Scuttling Der Weinerplan

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

Believe me. Believe me. Believe me. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:27

And I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East. Hey, Aaron. We've got a sponsor. We do.

Jeffrey 0:37

We do. It's our first one. Yes. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Power Problems, a new foreign affairs podcast from the Cato Institute. Have you listened to it?

Aaron 0:50

I have. I definitely have. It's new. I think they have four episodes up on the website.

Jeffrey 0:54

Yeah. So Emma Ashford and Trevor Thrall offer a skeptical take on U.S. foreign policy and discuss some of today's big questions in foreign policy and international security. Who'd you listen to? Or did you listen to all of them?

Aaron 1:06

I listened to all of them, but the one I listened to... First was the one with Friend of the Pod, Josh Pollack.

Jeffrey 1:13

Yeah. So they have guests from across the political spectrum. And the three people they highlighted for us are three of my favorite people. Samir Lalwani, who used to be a research assistant at the New America Foundation when I was there. Is that where you were? Yes. He was Steve Clemens' assistant. So basically, he got to clean up all Steve's messes.

Aaron 1:35

Okay. I'm not sure what to say there.

Jeffrey 1:37

No, it's positive. Samir's awesome. Josh Pollock, our colleague, well, my colleague. He's responsible for introducing you and I. He is. He is. We wouldn't have the podcast without Josh. That's right. And Arianne Tabatabai, who I think is probably one of the most interesting people who pays attention to what the Iranians are up to.

Aaron 1:59

That's right. That's right. She is. The last time I saw her was in Istanbul.

Jeffrey 2:03

Right, so Power Problems offers a different approach to today's foreign policy problems, energetic, compelling, and not afraid of controversy. This is a great podcast. You can find Power Politics on iTunes, Google Play, and via Cato's website, cato.org forward slash power problems. I got a power problem for you. What is it? The president is going to nuke the Iran nuclear deal.

Aaron 2:30

He certainly has indicated that on multiple occasions his discomfort with the deal, calling it a very bad agreement and one-sided for the United States.

Jeffrey 2:39

Yes, and he was recently at the UN General Assembly in an appearance that I have compared unfavorably to Khrushchev banging his shoe or Yasser Arafat wearing a weapon. Maybe Hugo Chavez even? It was down there. We're in that realm. We're in that territory. Yeah. That's our one one-star review is how much we hate F*** Face Fun Clown Stick.

He was throwing feces as the orange orangutan. Not even Republicans like the man.

Other voice 3:16

Anyway, what he said was, frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States. And I don't think you've heard the last of it. Believe me.

Jeffrey 3:27

Believe me.

Aaron 3:28

Believe me. Believe me.

Jeffrey 3:30

You know, I think. Go ahead. Oh, that reminds me. When he did that interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Aaron 3:36

The one where Ivanka dropped it?

Jeffrey 3:37

Yeah, that's right. Where he said if it were up to him, Iran would be found in noncompliance.

Aaron 3:42

You're the one issuing the waiver. Of course, it's up to you. This is what Josh actually talked about on Power Problems, was of course he has the power to kill it. Yeah. And I think this is important because October 15th is Certification Day. Or Non-Certification Day, as the case may be. That's right. We're going to have to figure that out.

You know, the president of the reality television show likes to keep us on cliffhanger and suspense.

Jeffrey 4:07

Stay tuned.

Aaron 4:08

Yeah.

Jeffrey 4:11

By the way, can I just note that when the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act was passed by the world's greatest deliberative body, he says sarcastically, you and I had a lot of questions about it. I think making the president certify Iran's compliance every 90 days is a nightmare.

Aaron 4:35

I agree. And we actually, at that time, I was still in Geneva, recorded a pretty long podcast about it and what it meant for the Iran nuclear deal.

Jeffrey 4:46

Is this in the same era where I was able to geolocate you and see what kind of shirt you were wearing and your reflection in your wine glass? This is. This is. This is. And that was around the corner from my head.

Aaron 4:55

Happier days. Happier days.

Jeffrey 4:58

Yeah, so the president has to certify that Iran is in compliance every 90 days, which should be easy because Iran is in compliance, but nothing is easy with a mango Mussolini.

