Transcript: Webinar – Iran at the Endgame
Click here to watch the webinar.
PANELISTS
Elliott Abrams
Iran Policy Project Member, JINSA; Former U.S. Special Representative for Iran
Amb. Eric Edelman
Distinguished Scholar, JINSA; Former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Stephen Rademaker
Senior Advisor, JINSA; Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security & Nonproliferation
The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Blaise Misztal:
Good afternoon. Today, we’re talking about the prospect for negotiations and diplomacy ending this conflict, or whether greater escalation lies ahead. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy. I’m delighted to be joined by an all-star panel of diplomats and defense professionals.
We have Ambassador Eric Edelman. He’s a JINSA Distinguished Scholar and the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Elliott Abrams is former U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, and a member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project. And Steve Rademaker, JINSA Senior Advisor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation.
Let me just start by trying to figure out where we are based on comments from President Trump, who yesterday said ‘We had very good negotiations with Iran. I do see a deal with Iran, and it could be soon, but at the same time, it’s possible we won’t see it, and then we negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow them up.’
Today in a Truth Social post, he said the U.S. is in serious discussions with a new, more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran, and that great progress has been made, but also, if for any reason, a deal is not shortly reached, ‘the U.S. will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants.’
So, let me start with Elliott Abrams. Is there negotiating happening with Iran, is there a diplomatic channel open, what’s going on?
Elliott Abrams:
Thank you, Blaise. Let me start by saying I’m not speaking here on the basis of secret information that I have. It seems that there is a channel, in that the Pakistanis are able to pass messages back and forth. We haven’t even gotten to proximity talks, where two parties are in the same hotel, but not in the same room. And if you look at the American conditions and the Iranian conditions, boy, are we far apart. I think one of three things is going to happen. I think there will be a deal reached soon, within the next let’s say within this week, or there will be some kind of escalation by the United States, or there will be a cessation of the war without a deal. And look, the war is going to end. Whether it ends in three days or two weeks, it is going to end. It actually seems to be, to me, more likely that it ends with each side agreeing to stop the use of force rather than the negotiation of an actual one or two or 10 page agreement, because I don’t think we really are close enough to have such an agreement.
Blaise Misztal:
Let me ask you, Ambassador Edelman. President Trump has presented his 15 point plan to the Iranians. He said yesterday that the Iranians have given us most of them, referring to those points, but publicly, at least the Iranians are rejecting all 15 as best as I can tell. What is the divide here between what President Trump is asking and the Iranians are asking, and is it possible that we might find them coming to some sort of agreement?
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Well, I largely agree with what Elliot just said. I do think it’s extremely difficult to parse what’s going on in the sense that both sides are prevaricating. To Elliott’s point, President Trump said that we’ve had both direct and indirect talks. There may have been some communication directly between Iranian foreign minister Aragchi and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, but I don’t think there have been any other real direct communications between the two sides. And the Iranians have an interest in also downplaying the fact that there’s been discussions between two sides. So it’s a little difficult to actually, you know, get a sense of how much has been conceded by the Iranians and how much room there is for actual agreement.
You know, the President said that as a sign of respect and as part of a test that he set out for the new rulers of Iran that they had given him a great gift of allowing 10, or now maybe 20, Pakistani tankers to transit the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t doubt that the Iranians tried to dress this up as a gift to the president, but it’s a funny kind of gift, because it’s mostly a gift to themselves. Since, you know, these tankers were moved to safe passes through a channel created by the Iranians through the strategic deployment of a handful of mines, 10 to 12, in the strait, and may have paid as much as a $2 million toll and maybe perhaps per container in order to transit this strait. I mean, the total result, when you add in the lessening or loosening of sanctions on Iranian oil by the Trump Administration, is an effort to keep the price down.
The last time I looked, Brent had hit $113 a barrel. You know, the Iranians are now making twice as much revenue from oil sales as they were before this conflict started. So from their point of view, this is not a terrible kind of outcome, the one that Elliot just outlined, in which everything just stops and we go back to the status quo ante. And I say that because, if that were to be the case, Iran will have demonstrated that they can close the Gulf at will and therefore, from their point of view, they will have survived. They will have established their ability to close, at will, the strait. And therefore, in a perverse way, they will say, we won.
