[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS: IRAN AFTER ROUHANI'S FIRST 100 DAYS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 13, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-107
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Mark Dubowitz, executive director, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies.................................................... 6
Ms. Danielle Pletka, vice president, Foreign and Defense Policy
Studies, American Enterprise Institute......................... 23
Mr. Colin Kahl, associate professor, Georgetown University....... 30
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Mark Dubowitz: Prepared statement............................ 9
Ms. Danielle Pletka: Prepared statement.......................... 25
Mr. Colin Kahl: Prepared statement............................... 33
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 82
Hearing minutes.................................................. 83
EXAMINING NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS: IRAN AFTER ROUHANI'S FIRST 100 DAYS
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m. in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This hearing in the House Foreign Affairs
Committee is on Examining Nuclear Negotiations: Iran After
Rouhani's First 100 Days. We are going to evaluate the current
state of nuclear diplomacy with Iran. And, of course, last week
world powers in Iran held a second round of negotiations in
Geneva. These are historical talks with a potentially profound
impact on the national security interests of the United States.
The administration is looking to negotiate an interim
agreement in which Iran commits to placing some limits on its
nuclear program for 6 months in exchange for immediate and
significant sanctions relief with reportedly as much as $50
billion in frozen oil revenues being released as part of the
agreement. This deal was not reached in Switzerland.
Some U.S. allies believe the Iranian commitment was
insufficient. Of great concern, the proposal failed to
adequately address Iran's heavy water reactor. The proposal
also, Members, would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium
and would allow Iran to continue to build centrifuges. The
French Foreign Minister warned of a fool's game, in his words.
There is growing concern in Congress that the outlines of
this agreement do not meet the standards needed to protect the
United States and to protect U.S. allies. Central to these
talks is the issue of uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
These technologies can produce the explosive material needed
for a nuclear weapon. Indeed that is why Iran wants the
capability, and that is why multiple U.N. Security Council
resolutions have reiterated one demand, and that demand is that
all of Iran's enrichment activities, regardless of their
purpose, must be suspended.
On this question the world has spoken decisively, but the
administration envisions permitting Iran to enrich to low
levels. Regardless of the name, low-enriched uranium and
medium-enriched uranium are close to weapons-grade highly
enriched uranium. That is because the effort needed to produce
weapons material eases as you advance. Nonproliferation experts
tell us that while medium-enriched uranium is nearly weapons
grade, low-enriched uranium still represents seven-tenths of
the effort to get to weapons grade.
Of course, Iran continues to assert that the
nonproliferation treaty grants it the so-called right to pursue
these dangerous technologies. We must remember, and I would
suggest we must insist, that the treaty was designed to stop
the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Simply because a nuclear
activity can be used for people for peaceful purposes does not
mean the NPT's members have an unconditional right to pursue or
acquire it, let alone a country that has actively deceived the
international community and violated its International Atomic
Energy Agency nuclear safeguard agreements. Iran can have
peaceful energy, peaceful nuclear energy, but not with the
access to technology that could be used to advance a weapons
program.
There is the question of sanctions, which have been
painstakingly developed by Congress over many, many years.
Sanctions have battered the Iranian economy not just because of
their depth, not just because of the breadth of the sanctions,
but because of the market forces at play. International
companies seeking to avoid their web, the web of sanctions,
steer clear of Iran. As one witness has written, Iran sanctions
have been as much psychological as legal. The easing of
sanctions, no matter how minor they my seem--and the Geneva
sanctions relief was not minor--the easing of those sanctions
could deflate these forces, eliminate our leverage, and indeed
remove the reason, 600 billion in capital flight out of the
country, the very reason that Iran is at the table today.
Sanctions have forced Iran to the table. We should build
upon the success with additional measures like those now
pending in the Senate to compel Iran to make meaningful and
lasting concessions. The Iranian regime hasn't paused its
nuclear program; why should we pause our sanctions efforts as
the administration is pressuring Congress to do? Only when the
Iranian regime is forced to decide between economic collapse or
compromise on its rush to develop a nuclear weapons capability
do we have a chance to avoid that terrible outcome.
I will now turn to the ranking member for any opening
comments he may have. Mr. Engel of New York.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you for holding this important hearing and to welcome all
of our witnesses here this morning. I look forward to hearing
their testimony.
In late September Chairman Royce and I wrote an op-ed about
Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani. We were curious if beyond
the charm offensive and gentle smile, he would use his first
100 days in office to attempt to fundamentally change the
direction of the Iranian Government and demonstrate a genuine
willingness to end Iran's nuclear weapons program. The chairman
and I wrote this op-ed piece together because we thought it was
important to show a congressional unity on such an important
issue as Iran.
And after Rouhani's first 105 days in office, it is clear
to me that Iran still poses a significant threat to the United
States and to our allies. Iran remains the world's top state
sponsor of terrorism, and continues to support Hezbollah. They
are actively supporting the Assad regime in Syria, which has
slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent civilians, and they
are working to destabilize our allies in the gulf.
But the biggest threat so far, by far, is Iran's continuing
effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Many experts
believe that Iran is approximately 1 year away or maybe even
less from acquiring this capability, and we must do everything
possible to prevent that from happening.
The successive sanctions bills crafted by this committee
and signed into law by President Obama, taken together with
international sanctions, have had a devastating impact on
Iran's economy. Iran is having trouble selling its oil in the
global markets, has been cut off from the international
financial system, and is starved for hard currency. This
intense pressure brought Iran back to the negotiating table,
and this pressure must be maintained, and strengthened if
necessary, until Iran has taken verifiable steps to freeze and
even dismantle this nuclear weapons program.
The Iranians are masters at negotiation for the sake of
buying time. We must remember that Rouhani formerly served as
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, and he has bragged about
deceiving the West in previous negotiations.
Now, some people say he is a reformer. I don't believe he
is a reformer because no reformers were allowed to run for
President. He may be the most moderate of all the hardliners
that were allowed to run, but he is no reformer. The reformers
were all eliminated. And it is not clear to me that even if he
decided or desired to do so, that he would be able to take Iran
into a new direction. It appears to me that the Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei still has the power, and so we really just
don't know where we are going.
So while we must have a genuine openness to a diplomatic
process that resolves all outstanding issues, we must judge
Iran by its actions, not by any rhetoric that we might hear.
And, by the way, the rhetoric that Rouhani came back to Tehran
and spoke to the Iranian Parliament is rhetoric with hard line
and not much different from what we have heard over the past
several years.
About 4 weeks ago the Iranians came to Geneva with what
some thought appeared to be a new attitude. For the first time
they admitted that the sanctions were hurting them badly. And
for the first time they started talking about the specifics of
an agreement.
Since that initial meeting, technical experts from the P5+1
have met with their Iranian counterparts to discuss the
contours of a possible deal, and at the end of last week
another key meeting took place at the ministerial level. Much
has been reported in the press about this latest meeting, the
offer that was left on the table, and the reactions of Iran and
the P5+1. Let us be clear: None of us here today were at the
negotiating table, and as far as I know, none of us have yet
been briefed on the details, so I think it would be wise for
all of us to speak with some degree of caution until all the
facts are known.
But having said that, I am deeply troubled by reports that
the proposed agreement would not have required Tehran to stop
all enrichment. If Iran intends to show good faith during these
talks, I believe it must at a minimum abide by United Nations
Security Council resolutions calling for a halt to enrichment,
and it is my hope that we achieve much more.
In addition, I forcefully reject any notion that Iran has a
right to enrichment, and that is the position the
administration has publicly supported on many occasions. The
bottom line for me is this: If these talks are about Iran
abandoning its nuclear program, then to show good faith at the
very least while the talks are going on, Iran should stop
enrichment, period.
Given the failure to reach an agreement in Geneva, I
believe it is time for my colleagues in the Senate to take up
the Iran sanctions legislation that I coauthored with Chairman
Royce and which the House passed overwhelmingly this summer. We
must make it crystally clear to Iran that even tougher
sanctions are coming down the pike if the regime is unwilling
to take concrete and verifiable steps to freeze and then
dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
I know the Secretary of State has a profound interest in
the legislation Congress is considering on Iran. I hope the
administration understands that we cannot take their concerns
fully into account, nor truly understand events at the
negotiation table, or grasp the impact our legislation may have
on their efforts if they do not do a better job of keeping
Congress informed and taking into account what Congress thinks.
I support the President's effort to engage Iran and believe
we must continue to explore every diplomatic option to resolve
this crisis. Nobody wants another conflict in the Middle East,
but we must also recognize the fact that Iran is getting closer
and closer to a nuclear weapons capability with each passing
day. There is still time to test Iran's intentions, but that
time is growing short.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing.
I look forward to hearing the suggestions from our witnesses
about the next best steps to take to tackle this difficult
problem.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel.
We go now to the chair of the Middle East Subcommittee,
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As we know, in September Secretary Kerry said that a bad
deal is worse than no deal on the Iranian nuclear negotiations,
yet now reports indicate that the administration was willing to
offer Iran limited sanctions relief in return for a 6-month
pause to only some of its nuclear program. The administration
has seemingly acquiesced to the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran
and has failed to learn from past negotiations with that rogue
regime.
We must not accept Iran's false claim to the right of
enrichment, nor should we offer to ease any sanctions on this
murderous regime. Iran would be able to quickly start up its
enrichment program due to its advanced centrifuges without
irreparably harming its objectives. But if we step back on our
sanctions, it will be extremely hard to reinstate them.
There must be no deal that does not include a full and
verifiable dismantling of all of Iran's nuclear facilities, and
until Iran is ready to accept those terms, we must continue to
increase the pressure by fully implementing sanctions on the
book and enacting even stricter sanctions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida is ranking member of the Middle
East Subcommittee.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member
Engel, for calling this hearing.
Let me be absolutely clear: The international community
cannot permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons capability, and
every option must remain on the table to ensure that it does
not. This conflict will only end when Iran ends its effort to
acquire nuclear weapons and we can verify this action with full
and total confidence.
We know this Iranian regime has misled the international
community for years, claiming only peaceful intentions while
installing thousands of advanced centrifuges and building a
heavy water reactor at Arak. It is time to put Iran to the
test. Any agreement, partial or full, should do this: Iran must
immediately come clean about its entire nuclear program. Iran
should respond to the evidence of its nuclear weapons program
by granting immediate access to Parchin, the hidden military
site that has yet to be open to international inspectors, and
it should mothball Arak, the heavy water plant that will
accelerate the weapons program.
With diplomatic talks resuming in 7 days, I urge our Senate
colleagues to continue to advance this sanctions legislation.
It is the crushing economic sanctions that force the Iranians
on a march to the negotiating table. Tougher sanctions will
not, as some have suggested, rule out a diplomatic resolution;
they will strengthen our ability to get one that ends Iran's
nuclear program. This regime must know exactly what is at stake
if diplomacy fails.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Deutch.
We now go to Judge Ted Poe of Texas, chairman of the
Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Iran has technology-enriched uranium and has developed
nuclear weapons with Israel and the United States in its
sights. It seems the administration believes that appeasement
and lessening sanctions will help negotiate a deal with Iran.
When I met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last week,
he agreed with me that our sanctions are the only reason why
Iran is at the table in the first place. He said this proposed
deal was the worst deal of the century. I agree.
What Iran wants is to ease the sanctions so that it can
continue developing nuclear weapons without the pain of
sanctions to its economy. Who would have thought that the
French would save us from making a bum deal. The United States
must be clear there will be no reductions in sanctions without
verified steps to show that Iran is abandoning its nuclear
weapons program, not just a temporary freeze on development.
Mr. Rouhani is a slick snake oil salesman. He puts his arm
around the West and stabs us in back at the same time. They
cannot be trusted. No deal, Mr. Rouhani.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Brad Sherman of California, ranking
member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation.
Mr. Sherman. Our sanctions program for the last 3 years is
one of the very few things that our Federal Government is doing
that works. It is one of the very few things that is
bipartisan. That is why we need to do more of it, not less. And
that is why the Senate should immediately pass the Nuclear Iran
Prevention Act, which passed the House with 400 votes.
An interim deal is a bad idea because what the Iranians get
eliminates the threat to regime survival by just reducing the
sanctions enough to restore their economy. What we get is at
best a few months delay in when they have a nuclear weapon.
They can restore their nuclear program at the end of the deal
easily by flipping the switch. We will have a hard time
reassembling other countries to impose strict sanctions when
their businesses want do business as usual. And $50 billion for
them while they continue their plutonium enrichment plant in
Arak seems like a bad idea.
It is time to declare that Iran has no right to enrich
because it has violated the NPT, and it is time to move toward
a final deal in which Iran has--gives up its centrifuges and
imports its fuel, just as Canada does, just as Sweden does,
just as South Korea does.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.
This morning we are pleased to be joined by a distinguished
panel of experts on Iran. Mr. Mark Dubowitz is the executive
director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is an
expert on sanctions and previously testified before the
committee. He has advised the U.S. administration and numerous
foreign governments on Iran sanctions issues.
Before joining the American Enterprise Institute, Ms.
Danielle Pletka served for 10 years as senior professional
staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S.
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. She is currently a vice
president of AEI.
Mr. Colin Kahl is an associate professor at Georgetown
University. He was previously the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon from 2009 to 2011,
serving as senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense.
And without objection, the witnesses' full prepared
statements will be made part of record. The members here may
have 5 days to submit statements or questions or extraneous
material for the record. And we will ask, of course, all our
witnesses to summarize their testimony to 5 minutes as we have
your written testimony in the record.
We will begin with you, Mr. Dubowitz.
STATEMENT OF MR. MARK DUBOWITZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOUNDATION
FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Dubowitz. Thank you, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member
Engel, members of the committee. Thank you very much for
inviting me to testify to this committee, which really has done
so much to enhance coercive diplomacy with Iran through
sanctions. It is an honor to be here as well with Dani and with
Colin.
Regrettably, the proposed Geneva deal was not likely to
keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The French Foreign
Minister rightly criticized the proposed agreement because it
relaxed economic sanctions, while only reigning in the less
important components of Iran's nuclear program. Now, this is
not surprising. Over the years no country has been more
consistent than France in recognizing the Iranian regime's
mendacity over its nuclear weapons ambitions. With talks set to
resume on November 20th, lawmakers who want to encourage
Western negotiators to cut a better deal now have an
opportunity to do so by enacting more hard-hitting sanctions.
