Transcript: Webinar – U.S.-Iran Deal Reached
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PANELISTS
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former Head, Israel’s National Security Council
Elliot Abrams
Iran Policy Project Member, JINSA; Former U.S. Special Representative to Iran
Blaise Misztal
JINSA Vice President for Policy
The discussion was moderated by JINSA Associate Director of Foreign Policy Ari Cicurel.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Ari Cicurel:
Thank you for joining us today, I’m Ari Cicurel, JINSA’s Associate Director for Foreign Policy. Today, we’ll be discussing what we know and what we still do not know about the deal between the United States and Iran that President Trump announced on Sunday. According to Vice President Vance, the deal has already been electronically signed, and there is a signing ceremony scheduled for Friday, although the text of the deal hasn’t been formally released yet. I’m joined by Ambassador Elliott Abrams, the former Special Representative to Iran and a member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project, Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy, and we hope to be joined later on by IDF Major General Yaakov Amidror (ret.), a JINSA Distinguished Fellow and the former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel. If you have questions for the panel, please submit them through Zoom. We’ll dig into each of the issues that the deal covers or avoids addressing. But, Blaise, I’ll start with you. For several days, U.S. and Iranian officials have been contradicting each other on sanctions relief, the nuclear file, the Strait of Hormuz, and Lebanon, and as I said, the text of this deal is still not released. How is each side spinning what is in the deal so far, and what’s your assessment of what has been discussed?
Blaise Misztal:
Yeah, thanks, Ari. First of all, I recommend to everyone watching the great infographic that JINSA put out, thanks to the hard work of Ari and the rest of the policy team. It tries to capture some of the different spins on what is in the deal that we started hearing, I think, as early as Friday of last week, with different reporting from Iranian sources and Israeli sources and U.S. sources on what was potentially in the deal. And I think it’s not surprising that each side tried to spin up the things that were most important to them, with Iranian sources focusing on the extent of sanctions relief that Iran was expected to get under the deal, including, I think, most importantly $300 billion in reconstruction assistance coming potentially from the United States or some coalition of the United States and its partners, in addition to the unfreezing of assets and the ceasing of the war entirely, and the withdrawing of U.S. forces from the region. Meanwhile, U.S. officials who were speaking on background or as anonymous sources to outlets were stressing more what it would force Iran to do, which is reopen the Strait and pledge to have no nuclear weapon. I think even though we still don’t know what’s in the deal, even though it technically has been signed, according to Vice President Vance, as you said, Ari, we’ve seen leaked text of the deal, and it seems like both sides were largely accurate, according to what we’ve seen. The deal, in fact, says that there will be $300 billion given to Iran for reconstruction. Iranian assets will be unfrozen at the same, as well as that within 30 days, U.S. forces will begin withdrawing from the area. The area is not well defined. We don’t know if that’s sort of the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, merely the forces that are enforcing the naval blockade, and that all hostilities will cease, including in Lebanon. And in return, Iran pledges to allow shipping to resume through the Strait of Hormuz. It pledges not to have a nuclear weapon, and it agrees to a set of further talks that are supposed to lead to an agreement in the next 60 days on nuclear issues. In the meantime, while those talks are going on, Iran pledges to maintain the status quo of its nuclear program, which this is interpreted to mean make no further advances on the nuclear front. So, in fact, both sides, based on the reporting that we had as of last Friday, seem to have been giving accurate details, just more focusing on the things that were more important to each of them.