Aaron 5:10

That's right. Well, I think it's important just to back up. I mean... What we mean when we say Iran is in compliance is that, you know, as part of the IEA's monitoring of their implementation of the JCPOA, no less than Director General Amano has said that Iran is in compliance, which has led to some sort of, you know, bait and switch here in Washington about what that actually means.

Jeffrey 5:33

Right. There are there's always an argument of the moment. And, you know, I mean, for a while it was this silly heavy water nonsense where there wasn't really a limit in the deal. Iran had an estimated amount of heavy water it was supposed to have. And whenever it would get up above that, it took a while to to ship it out.

And then for a while, people pretended that the agreement prohibited missiles, which it doesn't. And now we have a new fever dream, Section T, which is the current stupid argument du jour against the Iran nuclear deal.

Aaron 6:11

Right, and this is in the agreement. It's activities which could contribute to the design and development of a nuclear explosive device.

Jeffrey 6:19

Yeah, I blame Ali Heinen in because... He has been pushing this from the get-go. I don't think that it's insincere, but this is Ollie refusing to see the forest for the trees. So I get pretty frustrated. I mean, what this is about is, you know, if you think about what the JCPOA does, I still wish we could call it the Vienna Plan or the Wiener Plan, Is it elaborates on a lot of the nonproliferation obligations that Iran has.

So for example, Iran under the NPT, Has a very general obligation not to acquire nuclear weapons.

Aaron 7:08

Yes, it's spelled out in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Jeffrey 7:13

Right, but the problem is the text of that doesn't really define that, right? It just says that each state... I should actually just read the damn thing, right? Right. The important phrase is not to manufacture or otherwise acquire. But manufacture is not defined. And in fact, we used to have this argument with... And this is why I get annoyed at Ali, right?

Because he actually is shooting his friends. Certainly there are arguments that the kinds of documents... That the Iranians turned over in the course of the IAEA investigation. There were people who argued that those, even though to most of us they represented a very clear depiction of a nuclear weapons R&D program, and the IAEA described these activities as being related to nuclear weapons R&D and conducted in a coordinated fashion.

There were people who said, well, that still falls short of manufacture.

Aaron 8:18

Right, and then this goes back to the original, I think it was 20, the idea that Iran was actually noncompliant of its NPT obligations.

Jeffrey 8:27

Right, and so some of us thought it was a really great thing when the Vienna Plan contained Section T that actually outlined A series of steps that could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device. So in a way, it actually finally defined manufacture in a way, or at least added an obligation so that manufacture wasn't a narrow obligation for the Iranians, but rather was a broad obligation.

Aaron 9:06

And if you know anything about the history of the Iranian program and what they were up to, it is literally... Written around the allegations around PMD. Say a little bit more about that. Oh, you know, well, the things that Iran was accused of doing and then laid out in specificity over a course of close to a decade of IAEA reports, culminating, I think, in the November 2011 one, where they spell it out in the annex in complete detail, is...

Is design specifications and a quote-unquote program built around how you would manufacture, is to get fissile material and then taking that fissile material and then putting it into a nuclear explosive device, and then more importantly, how to test that nuclear explosive device and then monitor that so that you learn from it. And so they built Section T around the allegations in PMD, basically to tell Iran that, We know what you did with PMD.

Don't do it again. Right.

Jeffrey 10:05

I mean, I think the way to say this is that what the IAEA assessed was that, and this is a quote, a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort. And so you and I would say a coordinated effort to conduct a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device is a bomb program.

Aaron 10:27

Yeah, it's a no-fecal-material Sherlock moment.

Jeffrey 10:30

Right. But the defenders of the Iranians argued that fell short of the NPT obligation not to manufacture or to receive assistance in the manufacture. And so they were like, well, it's not prohibited. And so the NXT was a good thing that said, Iran cannot design, develop, acquire, or use computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices. It can't design, develop, fabricate, acquire, or use multipoint explosive detonation systems suitable for nuclear devices unless it's done under monitoring.

Aaron 11:05

Danilenko.

