Iran’s Once in a Lifetime Moment

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:19

And I am Aaron Stein, no longer of War on the Rocks. Today is actually my last day, although I think when this gets up, I will have started or have been close to starting as president and CEO of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. I've transitioned. Aaron, I have some business I have to transact with you.

Jeffrey 0:38

What is that? Well, so in 1996, which I will admit is some time ago. It was a while. So I think maybe tempers have cooled.

Aaron 0:53

Okay. I'm afraid of where this is going. I don't even know where this is going. I mean, that's what? 1996? That's 28 years ago? I was going to say 27, but you're right. It's 28. We're in 2024.

Jeffrey 1:07

Okay. So I think it's not too soon to raise this sensitive issue. I applied for an internship at FPRI. Did you really? I did, and I got it. I didn't even know this. Well, it's a little embarrassing because I didn't get a proper internship. The only internship they offered me was in the library. I guess you had a library back then.

Aaron 1:34

Oh, no, we did. Well, I was 13 in 1996, but yes, the library still existed when I started.

Jeffrey 1:41

We moved offices. This is not how responsibility and power work, Aaron.

Aaron 1:46

But yes, we had a library.

Jeffrey 1:47

I was only offered an internship in the library. I can't believe this. I accepted the internship.

Aaron 1:59

I can't believe this. Okay.

Jeffrey 2:01

And, and then I got an internship offer in DC, which, you know, no, no offense to Philadelphia, but as a enterprising rising senior and in college, I thought DC was a slightly better, better bet for me. So I, I turned down the internship and Well, there were some hurt feelings, Aaron. And I was strongly advised that it's pretty unlikely that I would ever, ever really be allowed to do anything with FPRI again.

So I'm really coming to you hat in hand, Aaron. I am sorry. I was trying to do what was best for me. I felt like I was slightly better than a library intern. No offense to librarians, but you know, I want to make the knowledge, not shelve it. So, I mean, are we good? Can I show my face in the halls of FPRI?

Aaron 3:10

So we've moved offices. So I shut down the library. So with that in hand, you are welcome back with open arms, my friend.

Jeffrey 3:18

Can we revisit that story? You mean you banished the librarians as an act of revenge? Served so cold decades later?

Aaron 3:33

No, because I know some poor interns back when I was research director were in the library. And I... I'm not going to badmouth the organization I now run, but you probably made the right choice. Who got your services that summer?

Jeffrey 3:49

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, which was the only place that would have me.

Aaron 3:59

This is great. I had no idea. This needs to go in your memoir. And you know what? We're going to have you back to give a talk the next time you come to the East Coast. You can come visit America's first capital and still better capital.

Jeffrey 4:10

Washington, D.C. has nothing on us. But you don't have a library.

Aaron 4:16

No, but, you know, we moved to the cloud, right? Maybe I could intern for the cloud. I don't know. This is fantastic. I had no idea that this story existed in all of our years of friendship. I was saving it.

Jeffrey 4:32

I needed to move at the right moment when you're in position to formally vacate the black mark against my name. You know, they say something's going to go in your permanent record. I imagine that somewhere you have a big filing cabinet. There's a little folder and it has my name on it. And it's just a handwritten note that says, do not rehire.

Aaron 4:53

I imagine in many places around Washington, D.C., there's a handwritten note that says, don't let Jeffrey Lewis through the door. Fact check, true. But you know who else is not letting somebody through the door? How about for that transition?

Jeffrey 5:06

Oh, the segue! He brought it back!

Aaron 5:10

Landed that plane. The Iranians. My God.

Jeffrey 5:13

The Iranians.

Aaron 5:15

Yes. Yes. It's been a while. We've done five minutes on FPRI, which is great. Please, more people check out the website, fpri.org. But the Iranians are certainly not being the most cooperative and they are not giving the amount of access that you just recently got at our own nuclear facility. What are we calling it? It's part of the nuclear enterprise out in Nevada.

I don't think the Iranians like Rafael Grossi as much as I like you, Aaron. No. So let's start at the beginning. There's obviously all these tensions swirling around in the Middle East, the Gaza war, Iran, the Israelis just shot up the Iranian consulate. The Iranians are pretending to fire back or will fire back. Who knows? But I think since February, issues that have been percolating are coming to the fore.

And the Iranians basically are... Well, let's pick it up from there. What's been going on for those who have not been following the Iranian nuclear file?

