[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
.
IMPLICATIONS OF A NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH
IRAN (PART I)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 9, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-79
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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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 BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
15 deg.
DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
of 5/19/15 deg.
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Michael Doran, Ph.D., senior fellow, Hudson Institute............ 5
The Honorable Stephen G. Rademaker, foreign policy project
advisor, Bipartisan Policy Center (former Assistant Secretary,
Bureau of Arms Control & Bureau of International Security and
Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State).................... 12
Michael Makovsky, Ph.D., chief executive officer, JINSA Germunder
Center Iran Task Force......................................... 22
Kenneth M. Pollack, Ph.D., senior fellow, Center for Middle East
Policy, The Brookings Institution.............................. 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Michael Doran, Ph.D.: Prepared statement......................... 8
The Honorable Stephen G. Rademaker: Prepared statement........... 15
Michael Makovsky, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 25
Kenneth M. Pollack, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.................... 40
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 84
Hearing minutes.................................................. 85
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 87
IMPLICATIONS OF A NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN (PART I)
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THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. The hearing will come to order.
I will ask all the members to take their seats at this
time. Today the committee continues to examine the Obama
administration's nuclear diplomacy with Iran as we get set for
a congressional review of a possible, and hugely consequential,
agreement.
As we speak, U.S. negotiators in Vienna face another
deadline. While we don't have an agreement in front of us, we
know the troubling outline taking shape. Just a few months ago,
367 Members of Congress signed a letter, Ranking Member Engel
and I led stating that any final agreement must last for
multiple decades and include full disclosure of Iran's past
efforts to build a nuclear weapon, must include a dramatic
reduction in the number of centrifuges, and, most importantly,
intrusive inspection and verification measures.
A few weeks ago, several of President Obama's former
advisers signed an open letter echoing these same concerns and
warned that these negotiations may fall short of meeting the
administration's own standard of a ``good'' agreement. Indeed,
one witness with us today wrote back when these negotiations
began, that a ``good enough'' agreement would have Iran giving
up ``all but a minimal enrichment capacity,'' agree to
intrusive inspections, and would be an agreement that could
guarantee the reimposition of sanctions.
But that is not even close to where the negotiations are
right now. The ``most robust and intensive inspections,'' and
this was the original goal, ``the most robust and intrusive
inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any
nuclear program in history,'' has morphed instead into an
agreement of what is now discussed as ``managed access'' with
the Iranians having a big say in where international inspectors
can go, where international inspectors cannot go. ``Managed
access'' is a big back away from the ``anywhere, anytime''
terms that the administration once demanded.
But to be clear, under this agreement, Iran doesn't even
have to cheat to be a few steps away from the bomb. Iran is not
required to dismantle key bomb-making technology; it is
permitted a vast enrichment capacity and it is allowed to
continue its research and development to gain an industrialized
nuclear program once the agreement begins to expire in as
little as 10 years. That is hardly the original concept of
``decades'' of a long-range agreement. And, frankly, it is
hardly ``all but minimal enrichment'' that was the original
goal as well.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop its ballistic missile
capabilities. After Iran's Supreme Leader called demands to
restrict its missile program a ``stupid, idiotic expectation,''
in his words, U.S. negotiators backed off this key demand.
Instead, Iran is still able to ``mass produce'' its ballistic
missiles as the Supreme Leader has ordered. If you will recall
his quote at the time, he said it is the responsibility of
every military man to figure out how to help mass produce
ICBMs. We ought to be concerned, really concerned about that
attitude, and some of his additional suggestions about what he
would like to do to the United States. One witness told the
committee last month that, ``no country that has not aspired to
possess nuclear weapons has ever opted to sustain'' a costly,
long-range missile program. Already, U.S. intelligence
estimates Iran to have the largest arsenal of ballistic
missiles in the entire Middle East. Simply put, countries build
ICBMs to have the capability to deliver nukes.
Not to mention that the terrorist state of Iran will be
flush with cash. Reportedly, Iran will receive somewhere in the
range of $50 billion under this agreement upfront; $150 billion
over the entire length of the agreement. Now, that would be 25
times the annual budget of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Such a huge amount will breathe life into Iran's economy, but
it will also fund a new generation of terrorism in the region
and beyond. We should be worried when Iran announces, as they
recently did, that they will help rebuild the tunnels in Gaza,
that they will transfer missiles to Hamas, and recently that
they will provide 100,000 rockets and missiles for Hezbollah
with new technology which will allow precision guidance systems
so that those rockets and missiles can hit targets across
Israel.
At every step in this process, whether it is enrichment
capacity, missile development, or sanctions relief, the Obama
administration has discounted the fundamental nature of the
regime in Iran. ``Death to America'' isn't domestic spin in
Iran--it is the regime's rallying cry. And tomorrow, on Friday,
they will once again celebrate Quds Day. Since 1979, since the
foundation of the revolution, that is the day they set aside to
celebrate for the destruction of Israel.
As one witness concludes, ``President Obama is agreeing to
dismantle of sanctions regime--permanently. In return, Iran is
agreeing to slow the development of its nuclear program--
temporarily.'' That is a bad deal for us: Permanent concessions
in exchange for temporary benefits, and that is only if Iran
doesn't cheat, like North Korea cheated. So Iran is left a few
steps away from the bomb and more able to dominate the region.
This is my take on this. How does that make us and our allies
more secure or conflict less likely? That is the bottom line
this committee will continue to look at. Few issues are more
important. I now turn to the ranking member for any opening
comments that he may have.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank for your calling this hearing. And thank you for your
steady leadership as we confront the problems of Iran's nuclear
program. To our witnesses, thank you. Welcome. It is important
that members hear views from across the spectrum as we play our
part and weigh a potential deal.
I have said from day one the devil is in the details. And
until I know exactly what is in the deal, it is hard to comment
on whether it deserves support or not. I have been troubled as
I have said many times on the outset of these negotiations.
Firstly, I have been very troubled that Iran was allowed to
enrich and spin centrifuges while we are talking. I think it
would have been a heck of a lot better if Iran was told if you
want to have serious negotiations with us, while we talk, you
stop enriching. But that wasn't done. And that is
disappointing. I am told that Iran wouldn't agree to it. Well,
does that tell you something about their motives at the outset?
I am also disturbed that we are talking about Iran's nuclear
capability. We are not talking about, as the chairman pointed
out, all the destructive roles they play around the world as
the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. Somehow or other, we
are not really talking about that in these negotiations. We
have four Americans in prison there. We had a hearing in this
committee not long ago. I don't know, are they in limbo? What
is the story? I think it is preposterous that our people are
held hostage while we are negotiating with them.
And the rhetoric still continues to come out. Syria, where
hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and maimed,
the Iranians prop up the Assad regime, Hezbollah, Hamas, you
name it, Yemen, they have played negative roles. And so it is
very, very troubling. And, again, the devil is in the details.
I am glad that the reports are coming out that the
administration is digging in its heels. A lot of people said
that they would cave at the last minute on some of these issues
because they wanted a deal very badly. I think that is being
shown that it is not the case, and the Iranians are going to
have to make some tough choices or else we are prepared to walk
away. I have said from day one that we couldn't want a deal
more than the Iranians. If that is the case, then they will
just, again, dig in their heels.
And so they need to want a deal, and they need to be ready
to make tough concessions. The chairman pointed out some of the
troubling aspects of this. There are a few potential
implications of a deal I would like to touch on this morning.
One of my serious concerns throughout this process is sanctions
relief. Even if sanctions relief is gradual and conditioned on
Iran's compliance with the deal, easing sanctions will
eventually, as the chairman said, translate into a major
financial windfall for Iran's leaders. Let's think about what
that means.
Even with sanctions in place, even with sanctions in place,
Iran is still the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the
world. Even with a crumbling economy, Iran spreads its
destabilizing influence in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza,
and among our Gulf allies. Iran's leaders have said they will
use sanctions relief to help their people and shore up their
economy. I will believe it when I see it. So Congress will need
to play a role here. The House has already passed legislation
to curb funding to Hezbollah, which is wreaking havoc in
Lebanon and helping Assad cling to power in Syria. I hope the
Senate will act on this measure. And however sanctions relief
plays out in the Iran deal, Congress needs to make sure that
our sanctions against terrorist groups remain robust and
effective. That way, no matter what Iran chooses to do with its
resources, we will have other measures to keep funding out of
terrorist hands.
The other issue I would like to address is how other
countries across the region may respond to a deal. Iran is a
nuclear threshold state. This leaves our ally Israel in a
constant state of insecurity. Israel must always know we will
have their back to deal with that challenge. We need to work
with the Israelis, take a hard look at any outstanding concerns
tied to this deal, and do whatever is necessary to ensure
Israel's security.
Likewise, for our friends in the Gulf, a nuclear arms race
would create tremendous volatility in the region. Recently at
Camp David, the administration heard from our Sunni Gulf allies
about their concerns over Iran's behavior. This summit was a
good start but more needs to be done. I hope our witnesses can
shed some light on what steps might help shore up stability in
the region in the wake of a deal. But I think we also have to
consider, and I want to raise a question that I have asked
again and again: If we don't get a deal, what are the
alternatives? At this point, we all know the refrain, no deal
is better than a bad deal.
But let's see what the alternative would be. The
alternative to a deal would surely mean some kind of military
strikes on Iran's nuclear plants and would also involve
sanctions. I think when we weigh whatever final deal there is,
we have to weigh it with the alternative and see which
alternative we like better. There are no good choices. But it
is very, very troubling that Iran continues to do what it has
been doing and that we hear negative things from the Supreme
Leader talking about all kinds of nonsense that we could not
accept in any kind of a deal.
So we need to consider where we will find ourselves if
these negotiations fail. We cannot accept a bad deal again, but
we need to weigh the P5+1 proposal versus the alternatives. I
look forward to hearing our witnesses' insights on these
issues. And I thank them again for their testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel.
This morning, we are pleased to be joined by a
distinguished group of experts. Dr. Michael Doran is a former
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Senior Director at
the National Security Council. He is currently a senior fellow
in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institution.
Mr. Stephen Rademaker is former Assistant Secretary at the
U.S. Department of State for the Bureau of Arms Control and
Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Mr.
Rademaker is an adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center and
formally served as chief counsel at this committee. And we
welcome him back.
Dr. Michael Makovsky also served in the Pentagon where he
advised senior officials on defense and energy policy in the
Middle East. He currently heads the Iran Task Force at the
Institute for National Security Affairs.
Dr. Ken Pollack is a senior fellow at the Center for Middle
East Policy at Brookings. Dr. Pollack served twice on the
National Security Council where he focused on Iraq, Iran, and
the Persian Gulf.
Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements
will be made part of the record. And members will have 5
calendar days to submit any statements or questions or
extraneous materials for the record.
And, Mr. Doran, please summarize your remarks if you will.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DORAN, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON
INSTITUTE
Mr. Doran. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, members of
the committee, thank you for inviting me today to discuss the
strategic implications of the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
With your permission, I will focus my remarks on the
perceptions of America's Middle Eastern allies.
For decades, our partners in the region have been divided
among themselves on many consequential issues. But on one point
they have all agreed: The importance of the United States as
the guarantor of the regional order. They have also
traditionally assumed that a primary duty of the guarantor was
to orchestrate the containment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
However, President Obama's pursuit of the nuclear accord
has convinced our allies that he has shed that duty. None of
them believe that he has any inclination to contain the
expansionist Iran. And some of them even fear that he supports
Iran's ascendancy.
Of course, the President is well acquainted with these
fears. In recent months, therefore, he and his staff have
labored intensively to convince the allies that the nuclear
accord is, in fact, consistent with their defense needs. The
Gulf Cooperation Council Summit at Camp David in May was a
prime example of these efforts. Our allies, however, have found
the administration's arguments utterly unpersuasive.
Mr. Chairman, it is my intention here to do three things:
To sketch some of the key concerns of our allies; to describe
some of the arguments that the administration has made to meet
those concerns; and then to explain why those arguments fall
flat.
Our Middle Eastern allies passed judgment on the Iran deal
a long time ago. It is in their eyes a very bad deal. Israeli
Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu has been uniquely vocal in
expressing his disapproval. But his view is widely shared by
his neighbors who, like Netanyahu, feel abandoned and betrayed
by the United States. In my written testimony, I go into
greater detail about the sources of those feelings. For the
purpose of brevity here, suffice it to say that over the course
of the nuclear negotiations, the allies have seen U.S.
relations with Iran become increasingly friendly. They are
certainly disturbed by President Obama's willingness to bless
Iran as a nuclear threshold state. But they are equally
unnerved by the lack of concern that he has demonstrated as
Iran has flexed its muscles in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. When
viewed from capitals, such as Riyadh and Jerusalem, it appears
that there is a hidden price to the nuclear deal, a price that
will be paid by the allies more than anyone else.
The United States appears to be tacitly recognizing an
Iranian sphere of interest in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Indeed,
Washington has at times even publicly approved of Iran's
expansionism. When, for example, Secretary of State John Kerry
characterized Iranian combat sorties in Iraq as ``a good
thing,'' his words were greeted with shock and anger throughout
the Gulf. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon thus spoke for
all of America's allies last week when he lamented that the
United States now sees Iran as part of the solution, not the
problem.
Of course, President Obama is well aware of the fears that
his policies are generating. And he and his advisers have
crafted a number of arguments to quell them. These arguments,
which my written testimony covers in some detail, all work in
support of a simple thesis, that the comprehensive nuclear
agreement with Iran will not undermine an American commitment
to the allies' security. In fact, the administration is now
claiming the deal can function as the first step in a new
comprehensive regional strategy. The Camp David Summit, so the
story goes, laid the groundwork for a new strategic partnership
with the GCC states, a partnership that will speed arms
transfers and increase cooperation on counterterrorism,
ballistic missiles, and a host of other cooperative security
ventures.
In truth, America's Gulf allies have no confidence that
President Obama will actually deliver on what they consider to
be their vital needs. They are intensely aware that his
understanding of the phrase ``Iran containment'' and their
understanding of the phrase are entirely different. What they
desire from the United States is a policy of rollback, a set of
initiatives designed to drive Iran from Syria and Yemen, to
challenge Hezbollah's monopoly over politics in Lebanon, and to
weaken the role of Shiite militias in Iraq. They want the
United States to lead a regional security system that will
counter the Revolutionary Guard Corps at its favored game,
subversion.