Jeffrey 11:06

Yeah. Can't design, develop, fabricate, acquire explosive diagnostic systems like flash x-ray cameras unless it's done under monitoring. And can't design, develop, fabricate, acquire, or use explosively driven neutron sources. It is literally a one-stop definition of what a nuclear weapons R&D program looks like and says you can't do those things unless you have special permission and they are monitored.

So that was good, and Ali should have been happy. But the problem arose, and this is now like the crazy talking point of the moment. I've already gotten emails about it, and you see it in op-eds. Oh, yeah. This is impossible to verify.

Aaron 11:51

Yes, and yes, it is impossible to verify. But it was never meant to be verified.

Jeffrey 11:56

Exactly, because the point is not that you want to, you know, I mean, it would be awesome if the IAEA could do random audits of every computer in Iran. To make sure there are no models on those for simulating nuclear explosive devices.

Aaron 12:13

Right. Hey, kid, Ukiyo wants to see your Furby.

Jeffrey 12:20

Show us that iPhone. Yeah. I mean, of course it's impossible to verify, but you need it in the event that any of these activities come to light. If they come to light, you want to be able to clearly point and say, hey, that is prohibited. You are in violation of the deal. And it's not crazy to imagine they would come to light because they came to freaking light.

Aaron 12:45

They literally came to freaking light and were put out in the public space so people like you and I could go look at it in November 2011 and say, oh, man, that is exactly how you would build a nuclear weapons program. They're obviously building a nuclear weapons program. What are we going to do about it?

Jeffrey 13:02

So this is why I get frustrated with with Ali, because, you know, it's, again, the forest for the trees. It's not just him.

Aaron 13:08

It's not just him.

Jeffrey 13:09

There's a lot of section tiers out there. Yeah, I know, but I actually have respect for Ollie, which is more than I can say for a lot of these other clowns.

Aaron 13:21

Well, no comment there.

Jeffrey 13:23

Look, the forest... Is that some people were arguing that there was no prohibition on having a nuclear weapons program. And so the negotiators went out and got a prohibition on having a nuclear weapons program. That is the hardest part to verify, and you are never going to have confidence in verifying such a thing. But you're better off for having it in.

Like, sometimes you put non-verifiable things in a treaty because even if there's a small chance you'll catch them doing it, you want to be able to say it's prohibited if you catch them.

Aaron 14:03

You mean that sometimes in legally binding agreements, you put things in on the expectation that something could happen one day?

Jeffrey 14:10

Yes. It's a shocking notion.

Aaron 14:13

To cover your ass? Yes.

Jeffrey 14:15

I mean, can you imagine if Section T weren't there? If Section T weren't there, and suddenly a document appeared showing that the Iranians had acquired all of the diagnostic equipment to conduct cold nuclear tests, the opponents of the deal would be freaking out for what a crappy deal it was. And they would be right. But you don't then get to do the other thing, which is once it's included, say, but you know, that's impossible to verify.

Like, of course it's impossible to verify. You know, like, yeah, it turns out The world is structured in such a way that you can't verify everything you'd like. And there's no, it's not like this would have been possible to verify, except, you know, there wasn't the political will. Like, no, this is structurally impossible to verify. Although we should note that There is a little bit of a debate.

Amano would like a little more authority in this area, and I would like to see Amano get that authority, and the Russians are being a pain in the ass. But we're going to have to live with the reality that you are not going to be able to do random audits of every computer in Iran that is capable of running a computer model that would simulate a nuclear explosive device.

Aaron 15:38

Or a military site. One of the things that opponents are putting out there is it actually mirrors that of certain other I guess, you know, broad. Basically, what they want the ability to do is for the IAEA to have unencumbered access to suspected military sites in order to verify this, which is code for trying to get Iran to deny them access to this to cause a crisis.

Jeffrey 16:04

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, to close out the Section T discussion, which again, I think is just, Section T is just an excuse to try to make the IAEA do more inspections so that the deal is More onerous to the Iranians, more humiliating, more upsetting, I think in the hopes that it'll trigger an internal political crisis in Iran so the Iranians will walk away, right?