Jeffrey 6:10

So obviously, the Iranians are not complying with the nuclear deal because the United States stopped complying with it. So we have had this movement away from limitations. And as part of that, the Iranians have increased the... Basically the number of activities that they're engaged in. And in particular, I think the big concern is that Iran has this growing stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, which, you know, if you're not – if you're a – I was going to say, if you're not a technical listener, Jesus Christ, why the hell did you start this pod?

It's been a decade. I think our listeners know, but who knows? Just to remind people, enrichment is a poor term for the physical act of separating isotopes. So, you know, 60% uranium – 60% enriched in uranium is not like two-thirds of the way to 90% uranium you would use in a bomb. Correct. It's like 90% of the way because what you're really doing when you're enriching uranium is you're not adding.

You're not enriching in the way we think of that word. You're separating isotopes. You're removing stuff, essentially. Right. So going from less than 1% natural uranium or less than 1% of the fissile isotope of natural uranium to 60%, most of the separative work is done there because you've gotten rid of almost all the non-fissile material. You know, that last little step is really just, I mean, it's not that hard.

And so I think that We have this kind of, you know, we have this idea, I think, in the community that we have this idea in the community that the hard part is the material. And so the whole arrangement of the Iran nuclear deal was about limiting the amount of material the Iranians had and its enrichment levels so that there was time – not that we loved breakout – but that there was time between that material and having enough material that you would use for a small stockpile.

That time is now basically gone, right? So if you went back to the old breakout calculations – They're basically not worth doing at this point. No. I would say that – go ahead. No. So that's it. So that's where we are, right? There's basically no restrictions on the Iranians. There's very, very, very little – Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron 9:11

Yeah, it's the old joke that you only talk about your relationship when your relationship is in trouble and you only use the drifting apart sort of metaphor when you have to do that. So clearly things are not good between the two sides. And if I had to sort of break down sort of the way we think about the Iranian nuclear program, there was a time where there was technical impediments to the program, but that was like almost as far back as your internship at FPRI.

Jeffrey 9:38

Yeah, that's right. And those were not very strong boundaries to begin with. And and to the extent that they had any value whatsoever, they were always a wasting asset. Right. They were always a short term fix that might buy you a small amount of time. But if you didn't know what to do with that time, which clearly we don't.

Right. We just I mean, Trump pulled out of the deal how many years ago?

Aaron 10:30

You know, I didn't want you to put me on the spot because I forgot. I think it was 2017 or was it 18? Like, we haven't done **** in the interim. Right. You know? Exactly.

Jeffrey 10:39

It's been more than half a decade. Let's put it that way. So, like, I mean, maybe, okay, it's untrue that pulling out had any positive effect whatsoever. But even if pulling out had had a shock effect on the Iranians, even if pulling out had placed some kind of pressure on them, even if a renewed emphasis on sanctions had, like, undermined them, like, That bought us whatever time it bought us.

It was never going to buy us two full freaking terms of the rest of Trump's term and a full Biden term. It just isn't. That's crazy.

Aaron 11:15

And what's interesting is that Salehi came out with some salacious comments, basically affirming what I think we've talked about on the show as well, is that Iran has fully leaned into and embraced the latency case, i.e. That they just are very happy living in that space right now. And that's what the 60% is all about. The 60% is their way of saying, we can do it if we want.

Here's how we're going to put pressure on you. And Salehi, when he was asked about it, basically just reaffirmed that before I think he had to walk it back.

Jeffrey 11:54

Yeah. Let me read you what he said. That's great. Yeah, it's, I mean, great is... It's great for content.

Aaron 12:06

At the end of the day, we create content, right?

Jeffrey 12:07

This is tremendous content, Ali. Yeah, he's asked if Iran has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. And he said... We have crossed all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology. Here's an example. And then he does the thing I hate, which is he uses a car example.

Aaron 12:26

So I was going to come back to that. Do you think he was talking directly to Fareed Zakaria here? Maybe.

Jeffrey 12:32

Maybe. Could have been Fareed Zakaria for writing the car article. He could have been just trolling me since I have long argued for the T-BAM, the treaty banning the use of automotive metaphors. He says... Imagine what a car needs. It needs a chassis, an engine, a steering wheel, a gearbox. You're asking if we've made the gearbox. I say yes.

Have we made the engine? Yes. But each one serves its own purpose. So, you know, he's making the argument that they have all of the components acquired for, he would say, other purposes, but that it would be a relatively straightforward task of putting them together. I think that's fact check true. Yep, yep. Definitely doesn't.

