were more hawkish on iran, but there are disagreements for -- over whether military action can be taken.

john bolton in particular is quite hawkish, and secretary of state mike pompeo is more hawkish apparently than the president. but the one thing they all seem to agree on is sanctions, more and more sanctions. not just iran, if you have been following venezuela, now venezuela is under, embargo as well. to me, it represents frustration on the part of the administration that their policy is in working. iran has not returned to the table, there are no negotiations on a new and better deal, and if you remember the 12 demands that secretary of state mike pompeo put forward little more than one -- go forward a little more than one year ago, iran's policies areastivities in those are arguably much worse than they were then when the united states was still in the deal. when the u.s. was still in the deal, there were no tankers being sabotaged in the persian gulf, tankers being seized, drones being shot down.

yes, iran was active in the region, but i would argue that it has to do more with the u.s. mistakes, like invading iraq and opening iraq to iranian influence, then some sort of diabolical iranian hegemonic impulse. all of iran's nefarious and malign behavior has gotten worse since the u.s. left the deal, and of course, it makes perfect sense, because iran is signaling that it will not sit there and have its economy completely choked off and have the international community pay no price. what is surprising is that iran was patient for a year until the united states decided it was going to issue no more waivers for iranian oil exports and it would try to reduce around oil exports to zero.

all of this is quite predictable. sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions. last week was simply the height of absurdity. the united states, which claims it wants new negotiations with iran, sanctioned the one individual who would lead such negotiations, foreign minister javad zarif. not only did they sanction him, but on their farsi website, they put out an item that has an extremely ugly picture of zarif. -- that had an extremely ugly picture of zarif. he was actually in a fight with hard-liners at the time, but he looks very angry and menacing. and the text in farsi called persian,ude word in calling him a pimp for the iranian government.

now let me ask you, if you want to have negotiations with the iranian government, is this the way to go about it? is this designed to encourage negotiations? one of the questions we have now is whether he or even hassan rouhani will come to the security council for the meeting in september. will the united states provide the thesis and permission in time so they can make their preparations? will it impose such humiliating conditions that iran will boycott the u.n. general assembly in september? it is entirely possible, in which case, any chance for diplomacy goes out the window. i think that u.s. policy, like many other policies undertaken by this administration, is maximum noise, maximum pressure, and minimum result. things get worse, they don't get better, and we don't find solutions. as somebody who has been following iran also for 40 years, although perhaps less intimately than shireen hunter,

this is very frustrating, because we were in a better place, and as has been pointed out -- not only did we have negotiations with iran during the period that led to the j.c.p.o.a., but we had talks with iran under almost every administration, one sort or another. sometimes they have been covert and sometimes overt, but there have been talks and efforts at de-escalation. what we have now is a situation where there are no talks, no channels, and we are putting sanctions on the foreign minister of the country. last point, and this is a quotation from lewis carroll that i first heard applied to iran by the former deputy -- the former u.s. hostage in iran, and also the former deputy assistant secretary of state of iran and one of my favorite people. it goes like this, "when you

don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." [laughter] daniel: thank you very much. i will lead off with a question but anybody who has a question, please write it down on the card and my colleagues from the arab center will be collecting them and bringing them up here. one of the things barbara said about sanctions is, sanctions have two purposes. one is to force or encourage your adversary to come to the negotiating table, and the other is to destroy your adversary. the purpose of sanctions is to engage in a strategy of regime change. of course, iran has no incentive at all to come to the table, and we're all sitting up here scratching our heads wondering what is the policy coming from the administration in that regard. here is my question on that particular score. where is trump in all of this? it sounds like perhaps an odd question, but it is an interesting situation where when

you are apparently 10 or 15 minutes from an attack, a u.s. attack, we learned that our president decided that it is not a good idea. but my sense is that the president does not want to make war and he would rather negotiate if he could, but he just doesn't know how to get there particularly because he is surrounded by people who don't necessarily agree with him. so my question for barbara and anybody else in the panel who would like to address this, what do we make of this -- i'm not even sure how to characterize this -- strange bifurcation in the white house? is it possible for this administration to negotiate, is it possible for trump to find his way towards offering negotiations and not take steps as barbara described, to completely upend any idea that we could have talks? barbara, anybody else, i'm trying to look into the soul of this administration and understand what the prospects are here, which is after all