Blaise Misztal:
And do we have any idea, when President Trump says he’s negotiating with this new, more reasonable regime in Iran, who he has in mind?
Elliott Abrams:
You know, just one word about that, if I could. Whether it’s [speaker of Iran’s parliament] Mohamed Galibaf or a ground around him, these are the new guys in power. I think one of the reasons it’s very tough to get a deal is that a deal means compromise. It means concessions. And who wants to come into power and have to make concessions immediately, concessions that will be, within the regime, extremely unpopular? Who has the power to make those concessions? What’s the mechanism by which it will be agreed upon within the regime, and with the Supreme Leader, who is apparently out of action? So, I think that question pushes me in the direction of saying there’ll be a kind of ceasefire, rather than a deal.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
If I could just add one thing. By all accounts, the balance of political forces inside the regime, since this started, has moved in the direction of domination by the IRGC. The regime was already heading in that direction before this started. But the various decapitation strikes that have been a part of this military campaign, I think, have accelerated that process. And one reads that there are some kinds of fissures between President Pezeshkian and Ahmed Vahidi, the newly ensconced commander of the IRGC, over the resilience of the Iranian economy, and if they need to keep fighting or not fight. At the end of the day the IRGC calls the shots. And for that reason, I very much agree with Elliott. It’s hard to see how a compromise could be accomplished here. I could be wrong, but that’s how I see it as well.
Blaise Misztal:
Steve, wanted to get you in here. What is your take on the feasibility of diplomacy? Do we think that President Trump really wants a diplomatic agreement? Is that his preferred way out of this war, and is he serious about it? What’s your take?
Stephen Rademaker:
Well, first of all, I agree with my two colleagues about the immediate challenges of trying to negotiate. You know, the strategy pursued by the U.S. and the Israelis was to decapitate the regime, and so the first tier of leadership has been removed, and we’re now dealing with the second and third tiers. And it’s quite predictable that in a scenario like that, that there will be a struggle for power among those who have survived. And probably the thing that could be most fatal to anyone competing for power in the current environment is to be seen as prepared to accede to the demands of the Israelis and the Americans.
Finding a negotiating partner who’s in a position, and willing and able, to agree to the fairly maximalist demands that the Trump administration has made diplomatically will be very difficult. I think we see that reflected in the fact that Qalibaf has been identified by the president as his interlocutor, but then Qalibaf immediately denied that. And, the Iranians, in fact, deny that they’re negotiating at all. I think the reason for that is the first Iranian who says, ‘Yes, I’m negotiating with President Trump,’ he may not end up with a bullet in his head, but he’d be out of contention for power, in the current context.
So I find it very hard to imagine someone on the Iranian side signing a piece of paper. Or, you know, entering any sort of commitments right now with the Trump administration. But you asked separately, does Trump want a negotiated settlement. I think obviously he’d love to be able to use force, as he has done, and have that result in reluctant acceptance by Iran of the demands that he has been making of the Iranians all along. That would be a huge victory for him and to get the Iranians to agree to all the things that Trump wants would be, basically, capitulation by Iran. Particularly on all the issues that have been points of contention: the nuclear program, the missile program, their human rights policies, their support for proxies throughout the region. That would be a wonderful victory, if we could get them to agree on those things. We could hold them to that going forward. But the likelihood of that is slim.
I think among the options that Elliot identified at the outset, we’re likely looking at just a decision by Trump at some point to declare victory. Iran has certainly put the pieces in place to declare that merely by surviving they have emerged victorious. Short of that decision by Trump, we’ll see escalation, and we don’t know where that would lead. It looks like Trump is putting the pieces in place to do that. Of course, the skeptics are saying that’s his real plan all along. He knows diplomacy is not going to go anywhere, and he is just using diplomacy as a fig-leaf to buy time in order to take the next step militarily. I doubt that’s his preferred option. I mean, Donald Trump was not elected to involve the United States in ground wars in the Middle East, so I think he will only do that very reluctantly, but he may be forced to do that.