By contrast, President Obama is offering tools and
initiatives that will help the GCC states maintain stability at
home and mount a collective defense against a conventional
attack from Iran. The America approach, in other words, simply
does not meet the threat as the allies actually experience it.
In their eyes, President Obama is like a doctor who is
prescribing heart medicine to a cancer patient.
At the close of the GCC summit, President Obama went out of
his way to make sure that his approach to containment would not
be misunderstood. I want to be very clear, he said, the purpose
of security cooperation is not to perpetuate any long-term
confrontation with Iran or even to marginalize Iran.
Our allies got the President's message loud and clear: The
United States is out of the business of Iran containment as it
has been understood in Washington for the last 36 years.
Unlike the Israelis, our Gulf allies have chosen not to
advertise their sense of abandonment and betrayal. Instead,
they have chosen simply to go their own way, quietly. For
example, Riyadh organized a coalition of Sunni allies that
intervened in Yemen in order to counter the Iranian-backed
Houthi rebels in that country. But the intervention was also
meant to send a message to President Obama: If you won't
organize the region to contain Iran, we will.
To drive home the point, the Saudis gave Washington only an
hour's notice before their intervention began. The Saudis and
their closest allies will remain dedicated to contesting
Obama's policies, albeit quietly. And they will continue to
fight back against Iran and its proxies in Yemen, Syria, and
Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Iranians, flush with cash from the nuclear
deal, with grow bolder and richer and more prone to
intervention. The President's Iran policy, therefore, will
deliver disequilibrium to the Middle East, the exact opposite
of what the administration is claiming.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify. It is an honor
to speak before this committee on such a consequential topic.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Doran follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Mr. Rademaker.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE STEPHEN G. RADEMAKER, FOREIGN POLICY
PROJECT ADVISOR, BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER (FORMER ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF ARMS CONTROL & BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY AND NONPROLIFERATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)
Mr. Rademaker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Engel,
members of the committee.
It is a pleasure to be here again to testify on this issue.
And it is a special pleasure for me to be here with Dr.
Makovsky, with whom I have worked on this issue on two Iran
task forces at this point. We haven't coordinated our
testimony, but I am sure I am going to agree with what he says.
I will summarize my testimony. At the moment, we are all
focused, because the press is focused, on the remaining issues
in disagreement in negotiations. But one of my points is we
shouldn't allow that focus on issues like inspections and the
possible military dimensions to divert our attention from the
more fundamental problems with this agreement, which I think
are basically baked in. The first point I make in my testimony
is that even if all the issues that are in dispute today, the
ones we are reading about in the newspapers, are resolved on
favorable terms to the United States, this is still a bad deal.
And I would refer you to the testimony I presented previously
as to why I think it is a bad deal.
But among all the reasons that I have put forward in the
past, the single most important one to my mind is the sunset
clause. And the point I have made in the past and I repeat in
my testimony today is that if it is dangerous for the United
States to face an Iran today that in 2 to 3 months is able to
produce a nuclear weapon, if that is dangerous and it is so
important to extend that to a 1-year breakout time, that we are
prepared to eliminate all the sanctions that we put in place,
why isn't it going to be even more dangerous in 10 years for
Iran to have a much shorter breakout time with which they will
be able to produce a much larger number of nuclear weapons than
is the case today?
If 2 to 3 months is dangerous today, isn't it going to be
vastly more dangerous to have a breakout time that measures in
days or weeks starting 10 years from now? That is fundamentally
what this deal provides to Iran. And to me, that is what is
most alarming about it.
I spent a lot of time in my testimony focusing on the
statement that was put out by the group of bipartisan American
diplomats, leaders, and experts at the Washington Institute, a
very distinguished group, including some of President Obama's
former advisers on the Iran issue, including Howard Berman, the
former chairman of this committee. It is a very useful
statement, and I expect it will figure importantly in the
congressional debate that takes place because of the stature of
these individuals. They identify a number of concerns. They
make a number of recommendations for modifications to the
agreement. I agree with their comments. I hope those
modifications are made.
But less noted is the fact that they are also concerned
about the sunset clause. They don't use that term, but it is in
the statement. And they come up with what I think is actually a
radical solution to the sunset clause problem. And I want to
draw your attention to it because I think it speaks to the
question of what Congress should do and what situation is this
deal putting the United States in and what do we do about it.
I quote the relevant language from their statement,
beginning at the bottom of page 2 of my testimony, but what
they say is it needs to be U.S. policy to prevent Iran from
producing sufficient fissile material--that is material to
produce a nuclear weapon--sufficient material for a single
nuclear weapon, both during the agreement and after the
agreement expires. So that ``after the agreement expires,''
they are talking about the sunset clause. We need to make sure
they can't produce enough material for a nuclear weapon either
now or after the agreement expires. And they say: The United
States must go on record now that it is committed to using all
means necessary, including military force, to prevent this. The
President should declare this to be U.S. policy, and Congress
should formally endorse it.
So they are basically saying you, the Congress, should
authorize the use of military force if Iran at any point,
either during the agreement or afterwards, produces enough
fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Now, the reason that is
a radical proposal is, of course, the proposed agreement, in
fact, permits Iran to produce enough fissile material for a
nuclear weapon. Basically what they are saying is if this
agreement comes into force, the United States concedes to Iran
the right to produce fissile material and lots of it if they
decide they need to do that, but we should then bomb them if
they exercise this right that we are giving to them. And I
think that is a pretty sobering recommendation because this
debate is often cast in terms of we either need this deal, or
we are going to have to go to war. It is the deal or war. But
if you read what all these experts are telling you, they are
saying: Well, actually there may be war even if we give them
this deal because the deal is going to authorize them or permit
them to do things that would require us to use military force
in any event.
I mean, these are not random people. These are very serious
people, including President Obama's top advisers. And the point
I make at the very end of my testimony is that, as
distinguished as these people are, I don't think that
recommendation makes a lot of sense. If we are going to bomb
Iran, let's do it in defense of the existing U.N. Security
Council resolutions. Let's not do it in defiance of this
agreement that the President is about to sign because this
agreement permits Iran to do things that they are saying if
Iran does, we need to bomb them. I think we will find ourselves
without many friends if we disregard this agreement and then
proceed to use military force against Iran.
So that is one of the key points of my testimony. I also do
comment on some of these issues in dispute, the possible
military dimensions issue, which is a question of the history
of the Iranian nuclear program. I think it is very important.
Secretary Kerry said we know enough; we don't need to get into
this. I think the International Atomic Energy Agency deserves
the support of the United States to get to the bottom of that
question. We know how to require countries--we required North
Korea to cooperate with the IAEA. They have never required,
they have never conditioned any of the benefits in this
agreement on cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. They call
for it, but they don't condition anything on it. So that is not
serious support to the IAEA in its effort to get to the bottom
of the matter.
One of the other issues that has just emerged in the last
week is Iran is suddenly saying, contrary to what was in the
fact sheet that was released on April 2 that described the
proposed deal, that fact sheet said sanctions on ballistic
missiles and conventional arms transfers from Iran would be
kept in place. The Iranians are now saying they want all those
sanctions to be ended. The intelligence community assesses that
with foreign assistance, Iran this year could test a ballistic
missile capable of striking the United States. Understand that
what Iran is saying is they want the prohibitions on receiving
that kind of foreign assistance to go away. They are saying: We
want to be able to get the foreign assistance we need to be
able to produce a ballistic missile to strike the United States
this year.
And as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, their whole ballistic
missile program makes no sense in the absence of a nuclear
weapon. To strike the United States with a conventionally armed
ballistic missile makes no sense. With a nuclear weapon, it is
a serious threat. And the idea that these two are unrelated is
simply illogical. And, in fact, it is part of the possible
military dimensions issue that the IAEA wants to dig into. They
want to look at the links between the ballistic missile program
and the nuclear program. And that is why the United States
needs to support them on that issue.
I think I am out of time. So I will end. And I look forward
to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rademaker follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Dr. Makovsky.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MAKOVSKY, PH.D., CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
JINSA GERMUNDER CENTER IRAN TASK FORCE
Mr. Makovsky. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, members
of the committee, thank you very much for inviting me this
morning to discuss the emerging Iran deal. I also am very
honored to be on the panel with Steve Rademaker. We have worked
together on Iran, on the task force, since 2007. Based on what
we know today, the emerging comprehensive Iran deal is deeply
flawed and with historically severe implications for U.S.
standing in national security. So I believe every day the deal
isn't concluded is a good day.
The Obama administration has four primary arguments on
behalf of this emerging deal: First, it will cut off every
pathway to a nuclear weapon. But President Obama correctly
acknowledged in April that in 10 or 15 years, Iran's ``breakout
times would have shrunk almost down to zero.''
The second argument is that it will delay a nuclear Iran
for over a decade. Delay is, indeed, strategically very
valuable, but only if Iran's nuclear program is truly frozen
and Iran contained, which is not the case with this deal.
Third, that a military strike would create a much shorter
delay than a deal. But Israeli strikes on Syrian and Iraqi
nuclear facilities actually have pushed back their programs for
many years and counting. And Israelis believe they could push
back Iran's program for at least 3 years. The United States has
obviously a lot more capability, and will likely push it back
even further, especially with continued vigilance. We can't
predict, of course, exactly what a military strike would delay
the program. But I think it is safe to say that it would, could
dissuade other countries from developing their own nuclear
program.
Fourth, the only alternative to this deal is war. That is
their fourth argument. President Obama claims that Iran came to
the table because of sanctions. Yet he also contends that any
further pressure would only cause it to restart its nuclear
program, leading to war. In fact, as you all know, Iran has
shown itself susceptible to military and economic pressure. And
we obviously could do a lot more since we could cut off their
oil exports. It wouldn't have any impact on the oil market,
with prices having halved in the last year.
However, the administration does not avail itself of these
other options; leaving itself only diplomacy without other
levers simply becomes pleading. This empty holster, as Tom
Friedman recently put it, has made war not the alternative but
possibly the consequence of this deal. Let me discuss some of
the strategic implications of this deal. Since at least Jimmy
Carter was President, America has had three main interests in
the Middle East; a secure Israel, a secure flow of oil from the
Persian Gulf, and weakening of Islamic radicalism. These three
interests have converged in containing the Islamic Republic of
Iran. President Obama came into office seeking to reverse
traditional U.S. foreign policy which he deemed wrong, often
wrong, counterproductive, and a divergence from domestic
demands. That has led him to reach out and eventually to
embrace Iran and align with it at the expense of our
traditional allies. Hence, he did not support the 2009 uprising
in Tehran and did not support Assad's opponents in Syria. And
he didn't implement the 2013 Syrian red line. Yet he did
support in 2011 the demonstrations against our allied regimes.
He also initiated secret talks with Iran even when Ahmadinejad
was President without consulting or informing our allies like
the Saudis and the Israelis. As Mike Doran mentioned, he has
also increased our alignment with Iran in other parts of the
region.
This policy has culminated in what I believe is an
overeagerness to accommodate Iran in the nuclear talks despite
the fact that Iran, frankly, is a third-rate power. The result
is questionable U.S. reliability and questionable American
credibility. There are a number of great consequences to this
policy. First, some of our Sunni allies will seek to develop
nuclear programs or acquire nuclear weapons to ensure security.
As Henry Kissinger and George Shultz wrote in April, do we now
envision an interlocking series of rivalries with each new
nuclear program counterbalancing others in the region? The fact
is nuclear contagion will regionalize this challenge so that we
will no longer just have to monitor what Iran is doing and not
doing with its nuclear program, but we will have to also be
looking at what the Saudis and other countries in the region
are doing with their nuclear program. This will increase the
risks, the chances of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East,
whether through intent or miscalculation. And it could well
draw in the United States.
Second, the radicals in the region, such as Hezbollah,
Hamas, ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood, will feel emboldened
by this deal and what they perceive as American capitulation.
There will also be continued realignment in the region. Other
countries will seek closer relations in the region with Russia
and China. Other countries, including net oil importers, will
seek closer relations with Iranians. Of course, on the positive
side, the Israelis and the Arabs, who share a sense of
abandonment by the United States, will intensify their quiet
collaboration.
Fourth, to counteract all the above, the United States will
likely try to contain a nuclear Iran as we did in the Cold War.
However, containment is based on deterrence. Deterrence, in
turn, demands credibility, of which we will have little on this
issue. It requires indefinite, dedicated, and expensive
commitment. And it is unclear whether containment even applies
and deterrence applies to the Iranian regime.
Fifth, Israel could well feel compelled to strike Iran. In
short, rising tension and even war, including nuclear war,
could result from this deal and is not its alternative.
In conclusion, as the chairman knows, I wrote a book on
Winston Churchill. And he famously said to Neville Chamberlain,
who, by the way, was his party leader, as well as the Prime
Minister, in 1938 about the Munich Agreement: You were given
the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and
you will have war.
This is not to compare leaders or situations to today. But
it is to make two points: First that the consequence of this
deal will not be peace but greater tension and the risk of
conventional war and even nuclear conflict that can draw in the
United States. Second, this issue transcends any administration
or party. There could still be hope. But an acceptable
diplomatic solution will require fully and truly employing, in
President Obama's words of 2009, all elements of American
power.
I urge Congress that if this deal is concluded to reject
the emerging deal and reinvigorate American leverage and
credibility to achieve an acceptable deal and prevent a nuclear
Iran at all costs.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Makovsky follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you. Dr. Pollack.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH M. POLLACK, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER
FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Mr. Pollack. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, Congressman
Engel, distinguished members, thank you very much for inviting
me to testify before you.
I don't know what the terms of the deal are going to look
like. And those terms are important. As a result, I am going to
reserve judgment for now on what I think about the actual deal
until I have it before me. And although the details of the deal
are important, not inconsequential, I think, like many of my
panel members, that it is also important that we recognize that
the details of the deal are not the only thing that needs to be
thought about, that needs to be discussed, that needs to be
debated with regard to the deal.
And I fear that we are drowning out other critical aspects
of this issue in our fixation with the specific terms of the
deal. In particular, we all need to constantly remember that
our fears about the Iranian nuclear program are fears about how
that program could exacerbate the circumstances in the region
itself. Our fear has always been that Iran with nuclear weapons
or even a threshold capability would be encouraged and enabled
to act more aggressively in the region. In other words, any
nuclear agreement with Iran needs to be seen as a means to an
end, not an end in and of itself. It needs to be seen as a part
of a wider American strategy toward the region. And we need to
consider that entire strategy, not just the specific terms of
the deal.