What seems to have troubled the French about the
negotiations, but reportedly nobody else in Geneva, was that
the proposed deal would not have constrained Tehran's pathway
to a plutonium bomb, and that not one piece of Iran's nuclear
infrastructure would have been dismantled. Let us be clear,
there was no freeze. Geneva reportedly also left significant
loopholes for the Iranian regime to exploit during the 6-month
period between an interim deal and a final deal.
As just two examples, first, Iran would be permitted to
continue to enrich uranium to 3\1/2\ percent, adding almost
another bomb's worth to its existing 3\1/2\ percent stockpile
of five to six bombs during that 6-month period. Now, this
contravenes multiple Security Council resolutions that call for
the immediate suspension of all enrichment.
Second, Iran would be allowed to keep all of its installed
centrifuges and produce thousands of additional ones without
agreeing to the monitoring of any of its centrifuge
manufacturing facilities. As a result, Iran could be well
positioned to divert those centrifuges to secret enrichment
facilities or to install them in its declared facilities at a
time of its choosing.
All of these nuclear facts on the ground would enhance
Iranian leverage during negotiations for a final deal. We have
seen this movie before, but it doesn't have to go this way.
Now, without new sanctions American negotiators will likely
never again have as much economic leverage over Tehran as they
do right now. The impact of European and American sanctions on
Iran is what helped to jump-start these negotiations. But to
whatever extent the Supreme Leader fears popular unrest
provoked by sanctions, that trepidation will lessen if economic
pressure is relaxed.
The efficacy of sanctions depends on the threat of their
escalation where an ever-expanding web of restriction keeps
foreign firms from doing business with the regime. In many ways
the Iranian sanctions program has been as much psychological as
legal. So when the United States sends a signal that it is
willing to block new sanctions and reduce existing sanctions
for little in return, the impression abroad is that the White
House's resolve is waning.
The White House says new sanctions will undercut the
sanctions coalition. Actually the reverse is true. Without new
escalating sanctions, the alternative is to rely on the
enforcement of existing sanctions. This will invariably require
the administration to punish many more companies that it has
targeted in the past, including companies from its P5+1 allies.
Now, reports out of Geneva indicate that the administration
was ready to unfreeze assets; ease sanctions on gold,
petrochemicals, the Iranian auto sector; give the regime tens
of billions of dollars in hard currency. The regime would be
allowed to take this hard currency back to Iran, giving
Khamenei and Rouhani more cash to spend on nukes, terrorism,
human rights abuses, or to support Assad. It is possible,
though highly unlikely, that Rouhani, the right-hand man of
former Iranian President Rafsanjani, who drove the nuclear
program in the 1980s and 1990s, suddenly wants to forsake his
nuclear legacy, but even if that were the case, why would the
prospect of easing sanctions help him persuade Khamenei and the
Revolutionary Guards to abandon their deeply held cause?
The Geneva negotiations indicated that Rouhani's bosses are
willing to make concessions that are easily revoked or not much
of a nuclear impediment to start with. We have a capacity to
increase this pressure. New sanctions could be written to lock
up all of Iran's overseas currency reserves. Financial relief
should only come when Iran takes real steps to verifiably and
irreversibly dismantle its military nuclear program. And there
are ways to do this. We can discuss this more in the Q&A.
Now, new sanctions may not be enough to stop an Iranian
nuke, but America would have a much stronger hand in
negotiations if Khamenei were put to a fundamental choice
between economic collapse and his military nuclear program.
Mr. Chairman, I argue here today that without new sanctions
we are currently at the high-water mark of American negotiating
leverage. If the Geneva proposal was as weak as our allies
believed, what should make any of us think that a final
agreement would be any better?
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dubowitz follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Ms. Pletka.
STATEMENT OF MS. DANIELLE PLETKA, VICE PRESIDENT, FOREIGN AND
DEFENSE POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Ms. Pletka. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Engel,
members of the committee. It is always an honor to appear
before House Foreign Affairs. Thank you very much for including
me. I am also honored to sit next to Colin and Mark, two people
whose views I take very seriously on the Iran question.
As we assess the current negotiations over Iran about its
illicit nuclear weapons program and measure the efficacy of our
sanctions, our overall Iran policy, and the quality of our
negotiations themselves, a few things should be clear. We have
rarely achieved anything of note in negotiations over such
nuclear weapons programs. Despite assiduous efforts to roll
back, eliminate, neutralize or otherwise alter the trajectory
of programs in North Korea, in Pakistan, in India over the
years, we failed in almost every case bar one, and that was
Libya where Qadhafi's assumption of an imminent American
military action forced him to relinquish most, although we now
know not all, of his nuclear capabilities.
We have also been fortunate in the nature of our
adversaries. Only because the Islamic Republic has been so
brazen, only because of its singularly incompetent leadership,
only because of its catastrophic economic mismanagement have
sanctions actually begun to bite.
In addition, successive Presidents of the United States
have consistently underused the authorities granted to them in
law both through IEEPA and a series of Iran- and proliferation-
oriented pieces of legislation. Enforcement has depended far
more on personality than on capacity. Congress, too, has proven
itself more eager to draft legislation than it is to hold the
administration's feet to the fire, and here I include both the
Obama, and the Bush, and the Clinton administrations before it.
I am regularly struck by the willingness of committees of
oversight to give a pass to State Department officials
unwilling to enforce the letter of the law, and their lawyers
who view sanctions-related determinations as optional
instructions from the Congress.
It is true every President should be eager to end the
Iranian nuclear weapons program and stifle Tehran's attempts to
dominate the Middle East. The question before us is simply on
what terms. Unfortunately those terms keep changing. In each
new round of negotiations with Iran, the Obama administration
has proffered a sweeter set of incentives and fewer demands of
Tehran. That gives Iran every reason to play out the clock,
advance its program, and hope for a better offer the next time
around.
In April 2013, just this year, the P5+1 negotiating team
demanded among other measures that Iran suspend all of its
enrichment above 5 percent with Iran, and suspend all of
enrichment at the Fordow underground facility, and transfer all
collected uranium oar, including enriched oar, to facilities
within Iran.
Previously the P5 and its earlier iteration, the EU-3 and
the United States, demanded a suspension of all enrichment.
Before that the group demanded no enrichment at all and an end
to the conversion of UF6 into precursors for enrichment. This
time the only suspension demanded is reportedly for 6 months,
and there is no demand to transfer enriched fissile material
internally, we understand from reports, although as the ranking
member says rightly, I don't think any of us have seen the
actual proposal.
When I asked an administration official about Parchin last
week, which is the suspected site of nuclear weaponization
activities, he responded that Parchin is the IAEA's problem,
not the American negotiators' problem.
Finally, on the question of how Iran will step back from
its nuclear weapons program, we need to consider the strong
possibility that Iran has secret nuclear sites. Indeed the
United States has not discovered any covert Iranian nuclear
site until it was well advanced, and in most cases it was
revealed by another party. I haven't spoken to a single
official familiar with the intelligence from the U.S. Or
elsewhere who has denied that they suspect that Iran is
operating a secret facility.
Will additional sanctions persuade the Iranians of the need
to end their program? Will strong actions from the Congress
prevent the administration from demanding more of the Iranians?
Yes and no. Only the strongest of sanctions have gotten Iran to
the table. They have yet to agree to the de minimis demands of
the Obama administration, let alone the more stringent ones of
the United Nations and the IAEA. It is true, as my colleague
said and as you said, that only tougher measures will keep them
at the table.
One final point. We have spoken today of Iran's nuclear
program, though, of course, Iran also has a growing and
sophisticated missile arsenal. In addition, the regime in
Tehran is the prime engine of Assad's regime battlefield
successes in Syria; the sole sponsor of Hezbollah, the world's
most powerful terrorist group; a sponsor of Hamas; a spoiler in
Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Bahrain and Yemen; and, of course, an
abuser of the Iranian people's own rights.
Last I want to say a word about Rouhani, which is one the
topics of the hearing. The committee asked about the domestic
and Iranian environment in which Rouhani finds himself. I
believe actually that Rouhani is a reformer within the context
that is allowed by the Supreme Leader, but his remit is to
sustain the system that was put at risk by Ahmadinejad, not to
give up the Iranian nuclear program. It is important to
understand that his job is to set Iran on a stable footing, not
to give up nuclear weapons or reconcile with a region.
American officials who see themselves as key to Rouhani's
credibility, as they have said, would be better served worrying
about their own credibility. Their efforts to micromanage
American domestic politics have been pretty unsuccessful.
Efforts to manage Iran are certain to fail.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pletka follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Dr. Kahl.
STATEMENT OF MR. COLIN KAHL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY
Mr. Kahl. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting
me to testify.
Dani and Mark, it is great to be at the table with you.
The most recent round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 in
Geneva were serious and sustained. Differences between the
parties have been narrowed, bringing the broad contours of an
interim agreement broadly into view.
It is clear that several sticking points remain, and we do
now know whether a deal will materialize on November 20th when
the parties reconvene, but if it ultimately resembles the
agreement described in recent press reports, it would be a
meaningful first step on the road to a final comprehensive
agreement.
In the coming months the opportunity to meaningfully
constrain Iranian nuclearization could be seized, leading to a
peaceful outcome, or squandered, setting the stage for an
Iranian bomb, another military confrontation in the Middle
East, or probably both. As a former Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense, I firmly believe that all options need to remain on
the table to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but I
also know enough about how a military conflict with Iran would
likely unfold to understand that an enduring diplomatic outcome
is far preferable to another war in this part of the world.
Achieving a peaceful solution will require close
cooperation between the Obama administration and Congress. We
have enough leverage at the moment to start the ball rolling
toward a final agreement. More sanctions at this juncture are
not required.
According to U.S. intelligence officials, Iran has already
mastered the basic knowledge and technology required to
eventually produce nuclear weapons if the regime decides to do
so. Nothing, including a complete dismantling of the Iranian
program, will put that technological genie back into the
bottle. Instead negotiations should focus on a more concrete
and achievable objective, which is placing meaningful and
verifiable constraints on Iran's ability to translate rapidly
its accumulated knowledge and civilian nuclear capabilities
into nuclear weapons. That is, the deal we should be focusing
on is one that would prevent an Iranian breakout capability.
Some analysts argue that U.S. negotiators should capitalize
on existing leverage created by crippling sanctions and Iran's
apparent willingness to negotiate to insist on a maximalist
deal. My colleagues at the table appear to share that view.
This approach is reflected in Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu's four noes: No uranium enrichment at any level ever,
no stockpiled enriched uranium, no centrifuges or centrifuge
facilities, and no Arak heavy water reactor.
Attempting to keep Iran as far away from nuclear weapons as
possible by making these demands seems reasonable, but in
reality the quest for an optimal deal that requires a permanent
end to Iranian enrichment at any level would likely doom
diplomacy, making the two worst outcomes, an Iranian bomb or a
war with Iran, much more likely.
Regardless of the pressure from the United States, the
Iranian regime is simply unlikely to agree to permanently end
all fuel cycle activities, including enrichment. Khamenei has
invested far too much of the regime's domestic legitimacy in an
excess of $100 billion to defend Iran's so-called rights to
find this domestic enrichment to completely capitulate now.
Indeed the Supreme Leader likely fears such a humiliation more
than he fears escalating economic sanctions, economic collapse,
or even targeted military strikes against his nuclear
facilities.
Given profound reasons for the regime to reject a
maximalist deal, pursuing one would require the United States
to go to the very brink of war with Iran to achieve it. It
would also require dramatic escalation of existing sanctions.
Yet pursuing such a high-risk strategy is unlikely to work
and could backfire badly. First, it is unclear whether any
escalation of sanctions could bring the regime to its knees in
time to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear breakout. If the
Iran nuclear issue is as urgent as we all believe, that argues
for having a deal sooner rather than later.
Second, and somewhat paradoxically, escalating sanctions at
this moment would actually end up weakening international
pressure. Whether one believes Rouhani or not, he has changed
the international narrative and made Iran look reasonable. If
we start to look like the unreasonable party, it will make it
much more difficult to sustain the international cooperation
isolating Iran.
Third, issuing more explicit military threats is also
unlikely to achieve a maximalist diplomatic outcome since
targeted military strikes against Iran's program would not hold
the regime at risk. And, worse yet, signaling that our entire
goal is to bring about an existential crisis for the regime
would probably motivate them to accelerate their nuclear
behavior to get a deterrent before that outcome materializes.
So instead we should be focusing on a sufficient deal that
prevents breakout.
The deal that the administration appears to be negotiating
in Geneva would be a useful first step toward this outcome. It
is not in and of itself the outcome; it is a first stop toward
the outcome. The broad countours of the deal have already been
outlined by the other speakers, although I will say that the
financial relief is not anywhere close to $50 billion. It is
probably less than $10 billion.
The question becomes whether in and of itself the first
deal is a meaningful step, and the answer is yes in a number of
respects. First of all, eliminating the 20 percent stockpiling,
stopping 20 percent enrichment would double the breakout time
from its current level. That is, it would take Iran twice as
long to produce weapons-grade material after this deal goes
into place than is true today. That is meaningful.
The deal would also put firm restrictions on building the
fuel assemblies for the Arak nuclear reactor, which would also
stop the clock on making that an unstoppable breakout
capability for plutonium weapons.
I could go into the other details about why the inspections
regime and the rest of the detail of the agreement are likely
to serve U.S., Israeli and other interests in whatever detail
the committee members would like.
Last but not least, just let me say something about
sanctions. Because of your hard efforts and the efforts of the
administration, we have accrued an enormous amount of leverage.
Nothing in the limited sanctions relief under this deal guts
the oil or financial sanctions which are required to drive the
Iranians toward a final proposal. And nothing of it would be
permanent if the Iranians reverse course. At this juncture we
have enough sanctions to get the Iranians across the goal line.
The bigger risk is escalating sanctions at a very fragile
moment of diplomacy and being responsible for diplomacy
careening off the cliff.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kahl follows:]
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----------
Chairman Royce. I remember well--before I go to my
question, Ms. Pletka, I wasn't in Congress at the time, but I
remember well the Reagan administration arguing as passionately
against escalation of dramatic sanctions against South Africa
that had the bomb, and I remember the consequence of Members of
Congress insisting that regardless of the fact that those
sanctions might be debilitating, might create a certain crimp
in our diplomacy with South Africa, the probable result, said
Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate at the time,
was that we would bring South Africa to the table because it
would be unendurable for the South Africans to continue both
their efforts with apartheid as well as their ongoing efforts
with their nuclear program.