Blaise Misztal:
All three of you have highlighted that it seems that Washington and Tehran are pretty far apart, and so the 15 point plan that President Trump has proposed is probably a non-starter. But is it? Is it the right deal? Should the U.S. demand more? Could it accept less than what’s in that 15 point plan? Steve, what do you think?
Stephen Rademaker:
The 15 point plan has not been publicly revealed, so I can’t tell you with certainty that it covers all issues of concern to me, but from the descriptions I’ve seen of it, the only thing that could take the plan further would be a demand the Islamic Republic leaders step aside and turn over power to some new government. Those are pretty maximalist demands, well beyond anything that would have seemed realistic before the use of force.
Blaise Misztal:
Elliot Abrams, should we take a deal that’s less than those 15 points?
Elliott Abrams:
Well, as you said, it’s maximalist. I would assume that there is some room for negotiation on those 15 points if we get into a serious negotiation. But as I said, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think you’re going to see the two teams, you know, sitting there in Islamabad, exchanging papers and having weeks of detailed negotiation as if it were the JCPOA. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Blaise Misztal:
Let me stick with you, Elliott, and ask you about some of the international players that are involved or could be involved in negotiations, starting with our coalition partner in this war, Israel. What’s your sense of Israel’s position on these negotiations and its desire for a diplomatic deal?
Elliott Abrams:
Well, I think the Israelis have a target list, and it seems that they’re getting to the end of it, as we are. The nuclear sites, the missile sites, the drone sites, etc. So what remains is the 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the strait, presumably, if you get a ceasefire deal, would be open. And the question there is, yes, but, but can ships freely go through it? Does it hold? Does Iran, in essence, set up a toll booth there? That’s not an Israeli issue. That’s an American issue and a Gulf Arab issue.
From the Israeli point of view, I think there’s one big thing left by this weekend, say, and that’s the 440 kilograms, which they would presumably like to see taken or bombed sufficiently that it is completely unreachable and unusable. But I think they’re getting to the end of their lists, and they have reason to turn to Lebanon. Hezbollah has really jumped into this war needlessly and fully, and the Israelis now have significant numbers of troops on the ground, and they need to deal with that. If tomorrow, the President said it’s over, I think the Israelis would go along. I don’t think that they’d do so with regrets. The Arabs are a different story, because they need the Strait of Hormuz to be open. It’s critical for all of their economies.
Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador Edelman, about a year ago, President Trump initiated Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis in Yemen, which lasted for about a month before President Trump announced that it was over and there was some sort of a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis. That applied to American naval vessels but did not mention Israel at all.
Is it possible that we end up with sort of a similar scenario this time around, that there’s a deal with the Iranians that sort of is about the war between the U.S. and Iran, but doesn’t include Israel?
Amb. Eric Edelman:
It would be hard for me to see how the President could say the war is over, if the Iranians were continuing to strike Arab allies. A couple of points I think are germane here. One is, first of all, in the last two days, the Houthis have twice weighed in and fired at Israel. Up until then, they had been the dog that didn’t bark. One might have assumed that they were staying out of the war because they thought that Iran was no longer the strong horse in the region, and therefore they couldn’t be protected from strikes by either Israel and or the United States. They’ve chosen to get involved in a way which, I would suggest, is meant to signal that they can do more.
The Houthis could create a second front, as it were, at another critical maritime chokepoint in the region. And so I think that’s been concerted between Tehran and the Houthis as a warning shot across President Trump’s bow. I think it’s notable that since that ceasefire deal with the Houthis, the bulk of commercial traffic, as I understand it, has decided not to try and transit the Red Sea and go through the Suez Canal, but it’s taking the long route around the Cape in Africa.
