Iran Talks Have Become a Coughing Goat Rodeo

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

But it turns out I was wrong and I was wrong because I didn't anticipate the goat rodeo.

Aaron Stein 0:13

Hello, you are listening to the Arms Control Wong podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, nonproliferation, disarmament. I'm Aaron Stein. I'm the host of the show. I'm also an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy.

Jeffrey 0:29

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis. I'm a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. And the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Aaron 0:37

Aaron, I'm tired. Yeah, and I think you're coming to us again from the famous parking lot from our last Iran podcast. It's another emergency Iran podcast, Aaron. That's right. Well, so you have two columns. I mean, you were tired, but you still wrote two columns in Foreign Policy in the past week. One about the MEK and Labizan Shion 3 and the Cotton Letter.

Jeffrey 1:01

Yeah. Boy, things with Iran are getting funny, aren't they? A bit crazy, a bit funny. All wacky, I would call it, actually. Yeah, I'm trying desperately not to laugh because in addition to having a newborn, I'm also sick. So if I laugh, I'll start coughing.

Aaron 1:16

Yeah, so no laughing about what's going on with our Iran diplomacy. But let's just start right away with your first column, with the lovers in Xi'an 3, the link to the MEK. It touches on all the things that we like in this podcast, which is where an open source can go wrong. Totally where open source can go, well, no, I don't know.

So I think it's open source going right, don't you?

Jeffrey 1:38

I mean, I don't know. Let's see. So the short version of it is that the NCRI, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, which is basically the political front group for the MEK, which was, I guess it's delisted. It's no longer considered a terrorist group, but it's these Crazy Iranians who were opposed to the regime and held up in Iraq and fought with Saddam and are always sort of – they're desperately against any kind of deal because their goal is to get rid of the Islamic Republic.

They published this thing claiming that there was a secret underground centrifuge facility at this place near Lavizan, I guess in the Lavizan neighborhood. They called it Lavizan 3. You know, Lavizan 1 was the real Lavizan, which was a centrifuge research facility that the Iranians bulldozed after the IAEA got interested in it. Lavizan 2 was another MEK leak, which I think is probably fake.

And this was yet another apparently, I think, fake leak designed to screw with diplomacy. But we used open source to demonstrate it was crazy.

Aaron 2:46

Yeah, no, just go right into it because what I meant to say is that – so they leaked it to try and kill the deal and then – so that was your open source going wrong. But then you were able to fix it or at least look at it from the air using satellite photos, Wikipedia, Google Earth, you name it.

Jeffrey 3:00

Yeah, I mean there were kind of two pieces to it that I really liked. One, which I didn't do. Somebody else did. The MEK released this picture of a vault door and they had this crazy thing. They said that it has these radiation-shielded doors in order to prevent – Any radiation leaks. And I was like, well, that's not real for an enrichment facility.

I mean, I've been to centrifuge enrichment facilities, and just the material isn't that radioactive. You don't have those kinds of leaks, and so you don't need a big, heavy lead-lined door. But almost immediately, somebody figured out that they had grabbed it off an Iranian web page of a company that makes steel doors. I'm making myself laugh, and I'm coughing.

It must have looked like a vault door. Yeah, totally, right? Yeah. So it was clear that it was just something they had grabbed online and it was fake. And then the MEK freaks out, right? And so they claim that, well, they had been collecting this information for three years, kind of implying that they'd had the picture longer.

But of course, nobody believes them because it was clearly fake. The second piece was the – MEK guys had identified this facility as a factory associated with something called Mat Iran, which was a – or is the people who make their passports and their new national identity card. And so I was trying to figure out if this particular claim was true.

They said like, well, it's attached to this company that has this legitimate mission, but it's in this neighborhood and it's all military and you can't get on the street. So I went to something called Open Street Map.

Aaron 4:43

Right. This is fascinating.

Jeffrey 4:44

Yeah. So there are all these – I'm going to use a technical term here – weirdos who walk around with their cell phones on doing GPS traces of their journeys so that they can then upload them and create basically a Wikipedia-like – you hear the centrifuge is starting, Aaron? Yeah, I do. I do. Make a Wikipedia-like equivalent of Google Maps using these GPS traces.