So it's just really an attempt by people to sabotage the deal. You know, when those people say they're interested in good nonproliferation outcomes, they are full of s**t. It's baloney. Right, it's not true.

Aaron 16:39

Well, Section T doesn't live alone.

Jeffrey 16:41

No, it certainly does not live alone, right?

Aaron 16:43

It's nested within the broader... Restrictions on Iranian activities. Right.

Jeffrey 16:48

The outcome these people want is no JCPOA and therefore no extraordinary IAEA access, right? And they're trying to use demands that the IAEA be more transparent and use demands that the IAEA conduct more inspections, basically in order to sabotage the mission of the IAEA.

Aaron 17:06

Exactly. I mean, there's just no other way around saying it.

Jeffrey 17:09

And what I find so frustrating about it is when those people... Deliberately misrepresent what it is they want. That to me is beyond infuriating. It's fine if you think that Iran is terrible and I just don't want a nuclear deal with them. I don't agree with that, but at least you have the courage of your convictions. I think it's really cowardly to pretend that what you really want is a better deal when you know very well that neither you nor your funders would accept any deal whatsoever.

Aaron 17:45

I think that's right. I mean, I don't have problems people speaking out against the deal. But when you pretend that your ultimate outcome is non-proliferation and that somehow Section T or the heavy water or remember the tail ponds, LU, you know, is some massive overarching threat to Iranian ability to construct and manufacture a nuclear weapon is simply baloney.

And what I think is important about Section T... Is that the drafters of the deal, you know, this gets us away from the silly breakout debate. Do you know what I mean? Where Iran's technical capability to construct a weapon is solely measured in the amount of time it would take them to enrich fissile material to weapons grade, and instead attaches a definition to, well, hey, this is what an actual nuclear weapons program would look like, independent of, from my mind, the irrelevant breakout.

Jeffrey 18:48

You know what that sounds like, Aaron? What? That sounds like a power problem. It does sound like a power problem. Hey, I'm going to take a minute and just remind you that if you like this podcast, you should check out Power Problems, a new foreign affairs podcast from the Cato Institute. Emma Ashford and Trevor Thrall offer a skeptical take on U.S. foreign policy and discuss some of today's big questions in foreign policy and international security with guests across the political spectrum, including our aforementioned friends, Samir Lawani, Joshua Pollack, and Arianne Tabatabai.

Power problems offers an different approach to today's foreign policy problems, energetic, compelling, and not afraid of controversy. This is a great podcast. You can find power problems on iTunes, Google play and via Cato's website at Cato.org forward slash power problems.

Aaron 19:32

Well, let's let, I mean, let's switch gears. I mean, so I think underpinning, I mean, section T is a straw man. But I think underpinning a lot of the criticism of the deal, if you take their rhetoric seriously that they're actually interested in negotiating a stronger deal, I think underpinning that is this assumption that the thing that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons can be solved technically, and that it's not ultimately a political decision.

Jeffrey 20:10

Yeah, I've written a couple of op-eds where I've tried to make this point. You know, like, the Iranians have a very robust and successful centrifuge program. Actually, Zarif was mocking John Bolton the other day, saying that while Bolton was in charge, they went from 200 to 20,000 centrifuges.

Aaron 20:38

But he wouldn't be inaccurate in saying so.

Jeffrey 20:41

No, no, he's not wrong. And I like to point out, you know, I see a lot of Iranian things on those North Korean missiles. And I just think that you could, if the Iranians, if the United States walked away from the deal, And the Iranians made a decision to do this in earnest, to go ahead and build a bomb in earnest.

I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility they could have a thermonuclear weapon on an ICBM by the end of Trump's first term. I think they would probably go a little slower than that, because they'd probably be a little bit coy and cautious about it, not least because if Trump then turned around and accused them of building a nuclear weapon, no one would believe him, because you've already walked away from the deal.

But there is nothing... Technically to stop the Iranians. I mean, I think one of the things that made me so frustrated is there were people who were saying, oh, this deal is the equivalent of the strategic patience policy in North Korea, which failed, which is so backwards. You know, like strategic patience is literally the policy we adopted when we walked away from the deal we had with North Korea and said we were going to go get a better deal.