It turned out in retrospect that the Members who passed
that legislation in the House and Senate did have the
legislation vetoed by the administration, but that veto was
overridden by both Houses, as I recall, and the consequences of
it was that the Government of South Africa, those involved in
that process, said afterwards, we wouldn't have lasted a week
if we had not turned over the nuclear weapons program, if we
had not turned over the bomb, and had we not changed from
apartheid.
I would just say that we have heard from the experts before
in terms of the likely results, adverse results, of
dramatically increasing sanctions, but I was going to ask
Danielle Pletka, Dani, what is your take on what happened with
respect to our failure to do so with North Korea? Because I
remember well Treasury designed a program in 2005 to put
sanctions on North Korea, and we did it. State wanted them
lifted; argued that if we lifted it, that we would get the
results that were promised by the leader in North Korea at the
time. And the consequences, of course, were very different than
what was anticipated. We did not go through in that case with
our full-throttle sanctions, we lifted that, and what was the
consequence?
Ms. Pletka. I think North Korea has tested three times as a
result of our fine negotiating efforts. And I want to remind
the members who was involved with the negotiating efforts
because it was Wendy Sherman, the same person who we have in
Geneva.
There is another point here. There are two important
points.
Mr. Sherman. Point of personal privilege. No relation.
Ms. Pletka. No accusation from me.
There are two important points in what you said, I think.
The first is about South Africa. The only time when these
negotiations have succeeded is when government changed. So, for
example, some of the former states of the Soviet Union have
also been willing to give up their nuclear programs, but it is
only when the government is changed. It is not as a result of
clever negotiations on the part of the United States or anyone
else.
The second point is how similar these discussions and the
framework, which is being referred to casually as a framework,
with Iran is to the agreed framework with North Korea. It is
also premised on this notion of sequencing, which is that is
they give a little, we give a little, and then theoretically
they give a little more, and by that we all build confidence in
each other.
As you rightly said, I think the evidence is pretty clear
about North Korea. We gave a little, they gave nothing. We gave
more, and they still gave nothing. By the end we were actually
giving to get them to the table. We were giving them food and
bribing the North Koreans just in order to get them to agree to
come to the talks, and then they would take that and provide it
to their military, and so we even had to stop that. So point
well taken.
Chairman Royce. Well, during the Bush administration we had
these arguments with the Bush administration. Democrats and
Republicans were arguing with the administration. The
administration was saying a small amount of sanctions relief
was worth it to get a deal that would constrain its nuclear
program. Unfortunately had we listened, in my opinion, to
Treasury at the time, talking to some of the defectors out of
the missile program, they said when those sanctions have been
deployed, they couldn't get the hard currency to buy the--on
the black market to buy the gyroscopes that they needed for
their missiles.
I was going to ask Mr. Dubowitz about his comment about
this limited sanctions relief and the argument that if you go
down that road, the floodgates, as you said, could be opened in
terms of the unraveling of existing sanctions, which serve
right now to drive a lot of capital flight out of the country
to try to--that serve right now to force the Government of Iran
to make some tough choices. Give me your assessment on that
again in detail, if you would.
Mr. Dubowitz. Thank you, Chairman Royce.
First of all, I think there is a fundamental
misunderstanding about sanctions. There is a lot of reference
about the sanctions architecture. Somehow these sanctions are a
house, and that we have got pieces of legislation with words on
them, and that has created fear in the marketplace.
What has created fear in the marketplace has been the
escalation of sanctions. It is the fear that every few months
the administration is going to impose new sanctions through
designations and Executive Orders, and every 6 to 12 months
Congress is going to pass new sanctions, and it is going to
create an economic mine field around Iran.
And as a result of that, the administration hasn't had to
actually sanction that many companies. If you look at the
number of companies that have been penalized and the number of
designations that have actually taken place, they are actually
relatively few, and the reason for that is it has created fear,
and fear is a great motivator in overcoming greed in the
international marketplace.
What we are talking about now with respect to sanctions
relief in its most general terms is to actually stop that
escalation, to actual deescalate. And in deescalating the
sanctions, what we are doing is we are enticing international
companies to test our resolve and to go back into Iran's
lucrative energy sector to start facilitating financial
transactions and start facilitating shipping, et cetera. There
are companies who want to go back in. We see media reports of
major energy companies who want to invest back in Iran, who
want to buy more black market oil, and those companies are
waiting to test our resolve.
Chairman Royce. Well, Dr. Kahl warns against pushing for
what he terms a maximalist deal with Iran. Ms. Pletka notes
that there are six binding resolutions of the U.N. Security
Council demanding that Iran suspend all enrichment and all
reprocessing activities. So the administration's approach would
undercut these resolutions.
Mr. Dubowitz, you note that the administration isn't even
working toward a de minimis agreement. What are the conditions
that we need to see put in place, in your opinion? And I will
close with that question.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, I think that the de minimis agreement--
and David Albright has actually come forward with an
interesting de minimis proposal, a bare minimum proposal. And
one of the elements that I found most interesting in David's
proposal is the requirement that Iran must freeze all
centrifuge manufacturing immediately.
It is important to understand that what the Iranians have
been very adept at doing is creating nuclear facts on the
ground, and that this reported Geneva deal would not terminate
any centrifuge manufacturing. So what the Iranians could do in
the next 6 months is they can build new centrifuges. They can
build thousands of new centrifuges, and they can take those
centrifuges, they can put them in inventory, they can wait
until they get closer to a final deal, then if a deal breaks
apart, they are ready to install thousands of new centrifuges,
which extends their breakout capacity. They can also take some
of those centrifuges and they can hide them away in secret
enrichment facilities.
So one of the reasons this is a key deal term is this is
absolutely critical to ensuring that Iran doesn't have secret
enrichment facilities, which has been the fear of the
Intelligence Community for many, many years. That is one
element of a de minimis deal that reportedly was not part of
the Geneva negotiations.
I think just as an overall response, Chairman Royce, we are
at the high-water mark of our negotiating leverage right now,
and the fact that we even term our demands maximalist instead
of the absolute bare minimum shows that from a negotiating
point of view, the Iranians are willing to come in, negotiate
with us, and bring our demands down. We should be insisting
that enrichment is a minimum requirement, not a maximalist
requirement, as Under Secretary Sherman said just a couple of
months ago.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Engel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To me, one of the questions--and you all talked about it a
little bit, but I would like to hear more about it. The
question really hinges on whether we need an interim agreement,
or should we just be negotiating a final agreement. Netanyahu
has said that we shouldn't reach an interim deal with Iran
where they only limit part of their nuclear program in return
for the relief of some sanctions. He argues that once you
relieve the pressure on Iran, you will never be able to turn it
back up, and Iran will never take the necessary steps to
eliminate the nuclear weapons program. The administration
thinks, or said to me, they think an interim deal is necessary
in which we pursue and even set back the Iranian program for 6
months. They say much about the fact that this will be the
first time that the Iranian nuclear program would be slowed
down.
So the question I would like to really ask is do we need an
interim deal, or should we just not--should we negotiate until
we have a final deal? I would like to ask each of you that.
Mr. Dubowitz?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, the dangers of the interim framework is
exactly what we are seeing, is that the Iranians are giving up
de minimis nuclear concessions, and we are essentially
unilaterally suspending the escalation of our sanctions. And in
addition, we are offering real tangible hard currency sanctions
relief.
The dangers of an interim process is that the Iranians are
going to enhance their nuclear negotiating leverage through
facts on the ground, and we are going to diminish our economic
leverage as companies become less fearful of U.S. sanctions and
penalties, and as the web of sanctions begins to unwind. The
architecture in legal terms may stay in place, but the absolute
psychology may change. We may find ourselves in 6 months' time
back in Geneva where the Iranians have enhanced their
negotiating leverage, we have undermined ours, and that final
deal will not do what it was intended to do, which is to stop
Iran's march to nuclear weapons capability.
That is the danger of an interim framework. I think that is
why we should be approaching these negotiations as an entire
negotiation where everything is on the table. While the
Iranians continue to enrich and continue to construct their
heavy water reactor and building centrifuges, we need to be
escalating our negotiating leverage through new and additional
sanctions. Then let us put Khamenei to the test between a
nuclear bomb and the survival of his economy.
Mr. Engel. Ms. Pletka?
Ms. Pletka. What is most striking to me is how the nature
of our negotiations has changed. We are negotiating on Iranian
terms, and I think it is important to understand that when you
think about the interim agreement.
We have always characterized the battle in Iran as two
timelines, the timeline in which our sanctions are effective in
getting them to the table and giving up their program, and
their race to a bomb. Essentially what we are giving them by
what we understand as the proposed offer that was given in
Geneva is we are giving them the time to work on their program
and the relief from the sanctions. So we are really giving on
both sides while gaining almost nothing.
There is another factor here. I was really struck by
something Colin said, that we need a deal sooner because Iran
is close. And if we don't do a deal sooner, if we have to look
at a military option, they may well be at a point where they
have a nuclear weapon.
Do we understand what leverage we have over time given the
Iranians that he has just given away in this statement that we
better do a deal now, otherwise they are going to have a
nuclear weapon? That is unconscionable. In addition, what are
the Iranians proposing to give away? Something that before 1\1/
2\ years ago they weren't doing, which is enriching to 20
percent.
So the notion that we are somehow more skilled negotiators
than the Iranians and that we are going to gain a trick on them
by this interim step to me seems palpably false.
Mr. Engel. Let me ask Dr. Kahl. I am sure his answer will
be a little different.
Mr. Kahl. You probably suspect my view differs a little
bit. Look, we have to have an interim deal, and the reason is
we need the time, and we need the time for two reasons. First,
the ultimate comprehensive deal, whatever its shape,
maximalist, de minimis, whatever your terms are, is going to
take a long time to negotiate. It is going to take 6 or 12
months.
And that brings me to the second issue, which is Iran is
making steady nuclear progress. Nobody denies that. The
challenge is if you don't slow or halt or start to roll back
their program, you are going run out of negotiating room before
they reach a critical threshold that would enable them to break
out. So it is irresponsible, in my view, not to have an interim
deal that effectively stops the clock so that you can negotiate
the final deal.
The alternative is that we basically play a game of chicken
with the regime. We gamble on the notion that their regime will
be brought into an existential crisis in the next 6 months, and
that they will swerve. The problem is this is a regime that
lasted for 8 years during the Iran-Iraq war in which they lost
\1/2\ million dead and experienced more than $\1/2\ trillion in
costs. They are not on the brink of extinction, they are not
likely to cry uncle in the next 6 to 12 months, which means we
need to by time through an interim deal.
Mr. Engel. But, Dr. Kahl, let me say this: Shouldn't we be
saying to the Iranians, as long as we are negotiating, you
don't enrich. Shouldn't we at the minimum be sitting down with
them saying--I think that Mr. Dubowitz and Ms. Pletka mentioned
this--there have been United Nations Security Council
resolutions saying that Iran must abandon its enrichment, so
why are we stepping back from those resolutions? Might not that
be a way to buy time?
Mr. Kahl. I don't think the administration is actually
stepping away. I think that the U.N. Security Council
resolutions will have to be addressed during the period of
negotiations. The question is whether you can get the Iranians
to completely suspend their program now. They are unlikely to
do it. For one thing, Rouhani agreed to do that in 2003 and
believes that the West pocked those concessions. He is not
likely to make that mistake again. So we have to push for the
U.N. Security Council resolutions to be addressed as part of
the process of a final deal.
But in terms of interim deal, it doesn't need to be
addressed. And I think it is important for the committee to
understand this deal would stop 20 percent enrichment; it would
eliminate or neutralize most of their 20 percent stockpile; it
would stop new installations of centrifuges. Contrary to what
Mark said, it would not allow them to stockpile new
centrifuges; it would allow them to repair broken ones, but not
stockpile them. And it has a meaningful solution for Arak. It
would halt the program, the most troubling parts of the
program, for a period of time to negotiate an agreement that
can address the U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Mr. Engel. I am way over my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Well, history has shown us that our high hopes on Iran are
misplaced and are always met with empty promises. The U.S.
should only deal with Iran from a position of strength, and
Iran senses weakness in our current approach. Iran is using the
North Korea playbook until it realizes its ultimate objective.
It took years for us to get sanctions in place that were
strong and effective enough to bring Iran to the negotiation
table, and now that the moment is upon us, we cannot falter. We
must stay strong in sanctions, yet at the first sign of this
fairy tale progress, we balked. We offered Iran sanctions
relief just for the opportunity to give them more time to
complete its nuclear ambitions without any enforcement--true
enforcement mechanisms.
Dr. Kahl, you state that escalating sanctions now could
weaken international pressure on Iran, and that doing so would
tie the hands of our diplomats. But if Iran came to the
negotiation table because the impact the sanctions are having
on its economy, wouldn't continuing to pressure Iran bring it
to the point where it would be forced to decide between total
collapse of its economy or completion of its nuclear program?
And I will continue, the impact sanctions have had on Iran
are obvious, but imagine how much more effective they could
have been if we in the United States fully and forcefully
implemented and enforced them 100 percent of the time with no
waivers. That is not happening now.
Ms. Pletka, you testified that you believe that Congress
has not done its due diligence, and we have not forced the
administration to enforce existing laws. I could not agree more
with you. For over 10 years, administration after
administration, I have been trying to remove waiver authority,
have introduced and passed several sanctions bills, and
constantly pushing for stronger and more comprehensive
sanctions so that the true intent and impact of these laws can
be felt.
Do you believe the lack of enforcement has weakened our
hands at the negotiations and undermined sanctions?
And finally, Mr. Dubowitz, you argue that core sanctions
should remain in place, but favor unfreezing certain Iranian
assets. Wouldn't injecting funds into Iran's economy embolden
the regime and alleviate the pressure, thus eliminating the
only reason why it came to the negotiation table?
We will start with any of you. Ms. Pletka.
Ms. Pletka. A lot of questions. Thank you, Congresswoman
Ros-Lehtinen.
You asked me about enforcement. What has always struck me
about this problem--and I came to the Hill in 1992, and we were
working on the Iran-Iraq Nonproliferation Act when I came. It
is always--sanctions are always a lagging indicator of the
seriousness of the Iranian nuclear program, and that is the
real problem. The closer they get, the more serious we are. But
it is triggered by them, not by us. And I believe that the
President has had the tools in his hand. I believe Bill Clinton
had the tools in his hands in 1992 to begin to do the right
thing. I think successive Presidents have had additional tools
in their hand and substantial pressure with the legislation.