Obviously, the terms of the deal will be important in
deciding how we should shape our strategy moving forward and in
the context of a region changed by whatever happens in that
deal. But we need to also recognize that our policies beyond
the deal itself will have an equal if not greater impact on
what happens in the region as a result of that deal.
Whatever it does to the Iranian nuclear program or doesn't
do to the Iranian nuclear program, the deal can either hurt or
help regional stability. But, again, it is only part of that
puzzle. Another, potentially much bigger piece of that, is the
question of what the United States does to prepare the
groundwork once we have the deal in place. There is a great
question mark out there that none of us can answer as to how
Iran will behave in the aftermath of a deal. Will they become
more aggressive, less aggressive, stay the same? All this
matters a great deal. Proponents of the deal make the case that
it may be possible after a deal for President Rouhani and
Foreign Minister Zarif, who clearly would like a better
relationship with the rest of the world and the United States,
to forge some kind of a rapprochement building on the political
capital that they will accrue from a successful deal. That is a
plausible scenario.
Unfortunately, an equally plausible scenario is one in
which the Supreme Leader decides that he has got to either
throw a sop to his hardliners or else demonstrate to his own
constituency that he has not abandoned Khomeini ideology and so
becomes more aggressive to demonstrate that he has not lost his
revolutionary mojo.
From my perspective, I think that, at least in the short
term, it is most likely that Iran's behavior toward the region
is going to remain basically the same. I think that over the
last 4 years, Iran has put in place a series of policies toward
the different countries and problems of the region that suit
its interests, its politics, and its capabilities. I don't
think that any of those policies were predicated on what did or
didn't happen with the nuclear negotiations. And for that
reason, I don't see a successful nuclear deal of any kind as
fundamentally changing Iran's approach to any of those things.
And, unfortunately, Iran's broad policy toward the Middle East
is inimical to American interests. It is inimical because the
Iranians define it as being inimical to our interests. And more
than that, it is destabilizing in a number of very important
places, although not all, in the Middle East.
As we are all well aware, and as my copanelists have
described, many of our allies in the region, led by the Gulf
Cooperation states, are very concerned about how Iran will
behave after a deal. They fear that the Iranians will be more
emboldened, will be more aggressive. They also fear how the
United States will behave after a deal. They are deeply
concerned, as Dr. Doran has eloquently pointed out on many
occasions, that the United States is going to use a nuclear
deal with Iran as a ``get out of the Middle East free'' card,
that we will take the deal, announce that we have solved the
greatest problem in the Middle East and walk away.
And the great danger is that what we have seen is that when
our allies, particularly when the GCC feels frightened, when
they feel that they cannot rely on us, their default option is
not to accommodate Iran, as many people fear; it is, instead,
to get in Iran's face and push back as hard as they can. And
the problem there is that the GCC lacks the political and
military capacity to do so. And it runs the risk of
overstressing its own political and military capabilities with
potentially dire repercussions for their own internal
stability.
The Yemen war, the recent GCC intervention in Yemen, I
think is an eloquent case in point there. It is unprecedented.
We have never seen the GCC undertake so massive a unilateral
military intervention. It is also incredibly dangerous. They
don't know what they are doing. They don't have a plan. They
don't know how to get out. They can't do a surge in Iraq, even
though they have got themselves stuck in Yemen, exactly the way
the United States had gotten itself stuck in Iraq back in 2005,
2006. And that is a very real problem, not just for them but
for us.
As my copanelists have pointed out, they are not assuaged
by the Camp David Summit or by the administration's statements.
The administration continues to plead that they have not
disengaged from the region and do not plan to further
disengage. But here I have to agree with my GCC colleagues that
me thinks the administration doth protest too much, to
paraphrase Shakespeare. The administration said it would
disengage from the region. It did do so. And it has only
partially reengaged when circumstances forced it to do so. And
it is now trying to do the minimal possible to sort out the
situation.
I am concerned that in the wake of a deal, it is going to
require a major American effort to convince the region that we
are not walking away, to push back on the Iranians, to let them
know that they will not have a free hand in the region, and to
reassure our allies so that they do not feel that they need to
take on the Iranians themselves in ways that they are simply
incapable of doing so. Once again, I see ourselves faced with
choosing among the least bad option. And I am reminded that it
seems to me that, once again, the Middle East is teaching us
the lesson, that whenever we try to minimize our commitments
there, the problems of the region simply get worse. And they
force us eventually to come back and do more than we had ever
intended. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pollack follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Dr. Pollack, your commentary there is
interesting to me because there is this phenomenon, this
morning the New York Times discusses it, the increasing
strident nature of the regime against the United States.
I will just read the story from the New York Times:
``The chants of `Death to America' and the burning of
American flags on the streets are as familiar a part of
life here as air pollution and traffic jams. With the
United States and Iran on the verge of a potentially
historic nuclear accord, there has been a distinct
change in tone, however. The anti-Americanism is
getting even more strident. The rising levels of
vitriol have been on display this week in the buildup
to the annual anti-Israel extravaganza coming this
Friday.''
So the other part of this is that as we reach out to extend
that ``olive branch,'' to quote the Secretary of State's words,
you have this reaction in Iran where the Ayatollah speaks even
more fervently of the requirement, you know, to develop, to
``mass produce,'' in his words, ICBMs. And this is the aspect
of this where I think we are a little disconnected from the
reality of the way in which that system works and the
individual who makes the decisions over there.
As a matter of fact, Rouhani today is meeting with Putin in
Moscow. And what is the Russian demand? And this caught us by
surprise this week, the demand from Iran now that we lift the
arms embargo. And, of course, they will be getting this huge
tranche--I have called it a signing bonus, but they will be
getting this cash on the barrel head. And I think Russia is
very, very interested in that because you see the stories in
the last few weeks about the Russians selling weapons systems
to Iran, including, you know, surface-to-air, which, frankly,
would allow them maybe to cheat with impunity if they put up a
vast enough system across Iran. Now, here is the new demand:
Lift the arms embargo.
Dr. Pollack, your thoughts on that.
Mr. Pollack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I agree with you. I saw Tom Erdbrink's piece this morning
as well. And I think that it does speak to exactly the issue
that I have been concerned about for quite some time, which is
we don't know how the Iranians are going to react to their own
deal. As I suggested, while I think it is clear that President
Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif would like to move in the
direction of accommodation, there are forces pushing in the
opposite direction. And what we have seen for the Ayatollah
himself is he is deeply suspicious of the United States. And he
may very well decide that he needs to tack back to the right to
accommodate his hardliners. Because he just gave this big bone
to Rouhani and the moderates in signing the agreement itself. I
think this is a very real concern.
Chairman Royce. The only caveat I would make is when we are
talking about Zarif, remember, we are talking about a man who
placed a wreath on the grave of the individual who carried out
or masterminded the attack on the Marine Corps barracks in
Lebanon. He may seem moderate compared to the Ayatollah. But in
terms of what he has called for and his past history running
the security state and the torture and execution of people as a
consequence puts it in a little bit different perspective in
terms of the background of some of these individuals.
But I wanted to ask Mr. Rademaker, as you note in your
testimony, Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67
percent for at least 15 years. So implicit in that statement is
that after 15 years, Iran is going to be permitted to enrich to
higher levels. There is no suggestion that there will be any
limit on the level to which Iran may enrich after 10 or 15
years or the amount of highly enriched material that it may
accumulate. So let us say Iran begins to enrich uranium very
close to bomb-grade levels after the sunset, and they say it is
to operate a submarine program. What is the world's response to
that? I mean, do I understand correctly the way this is teed up
here?
Mr. Rademaker. You are clearly grasping the point I made in
my testimony, which is this agreement will concede to Iran the
right after 15 years to produce highly enriched uranium, bomb-
grade material, without any limitation on the amount of that
material they may accumulate. Now, ordinarily, you would think
if somebody is producing bomb-grade material in amounts in
excess of what you need to build one or two or three nuclear
bombs, that they must be on track to build a nuclear bomb.
But there are peaceful explanations one could put forward.
One such explanation would be if they were to say, for example,
we want to build a nuclear navy because, hey, you Americans,
you have a nuclear navy and you use highly enriched uranium to
fuel the nuclear reactors in your submarines; that is what we
are doing. Now, if Iranians say that, are the people in this
room going to believe them? Are we going to think that that is
really what they are doing? Or are we going to suspect that
what they are really doing is accumulating the material so that
they can breakout overnight with a large arsenal of nuclear
weapons. Personally, I am going to think it is a pretext.
But your question, Mr. Chairman, is, what is the rest of
the world going to think.
Chairman Royce. Well, the other point I would make----
Mr. Rademaker. And, you know, I think a lot of the rest of
the world is going to be prepared to give them the benefit of
the doubt. And they will point to this agreement and say: Hey,
you Americans, too late for you to object; you signed off on
this.
Chairman Royce. Well, even the North Korean agreement did
not have a sunset.
Mr. Rademaker. Correct.
Chairman Royce. Now, it had the loopholes in it because we
couldn't go ``anytime, anywhere,'' you know, anyplace with the
international inspectors. It was only a matter of time before
North Korea would figure out a way to cheat on that agreement
and get a bomb. But at least it didn't have a sunset. That is
the aspect of this I don't understand.
And the last point I would just ask Dr. Doran, you know,
the administration says that they don't see, they are going to
spend the vast majority of the money when we lift the
sanctions, most of it is going to go to butter not to guns.
However, the statement I saw was the statement by Iran that
they were going to help--this was in The Wall Street Journal--
that Iran was going to help rebuild the tunnels--Mr. Engel and
I were in one of those tunnels; there are 35 tunnels; they are
expensive to build--for Hamas, you know, under Israel and that
they were going to supply missiles to replace the inventory
that were fired off by Hamas and then, the added story the next
day, that they were also going to fund precision-guided rockets
and missiles, 100,000 of them, to Hezbollah. That takes a
little bit of cash to do that. How do we know that it is all
going to butter and not to guns? I would just ask, Dr. Doran,
what is your calculus on that?
Mr. Doran. I think to believe this claim that it is going
to go to butter and not guns is to discount everything that the
Iranians have said and done over the last 36 years. And I can't
think of any other endeavor of human prediction where we would
say everything they did until yesterday has no relevance to
what we think they are going to do, they are going to do
tomorrow.
In addition to the concerns that you raise, personally, I
am also very concerned about the ability of the Iranians to
prop up the Assad regime. It wasn't that long ago that we
thought the Assad regime might be toppled. And the greatest
factor that changed the balance of power on the ground in favor
of the Assad regime or that gave it a new lease on life was the
Iranian intervention, direct intervention from Iranians
themselves and also the sending of Iraqi militias trained in
Iran.
Chairman Royce. I am glad you brought up that point because
not only was the Assad regime on the ropes, but the Iranian
regime was on the ropes. And Mr. Engel and I had legislation
based on some of the work of Stuart Levey over at Treasury, to
give the Ayatollah an actual choice between economic collapse
or real compromise on his nuclear program. It passed out of
here unanimously in this committee, passed the floor 400 to 20.
One of the reasons Iran is a little bit back in the game is
because we partially lifted those sanctions. The suggestion in
the House was that we double down and give us some real
leverage in this negotiation. And the administration made the
decision to sit on that legislation or at least, you know,
orchestrated in the Senate the inability to bring that to the
floor. And I think we lost a lot of leverage out of that.
My time has expired. I need to go to Mr. Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank all of you on the panel for your good testimony.
Look, I have a lot of difficulty with some of these deals,
these negotiations, as you do. But I think that, at this point,
we are almost at the midnight hour, so to speak, we have to
look at the choices that we have. The way I see it right now is
that we have a choice to accept--Congress does--and support a
deal that the administration negotiates, or we don't. And if we
don't, then we need to look at the alternatives.
I share all of your concerns. There isn't anything that
anybody has said that I really disagree with. I think it is a
problem. But I do think that the alternative, as I mentioned
before, would simply be, as the chairman and I have long felt,
more sanctions on Iran but also an attack on their nuclear
plant.
Now, if there is no deal, how long would the current
sanctions regime hold? We are told time and time again that if
there is no deal and the perception is that the United States
walked away, that the rest of the international community would
abandon the sanctions, even including our allies, like the U.K.
and France and countries that have been most supportive of us.
So if we are unable to sustain the sanctions regime and have a
bombing of their plant which sets them back 2 years or 3 years
or whatever it is, is that really a viable alternative? Anybody
care to answer?
Dr. Makovsky?
Mr. Makovsky. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Engel.
I think when we think about the alternatives, again, as I
mentioned, I think that we have to weigh, there is no good
alternative here for sure. I just think that the alternative of
this deal, the consequences of the deal are much worse than the
consequences of no deal right now. And I would think about it
in those terms.
For instance, as I said, I think one of the biggest
problems with this deal is that the other countries in the
region will pursue nuclear weapons. The Saudis have said that.
President Obama said it only in 2012. He said it with great
certainty. And then I think you really have a problem. And then
this problem is not just about Iran, but it is about the
region.
We don't really want the Saudis to get nuclear weapons. And
we don't want other countries to. Then the region becomes a lot
more dangerous. So even if the alternative to this deal is a
military action--I don't think it has to be. I think we could
boost our leverage as you indicated. But I think you could
argue that even if there was a military strike, which we all
hope it doesn't come to that, the consequence of that would be
a lot less than what could be a nuclear contagion in the region
and really, really serious conflict involving nuclear power.
Mr. Engel. Well, the point I am making is, while we all
find aspects of these negotiations that we don't like--and I
have been saying mine for over a year--it is not just accepting
this deal or nothing. There are things that we are going to
have to come to grips with. And I believe one of them is
bombing the nuclear reactor.
The Europeans are seeking further economic ties with Iran.
The Russians and Chinese are preparing to give up on the arms
embargo and ballistic missile sanctions, as pointed out. Those
are sanctions that are outside of the scope of the
negotiations, clearly.
So to me, it says about the viability of sanctions
enforcement, if a deal fails, we can see it eroding.
Let me also make another point. We have a Presidential
election next year. One of the things that is always pointed
out is that a new President is not necessarily bound by all the
constraints of a deal that an administration negotiates. If the
new President elected in 2016 feels that the Iranians are
backtracking or not doing what they should be doing, then that
President can move in a different direction.
One of the things that really disturbs me about this whole
thing, and there are plenty of criticisms you can level at the
administration or the President or the negotiations or
whatever, but I want to go back to 2007, because I think there
is blame here on a bipartisan basis, quite frankly. In 2007,
when President Bush was President, the National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran told us that Iran had abandoned making
weapons, and we all thought there would be some kind of strike.