partly what we're talking about. >> i will start, then we can maybe go in the opposite order down the line -- one thing we have to stress is how much this is a domestic political issue for trump. he left the iran nuclear deal because his supporters supported that. they wanted more pressure and sanctions on iran. saudi arabia wanted it, the emirates wanted it, the israelis wanted it, and the big donors to trump's campaign wanted more pressure on iran. so, it is domestic politics for him, and i can't see him coming back into the j.c.p.o.a., see -- i can't see him making concessions toward iran that would make it easier for iran to agree to a new talks. you have to put something face-saving down on the table for iran to return to the talks and not simply try to wait until our 2020 elections, because we should point out that all the democratic candidates with the

exception of cory booker have said pretty much bet they would return to the j.c.p.o.a. if there was a j.c.p.o.a. to return to, which gives iran an incentive to try to hunker down and somehow stay within some aspects of the deal until 2020. it is hard to imagine. the sanctions on zarif, our colleague, robin wright, wrote in the new yorker that rand paul, another one of the emissaries to the iranians, met with zariff when he was in new york and invited zarif to the white house. and when zarif said he had to check with his government before he could come, and pretty much turned down the request, he was sanctioned. and according to zarif, he was threatened with sanctions if he didn't come to the oval office. these are mafia tactics. these are not the tactics of a great superpower. and again, what is in it for iran? if trump will make no concessions and they won't even

restore any of the oil waivers to iran, why should they return to talks? there is simply no rationale for it that i can see. i don't know what the others think. >> just a couple of footnotes to this. i may be a little bit off, and i would not use the word dissent, because that is a bit too strong, but i do believe that the iran-u.s. problems go beyond trump. trump is the culmination of a process that started, and frankly, on this i have to say, depending on who started what, it depends when in history you want to start. i mean, there are a lot of things that depend on the date you choose. the first example was from iran, hostage was first, the

crisis, then the ayatollah khomeini thing. of course, the sanctions started because of hostages, then after that with the clinton administration. in my humble opinion, the united states lost the best opportunities to have a -- to actually have a comprehensive talk with iran. the best time was in 1988. i know this for a fact. i don't want to go into that. iran was very traumatized. the iraqi troops were still in iranian territory, and they had indicated to the united states that if they got iraqi troops out of the region, they were -- out of iranian territory, they were willing to have all kinds of things. the other thing was during the third bush administration. in those days, the leadership was very powerful. now, there is no counterweight to the ayatollah.

the ayatollah was nobody in the 1980's, the irgc did not have that much power. barbara has written about this, and i like the book immensely. then in 2003, u.s. policy actually consistently has been regime change without war, except for the brief period of euphoria between afghan and iraqi war. -- of me afghan and iraqi war. i remember reading an article that said real men go to tehran, which said that we should have gone to tehran, and not baghdad. a number of things changed, but iran was on the hit list. i have said this, so trump is the culmination of all this stuff. let me say on the other side, what is happening with khamenei and all of that -- the problem i have personally, as someone who

puts iran ahead of islam or any other religion, the survival of iran and its prosperity for me is the most important. khamenei sees himself as the leader of the islamic world. islam is universalist. they look at iran as if it were a staging post for going after this. that is i am worried about the irgc. i think the people who consider war, either by accident or design, should remember that a minority of them may actually want an apocalyptic war. increasingly, with all the pressures, one thing that is very troubling to me, increasingly, people are talking about getting ready for the coming of the messiah. so, i think you have to understand, and of course, it is khamenei's personality.

in the same way with trump, khamenei is very stubborn, very proud, and i don't think he cares. he missed opportunities to deal with khatami and even with rouhani. so we have to do that. it requires for the united states, it seems to me, that if the united states really wants to, it falls on the united states. the other thing is that the u.s., and it started with clinton, but clinton started it without use of military force, it started on what i call a transformative policy for the middle east. you can't transform any region completely, it is not a mechanical thing. it is not a puzzle. it has therefore unleashed a dialectic process that we are here. to get back, it seems to me one way of doing things is also to look at iran as part of this bigger middle east puzzle.