The problem really is that they have never wanted to
enforce, and they have never wanted to lean particularly on our
allies. Colin is absolutely right, they didn't want that
pressure. But what we see now at this eleventh hour is those
sanctions made a difference, and the problem is that new ones
will make a bigger difference.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. Dubowitz. The problem right now is that we have had a
policy of all options are on the table. And now the President
of the United States is taking all of those options off the
table. He is taking the military option off because of the
debacle in Syria, and because nobody, including Ali Khamenei,
believes that the U.S. President will use military force to
blow out his nuclear facilities. He is now asking the U.S.
Congress to take sanctions off the table. So no military force,
no sanctions, rely on diplomacy. Well, diplomacy without
military threat and without sanctions is not coercive
diplomacy, it is ``trust me'' diplomacy, and this is a regime
that we cannot trust.
By the way, this is a regime that has blinked many times in
the past in response to significant U.S. Pressure. The notion
that this regime does not cry uncle is not supported by the
facts.
Third is the idea of sanctions relief. If you are going to
give sanctions relief, first thing you should do is take away
all of Iran's money. They have over $80 billion in foreign
exchange reserves. Quite a bit of that is accessible. Lock it
down through financial sanctions. Once you have locked it down,
only then if they take steps to verify and dismantle their
military nuclear program should you begin to release some
money, but don't give it back to Ali Khamenei and Rouhani.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. So there is still so much we can do.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, the fact of the matter is don't give it
back to the regime; take it out of Chinese escrow accounts, put
it in German escrow accounts, where the Iranians like to go
shopping. At the end of the day snap it back when they cheat.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. We are out of time. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Brad Sherman of California.
Mr. Sherman. Those sanctions, at least tougher than we had
before, brought Iran this far. They are clearly better now than
they were 6 months ago.
Why wouldn't the negotiations be more successful if the
Senate were to pass the bill that this House passed by 400
votes? Why abandon the strategy that I think everybody agrees
has forced Iran to at least change its image and its sound, to
put sugar in its rhetoric, and, according to the opponents of
sanction, have caused Iran to improve its behavior?
Dr. Kahl?
Mr. Kahl. That is a good question. I don't think there is
any doubt that the pressure of sanctions has brought the
Iranians to the table. I think that it partly explains why
Rouhani campaigned on the platform that he did, which was to
improve the Iranian economy through an accommodation----
Mr. Sherman. So if something is working, why would you do
less?
Mr. Kahl. The point is I think we have sufficient leverage,
actually, to get the ball rolling toward a comprehensive deal.
I think that is the leverage that the administration is trying
to capitalize on. The sanctions relief they are talking about
in the context of the Geneva Accord would be, I think, around
$6 billion total of relief, and it would be temporary. It would
not undermine the oil or financial sanctions that give us the
leverage.
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Kahl, I mean, I want to go to the next
witness, but I want to comment. You didn't give me a reason why
we would do less except to say that our current sanctions,
which were not sufficient to get a deal good enough for the
French, are somehow sufficient, but you didn't say why not to
increase them. So I will go to Mr. Dubowitz.
Mr. Kahl. I was about to say that, but if----
Mr. Sherman. I know, but they won't give me 10 minutes.
Go ahead.
Mr. Dubowitz. The fact of the matter there is too much
focus, again, on how much we are offering at Geneva in terms of
hard dollars. Is it $6 billion? Is it $20 billion? We can have
to that debate. I am sure will you see the briefings.
The more thing is the psychology of sanctions, Congressman
Sherman. You have understood this over the years, and you have
offered sanctions bills in this respect.
Mr. Sherman. Yeah.
Mr. Dubowitz. You have got to change the fundamental
psychology of the marketplace. It is motivated by greed and
fear. When fear overrides greed, they stay out of Iran. When
greed overrides fear, they go back into Iran. If you don't
escalate sanctions through the passage of that Senate bill,
then greed will override fear, and you will be facing the
dismantlement of the sanctions regime, which may be maintained
on paper, but it won't be maintained in practice.
Mr. Sherman. I am going to ask all three witnesses to
respond for the record. What specific elements should we have
in the next sanctions bill that I hope comes before this
committee, keeping in mind that we can't just wave a magic wand
and get our allies to participate? We can't just say, all money
in Chinese banks has to be moved to German banks, otherwise,
what, we won't accept any Chinese imports? I don't think we are
to that point.
So I would ask you to craft not the perfect wish list, but
the list of things that Congress could pass and among the--and
I hope you--I don't know if any of you have, you know, one
silver bullet you want to share with us now, but I want all the
bronze, silver, and gold bullets in your written response.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, there are no silver bullets. There is
only silver shrapnel. And my testimony has eight specific
ideas.
I would say the one piece of silver shrapnel that I think
would really wound this regime economically is if you said that
any financial institution that gives Iran access to or use of
its overseas foreign exchange reserves would be cut off from
the U.S. financial system, it would effectively freeze Iran's
access to its money. And only then once you have frozen all of
its money should we even be discussing sanctions relief.
Mr. Sherman. Ms. Pletka, do you have any silver bullets for
us?
Ms. Pletka. There are no silver bullets. It is all about
the perception of enforcement and momentum. Mark is exactly
right. I have looked at sanctions on any number of countries
and worked on them. It is the psychology of the global
marketplace, and right now the perception is that we are close
to changing our mind and reversing momentum on Iran, and the
Chinese are already back negotiating with the Iranians because
they keep a close eye on this, and they are interested in the
market. So I think the most important thing is to keep the
administration and the Iranians' feet to the fire.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. There are those who draw the red line
where Iran gets one bomb. You are not really a nuclear power
until you have several. You have got to test one and have some.
Without revealing, basing your answer on classified
information, they have got enough 3 percent uranium, so if
enriched to 90 percent would provide for how many bombs? And
under this agreement, do they keep creating more and more 3
percent?
Mr. Kahl--Dr. Kahl?
Mr. Kahl. So they currently have enough 3.5 percent low-
enriched uranium to produce about half a dozen nuclear weapons,
were they to decide to do so, a decision that our Intelligence
Community says they haven't made.
Under this agreement, my understanding--none of us know all
of the terms, but my understanding is they would actually be
required to do certain things to their 3.5 percent stockpile
that they would produce in this next 6 months to make it
unavailable for nuclear weapons, and so----
Mr. Sherman. So they get to keep all they have now, and
then the additional they create would be disabled in some way.
Mr. Dubowitz?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, I don't have the details that Colin
has, but if they maintain the 9,000 spinning centrifuges over 6
months, I believe the calculation that I have seen from David
Albright is that they would produce almost a bomb's worth,
another bomb's worth, of 3.5 percent. So unless there are some
details in the Geneva agreement that prevent that that I am not
aware of, that would allow them almost another bomb's worth, so
over 6 months of negotiations.
Mr. Sherman. So they get one bomb plus $6 billion to $50
billion. I think my time is expired.
Ms. Pletka. That is just the 3.5 percent. That is not
speaking of the 20 percent they have been enriching for the
last year. They have ample fissile material to make a nice
arsenal of nuclear weapons in a quick time, and don't let
anybody reassure you on the question of conversion to oxide. It
takes about a week or two to convert back.
Mr. Sherman. Okay.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go to Mr. Chris Smith of
New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this important hearing. Thank you, our witnesses, for your fine
testimony.
You know, in yet another sign of Iranian bad faith and
wanton cruelty, American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini's
situation has deteriorated significantly. The Christian Post
today has an article. It begins,
``Pastor Saeed Abedini has been placed in a single cell
with five death-row inmates in Rajai Shahr Prison, and
is prevented from having any visitors, the American
Center for Law and Justice said, raising further
concerns that officials placed him there to
`disappear.' ''
It is a murderers' jail, that jail, according to Jordan
Sekulow from ACLJ, and, again, the risk that he faces now is
extraordinary. As I think many of you know, Congressman Wolf
chaired a hearing, and I plan on doing one very shortly, but he
chaired one, and we heard from Naghmeh Abedini, who made an
impassioned plea for her husband.
And it seems to me if there is a canary in a coal mine, it
is the human rights issue. When a regime so horrifically
mistreats people, in this case an American citizen--and there
are other Americans, too, that are being held, as well as many
other indigenous Iranians who have been tortured because they
espoused democracy or a particular religious belief, many of
them being Christian--that also suggests how believable or not
believable they are on the nuclear issue. You might want to
have our witnesses speak to Abedini.
Secondly, there was a report in The Daily Beast. The United
States has done everything but stop blacklisting individuals
and companies that help Iran evade international sanctions
since Rouhani's election on June 4th. And then Treasury says,
we have not let up on vigorous sanctions enforcement one iota.
Who is telling the truth? You can't have it both ways. Either
we are truly enforcing vigorously, or we have begun to back off
very significantly.
And finally, there is a report suggesting that China is
purchasing its oil through a barter system to evade the
sanctions regime, and including 40 joint infrastructure
development purchases, capital equipment, technology, and
materials to evade cash. Your thoughts on that.
And finally, much of the focus has been on Iran's declining
crude exports, oil exports; less focus has been paid on the
exports of fuel oils. Should that be part of a sanctions
regime?
Ms. Pletka. If I may address the first question about the
human rights situation, this is one of the things I alluded to
in my testimony, and I don't want to take up too much of the
time. I know my colleagues have something to say on these other
questions as well. But it is remarkable how much we have left
on the table vis-a-vis Iran. I mean, think to yourself, okay?
These negotiations in Geneva went better, the Iranians gave up
more, we were all satisfied in an interim deal.
Do we realize that we would be opening the door and
relieving sanctions at the same time that the Iranians are
abusing the rights of their own people? The population of Evin
Prison, in addition to the one you mentioned. The Baha'is. But
set aside even the Iranian people. Let us say we don't care
about them. What about Syria? What about Hezbollah? What about
Hamas? What about Iranian interference in the Gulf?
The day when we see Saudi Arabia and Israel banded together
in opposition to our policy tells us that we have got something
seriously wrong, and we have left all of that leverage on the
table. That is a very serious area of pressure that we should
be doing more on.
Mr. Dubowitz. There are very few people more committed to
sanctions enforcement than the U.S. Treasury Department and the
Office of Terrorism Financial Intelligence, but there is no
doubt that before Rouhani's election, the pace of designations
was rapidly increasing. After his election it has been
decreasing. And the reason for that is they get their marching
orders from the White House, and it has been very clear that
this administration, in order to grease the wheels for
negotiation, has tried to offer essentially unilateral
sanctions relief by slowing down designations, by blocking new
sanctions in Congress, and by trying to lay the table for
goodwill and confidence-building measures. So you are seeing
that.
In terms of oil, what we are seeing now, in fact, 150,000
to 200,000 barrels a day of black market oil is moving from
Iran to other purchasers. This is a great example of an
emerging loophole in our sanctions laws that the new Senate
bill and the House bill you passed was designed to actually
fill, and because we are not filling the loopholes, the
Iranians are driving an oil tanker through it.
Mr. Kahl. If I could just say one quick thing on the human
rights issue, which I take very seriously. There is no question
that this is a reprehensible regime in many respects, but it is
also the case that throughout the Cold War we repeatedly
negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, which
was at least as reprehensible as this regime.
We don't have to make a choice. We should continue to
pressure them on human rights, on Syria, on terrorism, on other
issues, but we shouldn't hold any of those hostage to the
nuclear issue, which is a very urgent issue and very much in
our interest and our allies' interest. So we can do both.
Mr. Smith. But very briefly, American Pastor Abedini, his
situation has gone from horrific to even worse, and that is
unconscionable.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, the rate of executions has accelerated
under Rouhani, so I am afraid it is going to get worse, not
better.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go to Mr. Ted Deutch of
Florida.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to continue to explore the details of the
reported agreement. I know that Secretary Kerry is over in the
Senate today briefing colleagues there, and reports are that
Under Secretary Sherman and Cohen will brief the Senate Banking
Committee again tomorrow. I hope that this committee will also
be briefed on the specifics of the proposal, in the appropriate
location and at the appropriate time, sooner rather than later.
I would like to just touch on the broader question of what
the Iranians' intentions are with their nuclear program, and I
would like to move a bit beyond the back-and-forth over they
want the right to enrich, there is no right to enrich, and take
them at their word for a moment. And if the Iranians are truly
committed to a peaceful nuclear program, how much--Dr. Kahl,
let me ask you this question--how much low-enriched uranium
would they need to operate the one reactor that exists in Iran?
Mr. Kahl. The answer is, under the current relationship
they have with Russia, they don't need any low-enriched uranium
because they get fuel from Russia. That is right.
Mr. Deutch. Okay.
Mr. Kahl. The issue is, and the challenge for our
negotiators is, that this is a regime that has spent between
$100 billion and $200 billion on its nuclear infrastructure,
and, more importantly, its entire ideology is routed around a
resistance to arrogant external powers and the notion that
their nuclear rights are inviolable.
Now, I don't agree with that, and I suspect you don't
either from your comments.
Mr. Deutch. Right. Right.
Mr. Kahl. But we have to negotiate with the enemies we
have, not the enemies we want.
Mr. Deutch. I understand, but we also have to acknowledge
what the facts are surrounding the arguments made by the people
sitting across the table. And I would simply suggest that there
is--if we take them at their word that, in fact, there is no
desire for nuclear weapon, they don't need any more--they don't
need any enriched uranium, but understanding why they want to
be able to enrich, why not come clean about the rest of the
program? Why not respond to IAEA investigations of the possible
military dimensions of the program or the designs of triggers,
or let inspectors into Parchin? Why not ship out the advanced
centrifuges since those aren't necessary for them to be able to
enrich and have nuclear power? Why allow the construction of
Arak to continue for another 6 months, which puts us in a very
dangerous position that will let Arak get closer and closer to
going online even as we continue to negotiate?
There was a report this morning that said Arak will be
capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium for one
nuclear weapon per year. Why, as part of all of this, instead
of simply accepting the response that we sometimes get that we
are not interested in nuclear weapons, and there is a fatwa
against nuclear weapons, why not as part of these negotiations,
as part of any deal, preliminary or final, why not have them
respond to all of the allegations, the possible military
dimensions that we all know about that the international
community is well aware of?
Mr. Kahl. So I think proliferation scholars would say that
what they are engaged in is a nuclear hedging strategy. That
is, they are definitely trying to put all of the pieces in
place to develop nuclear weapons at some point in the future if
the leader decides to do so.