We are in this position right now because 10 years ago, 8
years ago, 6 years ago, 12 years ago, when we had the ability
to really destroy Iran's nuclear capability, we didn't do it.
And so we waited till 1 minute to 12, and now it is an
impossible situation, because they are almost at the breakout
point.
Why didn't we move sooner? Why didn't we move during the
Bush administration when we thought they were going to do
something? Why didn't we move when Iran wasn't spinning
centrifuges, and didn't have the sophisticated centrifuges?
What do you think?
I just think it shows a failure all the way around the
political spectrum, not one party, everybody, that we failed to
grasp the fact that this regime, the dangerous regime, poses a
threat to us and our allies, and there is plenty of blame to go
around all the way.
Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. Congressman, I guess the principle
observation I would make in response to that last question is
the military option didn't look any better in 2006 or 2007 than
it does today.
Mr. Engel. Well, it looks better because they weren't as
sophisticated. They didn't have all the centrifuges. It would
have been easier to take out their nuclear capability way back
when because it was a lot smaller.
Mr. Rademaker. Well, it has always been the same problem.
You can destroy physical things that are on the ground, but you
can't destroy technology. And they have the technology, they
have the blueprints, they can replace----
Mr. Engel. That is true, and that is always pointed out by
the administration when they tell us, well, you can't destroy
technology. But I am saying it was a lot easier years ago when
it was much smaller and easier to destroy than it is now. I
mean, when Israel struck at Iraq, Iraq never recovered because
their program was very, very small. The Iranian program was,
obviously, much smaller 10 years ago, 6 years ago, than it is
now.
Mr. Rademaker. The ability to reconstitute was always
there. I think we could destroy what is on the ground today,
but we understand that if we go down that road, we are going to
have to come back every year or 2.
Mr. Engel. I think their program is much more sophisticated
in terms of being buried under mountains and things like that,
and wasn't necessarily the case 10 years ago.
Dr. Doran.
Mr. Doran. I was in the Bush White House in 2007. And I
agree with you that there is blame to go around. But I would
like to share with you some of the thinking at the time, what
we thought we were doing.
We looked at it as a disaster if the President got to a
point where he was faced with the stark choice of either
bombing Iran or Iran getting a bomb. And we were trying to
create a third option, which was, I would say, coercive
diplomacy. And it was with those thoughts in mind that we
constructed, on the back of Stuart Levy's insights, the
sanctions regime.
And I think that strategy came to fruition in 2012, 2013,
especially with the central bank sanctions, which really did
start to bite, and you started to see very severe concern in
Iran about this. And, unfortunately, President Obama didn't
have a coercive diplomacy approach to the question. And as
Chairman Royce mentioned, when the regime was actually on the
ropes, we let them up and made a massive concession to them in
the form of a deal that included this sunset clause.
With the sunset clause, we have sent the world a message
that we are no longer containing Iran, we are now managing its
rise. And that has given rise to this--the rush that we see
among the Europeans to go to prioritize their economic
relations with Iran over the security concerns of the rest of
us, that has actually been encouraged by the President's
diplomacy.
Mr. Engel. Well, I have been--and I am going to end, Mr.
Chairman, because I am way over--but, look, I have been as
critical as many of you about a lot of this stuff. But we were
told that the Bush administration would never leave office and
allow Iran's capability, nuclear capability, to continue
unfettered, and that is actually what happened.
So I am just pointing out, plenty of blame to go around. I
think this has been a failure, frankly, in American policy
going back a couple of decades.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel.
We go to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [presiding]. Thank you so much, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you for excellent testimony.
The only good deal is one in which Iran ceases all
enrichment and dismantles its nuclear infrastructure. That is
the best way, the only way to ensure that Iran won't be able to
create a nuclear weapon, ever. If a deal is signed based on
this framework agreement, that means it allows Iran to keep in
place every key element of its nuclear infrastructure, preserve
its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and keep its equipment and
research and development program.
Not only is this agreement, from what we know, a
significant step back from what the U.N. Security Council and
world powers were demanding from Iran just a few years ago--do
we remember that, do we remember those resolutions?--but it is
also significantly weaker than even what the President stated
emphatically were his lines and his demands, just 1\1/2\ years
ago. And I have his quotes here if we don't remember.
We don't know much about Iran's possible military
dimension. That is frightening. And what about the Parchin
military facility, which was the center of Iran's weaponization
and military program? We need answers on that. But it is clear
that the administration is willing to let that fly.
The Supreme Leader and his puppet Rouhani, because Rouhani
will only do what the Supreme Leader says, they are saying that
Iran will only sign the nuclear deal if sanctions are lifted
the same day. What has the administration offered in terms of
sanctions relief and at what scale? We hear a lot of talk about
a signing bonus, as if it is the NFL draft, of $50 billion
before Iran even has to comply with anything. This is beyond
irresponsible and incomprehensible.
And can the agreement be verified? In a word, no. The
Iranian regime still controls access to its sites, and we know
how good they have been on dodging, on stalling, on misleading,
and blocking, and there is no reason to believe that they are
going to change. Iran has said it won't allow inspections on
its military sites. So guess what will be happening in its
military sites?
This whole deal is a fanciful notion and is really a
disaster waiting to happen for our national security, for our
allies in the regions. And the sad reality is that the only way
we are likely to not get this deal is if the Iranians can't
take yes for an answer.
Similar to the Palestinians and the Israelis, the Israelis
were offering them in many of these peace talks everything to
the Palestinians. The Palestinians walked away from the deal.
We are better off for it. The only way we are not going to get
this deal if the Iranians walk away. Everything about this deal
is my most serious concern.
I wanted to ask you in the little time I have remaining
about breakout capability. Certainly, 1 year isn't sufficient.
We have had many experts tell us it is nearly impossible to
even tell when the clock begins, and even when it does, it is
next to impossible for the administration to verify that Iran
has started breaking out and then send it up to the U.N.
Security Council to have that body act. Like most everything
else related to this deal, it is just a pipe dream.
Is 10 years enough? And what can you tell us about the
about the breakout capability that we are looking at?
Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. Thank you. And nice to see you again,
Congresswoman.
I have focused a lot of my criticism on the sunset clause,
because it does essentially give them a radically enhanced
breakout capability upon the expiration of the agreement. Even
President Obama has conceded this. I quoted his statement where
he said by the 13th year of the agreement their breakout time
will have--and this is President Obama--it will have ``shrunk
down almost to zero.'' That is the President. That is the best
he can say about his own agreement.
The agreement does include an indefinite prohibition, a
nonsunsetted prohibition on reprocessing. There are two ways
that a country can get fissile material for a nuclear weapon,
they can reprocess spent nuclear fuel, and that gets to
plutonium, or it can enrich uranium. So they have agreed
permanently not to reprocess. And that is a very useful, that
is an important concession. And that one is not sunsetted. But
on the enrichment side, which is the other pathway to fissile
material, it sunsets beginning after 10 years.
And what is interesting to me is the Iranians have not
hesitated to reopen issues in this negotiation. They did it
just this week on the conventional arms embargo and the U.N.
sanctions on ballistic missile transfers. That was something
that was previously agreed, and they have just reopened it and
said: No, actually, we don't like the deal we struck a few
months ago, we want to renegotiate that.
I don't know why the U.S. side isn't equally tenacious in
these negotiations. Why doesn't our team say: You know, this
sunset clause, we have looked at it, it is a problem for us, we
need to renegotiate that. The Iranians are doing that today on
the arms embargo. Why can't our negotiators do the same?
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. I am having a subcommittee hearing with
Mr. Deutch about the GCC countries and their reaction to a
nuclear deal, and several of you were bringing that out. Are
they going to let Tehran keep its nuclear infrastructure and
offer billions of dollars of sanctions relief and they will do
nothing? Of course, that is not going to be true. So we worry
about their reaction to that, and they no longer think that we
have their back.
But thank you. My time is up.
And I would like to recognize Ms. Robin Kelly of Illinois.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
America's national security is an issue that those of us
trusted by the public to serve in Congress must and do take
seriously. It is going to take all of us on both sides. But I
am going to be positive and think that we will get to a deal
that most of us can support. I wanted to look forward.
Saudi Arabia has said that they want the same capabilities
as Iran if a deal is reached. Jordan and Egypt have hinted the
same as well. Some have cited these examples as the beginning
of a nuclear arms race. How serious do you think the regional
actors are in pursuing their own nuclear programs? And it is
open to all of you.
Mr. Makovsky. Congresswoman, I think, as I said, we have to
take that extremely seriously. If you were them and your
patron, the United States, conducted these negotiations
initially without even informing them and has shown a shift
toward your archenemy, the Iranians, I think you wouldn't feel
that comfortable. And therefore I think it would be perfectly
natural for these countries to pursue that.
And I will add, it also complicates the issue of the
military action and what we do, because, again, going forward,
if that is the case, what you said, Congresswoman, this issue
then regionalizes. It is no longer about just a nuclear Iran.
It is about what these other countries are doing.
And we have to make sure we act, whatever way it is, to
prevent this sort of genie spreading and getting out. Because
once it gets out and a lot of countries have it, as George
Shultz and Henry Kissinger raise, as I mentioned, how do you
put together a policy that actually manages that? And I don't
think you can, is the answer.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Mr. Pollack. Congresswoman, let me start by disagreeing
with Mike, but I am going to come around and agree with him at
the end, if you will follow me.
I think that the threat of proliferation is a very serious
one, but we shouldn't necessarily assume that it is also an
uncontrollable one. We all remember President Kennedy
predicting that there would be 25 nuclear powers by 2000. We
are still at nine and counting.
Historically, far fewer countries have actually pursued a
nuclear weapon to its finish and acquired the arsenal than have
started down that road. Far more stopped along the way. And we
have a great deal of historical evidence indicating that there
are all kinds of different factors which caused these countries
to stop, despite the fact that in many cases they do have
compelling strategic reasons to acquire them.
My favorite example is Egypt. I always point out to people,
you may remember it, although you may be a little too young for
this, Tom Lehrer, his great song, right, ``Who's Next?'' Right?
Talking about nuclear proliferation. One of his lines was that
Egypt wants a bomb just to drop on you know who.
In the 1960s it was so axiomatic that Egypt was going to
acquire a nuclear weapon that Tom Lehrer put it into a humorous
folk song. They never got it. And that, again, is the history
of this.
Where I want to agree with Mike is that he is absolutely
right to focus on the critical variable. The reason that states
stop is because they have compelling rationales not to, and
because typically someone else, almost always the United
States, removes the strategic threats. We step in, whether it
be with South Korea or Taiwan or Australia, pick your favorite
country, and say to them: You don't need it, we will deal with
your security problems.
By the way, I just want to echo, Steve Rademaker is
absolutely right to be focusing on the sunset clause. That is
the most problematic aspect of this. It is the biggest unknown.
It is the area where I think that we can have the greatest
sympathy for our allies, particularly the Saudis. I will be
honest, I am not worried about anybody else in the Middle East.
I think the Saudis' proliferating is a very significant issue.
But I think that it is also very susceptible to what we do.
It would be hard for the Saudis to proliferate. It seems clear
the Pakistanis are not simply going to sell them a bomb. They
do not have the scientific infrastructure to build one easily.
I think that there are lots of opportunities for the United
States to step in and convince the Saudis they don't need to do
so. But, again, that is why I focused my remarks on the
importance of this regional context and on the United States
remaining engaged, not walking away.
Mr. Makovsky. Could I just add one thing on that? Ken
brings up a good point. I will just say, one of those countries
was Ukraine. And they gave up their nukes with the Budapest
agreement in 1994 based on assurances from the United States,
the Russians, and the British that their sovereignty will be
maintained. As we all have seen, of course, over the last 1\1/
2\ years, those assurances were not honored, and that is,
obviously, an incentive for other countries not to repeat the
mistake the Ukrainians made.
Mr. Doran. If I could just add one point. One of the
arguments that is being made--Ken didn't make that argument,
but he was moving in that direction--is that a nuclear
guarantee from the United States would solve the problem. And I
think that that is just wrong, because when the Saudis look at
the whole nuclear question, they are not simply trying to match
Iranian capability in a symmetric fashion.
One of the reasons why the Saudis would want to bomb is in
order to get leverage over the United States, because they no
longer trust the United States. Similar to what the French did
when they developed their own independent nuclear capability so
that they could negotiate with NATO about NATO's security
policy.
So the fact that we are willing to--first of all, I have
doubts about our own willingness to actually extend the nuclear
umbrella to the Saudis, but I don't believe that they would
feel secure at all because of that.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Chairman Royce [presiding]. We will go now to Chris Smith
of New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this, again, timely and important hearing.
Welcome to our witnesses.
Based on the outlines of the deal as we know it, President
Obama's rush to sign what appears to be an egregiously flawed
nuclear deal with Iran may make war more, not less likely, may
trigger a nuclear arms race in the region, and surely makes
Israel and our other friends and allies in the region and the
United States itself less safe.
A sunset clause is one, but this deal appears to be riddled
with Achilles' heels. And I think we will wake up too late to
that fact because of this rush. It ought to be self-evident
that any nuclear agreement must bar every Iranian path to
nuclear weapons. This deal must last for decades, not for 15
years or whatever the sunset provision turns out to be. Iran
must be compelled to dismantle its current nuclear
infrastructure, not merely disconnect centrifuges, no
enrichment.
And my friend and colleague from Florida, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen,
was right, all of the previous admonishments from the U.N. and
Security Council resolutions were no enrichment. That is off
the table now. IAEA inspectors must have unfettered access to
any and all suspected sites, including military installations.
What a theater of the absurd when during these negotiations
high-level people from the very top say: No access to nuclear
inspections on military installations. I mean, that is where
they will put them.
And let me also ask our distinguished panelists, if there
is no deal, or if Iran fails to live up to a deal, say Congress
were to go along with it, what happens when they fail to live
up to it, which I think we can almost predict with near
certainty will be the case.
We are in a position of worldwide comprehensive sanctions.
Will they happen? Or will that coalition, is it being
dismantled even as we talk? Again, there shouldn't be a
lifeline to China for oil, which kept Tehran afloat.
Secretary Rademaker, you bring up a number of great points
about the cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,
which I think is the next step. How can they not build up their
own deterrence capability in light of an aggressive country
like Iran?
