Trump’s Iran Talks

On this week’s episode, Israel Policy Forum Policy Advisor and Tel Aviv-based journalist Neri Zilber hosts Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group. They discuss the current alarming state of Iran's nuclear program, the new diplomatic push by President Trump and his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to make a deal with Iran, how this time could be different due to Iran's weakness after 18 months of regional war, the major challenges to actually getting a deal done, the possible implications if diplomacy fails and the U.S. and Israel choose to deploy the military option, and more. 

Read Dr. Shira Efron's op-ed on Israel's Syria policy in Foreign Affairs, here.

Read this week's Koplow Column, here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
I'm Nery Zilber, a journalistbased in Tel Aviv and a policy
advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
I hope the Passover and Easterholidays were enjoyable for all
of you, but now we're back toregular programming, and back
with us this week is Dr NisanRafati, the senior Iran analyst
at the International CrisisGroup.

(00:24):
Is Dr Nassan Rafati, the seniorIran analyst at the
International Crisis Group, talkabout one of the big issues in
the news right now and whichpromises to maybe get even
bigger in the coming weeks andmonths Iran's nuclear program
and the Trump administration'sefforts to negotiate a new deal
with the Islamic Republic.
Or else Nassan, of course, waspreviously a postdoc fellow at
the Iran Corporation, the USInstitute of Peace and the IFRI

(00:48):
think tank in Paris.
He also holds a doctorate fromOxford University and is, more
importantly, a old and dearfriend of mine.
Let's not hold that against him.
Before we get to Nisan and Iran, a few thoughts from me on the
other big issue obviously stillin the news the Gaza War.
So at the very end of Passover,on Saturday night, israeli Prime

(01:10):
Minister Benjamin Netanyahuissued a pre-recorded video
statement.
What else?
Answering the question oneveryone's minds and one.
I get asked a lot these dayswhen will this war end?
Conveniently, benjaminNetanyahu gave us an answer
which was not anytime soon.
I don't want to say that hesaid it'll never end, but that

(01:31):
was the general vibe.
It's not going to end anytimesoon.
But Netanyahu was very clear inthe statement.
He's not ending the war in Gaza.
Not for all the hostages comingback, not for any long-term
ceasefire or some other post-wararrangement.
He said yet again that the goalis the complete destruction of

(01:51):
Hamas and that he wouldn't stopuntil that total victory was
achieved or else, in his words,the next and future October 7th
was only a matter of time.
His words, not mine.
Nenya also said that he hadn'tgiven up on the hostages and
that he was still working to getthem all back.
Fine, but it should be clear toeveryone and frankly, it was
clear to many people watchinghis video that none of this

(02:13):
really made any sense.
Think about it.
What was Bibi actually tellingthe Hamas?
That even if you, ie Hamas,returned some or even all of the
hostages, it wouldn't be of anyuse or make any difference to
Israel.
Israel would still go andstrive to completely destroy

(02:33):
Hamas and Hamas would befinished, no matter what it did
vis-a-vis the hostages.
So what incentive does Hamasactually have to release any of
the hostages if the end resultwas going to be just the same
Same thing, by the way, with theargument that, if the end
result was going to be just thesame Same thing, by the way,
with the argument that if Hamaswasn't completely wiped out as a
military force, that the nextOctober 7th massacre and mass
kidnappings were going to forsure repeat themselves.

(02:57):
I've said this before on thispodcast, but really, in what
world will Israel be caught offguard again with another mass
cross-border raid from Gaza or,frankly, anywhere else?
In what world will Hamas be ableto pull off something like that
again, like October 7th, givenits current state after 18
months getting hammered by theIDF?

(03:18):
And in what world will the IDFnot keep striking terror targets
inside the Gaza Strip, evenafter a ceasefire is concluded?
By the way, exactly what Israelis doing as we speak inside
Lebanon against Hezbollah aftera ceasefire was agreed up there
on the northern front.
But you see, netanyahu told uson Saturday the international

(03:41):
community, quote unquote won'tlet us go back to fighting if we
agree to end the war.
There won't be any legitimacyfor that move to go back to
fighting.
Our hands will be tied.
This isn't the way theinternational community works.
Bibi really said that.
This isn't the way theinternational community works.
This kind of deception, bibiadded, won't fly internationally

(04:02):
.
Added won't fly internationally, as one person quipped this
week, by the way, nahum Barnea,the legendary columnist for
Yediot Ahonot, and he wasquoting, I believe, opposition
leader Yair Lapid.
This was the first time everthat the entire world is
pleading with Bibi Netanyahu tolie and Bibi Netanyahu is
refusing to tell a lie.

(04:23):
Incredible stuff.
But the bottom line is this, andI'm on a more somber note,
let's be clear 59 hostages arestill in captivity.
This Israeli government isclearly saying they're not the
most important priority for itand, barring any unforeseen
collapse by Hamas, either on thebattlefield or the negotiating

(04:44):
table, this war will not only goon, but likely escalate and
escalate, likely in the comingweeks.
We have to be ready for thatand all that that kind of
escalation entails for theremaining hostages inside the
Gaza Strip being held captive byHamas.
What it entails for these earlysoldiers who are going to be
tasked with fighting and likelyretaking the Gaza Stripas.
What it entails for the Israelisoldiers who are going to be

(05:05):
tasked with fighting and likelyretaking the Gaza Strip and what
it entails for the people ofGaza.
Let's be clear about that.
All right, without further ado,let's get to Naysan Rafati Hi
Naysan, welcome back to theIsrael Policy.
Pod Hi Nery, it's great to beback.
Thanks for having me.
It's really my pleasure, nisan.

(05:25):
And last time you were on Idon't know if you recall, but it
was August of 2022.
So time flies, especially whenthere's a lot going on in the
Middle East.
Back then, way back then, theBiden administration was engaged
in negotiations with theIslamic Republic of Iran, trying
to put, as it were, the nuclearprogram back in a box.

(05:46):
That never happened, and we canget into the reasons why.
But here we are again in Aprilof 2025 with the new Trump
administration, once again innegotiations with Iran over its
nuclear program, and we'll getto that in just a second.
But I wanted to start here andwe should be clear by way of
context for our listeners.
The original Iran nuclearagreement, called the Joint

(06:09):
Comprehensive Plan of Action,the JCPOA, was first negotiated
by Barack Obama back in 2015,and then Donald Trump
subsequently, after he becamepresident, withdrew the United
States from that agreement in2018.
At the urging, it has to besaid, of one Benjamin Netanyahu.
But seven years later, rightafter Trump withdrew from the

(06:31):
agreement, give us a lay of theland, a state of play.
Where do we find Iran's nuclearprogram right now, in the
spring of 2025?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well where we find Iran's nuclear program in the
spring of 2025,.
I think the director general ofthe International Atomic Energy
Agency kind of summed it upwell a few days ago they have a
waste to go before they get to aweapon, but they're not very
far.
So what that means in practiceis that Iran's nuclear program
is operating under somewhatrestricted international access.