If we don’t get a clear resolution, to Elliot’s point of what the status of the Gulf is, that is a huge problem for our Arab partners and the region, but also for the United States, which has traditionally maintained the right to freedom of navigation around the world and access to the global commons. So I do think that if the Iranians thought they could get a deal where we just everybody walks away, and there’s no specificity about what comes next with regard to the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, that would be very problematic for our for our Arab allies—who, by the way, are also to some degree involved in this mediation effort. The Qataris were involved at the outset. They’ve now stepped back and sort of yielded pride of place to the Pakistanis, who have some direct connections to the IRGC, and the Egyptians, the Turks, and over the weekend in meetings in Islamabad, the Saudis as well.
I’m not sure the President understands exactly all of the ramifications of everything he put in his recent post. The threat to attack desalination plants is potentially, I think, a precursor to a kind of no-holds-barred escalation where we see both sides trying to destroy all the infrastructure on both sides of the Gulf. The Iranians, of course, are suffering from a huge water emergency right now, but our Arab partners could as well. If the Saudi desalination salination plants were taken out, they’d have to evacuate Riyadh within 72 hours.
We saw an attack today against a Kuwaiti desalination plant by the Iranians, which was a response, they said, to a reservoir in Khuzestan that was hit again. I think this was meant as a signal about what could come next if we get another round of escalation. I think the escalation could start moving in a direction that could be quite catastrophic for that part of the world.
Blaise Misztal:
I did want to get to some of the countries involved in mediating these talks. First, though, Ambassador Edelman, since you brought this up: What would a workable arrangement for the Gulf, for the Strait of Hormuz, look like?
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Well, I think there’d have to be some renunciation by the Iranians of, first of all, any intent to collect tolls. They have publicly suggested that with respect to the Strait of Hormuz, which they regard as entirely in their possession. I mean, it’s contested, right? Because some of the islands in the head of the strait traditionally have been claimed by the UAE but have been occupied by Iran since 1971.
You’d have to have Iran not seeking to make any comparison, for instance, to the Suez Canal, where tolling is a function of an international treaty agreement from the 19th century. You would need to ensure Iran is not going to try and use their ability to close the strait, to mine it, to attack shipping in the strait as a way of impeding traffic at their whim. So there’s a need for a formal understanding about all those things.
Blaise Misztal:
Steve, the usual culprits that the U.S. has turned to negotiate with Iran—the Qataris and the Omanis—are not present in whatever communications are happening between Washington and Tehran. Do you have a sense of why that is, and why we’ve had these other intermediaries, the Pakistanis and the Egyptians and the Turks?
Stephen Rademaker:
Pakistan seems to be in the lead now as the new mediator that’s stepping forward and offering to try and broker a deal. One interesting dimension with Pakistan is that within the last year, they entered a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia, and they probably thought at the time this was a good deal—that, basically, the Saudis would subsidize them and come to their aid if they had any problems.
At the moment, with Saudi Arabia under attack from Iran, it’s possible that Pakistan will be called on under this mutual defense agreement to come to Saudi Arabia. Of course, Pakistan borders Iran, so that would be quite a complicated situation. So I do think Pakistan is highly motivated to resolve this, and that may account for their desire to be involved.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
I agree with that. I think the problem here, though, is that not just the Pakistanis, but the Egyptians and others, all are incentivized to want to see this come to as rapid a conclusion as possible. They are going to be refracting whatever messages are being passed through the prism of their own interests.
My own experience in diplomacy tells me something about this kind of thing. In the leadup to the war in 2003 with Iraq, we had a lot of helpful intermediaries trying to pass messages back and forth between the Turkish Government and ours about what it would take to get the 4th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army into Turkey as part of a military plan to degrade Iraq militarily. Very quickly, it all went bad. Because when you’ve got a lot of cooks in the kitchen passing messages back and forth, trying to shade things to their own interest, it’s just a recipe for miscommunication and miscalculation in my view.