And I thought your including Thomas Friedman's comments
about ``it is stunning to me how well the Iranians, sitting
alone on their side of the table, have played a weak hand
against the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, and
Britain on their side of the table. When the time comes, I am
hiring Ali Khamenei to sell my house. . . .'' And you talk
about how--quoting him--how they should have walked out, say:
That is it, there are some bright lines. I mean, the future of
millions of people's lives--and what is worse than nuclear
bombs--hang in the balance.
And let me also finally ask about, given Iran's long
history of supporting terrorist organizations, what is to
restrain them from selling materials for dirty bombs to other
rogue or to other terrorist organizations?
And, again, we still have four Americans, including Saeed
Abedini, being cruelly mistreated while all of this is going
on. I have chaired, myself, two hearings. The chairman had a
hearing with relatives from each of the four. That too just
begs the question of who it is that we are really dealing with.
And as you said, the whole idea of those sanctions, especially
when we went after the bank, that had a bite, and it should
have had a longer bite to get a better deal.
Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. Congressman, you make many great points, and
I can't possibly respond to all of them. But on the Thomas
Friedman piece, I excerpted from it in my testimony. I mean, he
makes the very insightful point that the Iranians have been
much more effective negotiators, just as a technical matter,
advancing their interests, refusing to budge, basically
approaching these negotiations with the perspective of the
United States and its allies need this agreement more than we
do.
And Friedman points out, that is just fundamentally not
true. Iran needs this more than we do. But the psychology of
this negotiation is the opposite and the Iranians have taken
full advantage of that. And I am with Tom Friedman, I want
Khamenei to sell my house too, because he has proven a very
effective negotiator.
I don't know why our team can't be as effective as they
are. Just this week--I made this point already, but I want to
reiterate it--just this week the Iranians reopened an issue
that was agreed to previously. It had been agreed that the U.N.
Security Council would leave in place the sanctions on
ballistic missile transfers and on conventional arms transfers.
That is in the April 2 State Department fact sheet. It just
says these will be kept in place by the U.N. The Iranians here
at the very end say: Oh, you know, actually, we want to change
that, it is disadvantageous to us, we want to change it.
I don't know how that is going to come out. I really worry,
though, that you are going to see some backsliding.
Why is it that only the Iranians can reopen issues? It
seems to be consensus in this room that the sunset clause is a
disaster, okay, it is just disastrous for our interests. It
scares our allies. Why can't our negotiators reopen that issue?
Why can't they say: Hey, we still want a deal, but, hey, Iran,
you agreed to an indefinite band on reprocessing of spent fuel,
okay, so you can't--I mean, this thing doesn't have to sunset,
you have agreed to some restrictions that are of indefinite
duration.
We need that not just on plutonium. We also need that on
enriched uranium. Let's go sit down and talk about that.
Mr. Engel, you made the point, what are the alternatives? I
don't know that we need to walk away from the table. I mean, I
think we can negotiate as aggressively as the Iranians are
negotiating this week, reopening issues that were previously
agreed. Why can't we do that?
Mr. Makovsky. If I may add a point, Congressman, just to
add to your point. I am not in a rush to hire the Supreme
Leader as a real estate agent. But I think it is just more,
frankly, that we have played an extremely strong hand
unbelievably weakly.
In fact, historically, if you look back, obviously, Munich,
people always cite Munich as always one of the worst diplomatic
blunders in 1938. But in fairness to Neville Chamberlain, the
Germans were a rising power, the British needed to rearm their
RAF and so on, and they had no historical connections to
Czechoslovakia.
We, on the other hand, have longstanding interests. We are
a superpower. If we wanted to, we could certainly deliver an
incredible military blow to the Iranians. We are the
superpower, yet we are acting more like a supplicant.
And it gets to your first point, Mr. Congressman. You
asked, what if they violate it? I will just cite a Washington
Post editorial this week where they talked about the warped
proclivity of the administration to respond to questions about
Iran's performance by attacking those who raise them.
And the Iranians have violated the Joint Plan of Action,
and each time it has been raised, including recent weeks about
the oxidation issue, the administration not only has defended
the Iranians or not reported it, but they have attacked, like,
David Albright and others who have actually brought it to our
attention.
So I fear that they will violate, as long as this
administration is in power, they will try to minimize it or
hide it or defend it, because then it will admit failure of
their policy. So I think if they violate it, we will have to
wait till the next President for that to be addressed more
fully.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go to Dr. Ami Bera of
California.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member. And I
thank the panelists as well.
I am going to reserve judgment on a final deal until we
actually see what is in that final deal. But my starting point
and my concern is, I don't trust Iran. Right? In any final
deal, verification has to be the starting point. I just don't
know how you verify if you don't have unfettered access to
places.
And, again, if you don't have that verification, as the
chairman stated, there should be no signing bonus, right? I
mean, you don't get a bonus just for signing the deal. You get
a bonus after adhering to the terms of the deal, verifying
that, and then over time perhaps you can gain trust. And that
is what has me concerned.
I also have very legitimate concerns that as Iran's economy
strengthens, what they do with that strength in terms of--many
of the members, the ranking member and the chairman, have
talked about the funding of terrorism, the funding of Hamas and
Hezbollah, and that is a real concern. If we look at the nature
of the Middle East and how things are changing dramatically,
you can see a scenario where a revitalized Iran, a Shia-
dominated Iraq, an Assad who stays in place, Hezbollah and
Hamas creating this ring around our allies. And even without
nuclear weapons, we see a very unstable Middle East, where I
would never have thought that Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia,
the unlikeliest of allies, might actually ally against a common
threat.
I certainly would be curious about this scenario, even
without acquiring nuclear weapons, what a revitalized Iranian
economy would look like and how they would use those.
Maybe, Mr. Rademaker, if you would like to.
Mr. Rademaker. I think it is clear that a lot of our
friends, in fact, I think all of our friends in the region are
concerned precisely about that, that this deal represents a
shift in the balance of power and acquiescence by the United
States to that shift. And it puts the question in their laps,
what do they do? And some of my copanelists have commented on
that.
But the signing bonus, $100 billion, $150 billion, the
estimates vary, but when I testified here about 2 months ago I
pointed out that their national budget, their government
budget, is $300 billion a year. So this is somewhere between a
third and half the amount of money that their government spends
every year.
If somebody were offering to hand that much cash to the
United States Government, it would be Christmas Day and our
birthday and every other holiday all wrapped up in one. I mean,
you can imagine the kinds of proposals that would elicit about
what we could do both domestically, but also in terms of
foreign policy. With that kind of money, would we feel like we
would need to retrench, or would we feel like we could be more
assertive internationally?
It is not just the amount of money, it is the amount of
money relative to the size of the Iranian economy.
Mr. Bera. Dr. Pollack, would you like to?
Mr. Pollack. Thank you very much, Congressman.
I would start by saying that I tend to find myself very
close to where Congressman Engel is, in fact, perhaps exactly
where Congressman Engel is about this deal, which is to say
that I think that we could have gotten a much better one. I
wish that we had. I think that the chairman was actually
summarizing my remarks at the beginning about the deal that we
should have been shooting for.
And I agree that I think we had a much better chance of
getting it, in part because--I want to give the administration
credit--the administration did a great job getting the Iranians
to the table, building that international coalition, putting in
sanctions much better than I expected. But I agree, I was very
disappointed in the way that they have handled the
negotiations.
But it is why I think that your points about the region
become more and more important. I think that this is the deal
that we are going to get. What it will look like, like Steve, I
suspect it will be at least more or less close to the framework
agreement. That will not be the deal that I wanted, but it may
be better than the alternatives. In fact, I suspect it is, and
glad to talk about that more if you want to.
But the point that I really wanted to make is that I think
that we need to be thinking about this regional issue. That is
the point I keep harping on.
And I hear Dr. Doran tried to put words in my mouth. I am
now going to take them out and give them back to him. I don't
believe that American guarantees right now are going to be
enough for our allies in the region. I think that they are
going to want to see action. That is what was lacking in Camp
David. I think they need to see us pushing back on the
Iranians. And, quite frankly, I think the Iranians need to see
us pushing back on them in the region as well. If we don't, I
think they are going to assume that we are going to use this
deal as a get-out-of-the-Middle-East-free card and walk away.
That being the case, I think we need to think hard about
where we do push back on them, and my candidate for that is
Syria. Iraq is much too fragile. The Iranians have far too much
influence. If we fight the Iranians over Iraq, we will break
it, and we cannot afford that. Yemen is the wrong place. We
shouldn't be getting into Yemen. We should be helping our
allies to get out of it.
Syria is the place that makes the most sense. Iran has
interests there. They are not all-consuming as in Iraq. We have
important allies. We have regional states that want us to do
so. There are clearly ways to handle Syria differently.
And, in fact, I will just close by saying, the policy that
the President and that Chairman Dempsey outlined in September
of last year is a perfectly reasonable, functional policy. It
is exactly the policy I think we ought to be pursuing. The
problem is we have walked away from it. In the context of a
deal, I hope that the administration will go back to that
policy and actually make it work.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Dr. Pollack.
Chairman Royce. I think we are out of time.
Shall we go to Joe Wilson, South Carolina.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here today on this
extraordinarily important situation that is developing. And
amazingly enough, I share the concerns expressed by the
editorial of The Washington Post. To quote the Washington Post,
and I quote, I want to quote it correctly:
``If it is reached in the coming days, a nuclear deal
with Iran will be, at best, an unsatisfying and risky
compromise. Iran's emergence as a threshold nuclear
power with the ability to produce a weapon quickly will
not be prevented. It will be postponed by 10 to 15
years. In exchange, Tehran will reap hundreds of
billions of dollars in sanctions relief it can use to
revive its economy and fund the wars it is waging
around the Middle East.''
And, Dr. Makovsky, I sadly agree so much. This is worse
than Munich. There might have been, as you were indicating, an
explanation for Neville Chamberlain's actions. But I am just
very concerned. The President's actions, the weakness that is
being exhibited, is just bizarre. And for a President who has
been fixated, properly, on not having nuclear proliferation
throughout the Middle East, it is creating a legacy of
proliferation.
With that in mind, what are the consequences for regional
stability if the administration does cave in to Iranian
demands?
Mr. Makovsky. Thank you, Congressman. By the way, I wasn't
here to justify Neville Chamberlain's actions. I was just
trying to explain them.
Mr. Wilson. You were showing a differentiation.
Mr. Makovsky. Right. Exactly.
I agree. I think the Washington Post editorial this week, I
thought was excellent, and I commend you for quoting that. I
think that I agree that this will--we talk about alternatives
to the deal, as Ranking Member Engel is raising. I think these
are bad choices, so you have got to figure out what is the
least terrible choice, and there are going to be bad
alternatives all around, there is no question about it.
So I think, again, one of the worst consequences of this
deal--not the alternative--a consequence is rising tension in
the region. When you have a weaker United States, I think we
all agree on that, all the panelists agree that without a
strong United States with credibility, the countries are going
to take a lot of actions into their own hand, including on the
nuclear front.
And, again, there is just going to be rising tension and a
greater risk--I am not predicting it--but not only a major
conventional war, but possibly at some point of a conflict,
whether intentionally or through miscalculation, a nuclear
conflict in the region because there will be a lot more
countries with nuclear weapons, and it could draw us in as
well.
Mr. Wilson. And I appreciate you raising the concern.
And, Dr. Doran, Mr. Rademaker, in a prior hearing, a former
U.N. weapons inspector discussed the strategy that Saddam
Hussein used to evade inspectors, both on the ground in Iraq
and at the U.N., noting that ``The inspectors reported they
could do little of their job under the conditions Iraq
permitted them to operate.''
Do you fear a similar outcome with Iran? Given the Iraq
experience, what roadblocks do you anticipate inspectors would
face, both on the ground and at the U.N.?
Mr. Doran. I think that, as Steve pointed out, the Iranians
keep reopening the issues. And we need to understand that
behind that is their radical ideology of wanting to overturn
the international system, which they regard as completely
unjust. They don't ever feel bound--what I am trying to say is
that their attitude toward this negotiation is indicative of a
mindset where they don't feel bound by any commitment that they
make to us because they feel that we represent an unjust system
to begin with.
So I think that we can expect them to cheat at every
opportunity. I think we can expect them to impede us at every
opportunity. And I think that even if they came to this with
good will, which they don't have, the system itself is one that
is based on distrust and a coercive dictatorship. And so there
isn't a culture of transparency and openness in it to begin
with. We are being promised unprecedented openness and access
and so on. The system itself just can't deliver that.
Mr. Rademaker. Congressman, there is a long, long history
of determined aggressor states, determined cheaters flummoxing
international inspectors. There is a wonderful Winston
Churchill quote. I don't have it in front of me, but it is an
absolutely wonderful quote describing how Hitler completely
flummoxed the League of Nations weapons inspectors who, prior
to World War II, had the mandate of inspecting whether Nazi
Germany was deploying certain prohibited weapons in the
Rhineland. And Hitler just ran circles around them, because he
stumped them.
You mentioned the example of Iraq. I am speaking here as a
legal matter. I was a commissioner of UNSCOM, which was the
U.N. weapons inspection organization for Iraq. The legal
authorities given to UNSCOM by the U.N. Security Council were
vastly stronger than anything that the inspectors are going to
have in Iran and anything that is under discussion. Iraq was a
defeated state. Saddam Hussein had been defeated in the first
gulf war.
The U.N. imposed a highly intrusive weapons inspection
mechanism on him, and he still ran circles around it. And they
had, talk about anywhere/anytime access, I mean, those guys
could bust down doors, they could go anywhere they wanted;
seize computers. I mean, it is inconceivable that the
inspectors in Iran are going to have the same sort of legal
authorities.
Saddam Hussein was still able to conceal things from them.
I mean, if the Iranians wish to conceal, they are going to have
ample opportunity to do that under any imaginable inspection
mechanism.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you all. And, again, our concern too for
the people of the Iran. And so I am just hoping that, indeed,
the President will change course. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go to Mr. Gerry Connolly of
Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rademaker, I am not sure where you are going with that.
By the way, the rearmament in Germany in World War II, as a
student of history myself, I mean, had a lot more to do than
Hitler running circles around inspectors. It had a lot more to
do with the fact that the West was just tired and was not going
to challenge them. Thus the reoccupation of the Rhineland and
the remilitarization, they knew what was happening. He wasn't
hiding the fact he was rebuilding an air force and expanding
the military with universal conscription and the like, and,
clearly, the Ruhr was up and running.