(07:02):
The IAEA has inspectors on theground, but some of their
ability to verify, monitorIranian activity has been
curtailed over the past fewyears.
And 60%, which is close tonuclear weapons grade.
It has about a quarter ton of60% enriched uranium and that

(07:28):
stockpile obviously continues togrow.
And what that means is that thebreakout time for a weapon is
theoretically under a week.
Now I should clarify what wemean by that.
That doesn't mean Iran can havea nuclear weapon in a week.
It means that it can have thefissile material.
Iran can have a nuclear weaponin a week.
It means that it can have thefissile material nuclear
material that would be neededfor a bomb in under a week from

(07:51):
the point where it made adecision to do that.
Once you get there, thenweaponization is a different
thing and I hope this doesn'tcome off as a glib analogy, but
you can think of it as if you'remaking a cake.
You have to have the rightamount of batter, but then you
still need to put it in the ovenand actually, you know, bake
the cake.
So weaponization the cakebaking period depends on you

(08:15):
know what kind of device you'reafter.
If you're after just a simple,crude nuclear device without a
delivery mechanism andeverything else, but something
that allows the Islamic Republicto say, oh, by the way, we have
a nuclear weapon, that could bea matter of months from the
point where they make a decisionto move towards weaponization.
A more sophisticated devicewhere you have a miniaturized

(08:38):
warhead delivery system couldtake longer, anywhere from a
year to maybe a year and a half.
So the breakout time window isshort.
It's been short for some time,but according to US intelligence
and I think allied intelligenceservices as well, there is no
detected move towardsweaponization.
They are humming along at thethreshold at 60%, with

(09:01):
accumulating stockpiles underlimited international oversight.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
At 60% with accumulating stockpiles under
limited international oversightbut have not put their toe over
the threshold yet.
Got you?
And yes, once again, theworld's worst cake is the Iran
nuclear program.
But it is handy for me andother lay people to visualize
the batter, the enriched uranium, as the batter for this cake.
So that's where we are rightnow.

(09:25):
Where were we, say, in 2018,when Trump withdrew from the
original nuclear agreement?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So it's water under the bridge at this point.
But when the US withdrew fromthe agreement, iran's uranium
enrichment in particular wascapped and would have continued
to be capped through 2031 at avery low level of enrichment
3.67, and with a very smallstockpile, allowed 300 kilograms
.
So again, if you imagine thebatter analogy not enough batter

(09:55):
to worry about the cake butbeginning in 2019, the Iranians
began to breach those nuclearrestrictions.
They also started kind of acounter pressure campaign to the
those nuclear restrictions.
They also started kind of acounter pressure campaign to the
US maximum pressure campaignthat also involved regional
provocation.
So we had nuclear escalationand regional provocation.
By January of 2021, theyincreased enrichment to 60% and

(10:20):
then from April of 2021, theywent up to 60% and then from
April of 2021, they went up to60%.
So again, it's kind of you know, one of the questions that I
get asked right now is you know,as these negotiations are going
on and I'm sure we'll get intoit with the Trump administration
one of the nuclear program youhave, not the nuclear program
you had 10 years ago, or thenuclear program you wish you had

(10:53):
.
Right, when the JCPOA wasreached, iran's breakout was
again worryingly short, but itwas still measured in a couple
of months and the high end ofits enrichment was 20%, right.
So that's a far cry from wherewe are today, where breakout
time, according to US StrategicCommand, is under a week and the
high end of enrichment is 60%.

(11:14):
They've also brought onlinemore advanced centrifuges that
can enrich more efficiently.
So from my perspective, it's theJCPO that the JCPOA model and
you mentioned at the top thatthe last time we spoke was
August of 2022.
Late August 2022, earlySeptember 22 is also kind of the
tombstone end date of the JCPOA.

(11:36):
That's where I think theprocess for the Biden
administration and the othermembers of the nuclear deal you
know, the P5 plus one members,the five permanent members of
the Security Council and Germany, which were at that point, even
after the invasion of Ukraine,still sitting around the same
table working on putting Iran'snuclear program back in a box,

(11:58):
as you said, and SecretaryBlinken back in a box you know
that.
I think even at that point, thetechnical advances that Iran
had made between 2019 and 2021,22, made it an increasingly
complicated proposition to goback to the terms of the JCPOA,
and I think that that, in termsof what a potential deal might

(12:19):
look like now is something tobear in mind that Iran's nuclear
program in 2025 is not what itwas in 2015.
And we'll have to see theextent to which the current
negotiations, if they get farenough to engage in this kind of
substantive technicaldiscussion, are able to account
for that.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
I'll say it because you're being very diplomatic.
Iran's nuclear program hasnever been this advanced.
Hence the urgency on the partof the Trump administration,
hence the, shall we say, urgencyhere in Israel, where I am, and
also the urgency, by the way,by the Biden administration.
Even right after it took officein was it early 2021, it was a

(12:59):
major priority for them to atleast try to renegotiate with
the Iranians.
Why did that effort fail interms of the Biden folks and
Iran?

Speaker 2 (13:07):
just by way of context, to bring us up to speed
today, Well, I think the Bidenadministration kind of had three
or four stages over their fouryears.
They came in and said you know,we're going to negotiate a
re-entry into the JCPOA and useit as a framework to build what
Secretary Blinken used to say isstronger and longer agreements.
Right, and on a couple ofoccasions you know.

(13:30):
So they began the negotiationsaround this time, around
mid-April of 2021.
And then they made someprogress.
Then there was a bit of a gapof several months because there
was a transition of governmentin Iran where you had the
Rouhani team that originallynegotiated the JCPOA with the
Obama administration and the P5plus one leaving office and

(13:52):
having a more hardlineadministration come in.
So that kind of delayednegotiations through the summer
and autumn of 2021.
And at a couple of points, in2022, no-transcript, a treaty.

(15:10):
So there is no guarantee.
And the second issue which Ithink again will come up and has
been an ongoing concern is thisinvestigation by the
International Atomic EnergyAgency into activities that Iran
had undertaken before 2003 atundeclared facilities.
And so the IAEA's mandate isnuclear accountancy, right.