Elliott Abrams:
The question is, what are we hearing from Gulf Arabs? The news reports indicate that the Gulf Arabs have—this isn’t quite the right term—been radicalized. That is, they did not want this war because they feared that the Strait of Hormuz might be closed and or that Iran would attack them. Both have happened. But it does not appear that their messaging to Washington is, ‘End the war today. Please stop it now.’ Rather, they have moved, if you will, to the Israeli point of view: that this is such a dangerous regime, either it should be changed, or if that is not possible, it needs to be attacked and attacked and attacked so that its ability to do this again is greatly diminished and pushed far into the future.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Just to add to what Elliot just said, the UAE has been disproportionately attacked. And what’s come under attack have been all of the things they’ve invested in over the last 40 years. The tourist infrastructure in Dubai, economic sites. All these things are now at risk, and so it’s not surprising to see their position on this.
The Omanis, I believe, have sort of blotted their copybook with the administration, because they kept insisting that there was some kind of nuclear deal in the works that was sabotaged by the President launching this war. I mean, I’ve got my own criticisms of how this was done, but even [International Atomic Energy Agency head] Rafael Grossi has said there was no nuclear deal on the table.
I think the Omanis are no longer seen as a reliable intermediary. And the Qataris were quite active up until Ras Laffan [Qatar’s main energy terminal] was hit by the Iranians, and then I think they voluntarily stepped back [from mediating negotiations] because of the kind of radicalization effect that Elliott was talking about.
Blaise Misztal:
Well, we’ve described two groups. There’s one group more eager to see this war end quickly and helping mediate talks, and pass messages back and forth. Then there’s one group that’s been eager to see the war through to its end, so that the Iranian threat is severely degraded.
But there’s a Venn diagram there. The Saudis seem to fit into both sides of those two groups. They’re part of the Pakistani-Egyptian-Turkish cabal there on the talks, but there have also been media reports that [Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman] is, together with the Emiratis, pushing President Trump to finish this war. So which side do they really fall on? What do they really want?
Elliott Abrams:
Well, I think they all want this regime dead, but they recognize that that is very unlikely to happen now. I mean, the truth is, we have no idea whether it happens in six months or six years, or, you know, 20 years. But short of that, it’s a real enemy, not an imaginary enemy. It’s not a potential enemy. It is an enemy that decided to attack them. So I would put the Saudis in the extremely hostile to Iran camp.
That does raise some interesting questions. You know, therefore, what? Therefore, is Saudi Arabia in a closer alliance with the United States than they were one year ago? What about their relationship with Israel? What about their relationship with the United Arab Emirates, which has been touchy in the last year?
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Those are great questions, and I don’t know the answers to them. I do think, though, as well, that the Saudis, who are masters at hedging, can look down the road a little bit, and they look at some of the President’s posts, for instance, suggesting that he might be ready to wrap up the war. They know there is a possibility that the United States will declare victory, as Steve and Elliott said earlier, and then walk away and leave them facing a wounded but very dangerous Iran—as Elliot said, a clearly avowed enemy.
I think if that were to come to pass, what I would predict you would see from at least the Saudis, I’m not sure about the Emiratis, is both an effort to tie themselves closer to the United States, but also to China. I also think they’d try to play nice doggy with the rabid dog to their north, Iran, in the hope that it would keep things calm. I think that’s what you would see, but that’s speculation on my part.
Elliott Abrams:
Why China, if I may ask? The Chinese have been a useless ally for Iran. What are they going to do for Saudi Arabia? I mean, they have not been useful either in helping Iran nor in influencing Iran to not attack Saudi Arabia.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
China has been cultivating the Gulf states for a number of years. They were the ones who arranged the Saudi-Iranian detente a few years ago. I would just note that the outcome of the weekend’s meeting in Islamabad among Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia was that the Pakistani foreign ministers are going off to Beijing to try and see if they can get the Chinese to be quote-on-quote guarantors of whatever agreement might be reached in this diplomatic process, of which all three of us, I think, are very rightly skeptical.
Stephen Rademaker:
About the Chinese—you know, if you look at the list of who’s most harmed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, China is pretty high up on the list. A very large proportion of their energy comes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s now cut off. So it’s quite a rational calculation by the Saudis and others that China is motivated to reopen the Strait and probably has more leverage over Iran than most other outside parties, apart from the Russians. But of course, the Russians are incentivized to keep the strait closed because it increases the price of their oil. But for China, that’s not a good outcome. China wants the strait reopened, as far as I can tell.