I mean, these were not secrets that were kept from
inspectors. It was actually about political will. It was about
whether you are going to turn a blind eye to all of that
because you were weary of war. And World War I had been so
traumatic, especially in France and Britain, that hopefully,
wishful thinking would make it all go away, or there would be
some modus vivendi we could all accept. They were wrong.
Churchill on that one was right. He was wrong on most
everything else, but he was right about that.
But what is it you are proposing? Should we therefore say
we shouldn't have an inspections regime, we shouldn't have the
ability to evaluate, because it is fruitless, people can run
rings around them?
Mr. Rademaker. Congressman, I was nearly responding to
Congressman Wilson's question about whether we should take--
what conclusions we should draw from the Iraq experience. And
the Iraq experience was that, even with highly intrusive
inspection authorities, it is possible for determined cheaters
to withhold information.
Mr. Connolly. I understand. But where does that take us?
Does that mean we should give up on--we shouldn't even bother
because they can run rings around us?
Mr. Rademaker. I mean, it is a fair question. I think where
it takes you is you negotiate to get the robust legal authority
you can possibly get, you exercise that authority, but you
still have to view the results with skepticism.
Mr. Connolly. With skepticism.
Mr. Rademaker. Because it is possible for a determined
cheater. And Iran has a long record of secretly proceeding with
nuclear development activities that are only exposed by exile
groups or foreign intelligence agencies.
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Mr. Rademaker. So we just have to approach the Iranians
with great skepticism given their track record.
Mr. Connolly. There seems to be precedent for it in the
region.
Mr. Makovsky, did you want to comment?
Mr. Makovsky. Just a quick thing, Mr. Congressman, just on
that. I think the inspection issue that Steve raised is just
further challenged by the fact that we are permitting in this
emerging deal, based on what we know, an extensive
infrastructure in Iran to remain in place. If we had demanded a
U.N. Security Council resolution, like our policy had been
until a couple years ago, a complete dismantlement of their
infrastructure, it would have made inspections easier.
Mr. Connolly. Dr. Makovsky, unfortunately, my time is
limited. I agree with you, but I want to come back to Eliot
Engel's question. What is the alternative?
The fact of the matter is we allowed this drift for 8
years. The previous administration, we started out with a
handful of centrifuges, now we have 15,000, 16,000. They have
hardened processing plants. They have significantly increased
the amount of enriched uranium and other fissible material. And
so we are where we are.
I wish we had done all of that, like Mr. Engel was saying,
a long time ago so that we would have stopped it dead in its
track. The Israelis could have done it too before things got
hardened. Now they can't do it without us, not efficaciously.
But if you turn the clock back, Prime Minister Netanyahu
thought it was such an existential threat, why didn't he do
then what Israel had done in Syria and had done in Iraq? Why
did he not take the kinetic option, one wonders.
Mr. Makovsky. I think it is an excellent point that you
should raise to him when you see him.
Mr. Connolly. I will.
Mr. Makovsky. But I would say that I wouldn't discount,
although many I think in Washington and certainly the
administration believe the Israelis will no longer strike. I
think there is still a decent likelihood that they still will
at the last moment, that they feel compelled to, because they
will feel no alternative. I am not predicting it, I am just
saying----
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Mr. Makovsky. And that could also be a consequence of this
deal.
Mr. Connolly. Well, one wonders, because they have had that
option before and things got worse, not better.
Mr. Makovsky. That is right.
Mr. Connolly. Let me just ask a final question of you, Mr.
Makovsky. You indicated, and it is a perfectly fair
proposition, that when you look at the military option versus a
negotiated deal that may or may not be cheated against and so
forth, maybe the military option actually is better. But we are
going to have General Hayden here I think next week who has
said if you exercise the military option, all it will do is
accelerate the nuclear development in Iran and now you have no
leverage, the West has no leverage. And unless you are prepared
to do it every 2 years. And, of course, we are not even talking
about diplomatic and terrorists and all kinds of other
ancillary consequences that may flow from that.
Is that a fair proposition too, that actually, despite what
we desire, the opposite could happen?
Mr. Makovsky. Very possible. I wasn't trying to say that it
is a slam dunk, to use a common phrase, a famous phrase. I am
just trying to give you the other side, is what I am trying to
say. I have also spoken to Air Force generals and others who
believe that actually we do have a viable strike. It has always
been our policy, by the way, that we do have this capability,
and it is possible that they could race. But it is also very
possible--but I also think it is more likely that if they do--
if we agree to a deal that allows them to get nuclear weapons
at some point, that other countries in the region are going to
race to it before that even happens.
So I think that is even a more likely outcome than you
mentioned about the Iranians racing to a bomb. I think we can
feel very confident other countries will get nuclear weapons if
we don't stop this before it spreads in the region by whatever
means. But there are bad consequences to anything we do here,
there is no question about it.
Mr. Connolly. Yes, but it brings me back--and I will end
with this, Mr. Chairman--but it brings us back to the ultimate
proposition. We have got many unattractive options in front of
us. The question is a negotiated deal that keeps the P5+1
together and that rolls back and freezes in place their nuclear
development program for a period of time, we hope it can be
renewed, versus exercising, saying, we give up on all that, we
are going to exercise a military option and hope for the best.
Mr. Makovsky. Well, I think if you--you are together, but
together in a terrible arrangement that is going to cause a lot
more problems. I don't think that is a positive end. And I am
not saying necessarily that we have to turn to a military
option, but unless we at a minimum have a very credible one and
ratchet up the sanctions, which I believe we could do,
certainly with the oil market the way it is, I think if we did
that, there is a chance of a better deal. But, again, I think
we shouldn't just think about alternatives, we have to think
about consequences.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
Connolly.
Now we go to Mr. Darrell Issa of California.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
Well, I am going to pick up where Mr. Connolly left off,
but he won't be surprised there may be a slight twist on how I
hold the blade.
Mr. Rademaker, let me understand a premise that I think you
have here, and tell me if I am off, the question of do we take
the deal or don't take the deal. The fact is, if the deal is to
allow the equivalent of the entire World War II Luftwaffe
sitting on the ground with the promise that although the fuel
tanks are right next to the planes, they won't fully load the
planes and the bombs for 10 years, that is kind of where we
are. We are letting them have all the weapon of war, the launch
systems, the missiles, the fissile material. What we are saying
is, the time it takes to load these aircraft and get them in
the air is what we are counting on. Isn't that sort of the
equivalent?
Mr. Rademaker. Yeah, I think that is a pretty good analogy.
The administration is saying, today they could load one plane
with one bomb in 2 to 3 months, and we want to extend that to 1
year for the next 10 years, but then after that it would be an
entire fleet that they can load with dozens of bombs, and we
will worry about that in 10 years.
And the question is, is that sort of a wise--I mean, if you
are worried about the next 10 years, yeah, you have improved
your situation for 10 years, but beyond that a vastly worse
situation. And then if you want to do something about that in
10 years, you face the additional problem that the other side
will say: But you are violating your agreements. You promised.
Mr. Issa. The French, I think, said that for several hours
in the beginning of World War II.
Mr. Rademaker. Right. It got them a long way, didn't it?
Mr. Issa. Dr. Makovsky, I saw your head shaking yes, so I
will take you next for obvious reasons.
But, Doctor, if we go, I think, to Mr. Rademaker's
assumption, which is that trying to inspect a fleet of weapons
of war and make sure they are not quite loaded and ready to
fire at us, changing that to these weapons of war, you need to
dispel them, you need to be away from them, you cannot have
those, which was a position--and this is where Mr. Connolly, I
am sorry he left.
The Bush administration said, you can't have weapons of
war, and they were playing with the no 20 percent, no
enrichment, no enriched there. Aren't we playing now only this
last-minute game? And if so, does or can we get the world--and
we are not talking about Israel, we are not talking about the
United States, we are talking about mostly Europe--can we get
them back to a point of understanding that the only way to have
a verifiable deal is to have a deal in which there is zero
tolerance for these weapons or near weapons of war?
Mr. Makovsky. It is a good question, Mr. Congressman. Look,
obviously, where we are, you are right. I guess, if we had to
use a baseball analogy, we might be in the bottom of the ninth,
I still believe with one strike left you still have a chance
sometimes to win a ballgame, and I wouldn't want to give
anything up. In fact, I am from St. Louis. That is exactly what
we did in the 2011 World Series. And I would say that----
Mr. Issa. I am a Clevelander. We cite all different years.
Mr. Makovsky. I apologize for that.
But I think we shouldn't underestimate--Ranking Member
Engel had raised this before--we shouldn't underestimate two
things. That American leadership, it is your body, Congress,
which led on sanctions, and that the administration on some
issues, and this committee, certainly, Mr. Chairman and the
ranking member, you guys led on sanctions on banking, on a lot
of things, and you got the world to go around with you. And by
the way, the odds were great on that.
And I think that if there is a deal concluded and there is
an overwhelming majority of the Members of Congress that oppose
this deal, I think it sends a strong signal, and I think there
is still a chance, then.
Mr. Issa. So if I am going to summarize--and, Dr. Pollack,
I want to hear from you for a moment, because we have given you
a pass, and you need to get back to work--the fact is, we are
negotiating a deal that is not verifiable, sustainable, and
reliable, and it is not nearly the kind of oversight that we
had against Saddam when, in fact, Saddam was shipping millions,
hundreds of millions of gallons and barrels of oil, not even
including the weapons program. It is very hard to take a large
independent country and supervise it.
Dr. Pollack, getting back to something that is verifiable,
that makes sense, that can, in fact, be restrained, how do you
see us getting from where we are--let's assume for a moment
that Congress rejects a deal or that the President doesn't come
up with one--how do you see us getting to one that the other
gentlemen at the table could support as defendable and
verifiable?
Mr. Pollack. Can my answer include the building of a time
machine, Congressman?
Mr. Issa. Yeah. Go for it.
Mr. Pollack. That was a joke.
I am in agreement with all of my panelists. I think the
administration did very well in getting the Iranians to the
table. I give them a lot of credit for that. As I said, I have
been disappointed in how they have handled the negotiations.
I think that it is theoretically possible perhaps to get a
stronger deal even from where we are now. I think that it would
require a willingness on the part of the United States to walk
away from the table, but also to be able to make the case to
our allies--and I think we have certainly got a number of them
already onboard--and our co-negotiators in the P5+1 that what
we are talking about now is simply a far cry from what is
reasonable for us to accept.
That will be hard, because of how much history we have. We
have gone this far, and, frankly, a number of the other P5+1
countries, I think, have been surprised at how willing the
United States has been over the course of the last year to make
some of these concessions that the Iranians wanted. It will be
difficult to roll that back. Perhaps not impossible, but
difficult.
But, again, my read of history, Congressman, is that it
requires a remarkable degree of leadership to fundamentally
change course on an issue where we have gone so far down the
road, and I am skeptical that that is going to happen. I
suspect that we are going to get a deal very much like the one
that is being talked about, one more or less like the framework
agreements.
And, unfortunately, I find myself much more in agreement
with Congressman Engel, which is that I wish we weren't here.
It is a much weaker deal than I think we could have had. But,
nevertheless, I still suspect--and as I said, I want to reserve
judgment until I actually see it--I still suspect that it will
be better than the alternatives, because as Congressman Engel
and Congress Connolly pointed out, those alternatives are even
worse.
Mr. Issa. So we are going to take the Chamberlain deal,
even though it is not the deal we should have, because it is
the best deal he came back with?
Mr. Pollack. I would object, obviously, to the analogy,
sir.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Okay. We are going to go to Mr. Brad
Sherman of California.
Mr. Sherman. Yes. I would ask the witnesses to give your
advice to Congress. We want to control foreign policy, all of
us in this room, one way or another. You would like to be
advising the President. The President isn't listening to you.
You at least have us. If you compare him to Neville
Chamberlain, he certainly isn't listening to you. But whatever
is going to happen in Vienna in the next 12 hours is going to
happen.
So you posit a world in which we walk away from a bad deal,
we sign a good, we do this. The President is going to do what
he is going to do, and he isn't going to listen to us in the
next 12 hours.
So your advice to us has to be: What should Congress do?
Not in some mythical world where Dr. Pollack has a time
machine, not in some mythical world where Ronald Reagan is
resurrected and is the President of the United States on the
day we vote on the deal, but rather what do we do if the
President says, ``This a reasonable deal, Iran has signed a
reasonable deal, and Congress is being unreasonable''? Do we go
on a codel to Rome, convince the Italians to prevent Eni from
doing business with Iran on a very profitable basis, because,
although the President thinks it is a good idea for them to
make the profits, some of us think it is a bad idea?
I don't know if any of you want to join us on that codel. I
don't think we would be successful. I realize you have
comments, but I have got a limited amount of time.
I do want to set the record straight. The Bush
administration refused to have sanctions on Iran. We passed a
lot of them out of this committee. He blocked them in the
United States Senate. And the Iran Sanctions Act was
disregarded and violated again and again.
I join with Dr. Pollack in a fear that this is all about a
pivot out of the Middle East. The Middle East is frustrating.
Confrontation with China is exciting. The Middle East has un-
uniformed terrorists. Confrontation with China over islands,
that is the kind of war we have had great glory in, especially
if we don't wage it, but rather just confront and win it the
way we won the war against the Soviet Union.
And right now everything that the Pentagon is doing is
figuring out a way to take money away from any forces that
might be useful in the Middle East and design new weapons to
shoot down Chinese planes over islands--no, they are really
just rocks--that don't have any oil, but if they had any oil,
the oil would belong to Japan, which by the way, is spending
almost nothing on its national defense. That is where we are
pivoting to.
This deal needs to be looked at in several phases. The
first phase is that first year, where it has good and bad
points. We get the stockpiles out of Iran, we get two-thirds of
the centrifuges mothballed. And then, as Mr. Rademaker points
out, you get to year 12 where it is an absolute disaster. So
you have the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good is those centrifuges and stockpiles. The bad is
that they get that $120 billion-plus signing bonus, which they
will use for butter, which they will use for graft, they are
very good at that, which they will use to kill Sunnis, some of
whom deserve to be killed and some of whom definitely do not,
and the remainder they will use to attack Israel and the United
States.
But the issue before us is: What do we do as a Congress?
And we actually shouldn't just say we--it is a very
sophisticated question, because we have three possible votes.
Do we vote to approve? Do we vote to disapprove? Do we vote to
override a Presidential veto of a disapproval resolution? Those
are three very different votes. And since the President isn't
listening, perhaps you can give advice to us as to how we
handle those three circumstances.