and i think that my one recommendation would be to try to reach an agreement even without open talks on the -- open talks on the specific example,th iran, for shipping in the persian gulf. and one step would be to allow the process of reconciliation between iran and the gulf arabs to go forward. for that, i think iran is ready. even if they said they have no problems with saudi arabia. then they can build upon the. -- upon that. we have always put preconditions for iran rather than looking at it as a process, the end of which would be iran stopping its nefarious activities and all the other things. but if you go a priori, the

clinton administration and others did that, but you have to accept these things, then we can talk, but that is not negotiation, that is amending surrender, and i think that is very difficult with any kind of party. >> i want to add to the question you had about trump, specifically, and how he fits into the picture. i think this is fitting, because he wanted to coin the phrase "you are fired." it is possible, if he wanted to, as he done already so many times in his administration, to fire the people guiding his policies. to be fair, he is not a policy expert. he is being fed information by people who he has entrusted with guiding his policies were he doesn't know what to do. so, i think at a certain point,

it is really incumbent on him, if he generally does not want a war, which is what he says, to fire the people putting him on that path and bring advisors like tillerson, who at the beginning was not putting him on that path, which is why he argued we should remain in the j.c.p.o.a. i really think that is a simplified way of looking at it. but just being advised by people who actually have the same vision as you would be the path that trump should take if he wants to fit into this. it is really the question of, when he claims he doesn't want war, i just want iran not to have nuclear weapons, yet we had an agreement that prevented exactly that, and we pulled out of that agreement. so to get cohesion, he needs to find people who have the same vision as him. >> just to round it out and button it up, i think the administration, from what they say, points to the maximum

pressure weakening iran to the point where its regional activities are diminishing or will diminish. i wrote a piece that addressee -- that addresses the evidence of this, and i don't see any evidence that iran's economy is about to collapse, so whether iran will capitulate because of economic downturn, let's be -- let's remember, the iraqis shut off iran's oil exports entirely during the iran-iraq war. when you talk about getting iran to zero, the iraqis had it at zero and it did not collapse. it rationed food and goods, but it did not collapse. we have to, as analysts, look at the thesis that you can weaken iran to the point that it's surrenders, i would say i don't

see evidence for that right now. >> i think it is important also to note that the iranians see that president trump, not only does he not want another war in the middle east, but he wants to withdraw all u.s. forces from the middle east. you remember, it was only last december he said the u.s. was leaving syria, and he backtracked on that. now, he has his envoy trying to get an agreement with the taliban so the u.s. can drastically withdraw troops from afghanistan. so, yes, there is maximum economic pressure, but the u.s. is not really eager to put boots on the ground, which is another reason for the iranians to continue to test the united states with provocative actions in the persian gulf, to pressure europe, to pressure the chinese, the russians, and others, and essentially wait out trump. >> i have to say, ken's article

is recommended reading. >> it is on the atlantic council website. >> it reminds us of a strange idea that if a country is having economic struggles, it has to defend national interest, which is very bizarre assumption. here is an interesting question that i will read for you that president macron proposed an initiative in iran and acting as mediator for the u.s. and iran, and a number of countries have proposed playing that role. trump tweeted today that tehran is giving mixed signals including for macron. he insisted that nobody can represent the u.s. does this mean that mediation is doomed? what do you make of this statement? this is for ken and barbara. barbara: is this something that was tweeted today? he stopped beating up on beto o'rourke? [laughter] barbara: trump wants a photo op meeting with an iranian.

you know, this is a clear goal. he wants to replay the tape with north korea, not that that has gone so well. but maximum pressure, fire in fury, then a summit in which thousands of the world press are in attendance. that is what he wants with iran. but the situations are so different. i mean, first of all, north korea is a one-man dictatorship. iran is not. iran has politics, it has foreign policymaking through consensus. what is the percentage for iran? iran is already a major power in that part of the world, it doesn't need legitimization from donald trump in the same way that a 33-year-old north korean descendent, grandson of the founder of the regime, needed legitimization by donald trump. it is simply not there. also, the region in northeast asia want peace and wants north

korea to be brought out and a reintegrated into the region. at least until recently, the feelings in the middle east were different. i think if there is a hopeful sign, i agree with my fellow panelists. the united arab emirates has sent an emissary to iran, even the saudis seem to be toning down the rhetoric somewhat. if the region understands that donald trump is not going to save them, is not going to get rid of the hated regime in tehran, that they will be stuck with this regime for a long time, maybe they can sit down and start to sort out some of their problems together. trump has shown he simply cannot be counted on to solve the problem of iran for the region. daniel: thank you. yes, and i would add to that, when you are playing a game of chicken and hoping that the rest -- that threats of u.s. action will bring iran to compliance, you are left having to rethink