(15:32):
They're saying we now know thatyou were undertaking activities
at sites you hadn't declaredand we need to know what was
going on there.
Where is that fissile material?
And the Iranians have draggedon this investigation over
several years, in part, I think,because they say we have never
sought nuclear weapons and thisis likely to show that they were

(15:54):
conducting, at the very least,proliferation-relevant or
proliferation-sensitive researchand development.
So those two things kind ofmeant that by August of 2022,
there was a text more or lessdone, but also a couple of
hurdles that were looming large.
But then a few things happenedthat get us into the kind of the

(16:16):
second stage of Iran-USdiplomacy under the Biden
administration, which is that ina matter of maybe two weeks, in
September of 2022, a couple ofthings happened.
First, the Iranians put theseconditions that the US and its
allies basically think or maybethe Iranians are just putting
poison pills on the table,they're not actually interested

(16:36):
in this deal that the guaranteesand the IAEA stuff is a ruse.
At the very minimum, they knowit can't be entertained.
Then, around this time August,september 2022, you have the
first evidence emerging ofIranian drones being used by
Russia and Ukraine.
And, bearing in mind that threeof the negotiating parties are
Europeans the Brits, the Frenchand the Germans and you have the

(16:59):
Americans obviously siding withUkraine against the Russian
invasion.
That really adds to thedetriment of the negotiations
and that how can you negotiatesanctions, relief or a nuclear
deal when Iranian weapons areliterally being used in Europe's
core step?
And the third thing, startingfrom mid-September, is the

(17:22):
nationwide protests in Iran, theanti-government protests that
erupted on the death ofMassamini in September of 2022.
So those three things combinedmeant that for the next several
months there was virtually nodiplomatic engagement through
spring of 2023.
And at that point the Iraniansand the Americans were both kind

(17:44):
of cognizant that.
You know, this problem hasn'tgone away.
The Iranians, you know theeconomy was, you know, still
undergoing a lot of difficultiesbecause of sanctions that were
still in force.
The nuclear program is stillgrowing of 2023, we have these

(18:07):
reports of kind of quietde-escalatory understandings
between the Americans and theIranians, where the Iranians,
you know, talk to the IAEA andsay, okay, we'll try to work
with you on these probes.
There are no attacks on USforces in the regions, or at
least in Iraq and Syria, forseveral months, and it kind of
culminates in September of 2023with the US moving some assets

(18:27):
that Iran had frozen in SouthKorea over to Qatar so that they
could be used for humanitariantrade and the Iranians released
several US nationals that hadbeen held in Iran for several
years, several years, and sothat again seemed like okay,

(18:48):
maybe now this can can be asegue to go back into some sort
of more structured nucleardiplomacy.
Than october 7th happened andobviously the as you know better
than better than most, the theregional context shifted
entirely and the focusessentially from from that point
went from kind of quiet,de-escalatory understandings to
management of a very significantregional conflict that at

(19:13):
various points again that you'vecovered in April and October of
last year includedunprecedented direct military
exchanges between Israel and theIranians.
And so the Biden administrationwasn't at that point really
thinking how do we negotiate adeal that restricts its nuclear
program?
It's how do we prevent thisconflict that has started with

(19:36):
Hamas's attack against Israeland that led to an Israeli
campaign in Gaza and thenincreasing volatility on the
northern border and then attacksby Iran back to loops in Iraq
and in Yemen into Israel andthen the exchanges directly
between Iran and Israel.
So at that point it was how dowe avoid this conflict from

(19:57):
turning into a truly regionalconflict?
And that basically took usthrough the end of the Biden
administration took us throughthe end of the Biden
administration.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, everything changed regionally, if not
globally, but definitelyregionally, and that's a good
recap which takes us up to thepresent moment.
The Trump administration.
So correct me if I'm wrongTrump's envoy for many, many
things, or at least the bigthings, steve Woodcuff, has
already met twice with theIranian foreign minister and
they're due to meet again thisweekend, I believe.
And so you already see well,direct negotiations, but I guess

(20:30):
, depending on who you ask,direct negotiations between the
US and Iran via Omani mediation.
But why?
I mean the big picture rightnow, before we get into the
details is why does Trump thinkhe can do better on this file
than Biden?
Is it just strictly a matter ofthem thinking that they have
more leverage over Iran, thatIran is weaker and that they can

(20:52):
actually push Iran to acceptthings now that it wasn't
willing to accept previously?
Or is there more going on here?

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Well, I mean, trump himself wanted to deal with the
Iranians in his first term aswell, right?
So there is an element ofcontinuity, both in terms of
objective and in terms of tools.
So to back up a tiny bit, whathappened before we started to
get these meetings with Oman,through Oman, the Trump

(21:28):
administration came in andflexed two strong elements of
coercive power over the past,you know from february in
particular.
So in february they they issueda national security memorandum
reinstating maximum pressure isthe policy of the united states
and we've seen that implementedit through two particular means.
One is, you know, a ramping upus sanctions so we've seen
several allowance of oil relatedsanctions etc.
That have come in over the pasteight, ten weeks and

(21:53):
significant, you know, militarypresence in the region, where
you've got two carrier groups,obviously against the backdrop
of an ongoing military campaignover the past month against the
Houthis in Yemen, one of Iran'snon-state allies in the region.
So you have those twodiplomatic and those two
coercive tools the economiccoercive tool and the military

(22:16):
posture and then you have thosebeing leveraged towards some
sort of negotiation, right, andPresident Trump himself wrote to
Iran's leadership in Mar, andagain, we don't know the exact
details of what the contents ofthe message were, but the
Iranians responded to thismessage and that kind of led to

(22:38):
the somewhat unexpectedannouncement by the president in
the Oval Office, I think whenhe was sitting next to Prime
Minister Netanyahu, that, by theway, we're now getting into
talks with the Iranians.
So for the Iranians, theincentive is pretty clear.
Their position is weakened inthe region, both as a result of
the setbacks to its non-stateallies and to coming off

(23:02):
considerably worse for wear fromtwo exchanges with israel,
especially in october.
And the economic, uh incentive,you know is, is significant.
They, they've, they've now, uh,their the economy is already,
you know, in in in a rough patch, let me know, let alone with
the prospect of increasing, youknow, enforcement of of?

(23:22):
U of US sanctions and theirexpansion.
So the incentive on their sideis, you know, how do we get out
of this and avoid both?
Potential renewal of militaryconfrontation, certainly, you
know, increased economicpressure that could lead to more
domestic turmoil with agovernment that's faced three
major rounds of anti-governmentprotests in the past decade.