And the patience part came with, we have to be patient while we wait for the North Koreans to come around. The problem is while we're being patient, the Iranians, or the North Koreans rather, built thermonuclear weapons and ICBMs, right? And so if you walk away from this deal... There is nothing technically to stop the Iranians. There's no thing that they don't know how to do.

There is no sanction that we can put that will prevent some crucial piece of equipment from getting to them. It's literally nothing more than a political decision on their part.

Aaron 22:24

And the JCPOA drafters I believe had this in mind, because a lot of the things that the opponents, I mean, the main one besides Section T that the opponents put out there against the deal is that, you know, the sunset on the 6,000 centrifuge cap, you know, 5,000 more or less in the tons, and then because of Iranian decision-making decided to keep 1,000 at Fordow, But they can only spin, you know, non-fissile isotopes.

So you have 5,000 that are actually enriching and that, you know, basically in about a decade, those restrictions come off and then they don't have any type of restrictions on the numbers. But, you know, this goes back to the idea that the main problem with the Iranian nuclear program was that they can enrich. Like, they've already solved that.

Do you know what I mean? We're at the point now where they would be working on weaponization. And what we know from the IAEA documents is that that was beginning in 2003. You know, in the absence of having mastered enrichment. Well, they've mastered enrichment now because we diddled around for 12 years. Now we have a cap on their enrichment, and then we have verifiable limits on weaponization, on the activities that could lead to perhaps siphoning off, I should say, that enriched material for weaponization.

And then the criticism of the deal is, well, maybe in eight to nine years now, those will come off, and we're worried that they could then hide it and weaponize.

Jeffrey 24:00

Yeah, I'm sure I've told this story on the podcast before, but I will never forget this because I was so damn mad. The AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, sponsored a talk that I gave, I think on Capitol Hill, maybe in like 2006 or 2007, right? So very early on, when the Iranians had a single cascade of 164 centrifuges.

And at that time, the big view in Washington is you can't negotiate unless they are starting from zero. And I remember giving a talk saying, it's 164 centrifuges. Let them keep it. Let them save face. Just verify that it doesn't go beyond 164. And a significant number of people, some of whom I really like, some of whom I still really like, Where, like, you are giving away the store.

Zero is the easiest number to verify. This is madness to let them keep 164. And it's, like, in retrospect, how happy would you be to freeze them at 164 right now? I mean, of course.

Aaron 25:12

I mean, now what they're trying to freeze them at is basically, you know, more or less one year to break out. That's where the 5,000 number comes from.

Jeffrey 25:20

Yeah. So, you know, I mean, while I do... I think the thing we should say about sunsets is, you know, not everything sunsets.

Aaron 25:28

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get.

Jeffrey 25:29

The additional protocol, if you get it, and it's only very likely that you'll get it under the agreement, I mean, there's some complications there, but if you get the additional protocol, that's forever. Some of the other political commitments are of indefinite nature. And I actually am someone who thinks that, you know, and have been pushing, and it'd be great to see the deal opponents actually, like, help out rather than, you know, be saboteurs.

But I've been trying to push to find other countries that would accept similar restrictions on, for example, access to centrifuge workshops.

Aaron 26:04

Yeah, that's the big one that I wanted to talk about. Yeah, talk about that.

Jeffrey 26:08

When does that sunset? That sunsets with the expiration of the deal, I think. I actually don't remember how many years, whether it's 10 or 15 years. I think it's 15.

Aaron 26:19

15, that sounds right to me.

Jeffrey 26:20

But, you know, the point is that could stay forever if it weren't regarded as an extraordinary measure. Right? Like, I actually have thought we should encourage the Japanese to say, hey, we'll put our centrifuges under this same kind of monitoring in a bilateral agreement with the Iranians so that the Iranians don't feel singled out. Because, you know, the big problem for the Iranians is their politics, is there are people who don't care about the monitoring of the centrifuge workshops, but they do care about Iran being subjected to a scrutiny that nobody else is.