The first one is so easy, I won't ask the question, should
we vote to approve? If we vote to approve then we have to the
greatest extent possible locked the United States into a deal
which in year 12 is a nuclear Iran. So we shouldn't do that.
The question is, maybe we should vote to disapprove.
The question is, do we override a veto? If we override that
veto, then those stockpiles are not shipped out of the country,
those centrifuges are not mothballed, and we go to war with
Iran in which Congress versus Tehran with the White House on
one side or the other, I am not sure.
If the President is telling the world that Iran has signed
a reasonable deal and deserves sanctions relief, what should
Congress do? Dr. Pollack.
Mr. Pollack. I was afraid you were going to call on me,
Congressman.
First point, I think the time for Congress to make a
difference is now, before the deal gets presented, because I
think that once the deal is in hand, it is going to be very,
very----
Mr. Sherman. Dr. Pollack, you don't have the time machine.
The President gave his final instructions to his negotiators
hours ago. No one in Vienna is watching this presentation right
now. If they are, it is such a junior level foreign service
officer that they are not being listened to. If the President
heard from Congress or from you or from me, that was prior to
this moment. No time machines.
Mr. Pollack. I agree with you, Congressman. But if for some
reason we can't come to agreement and we do----
Mr. Sherman. We will bring you back for that advice. Assume
a deal is announced in 12 hours and it goes online----
Mr. Pollack. I come back to the point that you and
Congressman Engel and Congressman Connolly make, I think the
deal is disappointing, but I certainly wouldn't--I would not
advise you to override the veto because, again, I think that
the alternatives are worse than this. But I do want to come
back to the point----
Mr. Sherman. I wish you wouldn't say ``this,'' because it
is really three deals. It is the first year, it is the middle
year, it is the 12th year.
Mr. Pollack. We don't know exactly what the deal is going
to look like. But if we assume that it is----
Mr. Sherman. The 12th year is ugly. We have got to override
the deal by then.
Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. If the final deal looks like what we have
been told it will look like, my advice to the Congress is use
its independent judgment. The President can say he thinks it is
a reasonable deal. But I think Congress needs to look at it
independently----
Mr. Sherman. We----
Mr. Rademaker [continuing]. Dispassionately. I am not a
Member of Congress, but if I were looking at that detail, I
would have to vote no on it.
Mr. Sherman. Remember, we have got three separate votes.
Obviously, if there is a resolution to vote for approval, you
and I, and I think just about everybody, are going to vote no.
If that is the advice you are giving us, you are giving us
advice on an easy question.
Mr. Rademaker. I don't know whether in the Republican-
controlled House a resolution of approval is actually going to
be put forward.
Mr. Sherman. It will be put forward if the Speaker thinks
it will be a good idea. And he will be getting advice from our
chairman. Go ahead.
Mr. Rademaker. But if it is a resolution of disapproval,
you know, my recommendation would be a no vote. We hear that
the alternatives are worse. And it is usually described as
either this deal or war. We have all these----
Mr. Sherman. No, no, no, no. With this President, you don't
get war. This President isn't going to say: Oh, Congress was
right; I was wrong. I am bombing.
Mr. Rademaker. But the point I want to make to you is you
have all these wise men who, including President Obama's former
Iran advisers, who are saying: Well, actually, it could be this
deal and the war. And, in fact, Congress should vote to
authorize use of force in the event not of Iranian cheating but
actually in the event that Iran exercises some of the rights
that are going to be granted to it under this agreement. That
is what they say.
Mr. Sherman. That would be--I am not sure that is actually
what they are proposing, knowing those individuals. But I think
my time has expired.
Mr. Rademaker. I can read you the language.
Mr. Sherman. But it is interesting, yes.
Mr. Rademaker. I quote it in my testimony.
Mr. Wilson [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.
We now proceed to Congressman Ted Poe of Texas.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here.
If I understand, the policy of the U.S. goes back all the
way to the Carter administration, that, as you said, Mr.
Doran--or is it Doran?
Mr. Doran. The Irish say Doran. I say Doran. So I go by
either.
Mr. Poe. To, the U.S. is going to be the guarantor of
stability in the Middle East region. Is that a fair statement
of what you said?
Mr. Doran. Yes.
Mr. Poe. And the Carter doctrine, as Mr. Rademaker talked
about, was that the United States is committed to making sure
that the Persian Gulf region is safe from outside influence,
even using military force if necessary, something to that
effect. As I see this whole situation, at the end of the day,
the deal will be Iran will get nuclear weapons. They are also
developing an intercontinental ballistic missiles, as we all
know, to send nukes, not conventional weapons or bombs, in
them.
At the end of the day, the deal will be that they will be
able to export all of the oil that they have, oil revenue that
is used, in my opinion, to fund their terrorist enterprises
throughout the world since Iran is the number one terrorist
sponsoring state in the world. What a deal this is. I mean, we
are not dealing with nice people or honest people. The United
States and the West is blissfully ignorant of who we are
dealing with. We are dealing with a snake oil salesman, and he
is going to be able to sell us the snake oil. And we are going
to buy it and say we won because we got a deal.
The Ayatollah has said as recently as March, if I can find
the quote, it is just three words, ``Death to America.'' Now, I
don't think he is going to change his mind about being the
Supreme Leader and about his policy that he wants us all to
die: Death to America. This is a very, very serious crisis that
is taking place worldwide. And I am not so sure that we are
really dealing with this as we should be because, at the end of
the day, they are going to get what they want.
And I am concerned, just like some of my friends on the
other side have said, about what is going to happen next. Next
year, the year after next.
I say all that to say maybe our policy should be different.
Why isn't it our policy that we promote in Iran free elections,
a regime change if that is the will of the people in Iran, to
change who is running the show over there? Why isn't that part
of our policy? We had the opportunity in 2009 to help the
Iranians, but we did not. So is that discussed--you four guys
are the experts--is that discussed anywhere by anybody in the
administration or the West, let's have free elections and let
the Iranian people decide who will be in charge? Anybody can
answer that question.
Mr. Makovsky. I will just jump in real quickly and then
turn it over to Mike Doran.
On your last point, Congressman, I don't hear a lot of
discussion. I do think that is the ultimate solution to this is
not sanctions, not military option; it is regime change. But I
think I can say with more confidence that if there is this
deal, then it will strengthen the regime. And you will have
less, it will be less likely that there will be regime change
with this deal. This will be one of the consequences of this
deal. Their policy will be vindicated. They will be able to
oppress. They will have a lot more money, not just for butter
but to oppress their people internally. And they are one of the
leading oppressors in the world. And they will essentially gain
immunity from attack from outside once they achieve their
nuclear weapons capability.
So I think this deal certainly strengthens the regime and
makes what you are saying, regime change, which I think we all
think would be much better, far less likely.
Mr. Poe. Well, I agree with you. I think regime change is
the answer, free elections. We should support a regime change
with free elections and let the people of Iran make that
decision.
And it will strengthen the Ayatollah and the mullahs who
have an iron fist on the people, persecuting their own people,
killing their own people; they are hanging throughout Tehran--
almost daily--people that disagree with the government.
I hope we get there.
And I yield back because you are taking it back. I will
yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Here, here. Thank you, Judge Poe. We appreciate
your insight particularly on behalf of the people of Iran too.
And we now proceed to Congresswoman Lois Frankel.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, Mr. Chair, I would just like to say thank you to
Josh Cohen. This is his last full committee. He has been my
adviser. He has done a great job. He is going off to Harvard,
to the Kennedy School. And we wish him well.
Well, this has been a very troubling discussion. First of
all, thank you all for sharing. I mean, you can't help but
after listening to all this feel a lot of anxiety. So, first, I
want to ask a hypothetical, if it is possible for you to
answer, which is I think we went into this, the P5+1, I think
it was November 2013 when they first agreed to the plan that
is, this temporary plan that is currently in place, and then it
began in January 2014. Had this joint plan not been in place,
do you think by now we would have had to take military action
to stop a nuclear weapon?
Mr. Doran. I don't think that is true. And I also don't
think that the--I also don't think that the alternative to this
deal is necessarily war. And that is because of the point that
Mike Makovsky made: Iran is a third-rate power and we are a
superpower. And if we behave like a superpower, and we actually
dedicate all instruments of national power toward a goal like
preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, it has an effect
on the thinking of the Iranians.
I notice that when Prime Minister Netanyahu drew his red
line, the Iranians were very careful to creep right up to it,
but they never went over it. I suspect that if we made
ourselves clear and we enhanced our credibility, that we would
see that the Iranians would be much more circumspect. They are
trumpeting their anti-Americanism right now because they know
there is absolutely no consequence for it.
Ms. Frankel. Does this mean that you feel that the better
alternative now would be to try to increase sanctions?
Mr. Doran. Absolutely.
Ms. Frankel. Rather than take the deal?
Mr. Doran. Absolutely. You have to disapprove the deal. And
we have to step back from the negotiations. We have to show the
Iranians that we are willing to negotiate in a much more
aggressive fashion. And we need to take care to pull our allies
together. It really isn't true that the P5+1 is abandoning us,
and if we don't make this deal, we have lost them. We are
pushing them away from a sensible policy. I had in my
institution a couple weeks ago a delegation of French
politicians who came through, people who had traditionally been
very tough on Iran. And they said, and this is a paraphrase,
but they said: Basically, you guys have played us for suckers.
You have put us in the position now, we who want to hold out
for a better deal, you have put us in the position of angering
President Obama by not following his lead on an
accommodationist policy and losing the possibility of good
economic contracts in Iran because we are going to be punished
by the Iranians as well. We are at the back of the line for the
contracts. And so they said what suckers we are. So they are
shifting now because of our policy. What we need to do is
define a red line and get the P5+1 behind it, especially our
European allies, and then stick to it.
Ms. Frankel. Do you other gentlemen agree with that? Or
have a different opinion?
Mr. Rademaker. The only thing I would add is I do think we
have to take a much firmer line. But I am not sure, people talk
about walking out of the negotiations. I think what that really
means is a willingness to not agree to terms that aren't
acceptable. But I don't think we need to slam the door on
diplomacy. I think in terms of alliance management, just our
international, you know, maintaining international consensus,
there should remain a willingness to achieve a negotiated
solution. That would be the ideal solution. But it should be a
negotiated solution on acceptable terms, not the terms that
have been agreed to at this point and which apparently we are
satisfied with the Iranians reopening questions where they are
dissatisfied, but we--maybe the Iranians are right, maybe
President Obama thinks we need this deal more than they do
because he is not willing to reopen disadvantageous agreements
that have already been reached. I don't know why that would be
though. It seems to me we can reopen and try and get a better
outcome on things like the sunset clause.
Ms. Frankel. Dr. Pollack, you may answer that but I just
want to add something to that question, which is, do you see
the potential--let's say we are at the negotiating table, and
we just said, no, we can't, this is not the deal we are going
to accept. Do you see the potential of Iran then again moving
toward a nuclear weapon, taking further steps?
Mr. Pollack. Congresswoman, first, I tend to be much more
where Steve Rademaker is than my friend Mike Doran. I think
what Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed of kill these
negotiations, go back to sanctions, force them to come back to
the table later, I do not think that will work. I think that it
is highly unlikely that we will be able to hold the sanctions
in place, that we will be able to hold international opinion.
As the guy at the White House who tried to hold the Iraq
sanctions together in the late 1990s, I was shocked and
appalled at how quickly international opinion turned against
those sanctions when people decided that we were the problem,
not Saddam Hussein, countries which previously had supported it
legally and every way imaginable just disregarded them. I am
fearful we will have something similar happen with Iran. I
think the JPOA was worthwhile.
And, finally, to come back to a point that Steve was
making, by the same token, I don't think that it is necessarily
the case that we have to look at it and say we have to agree to
something by tomorrow. I don't understand why we can't take
more time. A willingness to play out these negotiations and
insist on the best terms possible, even given what we have
already put on the table, I think is fundamentally different
from, again, what Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Ms. Frankel.
We now proceed to Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, here we are again. As usual, I have to spend
some of my time--I wish Mr. Connolly were still here so, as a
student of history, I could remind him of something because I
am sure he knows it, but I am always amazed by what I hear
here. One of the first things that amazed me was that George
Bush is responsible, and he is responsible because we didn't go
to war with Iran from the same people that complain daily
bitterly that we went to a war with Iraq and Afghanistan.
And then I hear that a veto override by a Republican
Congress is tantamount to a declaration of war with Iran. So I
guess we can be prepared for that narrative.
And, finally, I would like to remind Mr. Connolly that it
was the Clinton administration, as I remember, in May 1998 that
waived the sanctions, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which
resulted in an increase in Iran's terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, and European investment in Iran. So I will have
to remind him of that on the floor.
I do have a couple questions. If you can tell me,
gentlemen, what are the consequences for regional stability if
the administration were to cave to the Iranian demands to lift
the U.N. arms embargo?
Go ahead, Mr. Doran.
Mr. Doran. It is catastrophic. And I think we need to see
already that the Russians are moving and see themselves in
competition with us for Iran. This is a dimension of the thing
that hasn't got much attention, which is that the, it is not
just our allies that see us as tilting toward Iran, it is also
the Russians as well. And the Russians would much prefer to
have Iran in their sphere than in our sphere. So we can see
them, I think, moving quite aggressively to establish a very
strong military-to-military relationship with them.
There is another dimension of this thing as well that
deserves note, and that is because of the sunset clause but
also the very large amount of facilities that we are leaving in
place, the fact that we are recognizing Iran as a threshold
nuclear power. It means that the knife is never, we have never
taken the knife away from our neck. So I think most people in
the region, and I would include myself in this too, believe
that the administration, without admitting it, is already
making calculations, tradeoffs in their mind of not willing to
challenge Iran in Syria and in Iraq and Iranian interests in
those areas for fear that it will tank the nuclear
negotiations. That calculation never goes away.
The administration wants us to believe, oh, we pocket, we
get this agreement, this nuclear negotiation, good, bad,
whatever you think of it, and then we move toward regional
stability. It doesn't work that way because the minute we start
to challenge them, say, with Assad, they will threaten to--they
will threaten to pull out of the agreement on the nukes. And
that is especially true because we have front-loaded it with so
many goodies----
Mr. Perry. I personally cannot separate the two. I can, I
guess, from a negotiation standpoint. But as a tenet of the
negotiations themselves, I don't understand the nation that
separates those issues.
Let me ask another question, what has the President and the
administration been doing to maintain or strengthen the current
sanctions regime regarding our international actors during this
period of time? Because we understand that it is eroding away.