Ari Cicurel:
Thanks, Blaise. I would recommend two JINSA products to the audience. As you mentioned, JINSA released an infographic detailing those contradictory statements. JINSA CEO and President Mike Makovsky also released an analysis that you can find on JINSA’s website about how we arrived at this place with what appears to be a misguided deal after joint U.S. and Israeli military achievements during the war. General Amidror, thank you for joining us. I’ll move over to you. What’s the view from Israel about what has been reported in this deal so far?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
First of all, we don’t know, and we have to be very cautious when we say something about an agreement that each side leaked the details, which is important for it to be leaked and we don’t know what the text is exactly. It is clear that whatever the details are, the Americans are giving up the leverage that they had in the economic side, allowing money to come to Iran that way, another way. The details are not important. Nothing was given by the Iranians relating to the nuclear issue, and the negotiations will begin immediately, and theoretically, they will take 60 days. Don’t be surprised if, after 60 days, they will ask for another 60 days, and so on. From the Israeli point of view, it’s a bad agreement and we should not be misunderstood. Because whatever the details will be, the Americans are losing the leverage that they have. And during the 60 days, they will not have new leverage, and at the end of the 60 days, if they don’t achieve an agreement, Iran will be stronger, and another 60 days it will be even stronger. So, the process is clear. America is losing its leverage, the Iranians are becoming stronger and they negotiate. And from judging both teams of negotiators, it will not surprise you that I think that the Iranian team is not less competent than the American one. I speak very mildly. So, from the Israeli point of view, it’s a bad agreement. There is another element, which is very bad, and we begin to see it now. The Americans gave the Iranians the impression, and I don’t know what is in the agreement, and what was said between them, that the Iranians have a say in Lebanon, and this is against the American interest. The Americans, the Lebanese government, and Israel discussed the future of Lebanon under the American umbrella. What the Americans did is to tell the Lebanese and the Iranians, guys, Iran has a say in Lebanon. You think that you are the government of Lebanon. Very nice but take into account what the Iranians have to say. And they gave the Iranians the impression that they can say if Israel continues to wage a war in South Lebanon, the Iranian army will retaliate. So, it is leading to a totally different situation in which the Iranians lost the proxy leg of their strategy, and now they’re ready to commit themselves to defend the proxies. They believed that the proxies would do the war for them. They lost it. This is no question a huge, devastating situation for the Iranians. They lost the ability to have a ring of fire around Israel. And now they’re committing themselves to defend the proxies, and it might lead to war between Israel and Iran. And I hope that Americans will intervene immediately in telling the Iranians, guys, you’re not the sovereign in Lebanon. The Lebanese will have to take care of it. I don’t know what will happen. I think there is a lot of ambiguity around the region, but perhaps to assess with all the ambiguity the basis of the agreement, the structure of the agreement is a very bad one because the Iranians are getting a lot of economic support. It will allow them to be stronger in every field, and the Americans are going to begin the negotiations without the leverage. What will happen in the negotiations? I don’t know. There is one theoretical leverage that the President said. We have an alternative, meaning using force. You know better than me that it is not going to be easy after 60 days or 120 days to resume the war. It will be closer to the midterm elections in America, and I don’t see America resuming wars. It’s not going to be easy because theoretically, the alternative exists, and it might be used in the future, and maybe the Iranians will be stubborn enough to make the Americans understand, as the assessment of the CIA, that the Iranians are not going to fulfill the agreement. And remember, at the beginning of everything, this war was a result of the decision of the Iranians to destroy Israel. That was the mother and the father of the old strategy of the Iranians.
This is why they built Hamas, and they built Hezbollah, and they launched the war against Israel. It’s not Israel that initiated the war. It was initiated by Hamas, and then by Hezbollah, and of course, Iran twice. So, this is the beginning of the whole story, and something should be clear. The Iranians are now very strong in their words that they are committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. So, the basis of the whole situation in the Middle East, the aggressiveness of the Iranians was the basis, and now they’re saying our commitment to [destroy] Israel is still there. So, I don’t know what the Americans have in mind, how they’re going to change it or not going to change it, or are going to accept it. I don’t understand, and I don’t pretend that I understand. I’m not sure that Americans understand. But let’s see what will happen. From our point of view, Israel will have to keep the ability to defend itself. First of all, the highest priority in Lebanon is to continue the war against Hezbollah. We should not allow Hezbollah to rebuild itself near the borders of Israel, and if what I see is what is going to be agreed between America and Iran, Israel will have to make all the preparations for another war in 10 years.
Ari Cicurel:
I want to come back to Lebanon because we saw some critical developments there over the weekend, but Ambassador Abrams, President Trump carved out a strong anti-Iranian regime policy across both his terms in office. He made leaving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] and trying to get a better deal a feature of his election campaigns. Of course, you had a role in shaping that Iran policy in the first Trump administration. So, to the extent you can take us inside Trump’s thinking, how did we arrive at the Trump administration putting forward this deal? And based on what has been revealed so far, do you think we’re headed towards a good deal?