And so rather than, like, Bring Iran back down with the sunsets to our, like, relatively low level of safeguards, I think we should bring the safeguards up. So it'd be great if some of these people throwing rocks at the deal would, like, actually help out in fixing the problems. But that's not kind of what they're into. But I think you're... All of this leads to your big point, which is what people don't like about the deal is...

What they don't like about the reality of our present moment, which is we are not all powerful. And there are no technical barriers to countries building thermonuclear weapons and ICBMs anymore. It is literally nothing more now than a political choice. And yes, it will take time for countries to do it. And so you've got time for diplomacy.

And yes, you can use sanctions to put a little pain on them. And maybe you can use some sanctions to slow those programs. But at the end of the day, a determined proliferator can do it. And that Brings us to the central and miserable lesson of the nuclear age, which is mutual vulnerability and the fact that nuclear weapons mean that you share a danger even with countries you don't like.

And so the problem is proliferation doesn't just threaten us in a kind of narrow sense. It fundamentally threatens people's worldviews. You have to solve things diplomatically because you don't have power options. And I think that just makes people crazy.

Aaron 28:23

Yeah, or that In order to solve that inherent policy problem, you have to do away with the regime you dislike. That's right. And that therefore, the only way you can manage politics, particularly in the Middle East, where this is so prevalent, or even you see it in the North Korean case, is either through decapitation or regime change.

And this is where I see it's just a fundamental break. From American understanding of this arms control issue during the Cold War is that we accepted mutual vulnerability with the Soviet Union, and we understood that we could not change the regime, and therefore we had to make concessions and compromises and be clever. Whereas with weaker countries like Iran or North Korea, the political incentives now are, well, we just have to be tougher.

And therefore, you know, and that we can solve this technically through sanctions or, you know, imposing embargoes or something along those lines. And assuming that the people in these countries are A, stupid, and B, do not have the technical capacity to manufacture a weapon that was first conceived of in the 1930s and actually executed in the 1940s.

Jeffrey 29:42

Yeah, you know, and I also blame the Obama administration a little bit because in selling this agreement, they really bought into this narrative that sanctions forced the Iranians to, and then the to is sort of left unclear, right? Sanctions forced the Iranians to, that's a strong story, but what sanctions forced the Iranians to do was elect a president who wanted a deal.

Aaron 30:10

And then the president of that country made a political, and it was a consistent political decision. We have him on record in the early 2000s making the same case for the deal that he makes in 2013, 2014. His internal political machinations about why the deal was beneficial to Iran was the same in 2003 as it was in 2013.

Jeffrey 30:31

But we will never admit publicly that the concessions we made Were as important as the sanctions. If we had gone to the table with the sanctions and said, by the way, we will insist on zero centrifuges, the Iranians would have walked away. And because the administration wanted to look tough, in my opinion, and they weren't willing to sort of level with people about what leverage we had and didn't have, they let this myth fester That sanctions were all powerful, and they made it seem like the Iranians fell to their knees and begged for mercy, and then we let them keep a bunch of centrifuges because we're too nice, which is silly.

This was a negotiation the Iranians had more leverage than we did. Because at the end of the day, the Iranians could build a bomb, and we didn't have any really great Coercive options other than just leaving those sanctions in place. And over time, economies adjust to sanctions. And so, you know, I mean, Rouhani wanted the sanctions relief, but he wanted the sanctions relief for his own domestic political reasons.

And, you know, though I don't think he would have gotten a deal two years later. I don't think Rouhani would have gotten elected again. So, you know, I, I feel like we, we have this superhero story of American foreign policy where we're all powerful. And, you know, if you just send Mike Pence and his resolve face out to sort of squint at people you know, the crazy foreigners will back down, but that's bull.

It is. And, and at the end of the day, there is a consensual piece where we are trying to persuade countries that it is not in their interest to build nuclear weapons.

Aaron 32:27

And we freaking did it with Iran.

Jeffrey 32:30

And so for people to then come along and insist that, no, no, we need to replace this agreement with a humiliation, in the belief that that humiliation won't immediately result in them walking away or covertly beginning a nuclear weapons program, it's just crazy.