Aaron 13:15

No Pinocchios in the Washington Post.

Jeffrey 13:18

And then you have the question is like, why does he say this? And I think there are kind of, you know, my view has always been that There are politics in Iran. There are people in Iran who want a bomb. There are people in Iran who don't think it would be such a great idea. My strong sense is the people who don't think it'd be such a great idea are losing.

You know, they had their high watermark with the Iran nuclear deal and we cut their legs out from under them.

Aaron 13:45

And then peed on them and then literally pissed on them.

Jeffrey 13:48

Yes, we lit them on fire and then walked across the road, pissed on them to put the fire out, and then lit them on fire again. Right.

Aaron 13:57

And then spiked the football, congratulating ourselves for doing so.

Jeffrey 14:00

Yeah, Salehi was one of those who was, shall we say, singed and drenched in this process. So one view is he made an oopsie. I actually don't think that. My guess is that the people in Iran who don't want to build a bomb – Are probably now the big advocates of latency. I would imagine the debate in Iran is now no longer between those who are like, oh, let's be nice to the West and cut a deal because they always honor their promises.

I think it's between those people who are like, we basically have all the benefits of a nuclear bomb and none of the downsides, so let's keep on keeping on. And then I think there are those people who are like, Intermediate positions are inherently unstable, it's time to get going and build one.

Aaron 14:52

One has to imagine that as you're trying to analyze Iran like we do, that people... Who want to confront them about their nuclear program are also weighing this stuff as well. That if you push too hard on the urine-soaked folk, they lose power or something along those lines. And then the advocates for weaponization become empowered in this debate.

And I think you also have to put this in the context of, this is where the region comes in. This is where Iran getting smashed by the Israelis does have an impact on how they make decisions. And then inevitably, Khamenei is very old and they're going through their own Sort of planning for transition, at least one assumes, and so like the next sort of cadre of leaders and how they think about their status in the region and all of the weaponization work that they're talking about because some of he is not here talking about the weaponization work, he's talking about just the infrastructure, but we all know that there was significant and well-done weaponization work as well that was going on. Yeah, and you know, I think.

Jeffrey 15:53

I think the Iranians getting hit is a pretty big deal. I mean, I know from the Chinese case that the U.S. strike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade had an enormous internal impact in terms of how it shifted the nature of their debate. Because honestly, who wants to be the person who shows up in a meeting in Tehran the day after you've been hit and then say, you know...

I think what we really need here is for cooler heads to prevail and to be cautious. Like, that person does not leave that meeting more powerful. You know, if your goal is to bring the temperature down, you might find ways for Iran to express its anger that don't make the situation work. But no one, I think, the day after something like that Can be seen to be arguing against taking further steps.

Because it's a super simple argument, you know, like, Wouldn't wouldn't Israel be more cautious around Iran if it had the bomb? And the answer is just yes. Right. I mean, that's you're going to win that argument every time internally. What are you going to do? You're going to get out like a you're going to get out like sex or infirmity.

You're like, actually, they're eating political scientists on this topic. Say that the nuclear balance has very little impact on the outcome of militarized interstate disputes. See, let's look at this case study in the Belgian Congo. Yeah. Off, you're gonna lose. Right? No, no, it would be a 60 case study run through reverse regression. How dare you? Yeah, I love Todd. Todd, I've known Todd since he was in high school. He's one of my favorite people on earth. His work is excellent. It is correct. More people should listen to it.

Nobody's doing a dramatic reading of his work in an NSC meeting.

Aaron 17:49

I also know Todd. Don't know where to take that. I love Todd. But this is true. I don't think anybody's doing a dramatic reading of anybody's PhD work in an NSC meeting. Certainly not mine. Jesus. Let's be clear. But I think your point is, Well, I guess I think your point is that the Iranians themselves may feel safer and may feel better equipped to handle regional events, particularly with the Israelis doing what they're doing.

And I think other people would say the Israelis ultimately feel safe in doing what they're doing because they have the bomb and Iran doesn't.

Jeffrey 18:29

Yeah, I mean, I suspect that people have... Prior opinions about the value of nuclear weapons. And just the day after your... It's not really an embassy, right? What was it?

Aaron 18:43

What was the building that... It was a consulate. Right.