Elliott Abrams:
I generally agree with what General Amidror has just said. I think one can envision one better turn, which I’ll come to in a minute, but I think basically the president had another option, which was to increase the military pressure on Iran, and he did not want to take that option for a variety of reasons. I suppose he wants to be essentially a peace president. He wants to make deals like this. He’d like to make one in Ukraine. He does not like the idea of exposing American troops to fatal injuries and death. He does have an election coming in November, and he does have, I think, pressure from a number of Arab countries, not all, but a number of Arab countries, certainly from Oman and Qatar, to bring this to a close so that they are not hit again by Iran. The positions of others, particularly the Emiratis, may be a bit different. So, looking at all of this, at all these pressures, he decided he did not want to continue with the conflict, and was looking for a way out of it, if a good one could be found. Now, the one way that I can see that this arrangement isn’t so terrible, and I think it is pretty terrible, but I had been arguing, starting around May 1, that there was no good outcome here, and that what the president should try to do is go for a Hormuz deal only. We will end the blockade on Iran’s ports, Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz, and that’s all. And if he would announce, you know, we’ve obliterated their nuclear program again. If they start to rebuild it, we’ll hit it, but he didn’t do that. He kept talking about how we can’t stop unless we get that HEU [highly-enriched uranium]. The one thing that has occurred to me here is, I agree with the general, there’s no 60-day negotiation with the Iranians. If it’s 160 days, that would be short. So maybe the president figures, you know, I’ve got my Hormuz deal, we’re going to end our blockade, they’re going to open the straight, and we’ll start negotiating. After 60 days, we’ll continue to negotiate. Meanwhile, gas prices go down for the summer, and through the election, low gas prices, peace. Okay, then we get through the election, and then I’ll take another look at it. And if there’s no deal, or if they’re cheating on the deal, I can hit him. First of all, it’s probably not his view. It’s conceivably his view. I don’t think it works in part because the history of this is, in a sense, an arms control negotiation. This is what’s supposed to be about the nuclear program. The history of arms control agreements is that people who enter into them defend them, and defend them, and defend them. I go back to the arms control agreements we had with the Soviet Union, which they violated all the time. When they violated the agreement, there was a huge temptation in Washington to say that’s not really a violation, it’s not an important violation. The president today referred to a minor little drone attack by Hezbollah. That’s the temptation not to want to face up to what you will have to do if the agreement is violated and killed there by the other side. So, I don’t think my other idea here is going to work. I think what, in fact, is going to happen is the Iranians will use whatever monies they get out of this to rebuild everything. Now, some of it is to rebuild their economy, because significant damage has been done to their economy, to their defense industrial base. Some of it, obviously, as happened under the Obama deal, will go to the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas and Shia militias in Iraq. I think one question we don’t know is how much money they’re going to get. The $300 billion in my view, is an illusion. Whose $300 billion is this? In 2021, we heard about $400 billion that China was going to invest in Iran. It did not happen. How about all the money that’s being invested in Gaza? It’s an illusion.
I think that you can put out of mind. Where they will make money is number one, if the United States unfreezes billions and billions of dollars, and number two, oil revenue. Oil is now going for about $80 a barrel, roughly. Their first tanker passed through the Strait of Hormuz this week. They can now sell oil without a discount if there are no sanctions, so they will make tens of billions of dollars over the course of the next year. They produce 3 million barrels a day. 3 million barrels a day times $80 a barrel, add that up, multiply by 365. It’s an enormous amount of money that they would be getting. Forget the investment. I think the question here is partly, what are the exact terms of the deal, the way the general began, what we still don’t know, which is alarming in itself. The terms are apparently only a page and a half. Why haven’t we seen them? And then, secondly, will the United States be willing to enforce the deal? For example, no tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. For example, complete, I gather, access to all the nuclear sites, and no reconstitution of the nuclear program. I would end just by saying that two of the main criticisms of Obama’s deal were it didn’t cover missiles and it didn’t cover Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies, and apparently neither does this agreement.
Ari Cicurel:
That’s exactly where I wanted to take things next. So, thank you for that, that lead in. Blaise, even without seeing the final text, there have been a lot of comparisons made between this deal and the JCPOA. Based on what you’ve read about it, but also in the way the process is playing out with an initial agreement followed by later negotiations. Do you see those claims as valid?