Mr. Deutch. Dr. Kahl, I am not asking--I don't want to
speculate. That is my point. I don't want to speculate--no, let
me just finish. I don't want nuclear scholars to speculate
about what they may or may not be doing. If we are putting in
place--if the goal is to put in place a deal, a diplomatic
solution, which I support if we can get to one that works--I
think all of us do--if that is where we are trying to go, why
not as part of that expect them to and require them to respond
to all of the things that they have done that have caused us to
pass sanctions legislation, bill after bill, over the years?
Mr. Kahl. I think we should. I think that--I think that we
shouldn't trust them. We shouldn't trust the fatwa or take them
at their word. The entire purposes of negotiations is to put in
place meaningful and verifiable constraints on their nuclear
program to assure all of us that they will never go for a
nuclear weapon. That is the goal of diplomacy. The question,
though, is should we go all in on an optimal deal that is
likely not achievable and could result in a collision----
Mr. Deutch. You know, I understand.
Mr. Kahl [continuing]. Or should we go for a deal that is
possible and also meets our national interests?
Mr. Deutch. I understand, but I am trying to get beyond--we
have gone back and forth on that. I understand that that is the
part--that is the way any negotiation works. My question is
what seems to be missing, but I don't know--I don't know,
because it has not been confirmed, but what seems to be missing
is that requirement that, look, if you want to deal, then at
least come clean on all of these other aspects. Sit and tell
us, respond to every question, let us have full access to
Parchin. Tell us what you have been doing that has prompted the
IAEA to continue to point out the possible military aspects of
your program. Why is that too much to ask?
Mr. Kahl. It is not too much. I think in the final deal,
the comprehensive deal that the administration wants to
negotiate over the next 6 to 12 months, they would have to come
clean on the past military dimensions of the program. And I
should say they are in ongoing negotiations with the IAEA on
those facilities.
Mr. Deutch. Why shouldn't they have to do that now at the
outset as part of any preliminary deal?
Mr. Kahl. Well, I think because the things that the initial
deal has to address are the most urgent risks of a nuclear
breakout; their 20 percent material, their advanced
centrifuges; the loading of fuel assemblies into the Arak
reactor; freezing centrifuge installations; putting in place
more intrusive inspections in Fordow and Natanz, because I
think the urgent aspects of the program have to be addressed
first, and that is what the administration appears to be doing.
Chairman Royce. Okay. We go to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of
California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am sorry, Doctor, but I just disagree
with your somewhat positive analysis about where we are and
where we are going. We are going in exactly the wrong direction
with Iran right now. We are going exactly the wrong direction
in a lot of areas. This administration is rapidly becoming the
epitome of failure from the top, because what we have got,
these failures that we are discussing today and the other
failures that we are--are plaguing the people of the United
States from its own government, can be traced right back to the
methodology that this President is using to exercise authority
and power granted to him during the elections.
We have--let me just finish. For example, my colleague Mr.
Smith was noting that the Treasury Department reveals--a review
of the Treasury Department reveals notices that the United
States Government has all but stopped the financial
blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade
international sanctions since the election of its President.
Okay. So what we have here is that someone is offering
waivers to what was the policy, and the blacklisting of people
who were evading international sanctions, this is something our
Government is supposed to be doing, but it is not doing it
because of an intentional policy that was created where? And
that the--later on in that article that my colleague Mr. Smith
was reading, it states, ``Like the waivers on Obamacare, the
administration believes it is a law unto itself.''
So what we have here is the President of the United States
not following what would be the normal procedures of our
Government and coming up with failure both domestically and
internationally.
I don't see any reason for hope at all in terms of things
getting better about Iran. This last series of overly
optimistic negotiations have left us with nothing, nothing, but
it appears to the world that we are weak.
You know, going back to the Koreans--and this has happened
before, it is not just this President, but other Presidents
have made these kind of mistakes in approach. But we gave food
and oil to Korea, to North Korea, with the idea that was going
to make it more likely that they were going to pull in and
reign in their nuclear program. And what we ended up doing was
subsidizing dictatorship, subsidizing a vicious dictatorship,
and actually perhaps elongating its life.
We are now talking about Iran, about the mullah regime in
Iran. It would be the equivalent of a Hitlerite regime in the
midst of the world, and it is about ready to obtain the ability
of dropping nuclear bombs on countries and on people that it
has targeted. This is a catastrophe if we let this happen, and
it has been coming on and coming on, and this administration is
making it worse.
I do not see, as you stated, Doctor, I am sorry, but you
said we are buying time? We are not buying time. We are making
a fool out of ourselves. We should--instead of being groveling
to these people who murdered their own people, I might add--the
mullahs murdered their own people; we can't expect them to
treat the world in a different way--but while we are groveling,
instead we should be spending our time supporting those
elements in Iran that are opposed to the mullah regime. They
would get--very quickly they would get the word if all of a
sudden the Azaris, and the Baluchs, and the Kurds and the other
people within Iran started receiving support from the outside
on--that type of pressure, perhaps, they understand.
And I might add that this administration started off right
in the very beginning refusing to condemn the slaughter of
democracy seekers in the streets of Tehran, who are protesting
the mullah regime's stealing of the last election.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I think I have made my point.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Brian Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, a lot has been discussed here about perception,
but clearly the United States has an objective here, and that
is the prevention of Iran having a nuclear weapon, not the
containment of it after the fact. We cannot allow Iran's
nuclear program to reach a breakout capability; meaning that
Iran cannot have a civil nuclear program that allows them, at a
moment of their choosing, to turn it into a nuclear weapon.
You know, there is good news here, and there is bad news.
Iran is a country of 90 million people. Half the population is
under the age of 25, and they are tech savvy. Social media is
not on the side of the regime. Social media is used by Iranian
youth not only for organizational purposes, but also for
aspirational purposes. They can see how the rest of the world
is living, and they ask the question, why not us?
Organizationally, social media can be used for organizational
purposes.
What has the regime in Tehran been expert at? Suppression.
Suppression. I suspect that sometime in 2014 you will see mass
demonstrations on the streets of Tehran again because of the
deplorable condition that the Iranian economy is in. They
produce a lot of oil, but they don't have the capacity to
refine that oil. So they export oil and then have to import
gasoline because they lack that capacity.
On a positive note Hassan Rouhani won an election, and
there were only six candidates. He ran as the reform candidate.
He ran against the policies that produce economic sanctions, he
ran against the policies that produce international isolation,
and once he became President, he said the economy was even
worse than he originally thought it was.
So the question is: Is Iran serious about change, and can
Rouhani negotiate a deal that he can deliver on? The backdrop
to that, ironically, is that Rouhani was Iran's nuclear
negotiator for 10 years. Ten years ago Iran had 164
centrifuges, the big machines that enrich uranium. Today Iran
has 18,000 centrifuges, enough to allow Iran to make a bomb, to
avoid detection, and to act before we can act against it.
So while there are hopeful signs, there are also ominous
signs as well. And while we are talking currently in the
negotiations to destroy the Iranian atomic infrastructure,
there is next-generation infrastructure that is held within the
knowledge of Iranian universities and laboratories that even if
we get a deal on the destruction, the next generation can be
developed more quickly, the infrastructure itself, to
facilitate the making of a bomb that much more quickly.
So I will tell you that as Americans' interest in that
region, particularly with respect to Israel, you know, we have
to not put our brakes on relative to sanctions, but accelerate,
because only if there is internal pressure by the emerging
youth that is better capable of challenging the regime and the
deplorable state of the Iranian economy will the Iranians
change at all.
So I would just ask you to respond to those thoughts.
Mr. Kahl. So I think you hit a very important point. Even
completely dismantling their program, completely, doesn't
prevent them from reconstituting it at some point in the
future. They have the knowledge in their head. So the question
is if we are to prevent breakout along the lines you suggest,
we need to maximize the amount of time it would take for them
to build a bomb, we need to shrink the amount of time it would
take for the international community to detect it so we could
stop it if they moved in that direction, and we need to address
the past military dimensions of their program along the way,
along the roads that Congressman Deutch mentioned.
I think Rouhani is serious. I think he believes he has a
public mandate, and I think he believes he has some room to
maneuver from the Supreme Leader. But I also think he believes
he doesn't have all that much time, which is why I think he is
anxiously pushing for a deal, and I think we are actually quite
close on this first-step deal leading to the final-step deal.
The challenge at the moment is that he has his own domestic
political issues, and he has basically made the argument within
the regime, give me a chance. Give me a chance. I am going to
negotiate seriously. I will get a deal. And if we rush forward
with sanctions now and appear hell-bent to increase sanctions
regardless of Rouhani and Zarif's changed tone and their
approach to negotiation, it risks empowering the hardline
voices inside Iran who will undermine his ability to get us to
a mutual objective of cutting some kind of deal.
I also--my last point on the youth. I agree with you that
the youth of Iran are extraordinarily important. I am less
confident than you are that our economic pressure would somehow
mobilize hundreds of thousands of folks to take to the streets
in Tehran. It is worth keeping in mind, every opinion poll and
survey done in Iran for a decade has shown overwhelming support
for Iran's nuclear program, including its enrichment
activities. The likelihood that if we tried to force the regime
to capitulate completely on its nuclear program that that would
mobilize domestic political opinion I think is just not borne
out by the reality of public opinion in Iran.
Mr. Dubowitz. If Rouhani wanted to sell a deal, he will
sell a deal, because from his perspective and from the Supreme
Leader's perspective, it will be a great deal.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Marino. Thank you, Chairman.
Good afternoon--good morning, still morning. Thank you for
being here.
We are still dealing with the Iranian regime, and in the
past these people have proved themselves to be murderers, and
butchers, thugs, and psychopaths, and clearly and repeatedly
they publicly articulate fanatical proclamations that all
people who do not follow, who do not follow their absurd
beliefs must be wiped off the face of the Earth, including
children. Now we are going to negotiate with these people? You
are negotiating with terrorists that have funded and backed
suicide bombers and murderous gangs, and now you want to reward
them. Absurd at best.
Iran has a different President, Rouhani, of course;
however, don't forget that he is a puppet and still controlled
by the Supreme Leader. So are you going to continue to
capitulate? What in God's name do you think has changed the
minds of these butchers?
Dr. Kahl?
Mr. Kahl. Well, I would point out that we need to negotiate
with our enemies, not just our friends, and we have negotiated
with regimes----
Mr. Marino. But we don't negotiate with terrorists. That
has been a proclamation from the administrations since the
1970s, so now we are going to turn that around and negotiate
with terrorists?
Have you considered at all, has this administration
considered at all, Israel's plight in this, who is the
stability there? And it is a slap in the face to Israel, and it
allows the Iranians to know that now Israel and the United
States may not be as close as they are, which isn't true, and
it shows a weakness on our part. How do you account for that?
Mr. Kahl. Well, I obviously don't represent the
administration. I am not in the administration anymore. When I
was there, I can tell you I did as much as any senior Pentagon
official in recent history to support Israel's security, and I
believe that every Israeli official I worked with would say the
same thing. And I think that is not about me, it is about the
Obama administration----
Mr. Marino. I disagree with you on this that it shows that
every person in that administration, regardless of whether you
are there now or in the past, is very concerned about Israel,
just the move that we are making now. And I am not holding you
personally responsible for this. I disagree with many of the
things that you had to say about what effect this is going to
have. But what has happened to persuade you to think that these
butchers are going to change their mind about whatever they do?
Mr. Kahl. Actually I am not sure that they will. I think we
need to test the possibility that they will, because,
Congressman, what is the alternative? The alternative is we
don't negotiate. We try to waive our diplomacy. And do you know
what there will be? There will be a war.
Mr. Marino. No, I do not agree with you. The alternative is
going to be that there will be financial--there will be more
financial devastation to that country. The people will--some of
the people there, not many, are going to continue to uprise.
And if they don't have the money, they cannot do anything.
Mr. Kahl. But they are not anywhere close to that point.
Mr. Marino. Well, then we need to make sure that they are
closer to that point. You know, we should do what we did, what
was d1 years ago in the 1960s: Ignore what they are trying to
pull over our eyes. If this administration does not
understand--the President has changed his mind on this issue
again, and as far as being a diplomat, as far as knowing what
foreign policy is, he is way off base. And, sir, I just--I get
so upset over the fact that he thinks, or this administration
thinks, that if they put their arms around these terrorists,
they are going to say--we are going to sing Kumbaya, and
everything is going to be fine. I just vehemently disagree with
you.
Mr. Kahl. With all due respect, I don't think that is their
position. Look, we can't have it both ways. One cannot make the
argument that Iran is on the brink of a nuclear weapon, and
also make the argument which I am hearing which is we should
just sanction them out of existence and wait until the regime
falls.
The timelines don't link up. There is no evidence even if
we did everything that Mark subscribed, or everything that you
passed in July, or everything that the Senate is considering,
that it will bring the regime to its knees in a timeframe that
prevents them from----
Mr. Marino. Sir, you are comparing apples with oranges
here, and you are basing your premise on the fact that the
Iranians have changed in ideology of some sort, have at the
very least realized that while these sanctions are hurting us,
and we have to do something before we are completely bankrupt.
And so you and I can debate this all day long. I respect your
opinion, but----
Mr. Dubowitz. And, Congressman, I would say it is a false
choice. I mean, we are not passing sanctions to bring them to
their knees and collapse their economy within 3 months. What we
are trying to do is we are trying to pass sanctions in order to
massively enhance American negotiating leverage so that we end
up with a good deal, a good deal that we, you, the
administration can sell to the American people. That is the
goal.
Mr. Marino. Well, we have to be the ones to call the shots
here, not the Iranians.
I see my time has run out, and I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Marino.
Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Gosh, when I hear statements like that that seem to suggest
this President is not a reliable supporter or friend of Israel,
I think that would come as news to the President of Israel, who
awarded this President one of the highest awards that Israel
has to give as a friend and supporter of Israel.
But I am also not sure where that last line of questioning
was supposed to take us. I certainly can appreciate the
frustration, my friend, but, Dr. Kahl, I mean, what are the
choices here? If we choose not to negotiate with Iran,
irrespective of what we think of the regime, what is the choice
in front of us? What is the option if we choose not to
negotiate with them because they are ``murderers, and thugs''?