And one of these GPS traces – Was uploaded by this guy who went from his hotel to the Mataran facility and back on consecutive days. But he wasn't Iranian. But he wasn't Iranian. Right. So he's a European. I'm actually trying to obscure his identity because he took the GPS traces down for like really good reasons. So the point is we immediately – well, I decided I would like to get in touch with this guy.

I sent him a note. And it turns out he works for a company called That is a real legitimate company. He didn't actually tell me what company it was, but I was able to figure it out because he told me his name. And I was able to confirm that he did work for this company. And I'm going to keep all this a secret.

And it's a printing shop. And he had been there, right? He's a European. And he's like, you know, lots of us have been there and nobody has seen anything amiss. And there are foreigners in and out of that place all the time. And then once we had that, I was also able to see that there had been other VIP delegations that had been inside the site.

So this idea that, you know, it's a, it's a printing shop and there's some elevator that leads to a secret centrifuge enrichment plant. Just, it was crazy to begin with. But on top of that, there were foreigners in and out of that facility all the time. And so it's just, just nonsense. Right. And I thought that was amazing, right?

That we could, In this day and age, I could find a GPS trace of someone who had been inside the facility so that I knew that their claims about it being in a specially guarded military region were false, that this guy had just driven right in. And I knew he was there and I could find him and he can live in Europe and I can have an email conversation and he can tell me his name and he can not tell me his employer, but I can then turn around.

And using his name and his location and the kind of work that he does, figure out who his employer is, and then through a totally different channel keep my mouth shut about, but all online and, and, and above board verify his employment. Right. Actually, I can't, I can't tell you how I verified him, his employment. You know how I did that?

Aaron 7:23

Oh, LinkedIn?

Jeffrey 7:24

No, although I love, I love the LinkedIn. He participated in a fun run on behalf of his employer.

Aaron 7:34

That's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. That's really good. But this is in addition to some of the other open source work that was done on the blog. It wasn't done by you. It was done by one of the contributors, a PhD student whose name I'm forgetting off the top of my head. Phil Baxter. Phil Baxter, who then looked at it and said, well, this doesn't really look like a centrifuge facility for XYZ reasons.

Jeffrey 7:58

Yeah, I mean Phil did the same thing that a lot of us did. What was great is he did it kind of carefully and wrote it up, which is we went through all of the satellite photographs to see if there was any evidence that there had been construction. Because they said like, well, it's underground. But normally you don't dig down and then over.

It's not like you're building a subway. Normally it's a cut-and-cover facility where you excavate it and then you cover it. And it was really clear they hadn't done that. So already the claim that these were these underground tunnels seemed pretty unlikely to me.

Aaron 8:34

Right. Just sort of reminiscent of the crazy that's going on. I mean like look. I mean Iran does have a history of concealing centrifuge facilities.

Jeffrey 8:44

Oh, wait. This is the worst part for me, right? Because I am the guy who runs around saying – They're not going to use Natanz to cheat. They're going to build a secret underground facility, which is what they were doing with Fordow. And if the deal falls apart, what they'll do again. So like I want to get this stuff right.

I just – you can't be making stuff up.

Aaron 9:03

Well, this – exactly. Well, this transitions us to your second column. The letters. Yeah. The letters.

Jeffrey 9:11

So I was wrong but maybe I'm right.

Aaron 9:14

Yeah. Well, first there's a little bit of kerfuffle about the title.

Jeffrey 9:17

Yeah, and I knew there was going to be kerfuffle. So I basically wrote an article saying two things. The first is that I predicted last year that the extension into March was a very dangerous thing for the Obama administration to do because I thought Congress would get a veto-proof majority vote. For new sanctions to kill the negotiations.

I didn't think they had as much time as they did. Yeah, it was our last emergency podcast from the coffee shop parking lot. Right. But it turned out I was wrong, and I was wrong because I didn't anticipate the goat rodeo that would ensue with the Netanyahu invite and then the letter organized by Tom Cotton, signed by 47 GOP senators.