Elliott Abrams:
For Iran, when the war ends, they will have a terrible problem. Their economy was in very bad shape before the war and it’s much worse now, particularly if we and the Israelis spend the week hitting some more economic targets, like steel mills. As they look around for investment, what are the options? The United States, Europe, China, and the Gulf Arab nations. It’s hard for me to see the Saudis, who were trying to make nice with Iran, it is now hard to see them after this war and these attacks, saying, ‘Well, you know, we’ll help you, we’ll invest $50 billion.’ So China may be a better bet for Iran when it is seeking investments.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
It’s hard to imagine the Emiratis also allowing Dubai to be used for dual-use goods going to Iran to help rebuild its ballistic missile and drone programs, I think they’ll be much more cooperative with various efforts to crack down on that.
Blaise Misztal:
Today there was an announcement from the UAE barring all Iranian citizens from entering the Emirates, which I think goes to Elliott’s point.
Steve, I wanted to come back to you because you mentioned Russia, and I believe the Iranians have also requested that Russia be part of any potential negotiations. Should the U.S. accede to that? What role could Russia play in negotiations, and why would Iran want them there?
Stephen Rademaker:
Well, I guess if you’re the Iranians, you don’t have that many friends. So if you could find a friend and get them at the table, that would be to your advantage. I don’t see any advantage to the United States for Russia to be at the table. There’s been press reporting that the Russians are, at a minimum, providing intelligence support to the Iranians, helping them target American military forces in the region, and potentially helping them target the Arab countries as well. You’d think that would be of concern to President Trump, who’s had to go to Dover to receive the remains of the Americans who’ve already perished. And I think Russia has their blood on their hands.
The Trump administration has other levers it could use against Russia to try and dissuade them from continuing to support Iran in this conflict. I don’t know whether they’re thinking about using them, but my advice to Trump would be to keep the Russians out of the diplomacy and try to get them out of the war in general.
Blaise Misztal:
I wanted to delve a little deeper into nuclear issues with you, Steve. One of the major concerns now is the around 450 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium that’s still in Iran. Presumably, it is buried under rubble, since Operation Midnight Hammer. I’m not sure if we’ve verified its location.
Is there a diplomatic agreement possible that would provide for the safety of that material without it leaving Iran? Would that have to be part of any deal to terminate the war? Is there a way to safeguard it, if it were to stay?
Stephen Rademaker:
We haven’t seen the details of the 15 point proposal from the Trump administration, but I would expect one point would deal with the enriched material and hopefully provide for its removal from Iran, which is really the only safe thing to do. If it’s retained in Iran under international protection and subject to international inspections, I would take very limited comfort from that. The Iranians would have the ability to reclaim that material anytime they wanted. And we’ve already discussed the improbability of a diplomatic settlement in the near term, so I don’t think the odds of that are very high.
You know, the other, the other option that’s been talked about is sending in the U.S. military to remove the material. And you know, of all the military options on the table for the U.S., that one, to me, seems the most risky. I mean, I certainly understand why it’s of great importance to us to obtain that material and remove it from Iran, if we can. However, so far as we know, most of that material is buried at sites that were attacked back in June. And if it were easy to access those sites, the Iranians would already have done that. And if they’ve already done it, then we’ve got to go somewhere else to get the material. I don’t know where that would be. Maybe some agencies of the U.S. government know something about that, but I’ve seen no press reporting to suggest that the material is anywhere except where it was when Operation Midnight hammer took place.
A military operation to go in there seems quite complex to me. I mean, we would have to insert forces in locations in central Iran where they’d have to defend a perimeter and be subject to not just drone attacks, but artillery and infantry attacks. We’d also have to maintain that perimeter long enough for them to dig down to where the material is, extract it, and then somehow, I guess, airlift it out of there.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Steve, you forgot that they’ve got to get the heavy equipment in, along with the troops. They need excavators to be able to do that.