(23:43):
And for the Trump administration, those exchanges of letters,
you know, led to the dispatch ofspecial envoy Witkoff and the
Iranian foreign minister in Oman, you know, within a few days of
Trump's announcement I think itwas on the 7th of April, if I'm
not mistaken and then the firstround was on the 12th of April,

(24:03):
and very quick, very quick, andthose, and so we've had two
rounds.
And those two rounds, you know,interestingly, you know, the
fact that they were, at least inpart, direct is interesting
because I think the last timethere was engagement at this
level was, you know, whensecretary Tillerson and Iran's
foreign minister met prior tothe US withdrawal in 2017.

(24:26):
There have been exchanges sinceat lower levels, but not
anything at the level ofministerial or ministerial
equivalent to the US.
And so I think those two roundswere essentially a scoping
exercise of, you know, if wehave a Venn diagram of our
demands and you have a Venndiagram of your demands, do they
meet at some point?

(24:47):
And if they meet, do we thensee how far this goes?
And so this weekend, we'reexpected to have both another
round of high level direct orindirect engagement between
Special Envoy Witkoff and formerMinister Araf G, but also
having technical teams, which wedidn't have in the first two
rounds, but that could pass thisprecedent.

(25:10):
That means that the US and theIranian sides will have people
who are specialists both on thetechnicalities of
nonproliferation and nuclearenrichment and safeguards and
all of the stuff that's on thatside of the coin.
And then presumably you knowsanctions relief discussions
where you know the Iraniansbring in their sanctions experts
.
And then from the US side youhave people from Treasury or

(25:32):
Commerce or things like thatthat start to again say that
okay, if we have the spenddiagram with enough overlap now
we can actually dig into it.
But again, at every stage ofthis you know joking the other
day that you know, if you'd saidthree weeks ago that the U?
S would have had two rounds oftalks with the Iranians that

(25:56):
both sides said wereconstructive and positive and
had a third round and atechnical round scheduled, you'd
have gotten incredible odds ifyou were betting on that because
it did not seem like a likelyproposition.
But here we are now that.
But you know I I compare thisto running a marathon through a
minefield.
You know you've done yourtraining and maybe off the you
know off off the the openinggates or the opening line rather

(26:16):
.
But you know these things arecomplicated and and now that we
know it's it's, it's not, notnothing that they've gotten this
far, but once you get into theweeds of the nuclear
requirements and the sanctions,relief expectations and what
other issues, for example, theUS may want to have on the table

(26:38):
.
The national securitymemorandum I referred to earlier
, like, also talks aboutballistic missiles, also talks
about, you know, regionalproxies and regional
publications, the Iranian statewe don't discuss non-nuclear
things.
So they've gotten this far andit may be because there's a
convergence and it may bebecause there's enough ambiguity
that both sides are readinginto it that, yes, now we can
move forward with it.

(26:58):
But once you get in, thefurther along the process you go
, the more areas there are fortechnical granularities that are
difficult to overcome.
Certainly on the Iranian side,certainly on President Trump's
side, diplomacy is the option offirst resort, with pressure and

(27:18):
potential military options alsoavailable.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
So we're going to get into the details of what they
may be negotiating and how thatmay go and likely gaps.
We'll also talk about themilitary option, don't worry,
but I wanted to get your sensebefore we do that.
How weak is Iran right nowreally?
And I ask this as someone whoyou and I have conversations all
the time, not with microphonesand you called it quite early in

(27:44):
the well, after October 7th, inthe early stages of the war,
where you said this is a majormistake by Iran to actively get
involved in this thing whichstarted off, obviously, between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
This is not going to go wellfor Iran.
And, lo and behold, you werecorrect.
I was rather more skeptical backin those early days of the war

(28:05):
because I was sitting here onthe receiving end of the Iranian
proxies and from my perspective, in the early days of the war,
because I was sitting here onthe receiving end of the Iranian
proxies and from my perspectivein the early days of the war,
things were not great for Israel, leaving aside the US and its
equities in the region but atleast for Israel, it seemed to
me that Iran was winning.
But obviously now, 18 monthsafter October 7th, iran and its

(28:26):
proxies, hamas, hezbollah, evennow the Houthis that are getting
hammered on a daily basis bythe Israeli Air Force and Navy,
and let alone Iran directly, arenot in great shape militarily,
regionally, economically.
So give us a sense of how badit perhaps is for Tehran.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Well, first, I appreciate the shout out to my
early kind of against the graintake, because it seemed to me
that you know, from fairly earlyon, the Iranians were doing
something that went againsttheir usual MO, and their usual
MO has been don't get involvedand use the proxies to have, you

(29:05):
know, one layer of separationfrom anything that happens.
But you know, from kind ofOctober, november of 2023, when
you had indirect, you know,italian-iranian operations, if
you want to call it that, viathe paramilitary units in Iraq,
via Hezbollah, via the FIS, itseemed to me like that at some

(29:27):
point that was going to backfire.
And you know the, the Iraniansfirst preference in all of these
things is, you know, the entire, you know uh, network that
they've built up over the courseof decades the, the, the, the
ring of fire, you know as, asstrategists in Israel call it,
the Israeli, the Iranians referto this as a forward defense

(29:48):
strategy.
Right, so you defend, butforward, not, not not on home
soil.
You push the, the contours ofof the battlefield to your
enemy's doorstep instead ofbringing it on your doorstep.
And right.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
They want to fight to the very last drop of arab
blood, not persian blood.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, but interestingly, starting kind of
with again in like kind of theautumn of 2023, you increasingly
did start to see direct Iranianfatalities right.
So even and I think we'vediscussed this in the past you
know, over the course of the war, between the wars campaign that
Israel has had in Syria, whenBashar was still in power, kind

(30:29):
of from 2015-16 on, the Israeliswould target, you know, convoys
, they'd hit facilities, butthey'd rarely go after IRGC guys
directly, because the point wasto curtail the pipeline of arms
, not to- Islamic RevolutionaryGuard Corps, IRGC.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
That's exactly right.
But starting in kind ofNovember, december of 2023, we
saw that the targeting didinclude increasingly direct IRGC
personnel on the ground.
Obviously, that culminated inApril of 2024, when there was a
strike against what the Israelis, what the Iranians say was a

(31:09):
consular facilities, killedseveral more senior IRGC
personnel.
But that was that was cappingseveral months of direct IRGC
losses.
And that's the point where theIranians said, okay, like, if we
respond, we, you know, run acertain risk of getting hit back
, but if we don't respond, youknow we'll just keep losing, you

(31:30):
know, personnel and make itseem like we're, we're entirely
deterred.
So you know, to them that waslike between two bad decisions,
they went for the worst militaryresponse.
And then again, you know, overthe course of several months,
you know, while Hezbollah andIsrael were having, you know,
their engagements on thenorthern border, you know
hezbollah and israel were having, you know, their engagements on

(31:50):
on the northern border.
You know you, you also had thekilling of haniya in in tehran
itself, you know so, in thesummer of last year.
And then you had, in septemberof last year, in, in course of
several days, the uh, the pagerattack, the walkie-talkie attack
, and then the killing of HassanNasrallah, again with another

(32:12):
IRGC guy in the mix in Beirut.
And that's when the Iranianssaid, okay, we didn't do
anything after Haniyeh.
And now again, if we don't dosomething, it shows that we are
deterred by the Israelis andeven if it comes massive risks
of retaliation.