Aaron 10:05

Their strategy has just been bewildering. They don't have a strategy.

Jeffrey 10:09

I was going to say to call it a strategy. Well, we'll talk about whether it's – how it's going to shake out for them. But so the column basically said, OK, so I was wrong. He did have this much time, although in my defense, I couldn't see that they'd make it like such a goat rodeo and give him – because like Obama cannot as far as I can tell – Ever get support for anything in Congress, even among Democrats, right?

He's totally unable to pull that particular trick off. And I just didn't occur to me that Republicans would do it for him, but whatever they did. Exactly. They did. Fine. With an assist from, from Bibi Netanyahu. Right. Yes. And, and so, but then the second thing was to, to look back at the way that the Bush administration had handled both Iran and North Korea and make the argument that Whatever Republicans say when they're out of power – and our political parties do this all the time, which is we have rhetoric that they use in elections.

But once they're in office, they act the same. It just isn't that much difference. My point was that the Bush administration, after trashing the agreed framework with North Korea, proceeded to negotiate something that looked exactly like the agreed framework with North Korea – As part of the six-party process, and so it's like whatever. That's fine. They were right to do that, but it makes me crazy.

It's a very large truck.

Aaron 11:41

It's a really large truck, Aaron. Is it hurtling uncontrollably towards a fireball like the Republican strategy? Yeah. Have a cough. I'm sorry.

Jeffrey 11:53

This cannot be a funny podcast.

Aaron 11:55

Otherwise I will die of a coughing. It's a truck hurtling out of control. Right.

Jeffrey 12:01

Like the Republicans. And their celebrity Bibi Netanyahu. Oh boy. Right. So the point is that Republican presidents negotiate exactly the same agreements. Right. And In particular, Republicans always believe that they're tougher and so they will get better deals, and Democrats always believe that they're more respected in the world and so that they get better deals. And this is just all nonsense.

The structure of the deal looks the way it does because of the parameters, how many centrifuges the Iranians have. The impact of sanctions, supporting the international community, and whether it's George Bush or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush or, God forbid, Chelsea Clinton, the agreement is going to look like the agreement is going to look.

Aaron 13:03

But I got in some trouble with the title. So go into that, and then we'll discuss the merits of the deal.

Jeffrey 13:10

Well, so the point of this was to say there basically is no good deal, right? That all deals are bad deals because they involve some level of compromise and sort of grownups know this. And regardless of what the political rhetoric coming out of a certain side is, right? If they were in office, they would be negotiating exactly the same deal because even if it's a bad deal, it's the least bad of all the options.

So it's certainly better than like an airstrike. But I didn't say it that way because I knew very well it would get framed as, see, the Obama administration wants a bad deal so badly that it doesn't matter. They'll take any deal, which of course is exactly how people spun it even though that's like not remotely what the column says.

Aaron 13:56

Well, I want to just go back to like the day before the deal. You had neuron – if we're going to calculate it by breakout time, that was by – it's a simple breakout calculator. It's not a hard calculation to do with some measure of weeks away from quote-unquote being passing, being able to enrich to 90% relatively quickly.

The JPOA has extended that out to about eight months and proposes to do so for the next 10 to 20 years. Why is that a bad deal?

Jeffrey 14:27

Right. Well, so this is what makes me crazy. I mean like first we should stipulate I think breakout is a terrible measure of a deal. Oh, me too. I mean just – Go ahead. But that is – no, but that is exactly – it's not just the measure the Obama administration wants. You press other folks on it who are opposed to a deal and they say, well, the breakout is not long enough.

So they have collectively decided on this insane measure. And by their collectively agreed insane measure, it's a good deal.

Aaron 14:57

Right. And I will even go one farther. So they've agreed upon this collectively insane measure, but because people don't really understand how centrifuges work, it's become even more defined as in Obama is going to let them have 6,500 centrifuges.