Blaise Misztal:
Yeah, again with the caveat made by General Amidror and Ambassador Abrams that we haven’t seen the text of the deal, we don’t know what’s in it. I think that it certainly shapes up to be putting the United States on the path to negotiate something that is like, or perhaps even weaker, than the JCPOA. You know, before the JCPOA was struck in 2015 that was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. We actually had the Joint Plan of Action in 2014, which sort of put a temporary freeze on Iran’s nuclear program and sort of allowed for some sanctions relief and set the stage for both more time for negotiations, which ultimately took a year, as well as perhaps confidence building by both sides that they could trust each other. I think there’s a lot of parallels in what is happening with this MOU to that earlier deal, in that apparently, at least in the text that we’ve seen online, it does have sort of a freeze, and maintains the status quo of Iran’s nuclear program. It does, as Ambassador Abrams said, give Iran some immediate sanctions relief by pledging the U.S. to put waivers on Iran’s sanctions on oil exports, meaning that it can start selling oil on the global market immediately, lifting all of those sanctions. But then there’s other things that suggest that if there is a final deal reached, whether it’s 60 days from now, 120 days or a year from now, that deal might actually be worse than the JCPOA in a couple of ways. Two that I’ll mention is, well, first of all, there’s a similarity. Yes, there’s no mention of missiles, there’s no mention of proxies, there’s no limitation, no suggestion that there’s going to be anything discussed beyond the nuclear program in the next round of negotiations. But then there are suggestions in the text that we’ve seen, if it is indeed the final and right text, that the U.S. is already giving up some concessions, greater concessions than it did in the JCPOA. The first of those is a pledge that the United States will not interfere in Iranian internal politics and activities. So, you know, this goes above and beyond saying, okay, we’re striking a deal with you, we may have our disagreements, but we have a nuclear deal that’s narrowly focused on the nuclear issue. This is in fact pledging that the United States is going to give up any hope of affecting support for human rights or internet freedom or support for protesters if there is another uprising in Iran like we saw in January. And so, this is really a stark turnaround from President Trump in January, saying ‘help is coming’, telling the Iranians ‘don’t kill protesters’, saying on February 28 when he launched this war that ‘this is your time’ to the Iranian people. He has basically done a complete 180, and this deal certainly suggests that the phrase that he’s used at various points over the last year and a half in office of “Make Iran Great Again” is really the operative idea behind this deal. But it gets worse, at least according to the text we’ve seen. If it is accurate, the United States pledges to lift all the sanctions on Iran. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at least maintained the fiction that there were sanctions for nuclear issues and for terrorism and other issues, and that the JCPOA was only based on nuclear-related sanctions. That is, that the United States was lifting sanctions that were put in place as a result of Iran’s nuclear program, that other sanctions could stay in place, and other new sanctions for non-nuclear-related Iranian activities could be put in place.
This is getting rid of that entirely. If the text is accurate, it puts the United States in a place where it’s pledging to eliminate all U.S. sanctions of any kind and all multilateral sanctions at the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran’s nuclear program at the United Nations and other international bodies. So, this goes much further in terms of getting rid of sanctions than the JCPOA did, and then there’s the matter of the frozen assets, as Ambassador Abrams alluded to. The deal, the text that we’ve seen, if it’s accurate, is not entirely very clear on what is at play, but it certainly suggests that all Iranian frozen assets are going to be given back to Iran, or Iran’s going to be given access to them, which would again be a step further than the JCPOA went, which only gave Iran access to about half of its frozen assets at the time. So, in a number of areas, particularly as it relates to sanctions relief, but also in this pledge not to meddle in Iranian internal affairs, to give up the idea of supporting the Iranian people. This could be setting up a final agreement, if it’s ever reached, that could be much worse.
Elliott Abrams:
Can I just jump in on that? I think the point about interfering in their internal affairs is important, and it’s important to remember there’s a long history here going back to the Cold War. The Russians, the Soviet Union at that time, were always complaining about American intervention in their internal affairs, and the American response all week was, wait a minute, you’re a member of the United Nations, you’ve signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you’ve pledged all these things. All we’re doing is holding you to these standards. As the way it works now, I mean, the only people who are not able to interfere in their internal affairs are Iranians, who have no control of their own internal affairs. In the Soviet case, you all know we supported, for example, Andrei Sakharov, and the Committee on Human Rights in the Soviet Union. We supported the then Anatoly Sharansky and the movement for Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. So, again we’ll see if the United States takes the position that we are simply abandoning the people of Iran, which is the way it looks today, that we’ll have nothing to say about Iranian internal affairs. It is, first of all, in my view, a deeply moral position for the United States. Secondly, it’s very stupid, because in the long run, the only solution to the problem of the Islamic Republic and its aggression and repression is the end of the Islamic Republic, and you know this was Ronald Reagan’s view. It was not that he had to have a war with the Soviet Union, but it was that ultimately the Soviet Union would fall, and meanwhile we would do what we could peacefully to bring that day about. Remember, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. So, if this is the new position of the United States, it’s pretty amazing.