Mr. Kahl. The options are twofold. One, we could continue
to escalate sanctions in the hopes of imposing regime change. I
would say, you know, Mark has been a leading advocate in
imposing economic sanctions not for the purposes of forcing
them to capitulate on their nuclear program, but for regime
change. He has written about that repeatedly. We could take
that course. The problem is, it is not going to work in a
timeframe that satisfies our interest of avoiding a nuclear
weapon. Or we could strike their nuclear program militarily, or
the Israelis could do it, in which case you would set their
program back a few years. They would rebuild it on the back end
of those strikes. It would cause instability in the interim. It
would shatter the international coalition surrounding Iran, and
they might emerge on the back end with a nuclear weapon anyway.
So all I am saying is diplomacy is hard. It is tough. It is
going to take a while. And because it is going to take a while,
we need to put some time on the clock, which is why we need an
interim deal that leads to a comprehensive deal. There is--
look, I don't like this option either, but it is better than
every other alternative.
Mr. Connolly. Well, that is a good question. And I see you,
Mr. Dubowitz. I will give us a chance in just 1 second.
I think I hear some of the critics focusing on the
suggested first-phase interim negotiation as some kind of sell-
out that should be avoided at all costs. It is all or nothing.
I think I hear you saying that that is not how it works, and
that won't work. And we are going to have to be willing to
provide some kind of first phase if we are ever going to get to
an ultimate negotiated settlement that is to our liking and
Israel's; is that correct?
Mr. Kahl. It is absolutely correct. I would make just two
quick points: One, that the initial deal that is being
discussed in and of itself is a good deal in terms of
addressing the most urgent parts of the program; and second, it
is absolutely essential to get to the final deal.
Look, nobody in the administration that I have spoken with
or others have spoken with believe that this interim deal is
the final deal. It is not. It is the first step toward the
final deal when Secretary Kerry, all of the rest see it that
way, as does the President. We need to give it a shot.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Dubowitz.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, the French, who are the guardians of
nonproliferation, certainly didn't see that it way. So let us
be very clear.
Mr. Connolly. Didn't see it what way, Mr. Dubowitz?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, they don't agree with that
characterization, because at Geneva they insisted that that
deal was not a good deal, and they refused to sign it.
Mr. Connolly. Another way of saying that maybe is the
French felt too much as was given away, or not enough was
addressed on enrichment, for example, in phase one to satisfy
them.
Mr. Dubowitz. Correct. Which is why it was a bad deal.
The second issue is sanctions are designed to put in the
Supreme Leader's mind that they will bring economic collapse;
not for regime change, not for provoking democracy
demonstrations, but to put in his mind the fear that unless he
concedes on his nuclear weapon program, he will lose his
regime.
Third of all, Colin has been a leading supporter of using
military strikes as a verification and enforcement mechanism in
a post deal environment. In other words, we will put in the
safeguards regime, they will sign additional protocols, and
then when they cheat, we will use military strikes in order to
actually get them to comply. Now, the fact of the matter is
that is just not credible. And the Iranians engage in strategic
incrementalism----
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Dubowitz, so what it is you think we
should do since that is not credible and you think it is a bad
deal phase one?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, we got to get the best deal possible
that doesn't allow Iran to retain the essential elements of
enrichment and reprocessing that allow it to build a nuclear
weapon, because no gold standard safeguards regime in the world
is going to prevent a dedicated ideological regime that wants
to pursue a nuclear weapon from doing so at the time of its
choosing unless you credibly think that the U.S. President is
going to use military force as an enforcement mechanism for
verification. Colin seems to think so. I don't.
Mr. Connolly. I understand. I am down to 20 seconds.
So what is the leverage we have got to get a better deal?
Military strikes, or keeping the sanctions absolutely as is in
place and maybe----
Mr. Dubowitz. The leverage is what the President of the
United States has repeatedly said it was. All options are on
the table; a credible threat of military force and crippling
sanctions, in the words of former Secretary Clinton and the
administration. Crippling sanctions, a credible threat of
military force. If you take both options off the table, you
don't have course of diplomacy, You have discussions.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
We will go to Mr. Brooks of Alabama.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
This hearing's premise is that there is something wrong
with Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. My series of questions
hope to elicit information on this point. Now, first, if Iran
continues to develop nuclear weapons at their current pace, in
your best judgment, when is the soonest Iran will have a usable
nuclear weapon, the soonest, Mr. Dubowitz?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, I believe that the estimates are that
Iran is already in the position where it could actually
weaponize uranium very quickly, in a matter of about a month.
And so then the real question then is if it has the essential
enriched uranium, weaponized uranium, to build a bomb, how long
will it take to design a warhead, and a trigger, and a delivery
vehicle?
Mr. Brooks. That is what I asked. When will they have a
usable nuclear weapon?
Mr. Dubowitz. Right.
Mr. Brooks. So how much time, in your best judgment, the
soonest?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, the open reporting that I have seen is
2014, 2015.
Mr. Brooks. Ms. Pletka?
Ms. Pletka. I think the problem that we are going to face,
answering your question, is what you mean by usable nuclear
weapon. If you mean a dirty bomb, they could do it today. If
you mean a rudimentary nuclear device that they could deliver
in the back of a truck or a bus, a month. If you mean a weapon,
miniaturized on a delivery vehicle to--that works successfully,
longer, probably a year, maybe even longer than that.
Mr. Brooks. Dr. Kahl?
Mr. Kahl. So our senior defense and intelligence officials
have testified it would take them about a year to create a
crude nuclear device. It would take them a few years to create
a device that could sit on a missile. The long pole in the
tent, though, is the fissile material, which all of us agree
on.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you. I just needed your time estimates.
And I apologize for cutting you off, but I have 5 minutes, as
everybody else does.
In August 2011, I was part of a congressional delegation
that met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in
Jerusalem, wherein he unambiguously warned us that Israel will
not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, period, exclamation
point. My question: What has Iran done or said that justifies
Israel's concerns?
Mr. Dubowitz.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, let us see. They have threatened to
wipe Israel off the map. The Supreme Leader has called Israel a
cancerous tumor. They have had a 20-year, at least, nuclear
weapons program that everybody acknowledges has taken place.
They have engaged in nuclear deception, and I think, as
Congressman Deutch pointed out, they have got essential nuclear
elements that cannot be explained away for civilian purposes,
and if it can be, then why aren't they explaining it away by
coming clean on their past nuclear deception?
Mr. Brooks. Thank you.
Ms. Pletka, do you have anything you can add to that?
Ms. Pletka. In addition to what Mark laid out, I think that
what the Israelis look at is the willingness of the Iranian
regime to arm proxy groups like Hezbollah, like Hamas with
increasingly sophisticated devices. And the better the Iranians
get, the better the products that they are willing to supply to
those groups. So we now see that Hezbollah has guided missiles,
that Hamas has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. What is to
stop Iran eventually from sharing more information?
Mr. Brooks. Dr. Kahl, is there anything that you can add to
that?
Mr. Kahl. I would just say that I think President Obama
shares Netanyahu's view that is unacceptable for them to get
nuclear weapons, that it is a vital threat to us and a threat
to Israel, and that the deal--that, you know, the getting the
ball rolling on a diplomatic deal is aimed to precisely address
those threats.
Mr. Brooks. Has Iran done or said anything that should
cause America to be concerned that Iranian nuclear weapons may
be used to directly or indirectly, via terrorist surrogates, by
way of example, attack American cities?
Mr. Dubowitz?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, there is certainly open-source
reporting that the Iranians are building an intercontinental
ballistic missile program. They don't need ICBMs to hit Tel
Aviv or Jerusalem. They need ICBMs to hit the United States.
Mr. Brooks. What about the distribution of nuclear weapons
to terrorist groups who may try to smuggle them into America
via our rather porous borders?
Mr. Dubowitz. It is an absolute nightmare scenario. I mean,
they have close relationships with the most deadly terrorist
organizations in the world that have killed Americans.
Mr. Brooks. Ms. Pletka, do you have anything to add that
might cause America to pause and be concerned about Iran's
obtaining nuclear weapons?
Ms. Pletka. Iran has invested an enormous amount of
diplomatic, political, economic, and military effort into
building its relationships in Latin America over the last few
years. This committee has been very seized of that matter, and
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen has had a number of hearings on the question
in the last few years. Venezuela, Nicaragua, in addition
Hezbollah has very substantial networks in Canada; we believe
also in the United States.
Mr. Brooks. Dr. Kahl, 10 seconds is all I have left.
Mr. Kahl. Iran is a leading state sponsor of terrorism. It
is worth noting, however, that they currently have chemical and
biologic weapons capabilities and have never passed those
weapons to terrorists.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Schneider of Illinois.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, and again, thank you to the
witnesses for being here.
I think it is important to reflect a bit why we are here,
and talking about the need to increase sanctions pressure to
have negotiations to get to where we are going. I think on
sanctions, and I will repeat what has become a mantra, that we
need to increase the intensity of the bite. We have to
accelerate the pace of acceleration, but to do so, as you said,
Mr. Dubowitz, to leverage the ability we have in negotiations
with the credible threat of force to ultimately achieve a
permanent prevention of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. That is
what this is about.
And as I think about it, let me posit some ideas of what
has to be included in an agreement, a final agreement. And as I
see it, the first and foremost thing, we need Iran to come
clean on their nuclear programs, halt and stop the weapons
programs--and that would include Natanz, Fordow, Arak, and
Parchin--to understand what they have, and any others that we
aren't aware of. We have to not just have that halt, we have to
have a reverse of their programs, a dismantling of Arak, a--
whether it is mothballing or removal, as you touched on, of the
centrifuges. But ultimately we also have to have a permanent
block or closure of the pathways Iran has, any pathways, both
uranium and plutonium, to acquiring nuclear weapons.
You, in your testimony, your submitted testimony, you
talked about David Albright's irreducible minimums of what is
required on those things, on the uranium pathway, on the
plutonium pathway, the ability to acquire weapons. I will open
this to all of you. As you look at what has been reported from
Geneva, do we achieve that first step, the halting, the
freezing of anything, do we achieve any of the movement that
David Albright is calling for in his minimum requirements?
Mr. Dubowitz. So my sense from the reporting is we achieve
some of it. We don't achieve all of it. And remember, Dr.
Albright's--it is called the irreducible minimum deal, but not
for nothing. It is because all of those elements have to be
there in order for it to be even a de minimis deal. So I think
it is critical to understand that.
I would also add to this, I mean, the Iranian regime have
negotiators who are not only masters of nuclear deception, but
they really know their file. I mean, they have forgotten tricks
that our negotiators haven't even learned. And the key is they
look for loopholes. You see that on the sanctions side. You see
it on the nuclear physics side. They look for loopholes. They
look for ways to reinterpret the nonproliferation treaty. They
look for ways to give on 20 percent, and rope-a-dope us on 20
percent, while still maintaining the ability to manufacture
centrifuges and not to declare the centrifuge manufacturing
facility so they can build up those nuclear chips for those
negotiations. We are dealing with people who understand
loopholes. They have a slew of loopholes on nuclear side, and
we can't be fooled by loopholes on the nuclear side.
Mr. Schneider. Dr. Kahl.
Mr. Kahl. So I have had back-and-forth with David Albright
on precisely this question, and this is Albright's analysis. If
the deal stops 20 percent enrichment and neutralizes most of
the stockpile, it doubles the estimated time that Albright has
calculated for a breakout. That is not enough, but it is a step
in the right direction; that is, it rolls back the program. If
the deal----
Mr. Schneider. Six weeks?
Mr. Kahl. If the deal stops centrifuge, additional
centrifuge installation and operation, that also prevents Iran
in the next 6 months from shrinking the time in which it could
use its stockpile to go for nuclear weapons, and if the deal
stops them from making fuel assemblies for the Arak nuclear
reactor, then they also can't bring that online. And if the
deal increases inspections on facilities, it would be harder
for them to cheat and not get detected. All of those things are
actually quite good.
Mr. Schneider. Dr. Kahl, isn't it a case that Iran has
already said they are delaying until 2014 bringing the Arak
reactor online? They will still be doing construction of Arak?
Mr. Kahl. Yeah. So, no, that is a very good point. I think
there is a lot of confusion in the media about this. The
agreement on the table, to include the one that existed before
the French ever raised objections, would have been to prevent
Iran from producing fuel assemblies. It is not just that they
just can't turn it on, they have to build the fuel assemblies
at Isfahan to actually load them into the Arak reactor. If you
prevent them from building any of those assemblies for the next
6 months, it is not like the day after the 6 months they can
insert them all. They would then have to start the process of
constructing the fuel assemblies all over again. So it is
meaningful. The most meaningful aspect of construction for Arak
that the Israelis are worried about and that we are worried
about are the fuel assemblies and----
Mr. Schneider. Once those are in, we cannot destroy the
reactor without----
Mr. Kahl. But this deal will push that way to the right.
Mr. Schneider. So we are like--what I have heard is we are
talking about 6 months. We don't have 6 months. It has to be
much shorter. As I think Mr. Dubowitz was saying, it is 6 weeks
is the timeframe. How do we make sure that we bring--to your
words, you said it is unclear sanctions can bring a deal in
time to prevent a breakout. How do we make sure that we
continue to accelerate the pace, increase the intensity, and
bring Iran to a decision point before they get to their final
point of having a nuclear weapon?
Mr. Kahl. Let me invoke David Albright one last time. They
have been at the point for actually about a year where in a
couple of months they could produce fissile material for a
weapon. The reason why they haven't done that is that
inspectors visit those facilities every week or two, which
means they get caught. So I know 6 weeks doesn't sound like a
long time, and I wish it was a lot longer, and we should push
for a deal that makes it a lot, lot longer. But the reality is
that inspectors visit there every week or two, and the regime
is not going to go for a bomb if it gets caught, because the
reason is they don't want to get hit by the Israelis, by us, or
by anybody else.
Mr. Schneider. But we need the sanctions to make sure they
don't move forward. We have to increase the pressure and we
continue to negotiate so that we get to a place, in your words,
that we have sanctions that get us to a place where we prevent
them from having a bomb.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce [presiding]. All right. And also, I
understand that come 12 o'clock, there are some flights out,
and I know, Dr. Kahl, you had mentioned that you will have to
catch a flight at that time, and we appreciate very much your
testimony. Any time you need to go, we understand because of
your flight schedule.
But we are going to go now to Mr. Ron DeSantis.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the
witnesses.
You know, this issue is frustrating because I remember when
Rouhani was elected in Iran, I started reading about how he was
a moderate. A lot of the Western press was very hopeful that
this signaled a big change. But then as you look beneath the
surface, I mean, a lot of this I think the moderation is
basically a function of differences in tactics and tone, and I
think that he is smart to do that. Ahmadinejad said outrageous
things because he meant outrageous things, and people at some
point started to believe that he actually meant those things.