Jeffrey 15:12

Right, right, right, which is crazy because, of course, if the deal collapses, they're going to keep adding them, right? They're going to have 50,000. That was one of the things I mentioned in the piece which really upsets me. I remember in 2006, I proposed that we start negotiating with the Iranians. And the concession that I suggested was to let them keep their single cascade of 164 centrifuges at the pilot fuel enrichment plant in warm standby, which is to say spinning with gas but not hex.

And I was accused of giving away the store. You're giving them everything. Right. And so what I've been super frustrated about is that there's a group of people who have always let the best be the enemy of the good. And what they do is they resist every concession until it's like way too late. And then by the time we give the Iranians the concession, it's of no value to them.

It's like, well, you can keep them in warm standby. It's like, well, we have like 15,000 centrifuges enriching. We don't need warm standbys.

Aaron 16:16

Well, yeah. I mean my argument is that their technical achievements, which are relatively minor if you put them in the context of other countries than rich, dictated the course of action that we are on now. You could no longer kick the can down the road. But 47 senators are not even trying to kick the can down the road.

They're just trying to end the road. They're basically trying to force the administration's hand by writing directly to the Ayatollah about our constitution. It didn't even say anyone's name.

Jeffrey 16:49

It said the leaders of Iran. It was a total open letter. One of the interesting things about this is And it kind of purports to explain our constitutional process, although I would argue it did so inaccurately. A lot of people would. But on top of that, what's so interesting is Tom Cotton, when he was asked about it, I think Jake Tapper really tried to press him on this, was denying that it was an – That it was intended to sabotage the deal, but not very long after someone pointed out that he had given this speech at, I think it was the heritage foundation or centrifuge is starting up.

That's right. This is a Mercedes Benz centrifuge.

Aaron 17:31

So I guess that's a, I guess that makes it a G one. It's like an Angarsk rather than a than a tons type of centrifuge.

Jeffrey 17:39

Yeah, totally. So Almost immediately, people started pointing to the speech that Cotton had given at the Heritage Foundation. Little children, centrifuges.

Aaron 17:55

They're excited. They want to know. They're on the edge of their seats about Tom Cotton at Heritage.

Jeffrey 17:59

No kidding. Almost immediately, someone pointed to a speech he'd given at the Heritage Foundation where he said that ending the negotiation was a feature, not a bug. Right.

Aaron 18:14

Well, it just gets back to the point. Well, it's been met with, let's say, intense skepticism. I mean people are throwing around the T word, treason, which I think is a little crazy. But it's actually raised the debate into something that was floating around about what is the senatorial role in this? And I think that's gotten muddled too.

Jeffrey 18:38

Right. Well, so I mean one of the bizarre things is even though the letter was in incredibly bad taste – and by the way, since we're all joking about the Logan Act, which prohibits individuals from engaging in private diplomacy, I should say I think the Logan Act is a terrible law and no one should ever be prosecuted under it even if on occasion politicians engage in very distasteful behavior.

Aaron 19:04

Well, it just brings the goat rodeo into international diplomacy, which I think we should be fenced off.

Jeffrey 19:11

Well, I think we should strongly discourage and we should censor people. But the idea of prosecuting people, it seems like it's a slippery slope. I've made the slippery slope argument. Clearly, you can tell my brain is rotting from lack of sleep because I hate that argument. But at some level, I think it's true that the law itself is unconstitutionally vague.

Anyway. But having said that, this act is in incredibly bad taste, but I think it's having this perverse effect. If it makes the Corker bill, which does not impose new sanctions but does assert a role for Congress, it makes it look reasonable by comparison. And so in this strange way, by acting like a lunatic – They're actually, I think in the long run, going to get a veto-proof majority for this measure, asserting that Congress should be allowed to vote on this agreement.

Aaron 20:09

Yeah, well, Politico had a piece that the Dems are not defecting. Going back to what you said, Obama, outside of Republican goat rodeo-ism, is incapable of even rallying his own caucus. Yeah, I think so. And, you know,

Jeffrey 20:24

I don't know if that's – well, I don't know. Well, we can speculate all day why that is. But to me, that's – it's just fascinating that they're unable to hold together support basically to let the president do what the president always does. I mean when Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction programs, the Bush administration didn't submit that to a vote of Congress.