your whole approach. that is probably what they are doing in dubai right now, is reconsidering whether that will work out, because otherwise, it doesn't seem that the u.s. will necessarily go to war, or that iran will take the bait. here is an interesting specific question for which i have no clear guidance for, anybody who knows about this can jump. this is an american aircraft waters has been dreading on the straits of hormuz for two months now. could it be it is afraid of entering the gulf because it is afraid of being a sitting duck. also, what is the u.s. strategy in the persian gulf? we haven't talked about what is going on there. it is a real murky set of subjects. can, anybody else can jump in. >> it doesn't necessarily have to be in the gulf to be effective. the issue is, what i look at is

these deployment that have been announced since may. there have been several batches, including deployments of some advanced combat aircraft, additional defense weaponry. u.s. forces are back at the air base where they have not been since 2003. the question is, are these deployments deterring iran? and, i would have to say, not yet, because iran is still attacking tankers and seizing tankers. this goes back to what i started with when i gave my talk, that iran feels very confident because they can make so much trouble for the united states at this point, that they are emboldened to push the envelope to get what they want. you know, what i say to people, anybody that thinks a u.s.-iran war will be limited to the strait of hormuz is just not

looking at what i'm looking at, or what anybody at this panel has been looking at. so i think we have to get away from this notion that any conflict with iran will stay limited to a classic clash in the strait of hormuz. daniel: thank you. think you very much. -- thank you very much. i will take this opportunity to throw out a question that echoes some of the other questions here, and that is, in terms of rouhani and zarif, they bet their whole career -- zarif bet his whole career on this deal. some of us were there in 2013 in the meeting in new york city and zarif was bouncing off the walls, he was so happy. it was a new day. they were coming back from reform. they felt that history was with them. here we are all these years later, and, zarif, rouhani, the different forces they represent, do they have a future? how do they survive this very difficult situation in which

they have placed all their bets, on this particular agreement, and now it seems possibly to be dissolving before their eyes? >> may i answer this question? i was going to write an article, but then i got busy. it was going to be zarif between trump and hardliners. you have to see the history of zarif. i have known javad zarif since he was interning at the iranian mission at least. when you are old, you remember things a lot more. [laughter] >> there is no mystery. and so, i always liked him. i always thought he was very personable. he is certainly very bright. but, zarif fumbled twice. one of the things he fumbled was in the bonn negotiations after

he basically gave the house key to the americans and got rid of the legitimate government, and allowed hamid karzai to come in. this was the victory of javad zarif. i think because he speaks english fluently, he impresses the revolutionary guards and others that have never learned a foreign language, at least not to be able to really be fluent. i think what happened after the iran diplomacy, i personally was opposed to what they did in the bonn conference. they give away afghanistan in that meeting, and i think that contributed greatly to the victory of ahmadinejad.

for the first time, foreign policy become an issue in the elections. what they called a concessionary foreign policy. the other thing that impacted someone very close to me the other day, was very closely reading the j.c.p.o.a. and he said, didn't iranians have proper lawyers to look at this agreement?

he said, it is full of loopholes, and that is what has been done. what i am saying is, therefore, as a result of this, and the last coup de grace, was their withdrawal from the j.c.p.o.a. there was a call for zarif's resignation. that the iranian government needs him because they don't have a strong enough foreign ministry. they should have 200 zarifs, instead, they have this one guy who can actually interact with others. what zarif has to do -- i was worried about him, i thought his life might be in danger. i thought he should stay in on his trips. but i think what zarif has been doing, and he has been doing quite a bit of tongue-lashing himself, i have never seen some of the gestures he has been doing and stuff that he is saying, it is very unrealistic. this ands been doing so on and so forth. so this for him is protection. does he have a future in iran? yes.

he is becoming a hero. he has become a national hero. >> because of the sanctions? >> because of the sanctions and because of all these things. in fact he had to go and say, i promise you that i will not run. but the problem is, and again, i will come back when i close -- the united states -- i don't want to go too much into history, but we mishandled the policy with the iranians in the 1970's, especially from '75-'79, let's face it. our policies contributed to the iranian revolution. that was the biggest strategic loss of the united states, more even than the loss of china. there are still the ripples of that. even if iran disintegrated, the ripples of that will continue.