Blaise Misztal:
If I could jump in on that. Sorry to keep interrupting you, Ari, but just one quick point. You know, Ambassador Abrams raised one possible better path that this deal could put us on in his previous comments. Which is to say, all right, we sort of open up the strait, we push the economic pain away, get through the elections, and then evaluate where we are. There was perhaps another potentially available path to the United States, which is to say, okay, we open up the strait, we get past this conflict, but we learned the lesson that the past several administrations haven’t learned, which is the problem that we have is the regime of the Islamic Republic. And even if we can’t solve that problem or kick the can too far down the road today, then this is the point at which we invest in a long-term strategy to bring down the Islamic Republic, like we did in the 1980s and earlier against the Soviet Union, as Ambassador Abrams just said. Right, so we think back in 2009, Iran had the Green Movement, and President Obama basically ignored it because he wanted to negotiate the JCPOA. In 2017 and 2018, there were uprisings in Iran for economic reasons, and President Trump didn’t do much, although there was actually some reportable support coming from Secretary Pompeo and others in the administration, like Ambassador Abrams. At that time, there was a lot of pro-Iranian messaging coming from U.S. public diplomacy, but there wasn’t a lot of support or long-term strategy. In 2022, we had the death of Mahsa Amini and the massive women life freedom movement that was birthed in Iran, and President Biden did nothing because he was trying to negotiate JCPOA 2.0. So this time around, especially after President Trump pledged to come to the aid of Iranians after what happened in January, even if we couldn’t do it during this war, even if we had to accept this deal, we could say all right, let’s invest in the long-term strategy, so the next time the Iranians rise up, we actually have a plan. We’ve actually trained the opposition, we’ve given them the tools, and we’ve found the leaders, we’ve put them in a position to which they can actually execute and bring down this regime that would be our most potent weapon. In fact, as I’ve written with our President and CEO Mike Makovsky, the Iranians are our most potent weapon, and we’ve been ignoring them, and this just pledges that we’ll ignore them further, and I think that is really one of the weakest points of this deal.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Yes, but all your history of briefing and all of that is not connected at all, to disagree. It is going totally against the spirit of disagreement, so what are the chances that it will be changed? I don’t know, maybe you know better than me, but from what I see, the Americans are not doing what you are telling yourself that America should be.
Elliott Abrams:
No, I think that’s right, and if you look at the case of Venezuela, it suggests that the President is uninterested in this kind of approach. What he did in Venezuela was to decapitate the regime and then call it regime change. He never talks about actual democratization of Venezuela, real regime change. And we see that, I think, also in the case of Iran, so you know we’re trying to find here and there, a ray of light that suggests maybe things aren’t as bad as they probably are, and we won’t know for sure until Friday, I guess, But what we do know so far suggests a deal that is quite disadvantageous to the United States, I would argue to all our friends, partners, allies in the region, Arab and Israeli.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I think that what you’ve just said about the lesson in the Middle East now of all the leaders is that they cannot trust America, and you will see all the Gulf countries slowly, slowly will go to Iran to pay protection money and to buy the relations between those countries and Iran. Because if this is America, we have to [have] better relations with Iran, and if there is a need, we are ready to pay [for] the protection. It will make a totally different Middle East in the future, if that could be the result of the agreement. I am very pessimistic.
Elliott Abrams:
We saw at least two countries try to do this in a way, Oman and Qatar. Over the last 5 or 10 years, they were the ones who wanted to be the most friendly to Iran. Nevertheless, they were hit badly. I mean, the greatest single piece of damage was Qatar, with the Ras Laffan LNG.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
This is why the Qataris are now going to connect the electricity grid to the Iranian grid. That will guarantee a kind of reliance that no one can disconnect, and you will see it all over the Gulf and maybe the Middle East. The countries are going to buy the protection by paying the Iranians with something.
Elliott Abrams:
Well, I think there they will do more than that—that is, I think you’ll also see an effort to diminish the importance of the Strait of over the next 5 or 10 years.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Yes, that’s for sure. But they want to bypass Hormuz because they don’t want someone else to control their ability to export oil. You are right about it, but it’s not just oil. It’s the many productions which are connected to oil, and so on and so forth. It is not just oil, and it is not so easy to move all these productions and to bypass the Hormuz Strait. But it is two different issues. One, they will do whatever is needed to invest in a project that will bypass the Hormuz Strait, either to the Red Sea or even to Jordan and then to Syria and to the Mediterranean or Israel and the Mediterranean. But at the same time, and without any connection to that, they will try to edge and to buy protection because they understand that Iran is the strongest force, and the Iranians don’t hesitate, and America cannot be trusted
Ari Cicurel:
On the issue of regime repression, I would recommend another piece out from JINSA today by JINSA’s Sarah Havdala, documenting all the ways that Iran has continued to oppress the Iranian people, even as it faced fire throughout the war. Unfortunately, as it’s been mentioned many times, the Iranian people are not mentioned anywhere in what’s reported on these deals. As a reminder, if you have questions for the panelists, please submit them through Zoom. General Amidror, I’ll come back to you.
Elliott Abrams:
Before you do that, Ari, you just asked for questions. I have a question for General Amidror, and it’s about Lebanon. I mean, the President made a completely ridiculous statement today in France, saying that you know who would really handle Hezbollah correctly, Syria.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Yes, of course. If you bring these Syrians into Lebanon, what you see is kind of devastating pushing. I mean rape and killing, and between them, these Sunnis, which had been oppressed by Hezbollah for so many years, and Hezbollah, that will be done, no one in Israel will protest. But if you want to see a real genocide, give the Sunnis of Syria the ability to go into Lebanon.