Why would they? That was a U.S., U.K., Libya deal that was negotiated, you know, without any congressional role whatsoever. And Congress was excited and happy about it. And none of the agreements with the DPRK, whether it was Clinton administration's 1994 agreed framework or all of the myriad agreements that made up the six party agreement that, you know, eventually collapsed under the Bush administration that I just called it the Six-Party Agreement.

There were actually a bunch of deals associated with that. None of those went to the Congress. And congressional action may in some cases be required.

Aaron 21:32

But the president has a waiver authority for every one of these sanctions. Right. Exactly.

Jeffrey 21:38

So you put the waiver authority in. You delegated that power to the president.

Aaron 21:44

You don't like it. Don't put away for authority yet. I'll go – what instantly popped into my mind when I saw the Corker letter was not how tasteless it was, but – The PNIs, the presidential nuclear initiatives instantly popped into my head or just the presidential authority to rework the stockpile without congressional – in terms of numbers of our warheads.

So – yeah, go ahead. Well, I just – that's it. I mean is that there's a role in arms control for executive authority that's longstanding that Republicans as well as Democrats take advantage of all the time. And there's nothing binding upon us in this agreement. Right.

Jeffrey 22:24

Well, there's certainly no nuclear reductions, right? And this is one of the things that I think is so peculiar about this entire debate. And I think it says a lot about our politics, which is when a Democratic president is in power, Republicans and Democrats have different attitudes about executive authority than when things are switched. And there's sort of almost no consistent – And I tend to be of the view that the executive has very strong latitude.

And if you look at court cases, Supreme Court cases over time, there's a very strong tendency toward letting the president do whatever he or she would like in international affairs. And so the idea that the president can't sign agreements without the approval of Congress is like, It's like folk wisdom about the Constitution. But in fact, presidents sign agreements all the time.

We have this distinction in our law where we have these special things we call treaties that require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. But under international law, executive agreements, congressional executive agreements, and what we call treaties are all treaties. And if the UN Security Council Act It's under Chapter 7. That creates a ton of obligations too. So there is this weird thing that I see happening, which is people don't know very much about international law.

They don't know very much about the power of the executive to make treaties. And so they fill that in with whatever their particular political persuasion is of the moment, right? So suddenly Republicans have this – Incredibly denuded view of executive authority, which is funny because, you know, like Richard Nixon didn't have that view. No, nor did George W. Bush.

And again, I have to say, I think, although, you know, it's always dangerous to disagree with Nixon. No coughing. Right, no coughing. Setting aside Nixon's criminality, you know, I'm somebody who thinks the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. You know, the president can more or less bomb whoever he likes. Might be a terrible idea. Certainly wouldn't have voted for the man.

But I don't know.

Aaron 24:56

Here's my problem with it. Well, one, it makes me miss John Kyle. Is this reflective of the fact that we've lost nuclear expertise in the Senate? I mean that's something that just keeps popping up into my mind. And two, it's that – look. I mean it's the elephant in the room. There are certain pressure groups that are looking to kill this deal.

And so they are interjecting into this hitherto unknown provisions on the basis of no policy on the outcome. No policy other than leading towards military action. Now, look, if that's what you're pushing for, at least the Washington Post op-ed ran the piece, and that guy went out on a limb. But if your policy is hope and a prayer and you don't have anything other than, well, we'll add more sanctions, that's not policy.

That's a tactic. What's the policy? Do you understand what I'm saying? I do. I mean I think it's a series of things, right?

Jeffrey 25:54

Like look, there are – yes, there are some people who are never for any deal whatsoever, right? And they won't admit that. They won't make that their official view. And so what they'll do is they'll say, oh, well, if we just wait longer, we'll get a better deal. But that's not a sincere position. And when you kind of smoke those people out, you've got to realize those are people not worth talking to because they're not dealing with you in good faith.