(32:32):
Something has to be done,basically, and so that's when
they launch Operation TruePromise 2, and the Israelis
retaliate.
And this comes in a verycircuitous way to your question
about how weak is Iran.
Look, relative to beforeOctoberober 2023, relative to
this time last year, it isweaker.

(32:52):
Right, several nodes in itsaxis of resistance are
significantly degraded.
Well, hamas is one.
His brother is another, the thehouthis, you know asterix,
depending on how, how much thisongoing, you know military
campaign against them is able todamage their capabilities going
forward.

(33:12):
I mean, they're clearly stillable to mount some kind of
offensive threat, whether it'sthrough missiles or drones,
against Israel and this morningin Haifa North, yeah, so Bashar
al-Assad is gone was toppled ina matter of days.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Bashar al-Assad is gone, bashar al-Assad is gone.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
So is the network what it was a year ago?
Clearly not.
Is Iran's domestic capacitywhat it was a year ago?
Again, clearly not.
And in the Israeli retaliationfor Iran's second ballistic
missile attack in October, itwas interesting what the
Israelis reportedly chose totarget.

(33:53):
It was air defenses andballistic missile production
sites.
Right, and to me that wasinteresting because it's almost
laying down the gauntlet forwhat happens in the next set of
exchanges that we are nottargeting your critical
infrastructure, we're nottargeting your nuclear sites.
We're not targeting yournuclear sites.
We're targeting the airdefenses that protect those
things and we're not hittingyour missile stockpiles.

(34:16):
We are making those stockpilesa very finite thing because your
missile production is now goingto be slowed down.
So you take all of that there is.
You know the regional networkis not what it was and the
vulnerability is more than itwas Now.
Is that to say that they do nothave a retaliatory capacity on

(34:40):
the nuclear or regional fronts?
And maybe the nuclear part wecan, we can come back to in a
second in terms of options, youaside from diplomacy.
But you know they, they stilldo wield ballistic missile
capabilities, they still stilldo maintain drone capabilities,
they still have navalcapabilities, they still have

(35:00):
some proxies that are able tothreaten the us and or israeli
and allied interests in in theregion.
So you know, weaker is relative, Weak is not, and I don't know
if I'd Certainly weaker butstill able to pose a concern for
US and allied interests in theregion in the event that there's

(35:23):
an escalation.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Okay, we'll be right back after this brief message.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
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(35:49):
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In this week's Koplow column,Chief Policy Officer Michael
Koplow explains how questionssurrounding Trump's Iran talks

(36:11):
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(36:36):
the show link in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
On this issue, just economically, how bad is it
right now inside Iran?

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, it's a question of relative to what Since
Pezeshkian took office.
That's President MassoudPezeshkian who took over middle
of last year after PresidentRaisi died in a helicopter crash
in May of last year.
You know the real the Iraniannational currency basically lost

(37:04):
half its value just in thatperiod of several months.
Now it's regained a good bit ofground just based on, in part,
optimism over the prospect oftalks.
Right, it's a bit of abellwether of how the market in
Iran sees you.
Apollo.
Now some of these.
So if you just look at thenumbers, growth does not look

(37:26):
particularly rosy, Inflation isfairly high, Currency has
volatility and part of thataren't sanctions related.
It's just an inefficient,bureaucratized economy with a

(37:55):
heavy state hand, a lot ofshadow economy run by shadowy
business interests that in Iranthey use the phrase like
sanctions merchants of peoplewho actually benefit from
sanctions because they becomethe middlemen or the black
marketeers or the profiteers,naturally, yeah, so again, it's.

(38:15):
It's undoubtedly one of the key, you know, incentive for them
going into these talks is to getget a degree of rhythm, get
some trade, get some investmentgoing, get their oil customers
back.
Right now it's almost entirelygoing to China.
It's unclear how much of thatrevenue they're actually able to

(38:38):
repatriate and in which ways.
And now, obviously you've had abit of a drop in the price of
oil relative to where it was acouple of months ago.
So the economic incentive wastheir primary incentive,
arguably, to get into JCPOA inthe first place.
It's certainly one of the mainincentives for them to come into
the talks now, along with theprospect of military action in

(39:01):
circumstances that, at the veryminimum, are unfavorable to them
.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Okay, so let's get into the brass tacks of, let's
say, the diplomatic path, whichis the more optimistic path and,
like you said, even thepreferred path of Donald J Trump
.
What, to your mind, would adeal actually look like?
Potential deal as you mentioned, iran presumably wants to keep

(39:28):
its nuclear program and it wantssanctions relief.
I mean Israel, which isn't aparty to the talks but obviously
has influence and is a playerin all of this.
Israel has been demanding noless than the Libya model, ie
complete disarmament, completedismantlement of the nuclear
program.
Ie like Muammar Gaddafi back inLibya, who just gave up his

(39:48):
entire nuclear program, althoughthat didn't work out quite.
Muammar Gaddafi back in Libya,who just gave up his entire
nuclear program, although thatdidn't work out quite so well
for Gaddafi.
And then the Trumpadministration, depending on the
day, depending on the official,what is their position on what
a deal could look like?
May look like?
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well.
So in a certain way, this is aquestion you know you could have
asked five years ago, 10 yearsago or 20 years ago, when this
whole kind of Iran nuclearcrisis kind of started in 2002,
2003.
That you have a country thathas conducted undeclared nuclear

(40:29):
activities that are concerningit is an adversary of the United
States and key US allies in theregion.
So you start with a propositionthat has been shared by every
US administration, which is thatIran should have a nuclear one.
It should not have a nuclearone.
Right, you should not have anuclear one.
So that you start with that.
So then the question becomesokay, how do you go about it?

(40:50):
And you have three options.
Basically, one is that you getthem to dismantle it.
Now you can call it the Libyamodel, or you know, iran should
not enrich.
The demand should be zeroenrichment on Iranian soil.
Dismantling all of the existingfacilities, full accountancy to
the UN, etc.
Now, the track record for thatisn't great.