So you look at this Iranian President. Does he reject
outright in the same way that the Holocaust happened like
Ahmadinejad? No, not really. He says, well, look, people may
have died, but I am not an historian, is what he will say. And
he will come to the West and offer soothing-sounding
platitudes, but looking beyond the surface of the words that he
provides, this is somebody who, in my judgment, is very much in
tune with the Iranian mullahs who are running that regime.
I mean, even when he was running as a candidate, you know,
he said, saying death to America is easy. We need to express
death to America with action. Last decade he called Israel a
terrorist nation. One of his defense ministers was one of the
plotters of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut.
September of this year, he said, our Government will not give
up one iota of its absolute rights on the nuclear issues. He
bragged about how he tricked the Europeans, essentially duping
them to buy more time so that Iran would be able to convert
uranium yellowcake. And, of course, he was the head of Iran's
National Security Council from 1989 to 2005. Of course, during
that time, you had the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in
Buenos Aires, and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers.
And so I guess my concern is, you know, I don't believe--I
could see how some people because of the sanctions would see a
need from an Iranian perspective to have a deal, but I just
don't think somebody who is representing the regime's
perspective would actually believe that foregoing a nuclear
weapon would be in their interest as they define it in
opposition to the United States and Israel. And so am I right
to have this degree of skepticism about this particular
President, and, of course, obviously, with the regime that
ultimately controls him?
Ms. Pletka. You know, in my testimony I said that we were
fortunate in our adversaries, and I think that was true under
Ahmadinejad. He made it pretty easy to make the case that Iran
was a menace. Rouhani is much cleverer, and I think that even
internally he is going to handle things very skillfully.
I think as Mark has said, and as many members of the
committee have said, the issue here is whether we can change
Iran's calculations. If Iran did not need to change its
calculations, there should be no doubt in our minds that they
wish to develop a nuclear weapons option; not necessarily a
device, but certainly a breakout capability, and an option. So
can we change their calculus sufficiently in order to get them
to delay it, understanding that that weapon is so debilitating
to their ability to maintain domestic control and to keep the
country economically afloat, that they are willing to put it
off? That at the end of the day is the calculation. That is
why, to me, the arguments that we should lessen sanctions seems
so inapt, because that is what this is about.
Mr. Dubowitz. And I would just add to that, I mean, it was
not about Rouhani, it was not about Khatami, it is not even
about Ahmadinejad. It is about the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali
Khamenei, okay, who is a man who has ruled that country with an
iron fist, who has dedicated himself to building a nuclear
weapon, who calls Israel a cancerous tumor, and who is
basically funding an ICBM program to hit the United States of
America, and who, by the way, tweeted out a few days ago,
reportedly from his Twitter account, we believe it is his
Twitter account, a picture of the Iranian negotiators, and it
said, these are not compromisers. These are children of the
revolution.
I mean, it is all very interesting. I mean, so what is he
trying to tell us by that? Well, he is actually saying exactly
what we fear: There are not compromisers. They will not
compromise on Iran's nuclear ambitions. These are children of
the revolution, which is ideologically committed.
Mr. DeSantis. Which is exactly why my skepticism remains,
because, from their perspective, getting involved in these
negotiations, you know, these fig leafs back and forth, that,
to me, is just buying them time. If you are not going to have
tough sanctions, if you are not going to have potential
consequences that could change the calculus, you know, I fear
that they are going to proceed, and I think it will be much
more difficult once they are successful in that regard. So I
really appreciate your comments.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Okay, we are going to go to Mr. Sires of
New Jersey.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here, and I know it is late. And I
heard just about every argument, but I come from a different
perspective. I come from the perspective of how we negotiate.
Here we have a country that just a couple of years ago was
willing to blow off somebody here in Washington, DC, fomenting
all sorts of trouble throughout the world and terror, and all
of a sudden somebody blinked, and we are negotiating. And you
have the President calling him on the phone. I mean, the next
thing he is going to ask him to play golf or something.
I really don't get the way you negotiate with this regime.
I mean, they are nothing but trouble, liars, oppressing their
people. Like you said before, there are more assassinations in
the country, you know, than ever before. So I don't understand
how we, all of a sudden, are willing to just open the doors,
negotiate, reduce the sanctions.
You know, I negotiated many contracts over many years, and
the last person that the contract comes to is the leader. You
send everybody else in, so you are at the end, you can really
get some of the things that you want in a negotiation. But to
jump in from the beginning, I just wonder what you think of
that? I mean, like, come on, you are making a phone call
already? It is ridiculous.
Mr. Dubowitz. Congressman, we are negotiating with people
who we like. I actually disagree; we are negotiating with
people who we really like. We are negotiating with ourselves.
We are negotiating with ourselves in Washington, DC, and we are
asking a fundamental question. And I don't want to--Colin is
not here, so I don't want to put him on the spot.
Mr. Sires. Well, I was hoping you could tell me----
Mr. Dubowitz. There is a temptation in this city in
approaching these kinds of seemingly intractable problems to
negotiate with ourselves and for us to deem what is reasonable,
and then we take what is reasonable to the Iranians, and they
have one word for it. Their word is ``no.''
Mr. Sires. Absolutely.
Mr. Dubowitz. And what they do, which is very adept, is
they take--and Congressman Deutch talked about this on the
issue of enrichment--they say the right to enrichment is
nonnegotiable, nonnegotiable. We will not negotiate over it. So
we say, well, okay, we have our maximalist position on the
right to enrichment, and they have their maximalist position,
and then we will negotiate.
Well, the fact of the matter is our maximalist position, as
we so termed it, should be the minimum condition. It should be
the one that the five U.N. Security Council resolutions
stipulate. But we don't do that. We negotiate with ourselves,
we come up with reasonable deals, and the Supreme Leader says
no. And that is how the Iran regime negotiates, which is why
they are taking us and are going to take us to the cleaners.
Mr. Sires. They are taking us to the cleaners.
Ms. Pletka. It is important to understand, as you
underscored, that a negotiation remains a negotiation no matter
what. The problem for us is the Iranians have dealt themselves
a very nice set of cards and are constantly willing to hand off
things to us that are facts, as you say, on the ground that
they have created over the last couple of years. They weren't
enriching to 20 percent before. Now all of a sudden they are
willing to give it up at a time when we were demanding that
they end all enrichment.
We have not dealt ourselves a fine set of cards in the
sense that every bad actor position that Iran has taken
throughout the region, whether it is trying to assassinate the
Saudi Ambassador here in Washington, DC, arming Hezbollah, what
it is engaging in in Syria, we have not--we haven't brought
those things up. We haven't said, you know what, okay, we will
talk to you about these things if you talk to us about that. We
have not negotiated this skillfully. And I don't believe that
Secretary Kerry, I don't believe Wendy Sherman, I don't believe
any of these people are fools, and I don't believe that they
want to do a bad deal. The problem is they want do a deal more
than the Iranians do.
Mr. Sires. To me, it just seems that if they sense in us
that we are incompetent negotiating, or somehow that we are
weak negotiating, they are just going to become tougher to
negotiate with. They will just keep adding and adding and make
no concessions.
To me, we should pass this bill that we have in the Senate,
continue the pressure on this government so if somehow we can
have a negotiations, not that it will lead to what we
eventually want, but I think we have to keep the pressure on
the----
Mr. Dubowitz. Keep all options on the table. As the
President of the United States has said repeatedly, keep all
options on the table; don't unilaterally take them off the
table.
Mr. Sires. But this business of buddy buddies, oh, come on,
that is ridiculous. I am sorry.
What were you going to say, Ms. Pletka? Were you going to
add something.
Ms. Pletka. No, thank you.
Mr. Sires. Okay.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Ted Yoho of Florida.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you guys
being here. You are doing a great job.
Ms. Pletka. Will you forgive? I need to step out. My
daughter just hit her head and----
Mr. Yoho. Absolutely, I understand completely.
Mr. Dubowitz. This is about which witness is the last one
standing.
Mr. Yoho. That is right. I don't know if you win or lose,
though.
Mr. Dubowitz. This is good. I am worried.
Mr. Yoho. It just amazes me to hear what is going on right
now in the present situation with these negotiations when we
have always had a policy of nonnegotiation. And the thing I
like about this, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you putting
this together, is it is bipartisan. Pretty much everybody is
the same on this.
Iran, what I have heard is they have got enough 3.5 percent
uranium for six to seven bombs. This is despite the
international sanctions and also with what is going on over the
last 30 years. I mean, they have had a tough situation that we
put a lot of pressure on there, not just us, but the world, and
despite that, they are still doing this. And they have lied or
misled, and they have just talked about the same thing over and
over again, no, we are not doing this, but yet they have.
And I remember the words of Ronald Reagan that said trust
by verify, but I feel Iran, and especially Mr. Rouhani, has
lied, denied, deceived, but keep building, and that is what I
have seen. And they are going to get a bomb, and then we are
going to have to contend with that.
And my concern is that they already have the material to do
a dirty bomb. And with their association with the terrorists
and things they have done just to hurt Americans and, you know,
the destabilization of the Middle East, you know, I just see
this getting worse and worse despite what we have done. And at
a time where we have had these sanctions and they have done
this would be not a time to back off.
And I don't understand the administration's perspective of
why they want to go in there and loosen these sanctions up. I
agree with everybody else here. I think this is the time to put
more sanctions in there, tougher sanctions.
And I like the idea about dealing with the international
markets, with the banking. I think that was you who brought up
that. We can't dictate to anybody else, but we certainly can
say, well, if you are dealing with those, we can freeze assets.
I think we also need to look in the South Americas with
Venezuela and Central America that are helping them stay afloat
financially. I would just like to hear your thoughts on that.
And I would also like to hear your thoughts on--and you
have already addressed this a little bit--is what state of the
development of their ICBM program are they, and how soon do you
think that will be available? And what kind of numbers are you
looking at?
Mr. Dubowitz. So just on the ICBM, I am not obviously--I
don't have access to classified intelligence on this, but I see
an open-source reporting that the Intelligence Community
believes that they may have ICBM capability by 2015.
In response to your other points, Congressman, I would just
say this: Let us not be under illusions, we don't have
crippling sanctions. We don't have them. We have sanctions that
are painful, where Iranians are painfully muddling through, but
they have more than sufficient foreign exchange resources to
take themselves to critical nuclear capability, which is
something that Colin was raising as a concern and rightly so.
But we haven't imposed crippling sanctions. So we talked about
it, the rhetoric has suggested that, we have had bills, we have
had designations, we have had a lot of activity, but we haven't
moved to crippling economic sanctions. And there is a way to do
it, and we should do it, but we have got to do it now.
Mr. Yoho. I agree. I think that is what we need to do right
is put now more pressure on them, because I think their
willingness to come to the table or wanting to is maybe they
are feeling a little bit of pain over there, and I think this
is the time to tighten up the pressure on it.
Mr. Dubowitz. And there is no credible military threat. I
mean, let us not delude ourselves. The Supreme Leader doesn't
think that the administration is going to bomb these nuclear
facilities, and this administration has done everything it can
to box in the Israelis and undercut their credible military
threat. So both have been taken off the table. You take it off
the table, you no longer have coercion. When you don't have
coercion, then you are going to enter a diplomatic game where
even the French say, ``Arrete.''
Mr. Yoho. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield back. Thank
you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Yoho.
We are going to go now to Lois Frankel of Florida.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Well, I guess I am ready now to ask questions. Listening to
all of this is really excruciating, because we all know that as
we talk, Iran is not up to any good. So let me just start out
with what I think everybody here agrees is that an Iran with
nuclear capabilities is bad. It is bad because it is a state
sponsor of terror, it is a habitual human rights violator, it
is directing Hezbollah's war in Syria. And something else which
I think we haven't mentioned is that it would lead to
uncontrolled nuclear proliferation in a very unstable region of
the world. So we all agree with that: Iran cannot be allowed to
have nuclear weapons.
So my first question--I have a series of questions. Let me
ask them to you, and you can answer in any order. One, do you
think a diplomatic solution is ever possible? And number two, I
am assuming you do agree that this temporary agreement that is
being suggested is not sufficient as a permanent deal, and so
my next question, which I would have liked to give to Mr. Kahl,
was can you ever go back to a tougher stance once you seem have
a lesser stance? Is there any concern about a regime change for
the worse if we do not go forward with this temporary
arrangement? And what do you suggest would be the next steps?
And then when is enough enough?
Mr. Dubowitz. So I think those are great questions,
Congresswoman. I believe very strongly that there can be a
diplomatic resolution of this nuclear crisis, and I think it
can be done through tough negotiating, through coercive
diplomacy, through crippling sanctions and a credible threat of
military force. That is the stated policy of the Obama
administration.
I think the danger that we have gotten into is we have
decided to negotiate with this regime, and in doing so, and
even before the negotiations, we set the table, but we set the
table in a way that was advantageous to our opponent. We
engaged in unilateral sanctions relief. Unilateral sanctions
relief. We took our leverage, our economic leverage, and we
diminished it. We blocked these sanctions in the Senate, we
diminished the pace of designations, and we sent a message to
the world that, you know what, just wait, because pretty soon
the architecture will remain, but the psychology will shift,
and you can go back to business. Because if you go back to
business, we are not going to sanction companies from Beijing
to Berlin. We are not going to sanction companies from Moscow
to Paris. And that is a fundamental problem, so we have
diminished our negotiating leverage as we have gone in.
At the same time on the deal side, what the Iranians are
doing as to nuclear physics, they are enhancing their
negotiating leverage. That is exactly what they did in Geneva.
They are giving concessions that are increasingly less relevant
to their nuclear weapons capability, like the 20 percent. The
20 percent is becoming increasingly less relevant because they
have installed over 19,000 centrifuges, which is getting them a
more and more rapid breakout capability.
There are major loopholes in that Geneva proposal as
reported. It is the reason the French said no. Those loopholes
are being created at the negotiating table, and over the next 6
months the Iranians will expand the loopholes, find other
loopholes, and they will do everything they can to get to
Geneva in 6 months' time with increased nuclear negotiating
leverage while having diminished our economic negotiating
leverage, which is why I suggested to you earlier I don't
understand how we are going to get from a bad interim deal to a
better final deal when this is the high-water mark of American
negotiating leverage.
Ms. Frankel. Just to continue with some of those questions,
I have heard the argument that if we don't do a temporary deal,
that this could lead to a worse regime taking over in Iran.
Have you heard that argument, and what would you say to that?