Whatever deal – if Hominé – Offered them a back rub. They complained that he didn't use the right essential oil, right? Like it's- They wanted a Swedish, not a Thai massage. Exactly. So, you know, you just, you can't deal with those people at all. And I think one of the interesting things about the Cotton Letter is it suggests that at least some substantial portion of the Republican caucus is in that camp.

But then you get Disinteresting partisan thing. And I have always – I have to be honest. I have always wondered – the administration did not do a good job of taking care of people like Dick Lugar who helped them so much on the New START Treaty and hasn't done a great job I think of cultivating Bob Corker as a potential ally.

And so it's hard to know whether it's just too late now. Whether they might have done more and maybe he could have been a more constructive force or whether that was never in the offing. But I do think we have this weird partisan thing where even if George Bush negotiated the exact same deal with North Korea that Bill Clinton did, because they had been so critical of this idea of a freeze on North Korea's programs, They called it disablement, right?

They had demanded dismantlement. They couldn't get dismantlement. And so to sort of save their embarrassment, they created this made up word disablement so that they didn't have to call it a freeze. Right. And, and I think in the same way you see those politics playing out here where the fact is it's Obama's deal. It's a political win for someone they don't like.

And, and so they, they just, it's so hard To convince people to put the country ahead of their narrow parochial interest. So I just – it's always an uphill climb, and just the partisanship I think makes it really, really hard. And again, I think those are people who, if they were in power, would negotiate the same deal, but our politics are so screwed up that they can never admit that.

Aaron 28:46

Yeah, well, aside from everything, it looks like they have veto proof. And I'm looking at the lake right now, and they're just down the lake. You know, the P5 plus 1 or E3 plus 3 and the Iranians. And they're negotiating. We... So it looked like our original emergency podcast about this was going to come true, and then there was the Republican goat rodeo.

Then Bibi Netanyahu came around and made it worse. But then Corker started to look decent because of all this thing, and now people are gravitating towards, well, maybe we do need more sanctions. This is the last chance, right? Yeah, I think so.

Jeffrey 29:20

I mean I think if they can't close a deal, I don't think they've got more time – And again, they're still only working on the framework document. They aren't even doing the details.

Aaron 29:34

Right.

Jeffrey 29:35

Exactly. So we're going to have this framework document, and the question will be, can they get it in time? And if they get it in time, will it save the president from a veto-proof majority in Congress, either insisting on an up-or-down vote or imposing new sanctions? Right.

Aaron 29:59

It's a very interesting situation.

Jeffrey 30:01

I have to say, even though I strongly support the idea of a deal, and I know this is really hard, and the negotiators are dealing with a lot of problems. By the way, that's not me coughing. I don't think I'll be teaching this in my class as a textbook example of About how to go about getting a nonproliferation agreement.

This has been pretty rough.

Aaron 30:33

Yeah. I mean it has been pretty rough. Not the least of which – just because of the inability to come up with standard and cohesive talking points around the issue of breakout. I understand it's slightly complicated to calculate SWU and then from SWU get the amount – how long it would take to enrich your stockpile of enriched uranium.

But for God's sakes, three sentences, you can do it.

Jeffrey 30:56

Well, this is – I actually think it would have been an advantage of not focusing on breakout. I mean if we had focused on just verification measures and basically ignored breakout, the objections would have been the same. I mean I don't think you're going to get a different objection to – you wouldn't get a different objection to 5,000 to 10,000 to 15,000 to 20,000 centrifuges.

It would be the same complaint. You're legitimizing their enrichment program, and when the deal is over, they'll expand. But you would have this really simple talking point, which is it's absolutely clear that they don't want to have a showdown, and the number one thing that deters them is they know they'll get caught. This deal puts in place incredible measures that make sure that the Iranians know that if they choose to try to cheat on the agreement, they're going to get caught.

Aaron 31:54

I think in a bilateral sense, that would have made sense. Where I disagree is that because it's not just the three plus three, it's also the regional allies. That type of agreement would not have worked. And that's just my personal thing.

Jeffrey 32:07

It's fine for us to disagree.