(41:13):
It's something that theIranians rejected under the
George W Bush administration.
It's something that theyrejected under the early Obama
administration.
I mean, one of the things thatmade it possible to reach a deal
in 2015 is that the P5 plus one.
The US and its allies at thetable said okay, you're

(41:36):
enriching at 20%.
Breakout time is three or fourmonths.
We've spent like a decade tryingto get to zero enrichment.
If it's not going to happen,then we're going to move to the
next best thing, which isrestricting and monitoring that
program as best we can.
So that's where the JCPOA'slimits on stockpiling and
enrichment kind of come in,where it's.

(41:57):
You know, we would have likedto get it to zero.
We would like to see themdismantle all this, absent that
being diplomatically feasible,then we move to ensuring that we
have as much visibility on thesmallest program possible and
that addresses the nuclearconcern for a period of years,
you know, going into decades.
So option and when the Trumpadministration withdrew in 2018,

(42:23):
one of the demands at the timewas going back to zero energy,
and that was.
I mean there were 12, 13demands in total, but one of
them was going back to thestandard of zero enrichment.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Very ambitious demands back then under the
first.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Trump administration, right.
Well, I mean again, the toolswere powerful, right.
Maximum pressure in the firstterm did put significant
economic pain on the IslamicRepublic.
What it wasn't able to do inpart, I think, because, like
you're saying, the demands werequite ambitious, like you know,
sweeping even is that theIranians were, you know, said

(43:03):
you know, if this is what you'reexpecting, you're not going to
get this.
And so again, now it seems thatyou still have those powerful
tools.
You have both a strengthenedmilitary presence in the region
and this economic campaignthat's kind of been dialed up,

(43:25):
but also more of an attempt thusfar than there was in the first
term to actually see how youcan leverage that leverage into
a diplomatic outcome.
Again, may or may not.
So you have the dismantlingoption, right, and again, we
could have had this discussionat any point in the last 20
years.
You have the dismantling option, dismantling option.

(43:46):
You have the restrictions andverification option, which was
the JCPOA model.
But it doesn't have to be aJCPOA model.
The JCPOA was 150 odd pages ofvery convoluted text that boiled
down to a very simple bargainwe don't trust your nuclear
program, we're going to restrictit and verify it and in return

(44:07):
you get sanctions.
That's what the 150-odd pagesboil down to.
And so you have dismantling,you have restricting and then
you have destroying, which isyou know and again it's
something that you hear now thatyou know, if Iran doesn't agree
to dismantle, then you know weshould take out the program or

(44:28):
take care of it for, dismantleit for them, or whatever phrase
you want to employ.
Now, the issue with this isthat it's a little more
complicated.
We're not talking about a oneand done operation.
We're not talking about anafternoon's aerial activity that
then solves the problem.
What we've seen over the pastcouple of weeks there was some

(44:51):
reporting your listeners shouldtake a look at if they're
interested in this in theWashington Post and in the New
York Times on US.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
We don't read those newspapers on this podcast,
sorry, Well, there are reportsKidding, kidding, kidding, there
are.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
There are report, kidding, kidding, kidding.
There are reports of what USand allied intelligence, in
Israel in particular, see as thescenarios in the event of a
military operation.
Right, and you know, the post acouple of weeks ago, you know,
reported that that US estimateswere, if I'm not mistaken, the
quote is something like thesetback would be months,

(45:32):
potentially as little as weeks,before the Iranians rebuild or
try to rebuild that capacity.
The Israeli estimate for what astrike could achieve is a
little more bullish.
It's closer to a year.
But it brings back thisquestion of okay, so the
destruction model is in and ofitself a short-term setback

(45:57):
defined.
I mean short to medium-termsetback.
Let's say a few months.
Let's take the average and saysix months.
So what do you do in six months?
Do you do this every six months?
Do you complement a strike onnuclear facilities with other
measures?
Do you think that if theIranian sites are struck, the

(46:17):
Iranian regime will suddenlycome to the table and agree to
more than it's willing to agreenow?
Those are the kind of questionsthat, if you're gaming this out
, if you're a policymaker andyou're sitting, if you're the
president, presumably that's thekind of discussion that you're,
if you're gaming this out, ifyou're a policymaker and you're
sitting, you know, if you're thepresident, or presumably that's
the kind of discussion thatyou're, that you're having.
Can we get them to dismantle?
Track record not looking greatbased on the past 20 years?

(46:41):
Do we have a military option?
Yes, we do have a militaryoption, but it may have, you
know, a different kind of.
It's not necessarily along-term solution, especially
if they, for example, in onescenario, decide to rebuild, but
in a clandestine facility andwith the explicit intention of

(47:02):
weaponization, right?
So and that's one of the thingsthat the US intelligence
assessment was concerned about,of the things that the US
intelligence assessment wasconcerned about so, if you're
content with buying time withthat option, what are you going
to do with that time?
Are you going to use it as partof a different strategy towards
the Islamic Republic?
That's not just anon-proliferation strategy?
How do you contend and what doyou assess would be the Iranian

(47:27):
non-nuclear response right?
Will they attack the US forces?
Will they attack Israel againand so or the Gulf, or the Gulf,
although the Gulf you knowclearly.
It's interesting that you raisedthe Gulf.
I probably should havementioned it earlier.
This is one of the differenceswith 2015 is that, you know, in
2015, some of the GCC states,the Gulf Cooperation Council

(47:49):
states, including Saudi Arabiaand the UAE in particular, felt
that the Obama administrationhad somewhat kept them out of
the loop.
They weren't you know, andthere are some concerns that I
think will manifest again thatif you do a nuclear only deal,
then how does it impact Iran'sregional posture?
But relations between Iran andthe UAE, especially Iran and

(48:11):
Saudi Arabia, have been on themend the last couple of years,
not necessarily friendships, butmuch more cordial and
workmanlike.
And this week we had a visit bythe Saudi defense minister,
who's the highest ranking Saudiofficial to visit Iran since
they resumed ties in in in 2023.

(48:31):
So the the view from the gulfis that that they'd not the view
from the view.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah, the view from the gulf is that they don't want
a war.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
It's pretty much they're in favor of diplomacy
which would put them potentiallyin the crossfire, which is what
happened in 2019 and 2020.
The last time we had maximumpressure, you know, kind of uh,
and Iran's counter pressurecampaign, is that you had Saudi
Aramco facilities attacked, youhad tankers blowing up off the
coast of the UAE.
And part of that experience, Ithink, is why the W and Riyadh

(49:04):
both tried to, you know,maintain lines of contact with
Tehran.
Both tried to maintain lines ofcontact with Tehran.
So, coming back to the originalpremise, is that you have a
dismantling option that, throughdiplomacy, has a low
probability, scenario,likelihood, the kind of Libya
model that Iran wouldvoluntarily accept.