Mr. Dubowitz. I have heard the argument, and I would say to
you I couldn't imagine a worse regime in Tehran. I mean, I
don't foresee who actually would replace Khamenei, the
Revolutionary Guards, which has been a dictatorial regime, it
has brutalized its own people, is a state sponsor of terrorism,
and is devoted to building a nuclear weapons program, with
anything worse. I mean, I don't see who is waiting in the
wings. Now, who is waiting in the wings are not Jeffersonian
Democrats. This is not going to be Canada.
And speaking of Canada, I mean, this is interesting. So
there are 34 countries in the world that have actually nuclear
programs. You know, nineteen of those countries actually don't
buy nuclear fuel from abroad. Well, I should say they do buy
nuclear fuel from abroad; they don't enrich, and they don't
reprocess them. One of them is Canada, right? And there are 14
European countries and South Korea and South Africa and others.
And then there are a whole bunch of countries that do enrich
and reprocess of which nine have nuclear weapons, and the five
that don't have nuclear weapons but enrich and reprocess are
actually Holland, and Germany, and Japan, Brazil and Argentina.
So here is the fundamental question for you on this issue
of the regime: Are we negotiating with King Willem of Holland
or Ali Khamenei of Iran? And do we think that when Ali Khamenei
is gone, that there will be the new king of Iran who will be
better?
I think there will be, I think he will be better. I think
when Ali Khamenei and this regime is gone, we will have a
better regime in Tehran with whom we can negotiate a serious
arms control and nonproliferation treaty, but not with this
regime.
Chairman Royce. We are going to Mr. Scott Perry of
Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Dubowitz. You get the stamina prize.
This is all--for me anyhow, this is all so predictable. You
know, the great unwashed of us out there have been watching
this for the better part of 20 years, and predictably, as Iran
does this slow march toward their inevitable goal, and we keep
talking and fiddling, so to speak.
I wonder--and I am disappointed Dr. Kahl has left--if he
would agree with your assessment of strategic incrementalism,
because that is what most of us have seen, and unlike the
enlightened class, again, to us it seems somewhat inevitable.
I do want to make mention of your characterization of the
negotiations with Iran like--and I would characterize them as
very similar to what happened in DC about a month ago, where we
negotiated with ourselves on this side of the aisle, and the
other side said no. I find that fascinating in this
circumstance.
Dr. Kahl talked about the pride that Iranian citizens have
with their nuclear program. And I would like you, if you could
very quickly, to quantify that, because what I don't know is
with their nuclear program as a weaponized program for
aggressive proactive strike, so to speak, as necessary, or a
peaceful civilian nuclear program which produces power, which
one do they have affinity for?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, that is actually a great question. I
don't know what polls Dr. Kahl is referring to. The polls that
I have seen actually don't draw the distinction. And so the
question is are you asking Iranians do they support a civilian
nuclear program, or do they support a nuclear weapons program?
And furthermore, are you asking Iranians if you get to choose
between a nuclear weapons program and the collapse of your
economy, which one do you choose? I haven't seen the results.
Mr. Perry. So we are led to believe there is this false
choice for Iranian citizens, who many are friendly with the
United States, that they have to have this all-or-nothing
proposition. And I don't necessarily agree or believe it is the
case, and I appreciate your clarification.
I do think that in this instance, because there is so much
at stake, that negotiation is reasonable on this instance
because there has been a change in the top, and the rhetoric
has changed, and just explore what the options are. But I am,
as many Americans are, concerned about implications for the
broader region, and for our only true ally in the region, which
is Israel, which has very much at stake to lose.
So I ask you what, other than the rhetoric, anything other
than the rhetoric, has changed on the ground regarding the
nuclear program and ambitions of Iran that should lead us to
believe that we should change our position? Is there anything
other than rhetoric, tangible?
Mr. Dubowitz. Nothing has changed in--fundamentally changed
in the rhetoric, I would argue. The nuances have changed. The
nuclear physics have changed. Iran has advanced its programs
significantly.
I think what has changed is there is a sense now in Iran
that they can have their cake and eat it, too. They can have a
nuclear weapons program and a buoyant economy----
Mr. Perry. Let me redirect----
Mr. Dubowitz [continuing]. Except for--I am sorry, just to
finish--that was the choice.
Unfortunately the negotiations at Geneva are showing the
Iranian regime that they can have a nuclear weapon, and
sanctions relief, and a stabilized economy that gets the oil
flowing. And then Supreme Leader Khamenei can do what he has
always wanted to do. He wants to be a regional power; he
doesn't want to be the Persian equivalent of North Korea.
Mr. Perry. My question, I guess, should have been very
clear: What has changed for us? What would incentivize us? What
would motivate us? I know what is changed for them. What is in
it for us? Aren't they still buying time? Aren't they still
enriching? Why don't we require them as a minimum standard to
dismantle their military portion of it, knowing that they could
enrich to very low levels and create power if they wanted to
and have no military application. Shouldn't that be our minimum
standard? What has changed in that calculation for America?
Mr. Dubowitz. Congressman, nothing has changed.
Mr. Perry. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We go to Mr. Juan Vargas of California.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to say Vive la France. Vive la France. Thank
God for the French. They saved us on this one.
Mr. Perry. It is unfortunate.
Mr. Vargas. It is unfortunate, no, but thank God for the
French. It is interesting how the French really stepped in and
say, what are you guys doing? This is not enough. You can't
trust this deal. And I completely agree with them.
I mean, it seems to me if you really want to get a deal,
you have to get the ultimate deal first, and that is you have
to agree, you and Iran have to agree, that you can't get a
nuclear weapon, that you can't have the nuclear weapons
program. Let us agree to that first, agree to that; then we
will agree to the interim program. Then we can talk about what
we can do to get there. But agree with that first.
But I don't think they will ever agree to that, because I
think that is what they want. I mean, it seems almost ludicrous
to me to think that they want anything other than that.
Their nuclear program is interesting because it actually
began back in the 1950s, and the United States was the one that
helped them. That was the Atoms for Peace program, I think it
was called. We were the ones that first got involved with this
nuclear program with the Iranians. And they wanted to develop
energy, of course, and now it has taken on a very new dimension
since the revolution there. And I think it is ludicrous for us
to think that they are trying to do anything other than that
with this program.
One of the things I was going to--and I do want you to talk
about is this, because I don't think most Americans get this.
When I talk to people about this, they say, well, they need
this fuel, that is why they are doing it. No, they don't. You
mentioned 19 countries, but could you explain more specifically
why they don't need to enrich to this level, because many, many
countries have nuclear programs, nuclear energy, and they don't
do this.
Mr. Dubowitz. That is exactly right, Congressman. So,
again, there are 19 countries in the world that have civilian
nuclear programs, they buy their nuclear fuel from abroad, and
the economic assessments that I have seen actually demonstrate
that it is more expensive for Iran to power a civilian nuclear
program with its own domestic enrichment capability or
plutonium reprocessing capability than it would be to buy
nuclear fuel from abroad.
So it doesn't make economic sense. It certainly hasn't made
sense at all, because they have been under punishing sanctions
that have really put severe stress on their economy, though
those sanctions haven't been crippling enough to actually
change their fundamental calculus. And so one wonders why they
continue to persist in this program. If this program is for
civilian purposes. It makes no sense economically, it makes no
sense politically, but it makes a whole lot of sense if your
goal is to build a nuclear bomb, and to have regional power,
and to achieve regional hegemony, and to threaten your
neighbors. Then it makes a lot of sense.
Mr. Vargas. And that, to me, sounds absolutely obvious. Why
would they allow themselves to go through these sanctions when
they could very easily say tomorrow, you know what, we are
going to give up this program; you know, we are going to give
up this enrichment program, we are not going to weaponize.
Instead we just want peaceful nuclear energy. We just want
nuclear energy to run the lights here in our country. They
could do that tomorrow and not go through these sanctions that
are--they are not crippling, but are going to damage their
economy.
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, that is exactly right. And you would
also ask, well, why have you engaged in decades of nuclear
deception? Why haven't you come clean with the international
community on these possible military dimensions of your
program? Why have you lied? And since you have lied, how can we
actually believe in your promises of transparency going
forward?
I mean, it gets back to this old issue which we don't even
talk about, at least I haven't heard this discussion, what does
the safeguards regime look like? What does the verification and
inspection regime look like postdeal?
And by the way, when the Iranians engage in strategic
incrementalism, which is known as incremental cheating, what is
our response going to be? So they don't let inspectors into
Parchin 2, Parchin 3 and Parchin 4, okay, or they block access
to certain critical facilities where they are manufacturing
centrifuges, et cetera, et cetera. What are we going to do as
the United States of America to ensure those inspectors get to
see what they want to see, and that the Iranians are not
engaging in cheating and diverting their enriched uranium for
military purposes?
I would contend to you, sir, that a lot of experts at that
point will say to you, that is when we are going to use
military force. And I would suggest to you as well that I find
that very hard to believe.
Mr. Vargas. I would, too.
Mr. Dubowitz. And not credible.
Mr. Vargas. Especially where we are right now. That is why
I think we have to get the ultimate deal first or no deal at
all. Then you can negotiate the interim. But until we get
there, I don't see how we can have any kind of meaningful deal
that is verifiable or enforceable. So again, in light of that,
I would say again Vive la France. Thank God for the French on
this. At least they are open-eyed on this.
Mr. Dubowitz. The French are the guardians of
nonproliferation. And there is a great editorial in Le Monde
today, which is the leading French newspaper. I would suggest
all of you read it. Le Monde, I think, described this very,
very carefully and accurately about why the French care so
deeply about stopping Iran's march to nuclear weapons.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Vargas.
We go now to Jeff Duncan of South Carolina.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding a very
timely and valuable hearing for the American people to watch
and for us to participate in.
Most of my questions were answered. I just don't want 2013
to resemble 1938. I don't want to reach a deal that is so weak
that it will resemble the deal, the Munich Agreement, which
Neville Chamberlain so aptly said, ``Peace in our time''; is so
remembered for an agreement which allowed Germany to continue
its march to war unfettered. I do not want Iran to continue its
march to a nuclear arsenal unfettered.
Chinks in armor. For centuries enemies have looked for
chinks in the armor. And I think when a Presidential candidate
says that he would sit down with a country like Iran, who
Americans know are not sincere, they sit down with no
preconditions, I think that begins the chink in the armor. I
think when you have weak agreements, that you expand that chink
and give the enemy an opportunity to get into the underbelly,
the weak underbelly, of a country.
Mr. Rahall mentioned earlier our relationship with Israel,
the United States relationship with Israel, and I think you
said that it has never been stronger. But, you know, Israel is
concerned about this to the point that they have come out
strongly opposed to the Obama administration negotiations. In
fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted on November 7th this: He
said in his tweet, if the news from Geneva is true, this is the
deal of the century for hashtag Iran. And he went it on to say,
Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistan nuclear weapon projects
with a potential ability to obtain atomic bombs at will. Israel
is concerned, and they should be.
Since June when Rouhani was elected, Treasury has issued
only two designation notices that identified six people in four
companies violating the Iranian sanctions. The Obama
administration has also opposed new Iran sanctions, the
bipartisan legislation which has passed Congress. We have every
right to be concerned. We have every right to hold these kind
of hearings to raise awareness and address these issues. I
think the panelists have done a great job really identifying
the problems and the concerns that we all should have.
So I want to shift gears, Mr. Dubowitz, and just ask you
about the gold sanctions implementation just for a minute,
because I had an amendment to a bill that came through this
very committee which addressed the gold sanctions and
specifically Turkey. Section 5(a) of Executive Order 13622
sanctions a person that has materially assisted, sponsored, or
provided financial, material, or technological support for, or
goods or services in support of, among other items of purchase
or acquisition, U.S. Bank notes or precious metals by the
Government of Iran. This is an Executive Order by the Obama
administration. Given that any effort to evade or avoid the
sanctions is a violation, how many people has the
administration sanctioned under this Executive Order, to your
knowledge?
Mr. Dubowitz. To my knowledge, none.
Mr. Duncan. Who specifically has the administration
sanctioned for gold or related transactions with the Government
of Iran?
Mr. Dubowitz. Well, that was hard. That was the answer to
my question, none.
Mr. Duncan. None. Same answer, none.
So if we are not enforcing these kind of Executive Orders
and these kind of sanctions, what kind of weight do they carry,
and what signal does that send to the folks in the region?
Mr. Dubowitz. On the gold issue it is complicated, but it
is instructive for the way forward. That Executive Order was in
July 2012. Between July 2012 and July 1st of 2013, when the
congressional gold sanctions came into effect, at the request
of the administration they were delayed, as you remember, by
180 days. Iran earned $6 billion worth of gold between July and
July to add to its foreign exchange reserves. Now, since
congressional sanctions had actually come into effect in July
of this year, the gold sales to Iran have plummeted. They have
come off a cliff. And the congressional sanctions have been
actually very, very effective.
Now, if we are now going to be offering gold sanctions
relief as part of some interim measure, we estimate that that
gold relief could be worth about $9.6 billion over a 6-month
period. And we get that because the height of the monthly gold
sales that Iran was actually accessing last July was about $1.6
billion per month, so they were at about a monthly high of $1.6
billion. If they get back to $1.6 billion with gold sanctions
relief, that is 6 months at $1.6 billion, that is $9.6 billion,
almost $10 billion worth of gold, which, by the way, is 50
percent of their total fully accessible foreign exchange
reserves. So right now they only have $20 billion in fully
accessible reserves. We are about to add $10 billion to the $20
billion and give them $30 billion in accessible reserves. That
is the price of sanctions relief in exchange for incremental
nuclear concessions that buy them economic runway and don't
give us the opportunity to efficiently block their nuclear
physics runway.
Mr. Duncan. It continues to buy them time.
Mr. Dubowitz. $10 billion. It is 50 percent increase in
their fully accessible reserves.
Mr. Duncan. And from what I hear you saying, the gold
sanctions have worked.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Royce. I thank the chairman, and I thank the
witnesses, too. I thank them for their testimony.
And, Members, thank you for being here today. These are
critical times for the national security of the United States.
And as we have heard, central to these talks is the issue of
uranium enrichment and reprocessing. These technologies can
produce the explosive material needed for a nuclear bomb, and
that is why multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions have
reiterated the demand that all of Iran's enrichment activities,
regardless of their purpose, must be suspended. Six such
resolutions. On this question the world has spoken decisively,
and on this question I think our members of the committee have
spoken, too.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:34 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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