Aaron 32:51

And we should close this out by saying that we both Well, I remember that conversation. I think you were up in the middle of the night reading it. And I, because I was on European time, it was pleasantly the morning and I was reading it over coffee. It is a good deal. The insistent harping on Section D is indicative that they can't find anything else.

And then the sunset. The people who thought of this deal, because we have criticized other U.S. arms control agreements where the Russians have sneaked into mistakes that we think arms control negotiators made in the past. They really buttoned it down in this one. And yes, we did make a trade-off. And the trade-off is the sunset. On one aspect of the program, on the number of centrifuges, and that they got to keep an overall cap of 6,000, of which only 5,000 we actually care about.

Jeffrey 33:51

Yeah, I mean, the way I look at the sunset, which I take to be the big picture, is the whole reason the Iranians wanted the sunset is because they wanted to Resolve issues related to their past weapons program, and I think ultimately get to a point where they weren't singled out for unusual scrutiny, which I think politically was pretty hard for them.

And so, you know, the idea is you build this deal where you actually have in place monitoring so that Iran can continue with a nuclear energy program But giving us the confidence that it's not a nuclear weapons program. Their goal ultimately is to get to a point where they're just another normal nuclear state, where they're like Brazil.

And I understand why that's unacceptable to a lot of people, because they don't trust the Iranians. Newsflash, I don't trust the Iranians. But the Brazilians are a really good example, because the reality is we don't live in a world where we can force people to comply with the NPT. Just don't have that much power. And so, you know, the reason people hate this deal and the reason they hate the sunsets, I think, has as much to do with hating what it says about how much power we have and how much influence we have and what we can conceivably do as it does with the kind of nitty-gritty of nonproliferation.

Aaron 35:20

So... We got the Dead recording this on September 28th. So we got about two weeks. Do you think he, what do you think happens?

Jeffrey 35:30

I think he decertifies. I mean, you know, it sounds like every time they have done this, there has been a knockdown drag out fight with Tillerson and McMaster trying to persuade the president to go ahead and do it. And he sort of reluctantly does it. He clearly doesn't like doing it. I think he feels like it's emasculating because he talks about how terrible it is, but then he's not able to, with the flick of his pen, make it go away.

And so I think at the end of the day, he's going to stop listening to Tillerson and McMaster. I mean, maybe we get through this one. We've got Kelly there, right? But I mean, from everything I've read, This has had a really detrimental relationship on Tillerson's relationship with Trump. I suspect it also has with McMaster's relationship. I don't think the staff can, every 90 days...

Fundamentally alienate the president on an issue he feels strongly about. And I don't think these men have the courage to resign, to be honest. I know everybody wants to think that they're great patriots who are doing their best to, you know, deal with a terrible situation, and, you know, John Kelly's head is in his hands when Trump says the crazy things, and I think we're a little bit guilty of reading our politics into people who don't necessarily share them.

I don't think they're going to resign over it. I think they'll let the president walk away with it. Maybe not this time. I just, I don't think we can go four years with this every 90 days.

Aaron 37:00

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, at some point, Because he keeps saying it over and over again. And one thing we've now been experiencing the Trump world for almost a year now, he actually takes steps to implement what he says in these crazy rallies, even if sometimes it's disorganized. Well, it's always disorganized. And he keeps saying he's going to decertify...

The deal, and I tend, my number one guiding principle in analyzing both domestic and foreign now is that when crazy leaders say something, you should best better pay attention because it usually has a ring of truth to it. And so, I mean, should we talk about what that means? I mean, or... Yeah. I mean, and then decertify this within its own context of domestic legislation, the Iran Nuclear Review Act, Agreement to Review Act.

Jeffrey 37:58

I mean, there are actually two questions here. I mean, one is, if the president under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, I hate these acronyms, if he doesn't certify, then Congress can reimpose sanctions. Congress may not choose to reimpose sanctions. Congress may choose to reimpose some sanctions. The Iranians may walk away from the deal. The Iranians may not choose to walk away from the deal, particularly if the Europeans continue lifting sanctions.