(49:25):
You have the military resetoption, which has a lot of
uncertainties in terms of boththe immediate retaliation and
the potential proliferationconsequences.
And then you have therestriction option which, again
and you asked what the Trumpadministration wants out of

(49:45):
these, wants out of these, youknow we've the president himself
, you know, says they cannothave a nuclear weapon.
That is my right one, right.
And then you have people in theadministration, like national
security advisor Waltz, you know, who've said very clearly the
good the Iran needs to dismantle, right.
And then you even had, I think,several special envoy Whitcoff
last week.
You know use similar languageabout.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
You know, stopping suspending enrichment Right no,
this was after he initially cameout with a much softer position
.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
So he kind of corrected himself and hardened
yeah, I mean I, I think the thecomments suggested that iran
didn't need enrichment beyond3.67, which, if you're, you know
, looking into the empty spaceof that, you could read as being
that well, that means that theycan have enriched to 3.67,
after which, as you said, therewas a clarification.

(50:35):
But again, we wouldn't, I think, have reached this stage of an
exchange of letters and tworounds of talks and the
technical talk and the thirdround of high-level talks,
without there necessarily beingin the rooms and in the letters
and in the exchanges, enough,like I said before, common
ground for them to find an areaof compromise.

(50:58):
And you can find a lot offormulae that do address
non-proliferation concernssignificantly, without it
necessarily being zeroenrichment, right, and there are
ways that you can improve onthe deal that was in 2015.
That, like I said, shouldn't bethe basis for comparison, but

(51:18):
you can, you know, figure outthings that address
non-proliferation concerns, thatincrease the transparency.
And if you, if your bottom lineconcern is, how do I that Iran
should not have a nuclear weapon, then again that basic bargain
of restrictions and verificationmight be the one that finds a

(51:41):
sweet spot, perhaps with betterrestrictions and stricter
verification.
You know, or or you know atweaking of various formulae, or
you know there's there's oneoption that you know some
officials have referred to herein washington, about iran
bringing in, you know, fissilematerial so that it's not doing
it domestically.
Again, I think the iranianswould probably have a difficult

(52:03):
time with that because theircounter argument would be well,
but then you'll just stop that.
So how do we know, like youknow, we need it domestically
because you know we can't relyon other people.
So, again, if the concern isthe cake to go back to the
analogy that again I really hopeisn't taken as far to minimize

(52:28):
how concerning this is it's nota good cake.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
But if you're worried about the cake, there are some
bad cakes out there as well.
The cake doesn't necessarilyhave to be have to be bad.
I'm not a huge fan of you knowlemon pie, but many people, so
this could be my lemon pie.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Let's agree that a nuclear cake is is not a good
idea, but in you know, if youare, are, have a degree of

(53:16):
confidence that the batter andthe oven are looked after in a
way that you're in a cake-freeor low cake probability
environment for a significantperiod of time, or maybe even
indefinitely, then that is oneway to address that
non-proliferation concern.
Again, we have to see if the noenrichment, dismantling Libya
model is a US bottom line.
I don't think the Iranianswould have made it this far into
negotiations, but on the otherhand, that could be that they
have an interest in in, you know, going through the, the hoops
and trying to keep some, keeppresident trump on side and in

(53:39):
in thinking that you know he'sgetting somewhere.
And it could also just be thatthere's enough ambiguity or both
sides are reading enough wiggleroom into what, the what the
other side is saying that we'vegone this far again, like once
you get into the technical talksand things like that.
That's where the granularitiesare actually going to be
negotiated.
Is it 3.67%, is it 20%?
Is it 0%?

(53:59):
Is it limiting the centrifuges?
Is it increasing theinspections?
What does Iran do with IAEAcameras that have been turned
off?
All of these things.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
The longevity of the deal, ie no sunset clauses.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
I think that'll also be interesting sunset provisions
it's not actually uncommon inarms control agreements to have
sunset provisions, but therestrictions on some issues
phase out over time.
So, in the case of the nucleardeal in 2015, and the Security
Council resolution that endorsedit in 2015, there were varying
caps that over time, would bephased out and other measures

(54:52):
that would be indefinite, butone of the main ones was this
restriction on the enrichmentlevels right.
So through 2031, under theoriginal deal, iran's stockpile
of enriched uranium would havebeen capped below 4% and below
300 kilograms.
So that's an example thatpeople could say well, why not

(55:14):
20 years?
Why not 50 years?
Why not 100 years?
Why not make it, you know, inperpetuity?
So that's only, you know, anarea where you know that.
Would you know if the Iraniansagreed to no sunsets, for
example?
That would be a shift and againensure that there's I was going

(55:34):
to say a greater degree ofconfidence.
That's not where none of thisstuff is based on confidence or
trust.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
This is all based on monitoring and verification,
which is one of the reasons whyyou know the IAEA, the
International Atomic EnergyAgency, has played and will
continue to play like animportant role, and that's one
of the reasons why Iran's lackof cooperation with them has
been troubling over the pastcouple of years, some kind of

(56:10):
reasonable bargain that, likeyou said, maybe they're making
progress over the past two weeks, maybe in the coming weeks Do
you think that they will beready to accept some concessions
on their own respective endswhen it comes down to it?
Oh, that's an easy question.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
I don't know, look on the Iranian side.
There were a lot of people inIran who hated the original deal
, will not like a new deal withthe Americans.
But thus far, from on high,from the Supreme Leader, ali

(56:48):
Khamenei, he's kind of clearlygone.
I mean, a few months ago he wassaying that negotiations with
the Americans were unwise anddisarmable.
Right, this is literally.
You know, earlier this year.
Now he's, you know, clearlygiven a green light for his
negotiators to go trying to sussout what terms the Americans

(57:08):
are willing to accept.
And the fact that he's, youknow, clearly green-lit it and
hasn't gone so far as to tocriticize it outright, means
that you know the hawks on theiranian side.
You know they will be temperedbecause the supreme leader has
said let's see where this goright.

(57:30):
But when the original dealhappened in 2015, I mean they
were, they were going throughevery paragraph calling it a
capitulation concession to theAmericans.
And when the US withdrew, theydid a lap saying we told you so,
we told you so, we told you sothat the US is not reliable and
we said don't trust them.
And this is exactly whathappened.