Jeffrey 18:46

You know, the day after your consulate gets hit, just the politics of the thing are... The people who want nuclear weapons are like, none of this would happen if we had nuclear weapons. Whether that's true or not, that's what they're saying. And that's a simple, compelling argument. And the people... Who have been urging caution, like, this is not the time to have the fight, right?

They're going to delay. They're going to keep their heads down. So, you know, I just think that politics pushes you in this direction. And my guess is that's what Salehi was doing back in February when he said this, which is, He's probably making the argument that latency is good enough, and we'll see if that argument holds. By the way, this opens up a really interesting question, which is the Iranians are not behaving all that well, but is this the moment to have a showdown with them at the Board of Governors?

Aaron 19:44

So that's where I was trying to tee up, but then I also took the conversation sideways. It does feel like we've gone back in time. And so it's whether or not to have the showdown at the Board of Governors and whether or not it's wise politically to have the showdown at the Board of Governors because it could push them to weaponize.

It could push them to do things that they want. Whereas, you know, you could incentivize the right, let's say, the latent government. The late, the latency wanters in their own debates. If you don't refer them for, you know, basically if you don't have that showdown to sort of keep the status quo, even if it's not very good.

Jeffrey 20:23

Yeah. I mean, I remember when, when Hassan Rouhani, before he was the president of Iran, when he was the nuclear negotiator, that's how freaking old I am. This is, you know, not really all that long after I got crosswise with your library.

Aaron 20:38

It was less than a decade, less than a decade.

Jeffrey 20:40

Yeah. So that's a long time ago now. He was very clear that the decision to move Iran's case to the Board of Governors was a shock for them internally. But he was also very clear that the deliverable that he was able to promise bureaucratically was... Resolving the case in front of the Board of Governors and making this problem go away.

And I just can't imagine if you're the lead Iranian nuclear negotiator this go around that you have any prospect of that happening, right? Because you've already gone through the whole thing. You've signed the deal. Everything was going great. And then you're just right back to square one again.

Aaron 21:22

Right. No, no, totally. But again, I do think the context is different. Rouhani was having those conversations. It was 2003, wasn't it?

Jeffrey 21:31

Yeah. Yeah. Right after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Aaron 21:35

Because right after the invasion, it's before we pissed on ourselves with the occupation.

Jeffrey 21:41

You lit me on fire and then pissed on me. No, actually, I lit myself on fire and I was trying to put myself on fire. I was trying to put myself out. I accidentally lit you on fire and accidentally pissed on you.

Aaron 21:54

Right. This was within 18 months we had toppled the Taliban and we had toppled Saddam Hussein and we had done so easily. Good times. This was long before the IRGC started whacking our dudes in Fallujah and particularly in South Iraq. And so anyways, my point there is that the context around which they were concerned about referral to the Board of Governors was informed by their own concern about getting schwacked.

And I don't think they have the same levels of concerns about being schwacked this time around, even if the goal is the same.

Jeffrey 22:27

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think – This is politics all the way down. There are politics in Iran even if we refuse to see them. There are people in Iran who want a bomb. There are people who don't. And the balance of those politics has shifted over the several decades that we have been at this.

So I'm sure you can hear my computer just dinging away. This is what my life is like, Aaron. I get like 50 text messages and emails a day.

Aaron 22:57

I am just wondering why you're still using a Windows-based platform, though. I'm not. This is my Mac. I don't know why it's suddenly dinging through.

Jeffrey 23:04

Yeah. Oh, my God. My life. It's probably my little research group's text chat, which mostly involves memes and very little work, but we'll get to that another day.

Aaron 23:17

I think...

Jeffrey 23:18

To go back to that point, the politics have shifted so dramatically that the what, what worked 20 years ago in terms of shocking that system and realigning their internal incentives might today have a very different outcome for all of the reasons you cite. And I think that's a really important thing to just say very directly that. You know, there are people in D.C. who are always like squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

And then there are people who are like, oh, don't hurt their feelings. Don't hurt their feelings. Don't hurt their feelings. And the real answer is sometimes you squeeze and sometimes you back off. Right. And squeezing in 2003 was good. And squeezing until you got a deal was good. But then once you had a deal, backing away from the deal and squeezing again was not great.

And squeezing today I think could be catastrophic.

Aaron 24:16

Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to make a prostate joke there, but failing it. But I'm just going to leave that one out there in terms of the squeeze. No, but it's true. And I think the concern is, is that now if you squeeze, they'll just weaponize. Which, you know, like I would.