Elliott Abrams:
It’s crazy, and obviously the president is unaware that the Syrians were in Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 occupying and murdering, we think, 60,000 Lebanese over that 29-year period.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
This time it will be even worse because now they have to make some revenge on the war, which was waged by Hezbollah against them during the West. The war in Syria, it’s another toxic situation. They will kill them all.
Elliott Abrams:
Here is my question: there’s wall to wall support in Israel for continuing the fight against Hezbollah, for preventing Hezbollah from reestablishing itself, for example, in the south of Lebanon. That would suggest that the kinds of conflict we’ve seen in the last few weeks will continue, whatever I think, whatever President Trump says. What is going to happen here? Do you think Hezbollah is likely to escalate the fight, drone attacks, or to simply try in a more stealthy manner to move south toward the border?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I don’t know. The interest of Hezbollah now is to gain time because they understand that the more the IDF is pushing, they are losing. By the way, in most of the cases they don’t fight. In most of the cases they are retreating, and what we found before is something huge that they are losing. We are going to take all of that and to neutralize these facilities. And geographically we are now in a much better position to go down towards the Mediterranean, and I don’t see how Hezbollah can stop us meaningfully. And this is why the Iranians are so alarmed by this situation, and they are saying today, if you continue to [wage] war in South Lebanon, we will attack Israel directly. Because they understand that it is a battle about the existence of Hezbollah as a military organization. The more that we are pushing, the less they have alternatives regarding only the military. And on speaking about dismantling Hezbollah and all the political issues, which we are negotiating with the government of Lebanon, does it have any ability to do something against Hezbollah? And for sure now, when the Americans make the big mistake, the huge mistake, giving the Iranians the impression that they have a say in the future of Lebanon, I don’t understand, let alone the Iranian issue. Here, you have something that you are promoting. You brought us and the Lebanese to Washington, and said, guys, sit together and find a solution to Lebanon. What do you do, you bring the Iranians in. Which government in Lebanon will be ready to do something in this situation? Who in Lebanon will be ready to put pressure on Hezbollah when the Americans are bringing Hezbollah and Iran in? I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the logic. From our point of view, this is the area in which we should say to the Americans, no, it is our interest, and we’ll continue to degrade the ability of Hezbollah to attack Israel. I understand Iran is big. Your interest is in Iran and the Hormuz Strait. In Lebanon, you don’t have any interest. It is the interest of Israel. We thought that you are with us because you brought the Lebanese government. The Lebanese government wants Hezbollah to be disarmed, not us. What we are doing is the policy of the government of Lebanon, and you brought in again Iran, and you give Iran the position in the future of Lebanon. I really don’t understand it. It’s totally misunderstood. I mean, for all the mistakes that you can say, I don’t agree, but I understand. In Lebanon, I don’t understand Lebanon, let alone I don’t agree, and I think that this is the area in which is very high priority for us. And the reason which concerns us in Israel is that we should continue to degrade the ability of Hezbollah to Turkey, and I think this is the area in which the government should say to the administration, guys, enough is enough. Here is our interest, and we will continue if we have to disagree. This is the area in which we disagree.
Ari Cicurel:
Ambassador Abrams. You took the conversation exactly where I wanted to go back to Lebanon. So, I’ll prompt you with a question on the topic. As you mentioned, the President broke with Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly and in personal terms over the Israeli strike on Beirut. What do you think went into Trump’s decision? Of course, he has criticized Israeli strikes before, but this seemed to be on a different level. Is this a discrete issue, or does it potentially bode potential problems going forward?
Elliott Abrams:
I think it is not a discrete issue in the sense that it’s in the context of the Iran deal, and he wants the signing to happen on Friday. He wants the negotiations to begin, and he wants the conflict to end. So, he is saying to the Israelis, stop. No Israeli government, and I think I’m right in this that if Israel has a new prime minister after the elections this fall that policy toward Hezbollah will not change. And I think actually General Amidror is giving very good advice in the sense that what the Prime Minister and others in the Israeli government should now be saying quietly is we cannot do that, cannot do that. We cannot allow Hezbollah to operate freely in Lebanon, and we will never do that again. And so, if you continue to link this to the Iran deal, then you are creating, you Americans are creating excuses for Iran to get out of the deal, or break the deal, or, for example, to reimpose some kind of constraint on the Strait of Hormuz. So it is in the American interest, if you want that deal to survive to break the connection with Lebanon. Just say what happens in Lebanon will not stop us from the deal that is about the Strait of Hormuz, that is about the Iranian nuclear program, above all. I agree with the General, but I think from the president’s point of view, the linkage to Lebanon is not in his interest, and he does not seem, I think, to understand that if he wants this Iran deal to survive, he’s got to break that linkage.