Aaron 32:09

Yeah, I know that. I mean, it's that, you know, back home, people are obsessing over breakout. But, you know, one of the things that you hear most about Israelis, you hear two things from Israelis. One, you hear the breakout needs to be longer than a year. That makes us more comfortable. And two is that we wanted a seat at the table.

Well, I think they've gotten both. And then the goalpost has shifted. But that breakout thing I think was our kick to the regional allies.

Jeffrey 32:39

Well, my objection to doing it that way is I don't think – I think the regional allies are smart enough to know that what really frightens them – Is Iranian military power and the incredible role that the Iranians – I have a centrifuge starting up. The incredible role that the Iranians have now given themselves in Iraq and Syria.

And so in this funny way – I was having this conversation online the other day. One of the things I – I think one of the hawkish arguments for striking a deal with the Iranians is because nuclear talks have sucked all the oxygen out of all the discussions of the other terrible things they're doing that we really need to confront, right?

I mean, did you see today's New York Times? I'm quoted. Yeah, I did. There are very interesting Iranian missile systems showing up in Iraq.

Aaron 33:45

Yeah. That have no military value in the types of conflicts they're fighting with ISIS. I mean to be clear, I mean they're very active all throughout Iraq. It's something I follow very clearly. But Robert Ford, our former ambassador to Syria, just gave a brief interview to MEI, the Middle East Institute. He said, look, he does not see the nuclear talks as being – Actually linked to what's going on in Iraq and Syria.

But nevertheless, I think they do what you were saying, Jeffrey. They just suck the room. And it creates a space for some of the opponents of the deal to tie it to issues that it's actually not tied to.

Jeffrey 34:18

Yeah, although I guess I'm – look, there are clearly people who are using the Iranian missile program and Iranian regional aggression as an excuse to not have a deal. Although I keep pointing out to them like, hey – The fact that the Iranians are doing all this conventional stuff that's really, really aggressive, that's why I don't want them to have a bomb.

Aaron 34:37

Exactly.

Jeffrey 34:37

Yeah. But on top of that, I mean I really feel like the – like I'm sympathetic to the anxiety of our allies. But my guess is if we had a clearer strategy on Syria, we had a clearer strategy on ISIS, although I think ISIS is – that we're maybe starting to finally get there, had some account of like what that – Hell we're doing in Yemen, then I think that kind of generally healthy relationship in that context, a nuclear deal wouldn't be so frightening.

But when you just let the Iranians run roughshod throughout the region, and then, oh, by the way, give them a nuclear deal... I totally see why some people get a little nervous. But yeah, I think the way to fix that is not to insist on an unrealistic deal. It's to fix the gradient region progression problem. You've got to talk to them about that.

Aaron 35:37

Yeah, I mean I think the way to fix it is to move the nuclear thing from the equation, and one of the things you do is you strike a deal. And that gets the nuclear thing so we can actually start fighting each other again. Right. Because – and we will start fighting each other again because, look, we are on opposite sides of all issues in the Middle East.

I do not buy into the grand conspiracy that Obama is trying to appease Iran to try and give them Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. I think that's silly. I think that's nonsense. And so we need to be able to start fighting them again, and I think removing the – The overarching threat of the nuclear thing for 10 to 15 years is a good way to start going about doing that.

But I think we both agree. We need to get this agreement now. It's March – it's the end of March and we need to get a good framework – I guess a good framework in place so that we can cinch this thing up by June, wouldn't you say? Yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey 36:33

Like get the deal and like don't think that this is going to make everything like all –

Aaron 36:38

I don't know, hugs and lollipops between us because it's not. No, it's removing a threat, but anyways Jeffrey, this has been good. Thanks for joining us. Like coming in injured? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I left, I left it all. I left it all on the, on the Chase Lounge. Yeah, you're playing her today? No. So thanks for thanks for coming in, thanks for talking, and.

Thanks, everybody, for listening. Much appreciated. Hey, and if you like the podcast, write us an iTunes review that says we don't suck. That's right. We don't suck. So give us a review. Cool.