So there's actually a lot of play that comes after the decertification, although it definitely would harm the agreement, I think, and put us in an awkward place. I want to be careful about how I'm saying this because I think these geniuses haven't quite figured it out. There are other things they could do to destroy this agreement.

Aaron 38:51

Yeah, don't say it because there are a lot of things they could do to destroy the agreement, but they aren't smart enough to do it.

Jeffrey 38:56

Yeah, or they just want the decertification and then to, like, slough the blame off on Congress. I don't know. But, I mean, you know, I read Bolton's How to Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal, and I... Think I've got like three ways that are like way more effective than that, but I'll just, I'll just keep those to myself. We'll see if, we'll see if the Rage Walrus figures it out, the Mustache Man, but.

Aaron 39:26

And this is something that Pollack pointed out over at our friends at the Cato Institute, was, you know, it undercuts the UN Security Council resolution with ultimately, you would think, from a forward-thinking foreign policy perspective, it should not be the goal of the United States to emasculate and neuter the UN Security Council.

Jeffrey 39:45

Yeah, you'd think. You'd think.

Aaron 39:47

But, you know, this is it. I mean, we're going to find out on October 15th, and... We will see what comes about after this. My guess is that Iran will actually stay in the deal because it makes more sense to them to voluntarily, they'll probably say along those lines, continue to follow the agreement and try and outlive Chido Jesus.

But obviously the U.S. throwing up roadblocks will make things very difficult for them and the Europeans.

Jeffrey 40:16

Well, and I worry that they start to hedge, right? Because there's no, they, they're Iran's a big country with a lot of different power centers. And, you know, I think it's entirely possible that while Rohani is trying to keep the deal together that maybe some people will get a wink and a nod to resume certain hard to verify activities.

Like Inception T. Yeah. And the big problem we're going to run into is Trump has undertaken such a transparent and cynical effort to destroy the deal. If you do catch the Iranians up to something, you're the boy who's cried wolf. No one is going to actually believe you, even if it's true.

Aaron 40:54

Right. I think we should be clear. It would not be beyond factions within Iran to cheat on this agreement.

Jeffrey 41:01

No, they had a nuclear weapons program. This is the whole reason I want an agreement, because they might actually build a nuclear weapon.

Aaron 41:07

Right. Well, we again agree that we agree there. It's like they might actually do it. So you might as well impose these heavy restraints on them. So if they do do it, you'll know about it.

Jeffrey 41:18

Otherwise, it would be nice, right?

Aaron 41:20

Yeah. Otherwise, you'll find out like, you know, Sig Hecker will get an invite to go look at a new gleaning centrifuge facility under a new mountain that we can't get to. Do you want to pet the peanut, Dr. Hecker? Yeah, exactly.

Jeffrey 41:35

All right.

Aaron 41:36

Oh, Aaron, thank you for joining me. Always.

Jeffrey 41:39

This has been fun in a sad way. Yeah. Hey, if you like this podcast, remember to check out Power Problems, a new foreign affairs podcast from the Cato Institute. Emma Ashford and Trevor Thrall offer a skeptical take on U.S. foreign policy and discuss some of today's big questions on foreign policy and international security with guests across the political spectrum.

Power Politics offers a different approach to today's foreign policy problems, energetic, compelling, and not afraid of controversy. This is a great podcast. You can find Power Problems on iTunes, Google Play, and via Cato's website at cato.org forward slash power problems. Hey, we don't have Scott here to tell us how things are going on the Slack page.

Aaron 42:17

Yeah, but you know who else is in the Slack channel? It's Eric Gomez. Yeah, of the aforementioned Cato Institute. That's right. And so I think what Eric would tell you and what I will tell you is that the Slack channel is growing. It's large. It's fun. It's robust. And subscribers to the Patreon page at $5 a month will get access to it.

And all things in there, including the Iran nuclear deal, are discussed. And if you are a student, you can get access for $3 a month. And if you are a member, you get invited to events like a happy hour. That was the last time I saw Eric.

Jeffrey 42:52

Great. Aaron, thanks for joining me.

Aaron 42:55

My pleasure. Thank you.

Jeffrey 42:57

And thank you for listening.