Stephen Rademaker:
Like I said, if it were easy to do this, you’d think the Iranians would have already done it. And hopefully the Iranians haven’t done it, and the idea that we can do it under fire seems like quite an ambitious military undertaking, if we’re going to do that.
Blaise Misztal:
So let me push you a little more on this, Steve, and welcome others to chime in. You just said that a deal in which Iran hands over the nuclear material is unlikely. A military operation comes with a lot of risks. So are we going to end up with an outcome where this war ends and the material stays there and hasn’t been handed over, and hasn’t been safeguarded? What’s going to happen to it?
Stephen Rademaker:
Well, if we’re in a scenario where Trump declares victory and says our military objections have been accomplished and the conflict is over, yeah, I think so. I always believed that once we undertook to bomb the Iranian nuclear sites, that basically put us in the mode that the Israelis have long talked about, of having to periodically mow the grass.
I would say what’s going on right now is the first instance in which we mowed the grass. But there certainly would have to be a declaratory policy that while the conflict has ended, here are our red lines. And if Iran steps across any of these red lines, we will have to renew the use of force. And one of the red lines, I think, would have to do with Iran trying to access the buried nuclear material. I think behind this operation was the hope that it would contribute to the demise of the Islamic Republic, and it may yet do that. We just don’t know what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen during the conflict.
If the Islamic Republic survives, and the IRGC is in charge, I believe that when they do their sort of post-mortem among the survivors, they’ll say ‘What did we do wrong? What should we have done differently? How could we have avoided this?’ There will be loud voices saying ‘Our critical mistake was not being like North Korea—we had the wherewithal to produce a nuclear weapon, and we chose to move slowly, and we chose to sign the JCPOA.’ They’ll say, ‘We put the brakes on the program, and that was our mistake. We should have made a mad dash covertly to produce a nuclear weapon. If we had nuclear weapons, the Americans and the Israelis would never have done this to us, and our highest priority going forward has to be to produce a nuclear weapon.’
I don’t know if that will be the prevailing view, but I think certainly that view will be expressed, and it will be seriously considered. And I think there’s a strong chance it’ll become policy, and therefore, knowing what has become of the 440 kilograms that could quickly be turned into a weapon, that has to be one of our top priorities following a cessation of hostilities.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
I agree with that. When you start toning up the risks of a military operation, that highly enriched uranium is in gaseous form and metal cylinders, so while it’s being extracted under fire, the danger of these things being hit by fire and rupturing is real. It wouldn’t give you a nuclear yield, but it would expose the troops involved to very serious levels of noxious gas and radiation.
Elliott Abrams:
It’s interesting that one of the interveners here is Pakistan, which made a decision, keeping in mind India and its own permanent conventional inferiority, that it needed a nuclear weapon. And I guess what we’re saying is Iran, or this regime, will come to the same conclusion. They will never be as conventionally strong as the United States, and obviously not the combination of the United States and Israel. But that may lead them to wait until Trump is gone, under the assumption that if he saw them going for it, he wouldn’t hesitate to hit them again. Iran may wait and see who’s the next president. If there is any evidence that they’re trying to pursue nuclear weapons again, and there will be evidence detected—because Israeli intelligence is good, and there are other sources of intelligence, including our own—they are going to hit during this three year period and after it, under a new President. Maybe not by us, but by the Israelis.
Blaise Misztal:
I guess in that context it’s interesting to note that after the 12-Day War, after Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer, it seems that the Iranians made the choice that they would reconstitute their missile program and not their nuclear program. On the one hand, they have certainly demonstrated that investment in drones and missiles has paid off, and shown the ability to hold that risk much of the Middle East, but maybe not sufficiently. But on the other hand, it seems like it’s much cheaper and easier to pursue missile advances than the nuclear program, and ultimately, you might need the missiles in order to deliver the nuclear warhead. Would they push that missile program aside and go all in on the nuclear program?