Jeffrey 24:33

So here's a question, Aaron.

Aaron 24:35

Hold on. But why would you? So like, here's the question. So then this becomes that dumb self-deterrence thing, but I'll do it anyways. Why wouldn't Why wouldn't the referral now, why would it change the sort of dynamics around latency? Especially when they're getting their own, they're not doing too well. Like, yes, we sort of put them up on a 10-foot pole.

They're so great. They have all these militias. They keep hitting us, yada, yada, yada. But fundamentally, none of their strategic goals in the Middle East have actually come to fruition over the past 20-plus years. We're still there. Israelis are still there. And they're still sort of fumbling along. I'm just playing devil's advocate, although I think I certainly believe this.

Jeffrey 25:11

No. Look, if I were an internal Iranian, I probably would be the person saying we shouldn't do this because I have certain other views about the world and I would want Iran to be oriented west rather than east. You'd want your chateau in Switzerland where you can hide your money. Correct. But world's dividing up into blocks, man.

People are choosing sides and the Iranians, I think like the North Koreans are throwing their lot in with the Russians. And so this is your moment to, To make that transition. And it's a, it's a once in a, once in a generational moment where the Iranians could go ahead and do a test and they could blame the United States.

And I think there's, you know, with a reasonable amount of diplomatic effort, the Russians and the Chinese will protect them. Like this is their window. It's what the North Koreans are doing. You know, the North Koreans are like leaping through that window Because there's no feasible prospect of a sanctions regime. Right. So if I were the Iranians and I was embarked on their general foreign policy outlook, which to be clear, I would not be.

This is, I think, a once in a generation opportunity. That said, there are lots of people in the Iranian system who want the world that I want and they're going to fight like hell and I hope they win. So if you were Grossy, what do you do? You know, I guess if he listens to the pod, one, hello but two, what? Hey, you're doing a good job. Actually, really? Yeah, really tough job. And he's doing it really, really well. Yeah, we're fans. I mean, we don't always, we're not, we're not always fans of of international organization leaders, but this one we are. I mean, I think you do what you've been doing.

Which is you. You have to be objective and the objective reality is that the Iranians are moving closer and closer. So I don't I don't think you can become an apologist for the Iranians. So I like I think the Iranians really don't like him at this point, but I'm not sure he has any other choice. But you know, I think trying to keep things as calm as possible and just not have that rupture because, you know, ultimately we're always playing for time, right?

We're, we're, we're, we're playing to see what happens when Raisi is replaced or the Relations with Saudi Arabia change or what happens with the war in Ukraine, like, like if you can't win today, put the decision off till tomorrow. And my, my judgment is we can't win today, so just try to just keep it from going off the rails, which I, you know, it seems to be what he's doing. You know, he doesn't, he doesn't use language that I find particularly inflammatory, so.

Aaron 28:17

No, I guess it's just can kicking. We could do a rant about the JCPOA, but I think people have heard that. But that one's dead. It's gone. We should bury it. We poured one out. We poured one out already. We did already pour one out. Okay, so you got your Colt 40, whatever.

Jeffrey 28:33

We sang whatever that Boyz II Men song was, right?

Aaron 28:37

I was just talking about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men.

Jeffrey 28:40

It's the end of the road. You know when they were real popular, Aaron? I do.

Aaron 28:47

Let me say two things before we go. The Philadelphia origin story right there.

Jeffrey 28:53

Yeah.

Aaron 28:53

Let me say two things.

Jeffrey 28:54

One is I've been living with North Korea's bomb for a long time. Is it really the end of the world if the Iranians get a bomb?

Aaron 29:04

I mean, it's not good. It's bad. I love this zag from you because you started your blog in 03. It's called Arms Control Wonk.

Jeffrey 29:13

I believe in arms control.

Aaron 29:15

I do. And, you know, I love this zag. I don't know. I just. Well, can we talk about Furman's research then? Would it really change dynamics in the Middle East if the battlegrounds between the Israelis and the Iranians are in Iraq and Syria? I think the answer is no. So maybe his research is right, and they should be reading it.

Oh, I think their research is great.

Jeffrey 29:37

I'm saying no one reads it at NSC meetings. I'm not saying it's not correct. I think it's, you know, North Korea's nuclear bomb is a bad thing. It is not the end of prosperity and peace in Northeast Asia. I would still like to see it go away. I would not like to see the South Koreans and the Japanese follow suit.