so we have to be careful. not only because iran is such a big deal or such a wonderful, no, but because of where it sits. something that met collapsing, everything will not remain the same. wherever it is, it will not remain the same. we have to be very careful. the problem is we have never wanted to deal with iran slowly. that comes to the dynamics -- it is partly orientalism. these people only understand force. beyond that, without being pejorative towards anybody, these are the dynamics of great power behavior.

one of the problems of iran, the united states and also russia -- that iranians are accepting russian imperialism but fighting americans' so-called imperialism. to me, russian imperialism is worse. it is definitely worth. -- worse. the point i'm trying to say is, iran challenged, it has been challenging all the time, even when it was very weak. for example, kabir wanted to buy ships, and he came to america. he asked the american ambassador in constantinople that the u.s. should sell ships to iran because they wanted to patrol the persian gulf, because the british were using anti-slavery in order to control what was piracy in the coast. so these are the dynamics of great powers and regional powers. i don't want to use it in a

pejorative way, but the united states wants global hegemony and certainly in the middle east. iran is challenging that hegemony. in iran, if you make your bed, you have to lie in it. i am not saying the u.s. has the right to hegemony, but iran also has to realize it cannot fight with the united states and expect not to be punished. this is going to happen. it seems to me that -- the french have an expression, and i , my basic isss french, the french have a word, and it seems that at the end of the day, it is "entrancher," at the end of the day, you have to slice things to get to the fundamental issue.

contrast,n is by wishy-washy. but it doesn't work. i believe the iranian resolution has reached a level that it has to be sliced. either the u.s. accepts iran as a regional player and in exchange for that, iran also has to become a most responsible player, not going around talking about destroying a country or doing this stuff. or we are going to see more of the same, even after khamenei and trump have gone. daniel: in light of the "trancher" -- please. >> you talked about him bouncing off the walls after the deal. something to bring up while we

are having conversations that are only focused on the leadership, zarif was not the only one bouncing off the balls, -- off of the walls. the iranian populace was happy to have the j.c.p.o.a. and while there were some conversations that try to deny that, it is an undeniable fact. in terms of polling, if you look at the 2017 elections in iran, 70% of the population voted and rouhani won by a landslide because of the j.c.p.o.a. so it is important not to ignore the people that are actually propping up these types of leaders. if he has a future, he has a future because the iranian populace wants the j.c.p.o.a. they don't want this continued and consistent aggression we are seeing. i absolutely think he has a future beyond the politics because that is what the population of the country wants. the other thing i wanted to add, shireen, you brought up 1975-1979 as when the u.s. made

a mistake in iran, i would push that further and go to 1953. and say that -- we have to be a will to look at the iranian dichotomy ofn this the u.s.-iran relations, and if we are talking about u.s. hegemony, we have to also be cognizant of the fact that if we believe in sovereignty, than any nationstate would try to fight that hegemony and naturally do so. >> i just want to comment, i hope nobody lost my remark, which zarif -- speaking on the half of social forces, i spent 10 years working on processing the subject of the relationship between the leadership and iran's social-political arena and how the two are linked. i want to emphasize this is it no way an analysis that focuses exclusively on the leadership. i do want to return the

discussion to the questions which got us back to 1600 pennsylvania avenue of all places, two related questions which i am sure none of us have a good answer. what strategy could help trump save face? what can be done in that regard? we have commented on that. this has been commented on before, and i agree in terms of what could be the solution, but why doesn't trump fire his current foreign policy advisers on iran and try somebody who has views consistent with his , whatever that means? i will leave those two questions for our panelists and we will wrap up based on your responses. thank you. >> i think if the president were to fire particularly john bolton, it would send a message to a lot of countries around the world that the u.s. policy might be shifting.

but trump has already had how many national security advisers? this is number three. it is a possibility. another thing trump could do is name an envoy for negotiations with iran instead of trying to have a summit before you have negotiations. have the negotiations and we have a model. which came from the obama administration, the omanis hosted talks that were private, before we got to zarif bouncing off the walls when he met with john kerry in new york in 2013. rand paul is a possible emissary but there are others. there are a lot of republicans who have worked with iran and worked with them successfully. jim dobbins, who is now at rand, bonn and he got the agreement.