That is yet another reason why we must accept this deal. What
have they been doing to make sure that we have got that right
there just in case?
Mr. Doran. If I could just quickly, the administration
wants the new economic relationship with Iran. Its calculation
is that it wants to create a mutual dependency because that is
the thing that ultimately is going to moderate the behavior.
Mr. Perry. You got to say that in regular English. So they
are not doing much to----
Mr. Doran. They are not doing anything because they----
Mr. Perry. Yeah.
Mr. Doran [continuing]. Because they want to relax the
pressure.
Mr. Perry. Right. Okay. So, listen, I don't know the tenets
of this deal. Rumor has it, it is imminent. That is the rumor
around that town right now. I will tell you that I am
personally disgusted with the platitudes, the moral relativism,
the explaining away by people around here in this room, some of
them, this, in my opinion, administration misunderstands,
underestimates, and is being duped by the nonrational actor
that is Iran that is a known liar, is a brutal regime, and will
continue to be that.
To me, I liken this to giving a crocodile or a shark more
teeth and somehow expecting it to do something different than
it already does. I think it is just going to do more. I don't
see any reason why it wouldn't. And going back further into
history with the moral relativism, the platitudes, and the
explaining away, I am sure you gentlemen can appreciate this,
the United States did the same thing with the Soviet Union in
World War II, who had a pact with Hitler before they were at
war with each other, to do exactly what they did, which was
divide up and conquer Europe. And while Hitler killed 6 million
people, the Soviet Communists and their expansion, not only in
Europe but into China and Vietnam and places all over the
globe, are responsible for the deaths of 100 million people.
And nobody says a thing about that. And that is exactly what we
are getting into right now by explaining this away in this
person's opinion.
I thank you for your time, gentlemen. I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Perry.
We now proceed to Congressman Ted Yoho of Florida.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I appreciate you being here. Let me start off
with a question. Do you believe that in the wake of an
agreement, the administration will push to delist the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard as a proliferator? Dr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. I think we have already seen indications that
they are moving away from, they are moving away from holding
their feet to the fire on that issue. Whether they will
actually move to delist, I don't know. But they will start to
explain away behavior. And they will start to impute to the
Iranians and even to the Revolutionary Guard intentions that
they don't actually have like, for instance, building a
multisectarian political system in Iraq.
Mr. Yoho. I am going to get to that. Given that the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard at large is designated, pursuant to
Executive Order 13382, as a proliferator, do you think the
administration will delist them as part of an Iranian nuclear
agreement? And the second part of that question is this would,
in effect, legitimize many of the aspects of the Revolutionary
Guard, creating a terrorist wing, being the Quds Force, and a
political wing, the Revolutionary Guard, that would be open for
business. Do you see that happening?
Mr. Rademaker?
Mr. Rademaker. I can't predict with confidence what the
administration will do. But given that it is clear that the
administration is committed to lifting nuclear-proliferation-
related sanctions. It will be a definitional question: Is that
particular listing related to nuclear proliferation, or is it
something else?
Mr. Yoho. Nuclear proliferation.
Mr. Rademaker. I think there is an issue of ballistic
missile proliferation, conventional weapons proliferation.
Mr. Yoho. WMD.
Mr. Rademaker. But we understand those issues are now on
the table too. So where this comes out, I don't know. But I
guess what I am confident in predicting is it is going to be a
pretty darn good deal for Iran.
Mr. Yoho. I agree with that. And what would be the regional
effect? I think we know what that would be. It is not going to
stabilize it. And I think it would increase the hegemony of
Iran in the whole Middle Eastern area. You know, I am baffled
by this whole nuclear negotiation.
Dr. Pollack, you said the administration did a good job of
bringing Iran to the table. What was the purpose of that? Can
you take us back----
Mr. Pollack. The purpose, Congressman, was to try to
prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Mr. Yoho. Because I have right here that President Obama
says, 28 times promised Iran wouldn't get a nuclear weapon. So
we have moved from, and that is what I remember, this is to
prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Now we are at, we
are going to try to slow it down. Just real quickly, do all
four of you think Iran will have a nuclear weapon, if they
don't have one already, within the next 0 to 10 years? Just yes
or no.
Mr. Rademaker. I think the answer to that, if your
timeframe is the next 10 years, that is the duration of this
agreement. So really you are asking are they going to cheat on
the agreement. I don't know. They have cheated on a lot of
things up until now. I think they are very comfortable with
that idea. But one thing I have suggested in my past testimony
is that rationally this is such a good deal for them that they
shouldn't cheat. Rationally, they should let 10 years go by and
then if they want to break out and produce nuclear weapons,
they can produce a much more robust, much more serious nuclear
force very quickly than they will be able to do covertly over
the next 10 years. So, rationally, they shouldn't cheat.
Rationally they should take advantage of the sunset clause and
then emerge either as a nuclear weapons state or the other--I
mentioned this the last time I appeared here--whether they
actually produce nuclear weapons or whether they are a
screwdriver turn away from having them, there is an important
legal difference between those two----
Mr. Yoho. I have sat here for 2\1/2\ years----
Mr. Rademaker [continuing]. You get a lot of the political
and sort of national security advantages of having nuclear
weapons if everybody knows you are a screwdriver turn away. So
it is not clear to me they will necessarily go all the way. But
if everyone knows they can do it overnight, they get treated as
if they had nuclear weapons anyway.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Doran. I will make a very clear prediction, they will
cheat. They are cheating already. It is in their DNA. If their
lips move, they lie. There is absolute certainty they will
cheat. And I also think it is a rational decision to cheat.
They want to be at odds with the world. They want to, with the
United States and the alliances.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Doran. It benefits them domestically. It benefits them
internationally to be at odds.
Mr. Yoho. I am a veterinarian before I came here. I will
always be a veterinarian. There was a simple thing we learned:
If it looks, smells, runs, and smells like a skunk, it is
probably a skunk. And this is a deal that is a skunk. And we,
as Americans, need to run away from it. One last question, is
it possible to put sanctions back on? And will the P5 nations
back us up if we wanted to sanction and say we are walking
away, actually running away--and I would spray deodorizer
behind us as we left--is it possible that they would stand with
us?
Mr. Pollack. I will answer that by saying that I think it
will depend on the circumstances of the breakdown. If the P5+1
believes it was the Iranians who were being unreasonable and
that was the cause of the breakdown, yes, I think they would.
If they conclude that it was the United States, no. I don't
think so.
Mr. Doran. But it is not that hard to imagine an American
diplomacy--I agree with my colleagues on that point. I didn't
want to suggest before that I think we should just slam the
door, get up and walk away. We need to make a reasoned
explanation as to why we are doing that. And we can do that
very easily by just holding to some of the very reasonable
proposals that we have made and that the Iranians have
rejected.
Mr. Rademaker. The one clarification I would add, you put
the question in terms putting sanctions back on. The sanctions
are still on. They have not yet been lifted. What this deal
does is it begins to lift the sanctions.
Mr. Yoho. With just the minimal relaxation of those, you
have seen what they have done. And they have propped up the
Assad regime when we thought that he was going to fall. And I
can only think that the help from Iran with the extra money
coming in--it was supposed to be $14 billion, now it is over
$40 billion or $60 billion with just the relaxation--that that
has prolonging the Syrian war, caused that many more deaths.
And even today we hear there are more chlorine bombs being
dropped on Aleppo. And we have a resolution and a bill to stop
that. This is a disaster. This administration has not served
America well, the Middle East, or world peace. I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Yoho.
We now proceed to Congressman David Trott of Michigan.
Mr. Trott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank all the panelists for your time this
morning. And I appreciate you sticking around for, I think I am
the last person. I have only been here 6 months, so I get to
ask my questions last.
Mr. Sherman made a comment that no one in the White House
is listening to us. I believe that is true. So, in many
respects, this hearing is all about trying to draw attention
through your insightful comments to the deal that is about to
get done and draw the American public's attention to it.
And Mr. Yoho asked my question, so I will change it a
little bit. If a deal gets done, isn't the 30-second sound bite
headline, ``A Done Deal: Iran Will Have a Nuclear Weapon in 10
or 12 Years''? Isn't that the takeaway from where we are at
today? And Mr. Yoho, he said they are going to cheat. Let's
assume they don't cheat. So, in 12 years, they are going to
have a nuclear weapon. Isn't that the short summary for the
evening news?
Mr. Makovsky. I don't think that's the summary that the
administration will give, of course. I think that will be it. I
would add that it is not just about Iran getting nuclear
weapons. I think if this deal goes through, it is talking about
now, it means a nuclear Middle East.
Mr. Trott. I couldn't agree more.
One of the things that baffles me, and any of the panelists
can answer this, it would be great, I can't figure out why the
President is continuing to pursue the deal, why he doesn't step
away. And I don't know if it is about saving face. I don't know
if he genuinely believes that by being nice, that that is going
to change behavior. Or if he is just determined not to act like
a superpower, so whatever happens in the world really shouldn't
concern us. Why not step back? We had 367 Members of Congress
sign a letter. Every editorial says it is a bad deal. No one
disagrees that they are the largest sponsor of terrorism in the
world.
I take issue with one comment you made, Mr. Doran. They
don't--when their lips move, they don't lie--they lie, except
when they are saying ``Death to America.'' They mean that. So
why not step away from this deal and say, I think everyone in
the country would applaud the President and say: You made the
right decision. Let's not close down discussions or diplomatic
solutions. Let's try and find an alternative. But we can't move
forward.
Why is the President determined to do this deal that I can
guarantee will be unacceptable to Congress? There is no
question about that.
Mr. Doran. I think it is because, I think the most
important decision the President ever made about the Middle
East, he made before he walked into the Oval Office, and that
was that he was going to go down in history as the President
who ended wars and didn't start them and that he was going to
pull the United States back from the region generally.
And the minute you say that your strategic goal is to pull
back, then you run into this problem of, well, what about Iran?
Am I still in the Iran containment business? And what about
this nuclear program? And it puts a priority on solving that
issue so that you don't have to be immeshed in this region
where the challenge really isn't worth the outcome, as
President Obama sees it.
Mr. Trott. It is a world view you are saying?
Mr. Doran. Yes.
Mr. Rademaker. I would add an additional observation. As
you may know, part of my background is in arms control. In
addition to following the Iran issue, I followed very closely
President Obama's negotiations with Russia on the New START
Treaty. And I see a lot of similarities between the way he
negotiated with Russia at the beginning of his administration
and the way he is negotiating with Iran here at the end of the
administration. I would just make the observation that I think
as a negotiator, President Obama is a man who thinks that
demonstrating goodwill will elicit reciprocation by the other
side. And he thinks goodwill gestures on our part will be met
by goodwill gestures. And just by demonstrating goodwill, that
mistrust can be overcome. It is sort of a nice feel-good way to
approach the world. And I am sure there are situations where
that is true. But I think when you are dealing with Vladimir
Putin, as he learned in the New START negotiations, it wasn't
true. The Russians sensed weakness, and they tried to take
advantage. And I think the same is true dealing with the
mullahs in Tehran. These are not men of goodwill. These are
very hard-nosed individuals who have an agenda.
And I think Tom Friedman, I commend the piece to you, it is
quoted in my testimony, the Iranians have read President Obama.
They know he is determined to get this deal. It is now an issue
of legacy in his mind as well. And they intend to leave
nothing--they intend to leave absolutely nothing on the table.
They are going to pick our pockets and then some.
Mr. Makovsky. If I may just even step back a little more
that Mike Doran did, I think he came into office, and this is,
of course, speculative, believing that U.S. foreign policy for
a long time had been a big mistake, that it had been
counterproductive to our interest, that it had oftentimes even
been immoral and diverted from domestic needs. So I think he
sought to really upend, to reverse our policy in a lot of parts
of the world, whether it is in the Middle East, or Russia, as
Steve talked about.
So I think what we are dealing with Iran is just the Middle
East component of this general world view.
I would say just one other point is that President Obama at
least hasn't shown, that I can tell, a great capacity to learn
and to shift policy based on--I mean, Jimmy Carter, for
instance, very famously came into office, talked about an
inordinate fear of communism. But after Afghanistan, he
recognized, he shifted. I haven't seen that sense, that ability
at least in this White House to self-reflect and to shift
accordingly. I hope I am wrong by the way.
Mr. Trott. So the headline will be, ``Deal Done: Iran Gets
Nuclear Weapon in 12 Years, But Everyone Likes Us.'' Is that
the summary?
Mr. Makovsky. And have a nice day.
Mr. Trott. Last question, and I am out of time.
Dr. Pollack, so before I came here, I was in business. And
negotiating a deal in business, it always threw up a red flag
when the other side was so focused on what happens if we breach
the agreement, and we cheat. What happens if we default. And
when folks are so focused on that, then, to me, that is telling
me that I am, you can't do a good deal with a bad guy. So they
are focused on cheating, arguing about anytime, anywhere
inspections, arguing about the military basis. Isn't it a given
they are going to cheat? Isn't it a foregone conclusion that
the deal isn't going to be worth the paper it is printed on?
Mr. Pollack. I don't know, Congressman. I have been working
on Iran for 28 years. The Iranians are very unpredictable.
I will go back to a point that Steve Rademaker made
earlier, which is that I think that there is every likelihood,
as best we can tell now, maybe that is a better way to put it,
in the 10 years to 15 years of the deal, it is hard to see why
they would cheat. They have every reason not to do so. And I
think there is a reasonable expectation that they won't. I
think that the bigger question is about what happens after. The
deal is in many way a bet. When I talk to the administration,
when I----
Mr. Trott. Pretty high-stakes bet, wouldn't you say?
Mr. Pollack. Well, this is just it. It is an unknowable
bet. The bet that the administration is taking is that in 10 or
15 years, we will have a kinder, gentler Iran. And they can
point to evidence suggesting that this could happen. The people
of Iran want to move Iran in a very different direction. It is
plausible. It is just as plausible that we won't get that
kinder, gentler Iran. And that is the bet we are taking.
Mr. Trott. And I appreciate all of your time. And I will
just close with I hope the bet doesn't result in Iran having an
intercontinental ballistic missile that will be able to hit the
President's library in Chicago.
Mr. Pollack. Amen.
Mr. Wilson. Mr. Trott, thank you very much for your fresh
freshman approach.
And I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here
today. I am really grateful that Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking
Member Eliot Engel were able to put this together. We can
certainly see extraordinary concern about policies of moral
relativism and concern about what we are facing.
At this time, we shall be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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