I would prefer Iran not build a bomb. If Iran builds a bomb, I would still prefer that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and UAE not follow suit. Yeah. I don't I don't mean it's good. I'm not like going on going all Ken Waltz more, maybe better. Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, like. I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that we have we have had successes and failures in nonproliferation over the years.

You know, it sucked when the apartheid South Africans built one. That was bad. Eventually they gave it up. Right? I'm not crazy that Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons.

Aaron 30:40

I wish they would give them up, you know?

Jeffrey 30:42

So if we lose one or two here, you know, if we go from nine to 10, 10 is still a lot better than a hundred and it's, it's still worth doing.

Aaron 30:52

Yeah. So keeping true to the keeping true to the the original name of your blog now podcast. So arms control wonk.

Jeffrey 31:02

Yeah. You know, you just, you win some, you lose them. Hey, other thing we didn't mention.

Aaron 31:06

Hmm.

Jeffrey 31:07

Iranians are building a new medical isotope reactor They did this happen while I was skiing last week in Vermont It's been happening a little bit for a while. They pulled the modified code 3.1. We don't need to tell you Yes, yes, yes.

Aaron 31:23

Yes. Yes.

Jeffrey 31:24

Oh, yeah They've been building they've been it's been in planning for a long time because we can see evidence of the footprint on site for a couple of years and But they apparently, and I'm just working off arms control today, so I don't know this independently. But they announced that they had begun pouring concrete and we did, we watched them put up, it's at Esfahan.

We watched them build concrete. They've had the kind of clearing in the ground for a couple years now. We watched them put up a concrete batching plant, and we can see now that they're beginning to pour the foundations. They did a press conference in which they said, hey, we're building a medical isotope reactor, which, you know, to be fair, they need.

But according to arms control today, Iran did not notify the IAEA when it began construction of these facilities as required under its safeguards agreement. Iran maintains that suspended the safeguards position provision known as modified code 3.1, the subsidiary arrangements, which listeners will know we spent a lot of time talking about one of the benefits. Of the Iran nuclear deal was getting Iran to voluntarily comply with the enhanced subsidiary arrangements to their comprehensive safeguards agreement.

Not very sexy, I might say, but... Well, sexy to a certain segment of our listeners.

Aaron 32:44

I think one of the first pieces I grappled with by James Acton was about Modified Code 3.1, and I want to say it was back in 2008, so 12 years after you abandoned my new institute.

Jeffrey 32:54

I mean... I wouldn't say abandoned, you know, I just, I moved up, Aaron. I mean, I guess I should say kudos to the library for recognizing talent, but.

Aaron 33:10

So as we close out here, you know, the library.

Jeffrey 33:13

Can you imagine how awful I would have been to have me around in the library feeling underutilized? Yeah.

Aaron 33:21

It was for the best, but I will say this.

Jeffrey 33:23

Here, let me help you with that article. One, I know the library. Go away.

Aaron 33:27

The library doesn't exist, but I know where you would have been. And I think Jeffrey Lewis caged in that space would have been sort of like, it wouldn't have been good. But like most organizations, you can name the library. Would you like it to be named the Jeffrey Lewis Library?

Jeffrey 33:46

Maybe just an intern cubicle in the library, you know, just to motivate other young people who've been drafted too low.

Aaron 33:53

A case of beer and a night out in Philly. We can do the Jeffrey Lewis intern cubicle.

Jeffrey 34:01

You know how I'm going to pay for that case of beer, Aaron?

Aaron 34:05

I do, but why don't you tell the list? Or I will. The way Jeffrey's going to pay for this is from going to patreon.com slash acwpodcast where you can sign up to join our Slack channel where interns can join the virtual cubicle and pour one out with their cold 40 or talk about everything involved in arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

Or if you're like Jeffrey, the Kenneth Waltz embracing more is better at patreon.com slash acwpodcast. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not.

Jeffrey 34:38

Because if you give us beer money to do the podcast, we'll do the podcast. And if you don't, then we have to go, you know, do consulting gigs for beer money. And it just, there's no time left over for the pod.

Aaron 34:52

We're squishy. We don't like selling out to the men, and we need to name Jeffrey's cubicle after him. So, patreon.com. Lockheed Martin.

Jeffrey 35:03

The Northrop Grumman Lockheed Martin Boeing intern cubicle.

Aaron 35:09

With that, we go up the rails as usual. It's nice chatting. It was good to talk to you.