our ambassador at the united nations and in iran, he speaks dari, and knows a lot of iranians. he is very capable. ryan crocker also, a distinguished former diplomat, negotiated with the iranis in iraq and held talks with them after 9/11 that were about how to manage afghanistan and, and al-qaeda and so on. very capable guy. jim jeffrey, current envoy against isis and in syria, also has had long contacts and experience with iranians. the deputy secretary of state, a man named john sullivan, was a young man in iran during the revolution, his uncle was the last u.s. ambassador in iran before the revolution. so there is no shortage of individuals. we have an envoy for north korea, i don't know that he gets to do much because trump keeps preempting him by meeting kim

jong un, but you could go back to that model and do good work behind the scenes. you could have a realistic agenda, not the 12 demands, and you can get somewhere. it is possible if trump wants to go that route, but we have seen no indication that he does. >> it is going to come down to whether sanctions are going to be lifted. this is what i am watching for, is there any indication that they're going to be willing to lift sanctions and so far i have not seen it. >> may i just say one thing that -- face-saving has to be both for iran and for the united states. everybody needs a fig leaf to hide behind, and everybody has to be able -- this is one of the sort of international negotiations 101. you learn that everybody has to get it.

one reason for the j.c.p.o.a. was that iran was in a dire situation. when iranians say they did not agree to the j.c.p.o.a. because of sanctions, it isn't true. they did. i know that for sure. it wasn't the only reason, but it was. that they have made a positive recommendation, and that is asking the iranian parliament. the additional -- the iaea, which would increase even more than the current inspection and so on under the jcpoa in exchange at least for partial lifting of sanctions feared -- sanctions. trump, heesident

could say we know that iran will not produce nuclear weapons -- this is pushing an open door. they have said they will not. it prohibits -- all of the countries like india and pakistan, they were not members, and they were not bound by the limitations. i think there are ways, if there is a will, there is a way. the last thing i would like to add, if i might come up because i might not have a nice platform like this, is there is a moral dimension to all of the things that the sanctions are doing to iran. essentially it is killing the country. i'm talking about even physically killing the country

because of unemployment, because of all kinds of other pressures, people are even smuggling fertile soil across the borders. i think at some point, it seems to me to be honest, i was arguing the other day that being a mark -- a war might better because then you finish it rather than this slow death. , dyingn don't have drugs of all kinds of diseases. one thing to me that is amazing where we get very upset about isan rights violations, this a right to life that is for a lot of people being violated. thisnk we have to bring in. i am a realist and i believe power relations determine, but that doesn't mean you have to be absolutely immoral.

>> i think it comes down to whether the americans want to live with iran are not. >> on the question of saving face for trump, honestly i think sitting face would be not going to war, as silly as that sounds. iran is somewhat calling his bluff. he continuously is putting more sanctions, it is just sanctions and sanctions. he has a max of that out to a certain extent and now he is sanctioning individuals. i will not get into the entire history right now, but it is not going to surrender or capitulate. they are either calling his he will have to go another route, which is a war, or he has to real back. i think reeling back saves face.

for someone who ran a platform criticizing more, especially -- criticizing war, especially in the middle east, to get into one that will be exponentially worse than what we have seen so far because of the context of iran, iran and iraq are not comparable at all, it saves him a legacy if and not getl back into something that could go on potentially for decades. >> i completely agree. a war is not a policy that winds much apart from all of the horrific implications, wins much for a president domestically. it is a policy of peril. i think we have to recognize that and hopefully he does and will see his way toward dealing with iran as opposed to simply sustaining the current status quo, which will take us down a dangerous path. thank you to the panel for this excellent discussion. we look forward to seeing you another time. [applause]

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>> tonight on "the communicators," daniel castro, vice president at the information technology and innovation foundation, on data privacy and if enough is being done to protect americans from harm. >> we could make it so that it is illegal to use social security numbers for identification and verification purposes outside of social security. this is something the social

security numbers were never intended to do. for a long time it even set on the card, this is not for identification purposes. that could being a requirement, that no bank and open an account using a social security number. you have to prove your identity through other means. >> watch "the communicators" eastern on8:00 c-span two. ilhan omartatives and rashida tlaib held a news conference. this comes days after the israeli prime minister decided to block the two congresswoman from entering the country. by peoplejoined impacted by travel restrictions. this runs 40 minutes.