Ari Cicurel:
We have a question in from [questioner] to both General Amidror and Ambassador Abrams. How damaging is the deal and the president’s rhetoric against Netanyahu for Abraham Accords, given that those countries won’t see an alliance with Israel benefiting them, and how should an Israeli leader who worked closely on the military campaign feel about this humiliation?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I don’t want to speak about humiliation. It’s not a story between, you know, friends in school. It’s two countries with different interests at the moment. We have to deal with it. About the Abraham Accords, I think it’s the end of the Abraham Accords. No leader in the Middle East will join the Abraham Accords when America is so weak, when the Iranians are so strong. So, if the Americans want to extend the Abraham Accords they have to negotiate in another way, during this 60 days, and to show that America is ready to put pressure on the Iranians, and to show the Iranians that America is strong. I mean, weak America, no one is doing an Abraham Accords extension. It’s a La La Land dream.
Elliott Abrams:
I would say I think that is correct with respect to the extension to additional countries. Now, I think the Accords will survive in the sense that the Arab countries that are in them, will not renounce them or pull out. I think from the point of view of the Emirates, in particular, the cooperation, the military, the high tech, the economic cooperation with Israel is valuable to them. So, the Abraham Accords, as we know them now, will survive, but if we’re talking essentially, I guess, about the Saudis, I don’t see why Mohammad bin Salman would want to join the Abraham Accords now.
Ari Cicurel:
General Amidror, Israel came out very strongly against the 2015 JCPOA with Prime Minister Netanyahu traveling to Washington, speaking in front of Congress against the deal. A very assertive diplomatic campaign against the agreement. Where do you see Israel going, both diplomatically, as well as militarily, going forward as the Trump administration pushes forward with this deal?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Israel didn’t make anything militarily after the agreement of President Obama. Probably will not do anything militarily now. Israel, diplomatically, the security is totally different because there is not any other alternative within the American Congress that will support Israel. So in this case, it’s a waste of time to speak in the Congress. Israel will have to learn how to secure its interests when the administration in America judges the situation in a different way. We had many years during which Israel didn’t see the situation as it was understood in Washington. We have to learn again to review this situation. How far the disagreement will go, and the steps would be done by the Americans, I don’t know. But at least two areas are very clear. We think that the issue of the missiles should be there, and if it is not in the agreement, it’s clear that the Iranians will produce all missiles, and we’ll have to stop it. I don’t know what will happen regarding the nuclear project. Americans are promising everything, but I don’t know what will happen after we [see] the shift in the position about the negotiation with Iran, and so and so forth. I don’t know what will happen about the negotiation regarding the nuclear issue, and about Lebanon. I don’t know what the Americans promised the Iranians, what the Iranians understood for what was said or was not said by the Americans. Israel should be very clear. There is no connection between the ceasefire in Iran and the situation in Lebanon, and if we have to retaliate, it will be attacked by the Iranians. We will do it with the Americans or without Americans,
Ari Cicurel:
Ambassador Abrams, how do you read the politics of the deal? Both in terms of domestic politics, and there appear to be divisions within the Trump administration, at least reportedly, about who is in favor and pushing the deal.
Elliott Abrams:
Well, there are different opinions within the administration. It’s not a surprise, and everyone obviously wants the president. I mean, he gets advice, and then he makes up his mind, and then people within the administration support the decision. I mean, it’s interesting that Secretary Rubio has been pretty quiet in the last few days about all of this, and the person who we associate with this is the Vice President. It is a bit odd, actually, that the Vice President was in Islamabad, you know. Normally, it would be the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, and it’s a little bit odd for the Vice President to be in Geneva, I guess, Friday to sign this. Odd, in part, because it’s not the traditional role of any Vice President, and because there is no equivalent person coming from Iran. I mean the equivalent representative would be Pezeshkian, the president, not the speaker of the National Assembly. So, this agreement is more associated with the Vice President, and, you know, you have to think about that in terms of how does the agreement roll out and what is the impact on American domestic politics and 2028? I do think the president is trying to get this whole subject off the table for our domestic politics. You know, you sign Friday, and then negotiations begin, not in the press. Secret negotiations, I assume, that will go on theoretically until the middle of July, but in reality, can extend well into the fall and past our elections. So, I think one of the things the president is going to try to do here is just get this off the center stage. It would help if he would stop talking about it, which he may or may not do, because as we have seen in this discussion today, and any website you look at, there are a lot of quotations from the president about it, about Iran, about Lebanon. And if he wants less attention to this during our summer and campaign season, he’s got to stop talking about it.