(57:51):
Know, they blamed a lot of iton their own negotiators.
They blamed it on the rohaniteam then and and said that
these guys were, you know, naiveand and got played.
And you know it's, it's um, youknow.
So I expect you know a degree ofof pushback from the hardliners
in tehran on any engagement ofthe americans, let alone another

(58:12):
nuclear deal that will restricttheir nuclear program that they
say is so essential to theirnational security, and all of
that stuff.
And here look it's again.
I think you know a lot of itwill come down to the president
and how he feels that, whateverterms I mean, clearly Special
Envoy Witkoff's position in theadministration and being

(58:35):
entrusted with a couple of thesehigh importance portfolios
means that the president has ahigh degree of trust in him.
And Special Envoy Witkoff hasmade it through two rounds with
the Iranians and is leading thedelegation this weekend to do
the technical talks, two roundswith the Iranians and is leading
the delegation this weekend todo the technical talks.
And my assumption is that hewill come back with the

(58:57):
president and say these are theparameters under which we think
we might be able to get a deal.
These are the things that areprobably not going to, that we
would have liked to see butwon't get a deal and, mr
President, you know this isultimately down to your call.
Now again, if there are termsthat come up, obviously you know
the US administration, congress, dc, or a lot of people with

(59:23):
you know their views on thisparticular issue will be
focusing on every detail andevery comma in a potential
agreement, especially bringingthe comparison, if there is a
hypothetical deal, to the 2015deal and how it relates to that.
And I would just say again,coming back to the point I made
earlier, you negotiate over thenuclear program you're facing,

(59:43):
not the nuclear program youfaced 10 years ago.
And so I would just say that ifwe get that far which again, at
this point is far from acertainty, the issue know how
well does it address presentconcerns going forward as well.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
You.
What did Don Rumsfeld say backin the day?
You go to the, you go to warwith the army.
That you, that you have, Notthe army that you uh that you
had.
Yeah, don Rumsfeld, we're oldenough to remember Rumsfeld,
nathan.
Final question, actual finalquestion Is there a timeline
deadline for these talks tosucceed or not?

(01:00:19):
Ie, does it have to be done bythe fall, because I know that in
the UN Security Council there'ssomething called snapback, that
the Europeans, I believe, orthe UN at large, will snap back
sanctions on Iran.
Explain that aspect to us andwhat the timeline may be for
these talks working out, or whatdid Donald Trump say?

(01:00:40):
We want diplomacy and not theother option.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
That's right.
Well, in a way we all have.
We have maybe three timelines,all of which kind of converge in
kind of late summer, earlyautumn.
So the first one is that youknow, according to some of the
early reports about presidentTrump's letter and the start of
engagement, that he had put a 60day clock on this.
To the extent that's true, it'sambitious, especially once you

(01:01:07):
get into Donald Trump did thatthat was, that was some of the
reporting that there wasimplicitly or explicitly in
these communications a two-monthtime frame either from the time
of his letter in early March tothe start of negotiations, but
clearly not to drag this out forvery long.
So that's one potentialtimeline.

(01:01:28):
Again, I think, if there'sprogress, iran-u, iran-us
negotiations and nuclearnegotiations in general, once
you get over the hard part, youhave another hard part.
So if we've gone far enough forthe two sides to come to some
kind of agreement on scoping andformat of talks, that's the
hard part.

(01:01:48):
But now you get into thegranularities of sanctions,
relief and nuclear restrictions,which is also a hard one.
So that's in theory, theory, a60-day window, another window
again.
You know, coming back to someof the reporting I alluded to
earlier, that you know there isa an argument to be made that
iran's air defensevulnerabilities, according to

(01:02:09):
public reporting and thebackheel position of, you know,
hezbollah and some other membersof the axis, make this a window
of opportunity after which iranmay have rebuilt some of its
air defense capacities that weredegraded, or that hezbollah
might have regrouped, or thatyou know who knows what's
happened in syria.
You know, and we've seen, howmuch syria has changed in the

(01:02:31):
course of four months.
You know who knows where it isfour months from now.
You don't know where the Houthicampaign is, so that
operationally speaking, it's notgoing to be easy, but it would
be less difficult to do whenIran's retaliatory capacity and
defensive capacity is morecurtailed than it might have

(01:02:51):
been or could be down the line.
So that's timeline two.
We'll do it sooner rather thanlater.
Do it sooner rather than later.
And again, you now have a surgein US air and naval capacity in
the region.
So again the question becomesif you're not going to do it now
, you're never going to have abetter time.
The third clock is the one thatyou rightly refer to.

(01:03:13):
So in the UN Security Councilresolution that endorsed the
JCPOA, it's UN Security CouncilResolution 2231.
I encourage you to read it ifyou're having trouble getting to
sleep.
Under 2231, they basicallydesigned and you know that in
the Security Council, permanentmembers have a veto right.

(01:03:34):
If something comes up and anyone member doesn't want it, they
can veto it.
Snapback basically inverts thatproposition and it says that if
any one of the members of thenuclear agreement feel that you
know the deal is one of theother sides is in noncompliance,
they can, on their own andwithout being vetoed by others,
snap back hence the term snapback all of the UN sanctions

(01:03:59):
that were in place before 2015.
Right, and so that mechanism,that snap back mechanism,
expires in mid-October and,because of the procedures that
go into it and everything,really you have to get that
process started by June or July,because there's a back and

(01:04:20):
forth of letters and proceduralissues and the Russians holding
the Security Council presidency,in the fall that the Western
powers would want to avoid that,the three European powers the
Germans, the French and theBrits could have until October
to snap back, and that is apowerful card they can play to

(01:04:46):
nudge the Iranians in thedirection of a deal.
There's also a theoreticalpossibility that the whole thing
could be extended, but let'snot get into that for now.
But yes to your question ifthere is not a great deal of
progress, then that snapbackissue starts to come up quickly
on the horizon.
The Iranians have said that ifthat happens, if those pre-2015

(01:05:10):
sanctions are restored, theycould leave the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, theymight kick out inspectors, and
so again you kind of go intouncharted waters in terms of
Iran's nuclear program.
And again, if Iran withdrawsfrom the NPT or kicks out
inspectors, again that willprobably increase the interest
in a military option, becauseyou may not know what's actually

(01:05:32):
going on on the ground at thatpoint or have curtailed the
sense of what's going on at yourown nuclear site.
So by the summer, betweenPresident Trump's 60 or 60-ish
days between the military windowor the believed military window

(01:05:52):
for a less risky militaryoperation and then finally the
snapback clock, it's prettyhigh-stakes stuff in a
relatively curtailed time period.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Yeah, it very much is , which is why I wanted to have
you on before whatever happenshappens, to give me and our
listeners a better sense of whathas happened, what may happen
in a lay of the land.
Naysan, you didn't disappoint.
Thank you so much for takingthe time to speak with us today.
It's been a pleasure, nery.
Thank you, take care, okay.

(01:06:27):
Thanks to the great Dr NaysanRafati for his generous time and
insights.
Also, special thanks to ourproducer, jacob Gilman, and to
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Do consider making a donationto Israel Policy Forum, sukhneet
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