Elliott Abrams:
Remember, people always said Israel would never attack their nuclear program, the deterrent being Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles. And it is, in fact, only after the Israelis decimated Hezbollah they were willing to attack Iran. So the logic of it suggests that, once again, they would try to rebuild the missile and drone program and go slower on the nuclear program.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
One of the salient features of the conflict so far, and following along with JINSA’s very, very useful, in fact sort of essential, daily update, is that although both we and the Israelis have claimed to have destroyed 75 percent of their launchers, the number of launchers has stayed relatively stable for the last two weeks or so at around 120 and most recently, I saw the IDF said, 170 launchers. The Iranians continue to launch. So while we have inflicted enormous damage, we and the Israelis, to the ballistic missile production facilities, launch points, and launch facilities, they still have residual capability to do this. If the war ends, they will try to rebuild.
On the drones, what we’ve been hitting are drone assembly plants, but the drone assembly plants have a deeply rooted substructure of component part manufacturers. I don’t know about the damage we’ve done to those. So how quickly they’ll be able to reconstitute the drone capability is another question. And those are the weapons that have done a lot of damage. In terms of physical damage to energy infrastructure, to our bases, et cetera, it has been the drones that have done the most damage.
Elliott Abrams:
I think if we look back at this war, in as little as five years, there’ll be another kind of revolution in military affairs, in the sense that the Russian attacks on Ukraine, and the Iranian attacks on their neighbors, are the height of drone warfare. The history of warfare is that new weapons are developed, and counter-weapons or defenses are developed. And we are beginning to see that now, with the Ukrainian counter-drone drones, and the Israeli efforts to develop laser defenses. I mean, it’s obvious now that the Gulf states are now going to invest very heavily, not just in the extremely expensive Patriots and so on, but in Ukrainian style drone defenses—and so will we.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
The Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris have all signed defense cooperation agreements with the Ukrainians. And precisely to Elliot’s point, President Zelensky was, I believe, doing a tour of the region recently. I expect serious Gulf investment in the Ukrainian defense industry, which will not be happy news to President Putin.
Blaise Misztal:
Let me pivot really quickly with the couple minutes we have remaining and ask at least one question from our audience. How does Israel factor into the negotiations? Is it expected that the U.S. will pressure Israel to end attacks if it reaches a deal? Or are U.S. and Israeli objectives diverging greatly? Ambassador Edelman, let me start with you.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Look, there’s been enormous overlap in U.S. and Israeli objectives here, but not 100 percent. There’s also been, you know, a division of labor. One thing I don’t think gets sufficient attention is that, for all the strikes that we’ve carried out, the Israelis have carried out more. That being said, you know, there is a potential for a divergence at the end of this, as there was at the end of the 12 Day War in June, when the President insisted, even though I think the Israelis would have—if they’d had their druthers—continued the war, he was adamant that the conflict had to come to a halt. I think that the Israelis, to Elliot’s earlier point, would probably say ‘Good enough,’ even though they might not be happy about it.
Blaise Misztal:
Thank you. Anything else on that point?
Elliott Abrams:
I agree with that, and I think that, in a certain sense, they have no role in negotiating with Iran. They’ll make their views known to us. When the President says stop, they’ll stop.
Stephen Rademaker:
Yeah, I don’t think the Israelis are nervous about the 15 point plan. I mean, if that were the deal. I think what they’re worried about is that there may be a negotiation, and only some of the points are agreed to, and the U.S. side agrees to end the war without restrictions on the missile program, without restrictions on support to other groups in the region. That’s the Israeli fear. But, you know, I think we’ve already, at length, discussed the low likelihood of a diplomatic agreement, including any of the 15 points, so I don’t think a huge risk of disagreement between us and the Israelis.
Amb. Eric Edelman:
I think the biggest fear would be that the two sides agree to some very vague framework about what issues are to be negotiated between the two sides in exchange for a ceasefire, either of some duration or of unlimited duration, because the Iranians are masters at turning these negotiations into sort of an endless loop of just endless hair-splitting and we, unfortunately, fall into that trap all too easily.
Blaise Misztal:
Well, thank you all for your expertise and insights today. Wishing those who celebrate a sweet and joyous Passover. Please stay tuned to jinsa.org for all the latest updates, and we look forward to seeing you on the next webinar. Thank you, everyone.