Ari Cicurel:
General Amidror, this is a question from [questioner]. Do you see a reconstitution of the Iranian missile inventory and air defense systems in the near future?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
No question. This is the first step that they will do. They promise not to change anything in the nuclear project. There is not any commitment regarding the anti-air systems and the production of the missiles. I’m sure that other countries, including China, will be more than happy to help them, and this is why I said that the negotiations will be done under different circumstances. Because Iran will be stronger every day, and the Americans are losing leverage every day. So, it is the interest of the Iranians that it will be a very long process. That even if the end would be a crisis in which the Americans, say, you know what, we are using the alternative, we will face much stronger Iran, because those, the missiles and the anti-air system will be there. I don’t know how long it will take the Iranians to rebuild the ability to produce missiles and what will be the number of anti-air missiles, which will be brought in from other countries, and will produce inside Iran. But no question every day Iran will be stronger and the Americans weaken.
Ari Cicurel:
Blaise, will President Trump need to submit this agreement to Congress under the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, and how will that shape the politics and policy of the deal?
Blaise Misztal:
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I want to weigh in on Lebanon really quickly, just because General Amidror says we don’t know what’s in the deal. We don’t, but I’ve seen the same texts now leaked from multiple different sources, some U.S., some Arab. So I think what we’re seeing is probably right, and the very first paragraph says Iran in the U.S., together with their allies in the current war, declare upon signing an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. I mean, there’s various ways to parse that legalistically, but if you read that in the broadest sense possible, the United States is committing Israel not to engage in any hostile activities, or even the threat or use of force against Iran, or any of its proxies. Perhaps that’s a permanent end to war. Perhaps that is not a problem while President Trump is in office. Perhaps that will give Israel the wiggle room it needs to beat back threats in Lebanon, or continue operations in Gaza as needed, or do what it needs to do. But if this agreement remains in force and there is a democratic president, this will be used to constrain any and all Israeli action. And I think this is going to put Israel in a really tough spot in its relations with the United States. If, in fact, this language of their allies declares a permanent end to the war on all fronts is in the deal. Now, really quickly, to your question about congressional review. It’s complicated and legalistic. I think, in short, the answer is yes. In 2015, Congress passed a law called the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act [INARA], because they were so mad that President Obama negotiated the JCPOA and did not submit it as a treaty to Congress that required Senate ratification. And so they passed a law saying anything that is an agreement between the United States and Iran, no matter what form it takes, if it’s signed, if it’s unsigned, if it’s political, if it’s a handshake in the back room, any agreement that’s related to Iran’s nuclear program has to come up before a vote in Congress. By my reading, if this is in fact the text of the deal, as it’s been leaked, since it says that Iran pledges to maintain the status quo of its nuclear program. This is both an agreement, it’s related to its nuclear program, and the United States is a party to it. Therefore, it meets the very broad criteria of the INARA Act, which means that under the terms of that law, the president is required within five days of reaching, the text says reaching a deal, to submit it to Congress. I assume that that clock started when he sent his Truth Social post right after the UFC fight on Sunday night, which means about the time that it’s being signed in Geneva, it should be being transmitted to Congress. It has not yet. I think it’s telling not only that Israel hasn’t seen the text of this deal, members of Congress haven’t seen the text of this deal, but they’re, I would say, legally required to get it by Friday. President Trump said today he hadn’t thought of sending it to Congress, but he’s not opposed to it. So perhaps we will, in fact, see that happen. But I will also point out that the law is actually very weak, and maybe Congress can vote against the bill against the deal, but the president can veto it, so the chances of Congress stopping the deal are basically nonexistent. What will be interesting is the conundrum that this puts Democrats in. Do they vote for something that President Trump did, which they’ve refused to do on basically anything so far, or do they vote to bring an end to the war, which was presumably what they’re in favor of? So, it’ll be interesting to see how Democrats treat this, and how some of the Republicans who’ve been outspoken against a deal treat this. So, it’ll be politically interesting, but I don’t think it will change anything in terms of how we deal with Iran, or whether this deal goes through or not.
Ari Cicurel:
Well, we’ve run up against our time, we could talk about this much longer, and I’m sure there will be more coming out from JINSA on this as we do find out more what is actually in the deal. But thank you to our audience, to Blaise, Ambassador Abrams, and General Amidror for joining us. You can find all of JINSA’s work on our website jinsa.org. Please check your email inboxes for our next webinar and future publications, especially as we learn more about the details of this deal. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their day.