Parchin Puzzle

Jeffrey Lewis 0:07

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 is on paternity leave, so instead I'm joined by Cheryl Rofer, a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratory and creator of Nuclear Diner, a blog on all sorts of nuclear issues.

Twitter's an ugly place. It's like a peek into, is it, I don't know my Freud, is it the id?

Cheryl Rofer 0:49

The id, yes.

Jeffrey 0:51

The id of inner wonkdom?

Cheryl 0:55

Yeah, and the whole thing about the Parchin sampling has really brought out some divisions, actually, in the non-proliferation community, and Higher Martian.

Jeffrey 1:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess the place to start is by talking about what Parchin is, right? Because I guess I'm going to assume that our listeners, while they know a fair amount, probably don't recall the particular details of every single site neuron. And I think one of the things that comes up in this discussion is people hear about the Parchin debate and they assume that it's...

It's an example of a typical inspection, but in fact it's a pretty specific site where there's going to be a managed access visit, or now I guess there has been a managed access visit. And so there are specific procedures for this specific site to answer specific questions. So how do you, like when you're talking to people who don't follow this, how do you explain what Parchin is to them?

Cheryl 2:01

Okay, well, you know, I think we have to start out by saying that Parchin is Is a military site. It is not one of Iran's nuclear sites. It is fortunate as a military base. And the attention has focused on a particular building there in which an explosive chamber was alleged to have been sited, in which Experiments relating to nuclear weapons development were said to have been done.

Jeffrey 2:37

Right, and the Iranians say that this is for nanodiamonds, right, using high explosives to compress. What would it be? Carbon.

Cheryl 2:50

Yeah, actually, I'm not sure the Iranians would even cop to that, because Over the weekend, Director General Amano of the IAEA, who was there, said that there was no explosives containment vessel inside this building. So the Iranians have been denying a lot of that to Parchin for a long time. But there was this story. They did have an advisor by the name of Danilenko.

Who had done this nano diamond thing back in let's see was it the Soviet union at that point?

Jeffrey 3:34

I think it was. I think he's Ukrainian, but was a Soviet nuclear weapons scientist.

Cheryl 3:38

Right, right. And he was at one of the Soviet nuclear weapons sites and he came to advise the Iranians about nano diamonds. Now the trouble is that and we've written a fair bit about this on nuclear diner, the The explosives chamber that he described for the nanodiamonds looked a whole lot like the coal bus that the Soviet Union used to do exactly the kind of experiments that Iran is alleged to have done at Parchin.

So that was the big concern.

Jeffrey 4:15

Right. So there had been rumors about Parchin before, and the IAEA visited a different location at the site in, I think, 2005. There's a funny story, by the way, which I can't confirm is true. It's from the Iranian press, so it's probably false, as many things in the Iranian press are. But, you know, the Iranians have taken to saying one of the buildings the IAEA wanted to inspect was a toilet, which I...

I think somebody just probably had to go to the bathroom, right? It would be like the Iranians if you asked to go to the bathroom to count that as one of your buildings you had got to visit.

Cheryl 4:53

Well, you know, sometimes when you're playing hardball, you do that.

Jeffrey 4:57

Yeah. But the kidding aside, subsequent to that visit, the IAEA found Mr. Dan Alenko and interviewed him, and that's what has triggered this. By the way, You know, there have been interviews and descriptions of him in the German press, but they always use a pseudonym, right? So you have to know that, like, Der Spiegel calls him Vyacheslav D. And Paul Kreuger in, I can't speak German, is it Süddeutsche Zeitung?

South German Daily, right? Something like that. Uses the pseudonym Viktor Cherenkov. But it's all Dan Alenko. So right. So it, I mean, from my perspective, it's pretty straightforward that I think between 1996 and 2002, the Iranians are alleged to have done this implosion testing in this Kolba at this site. And so that's something that looks like it was related to weapons work.

And so the IAEA is obligated to try to get to the bottom of just what went on there. Although I think from Mr. Danilenko we have a pretty, pretty good picture.

Cheryl 6:15

I think there's a real circumstantial case that such a vessel existed at some point and some kind of experiments having to do with weapons development took place.

Jeffrey 6:27

Oh, this is where we get to make the obligatory Oompa Loompa joke.

Cheryl 6:32

Jeffrey's Zoom Palooza joke, which dates back how many years? Ah, yeah.

Jeffrey 6:38

Well, you know, when you get a funny joke, you got to say it over and over again. No, that I mean, I don't know. So there was that that that I think it just wasn't a very good computer rendering of the Kolba. Right. Yeah. Which which which had that tiny little door.

Cheryl 6:54

Yeah.

Jeffrey 6:54

Right. And I don't even know why you'd have a door on a Kolba that seems like a bad idea. Right. Like blow the doors off is actually is actually a phrase. But it looked like the kind of door that only an Oompa Loompa could get through. I don't I don't I don't think that undermines the credibility of the claim.

I just think somebody did a bad job rendering it.

Cheryl 7:15

Absolutely. I agree. You know, I've taken those computer renderings to just be approximations.

Jeffrey 7:22

Yeah.

Cheryl 7:22

And I did not take the door quite as seriously as you did.

Jeffrey 7:26

No, I didn't take it seriously. I just thought it was funny. I mean, this is such a boring field, you know, so if I could go around claiming that the Iranian nuclear weapons program is run by Oompa Loompas, I'm going to do that.

Cheryl 7:40

All right.

Jeffrey 7:42

So that's the purpose of Parchin. And so then I guess we get to this question of the so-called possible military dimensions and why we have to get to the bottom of them. And I mean, I've always found this really fascinating because there was this 67-page annex that the IAEA was treating as confidential, which was kind of a list of all of the questionable things the Iranians had done.

The IAEA, behaving as it's supposed to, didn't leak that information, at least for a while, and then someone leaked it. Right. In 2009, and then eventually in November 2011, the IAEA published a summary or a version. It wasn't anything like 67 pages long, as I recall. It's just interesting because, you know, the question of leaking it, you know, raises this question of, like, what is the... How do you...

What's the purpose of the PMD investigation?

Cheryl 8:39

Right, right. And I think different people have different conceptions of what that purpose is. The IAEA, of course, has the eventual responsibility to come to a broader conclusion that all the nuclear material in Iran is being used for peaceful purposes. But that's a way down the road, according to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of

Jeffrey 9:06

Action the Iran agreement, the Iran deal, whatever. By the way, I wish we would call it the Vienna Plan, because you know what? Well, you know what? That would be in German, it'd be the Wiener Plan. All right, another joke. Okay, my hashtag, the Wiener Plan. Okay, dear Wiener Plan. Wiener Plan, dear Wiener Plan. I'm sorry, yes, under Der Wiener Plan.

Cheryl 9:40

Okay, so you have two things going on under Der Wiener Plan. One of them is that the IAEA is going to do a quick check of Iranian facilities, which is due to the IAEA Board of Governors in December, and which this weekend's sampling shows Was done under. That is what has been referred to by politicians in the US as the secret side agreements.

But it is mentioned in the JCPOA as something that will be done. What's a little bit interesting about that is that there's no follow-on to it. The Negotiators for the JCPOA have always treated the PMD as an issue for the IAEA and primarily for the IAEA. And that's how it's being done. Iran got information to the IAEA by August 15th.

The IAEA came back with questions September 15th, and now they've made a site visit

Jeffrey 11:04

Right. I mean, I have to say, I have never been able to get a, what I consider a granular answer about what the purpose of access to Parchin is. You know, I mean, there is, I think for some people, access to Parchin is about humiliating the Iranians and shoving a red line back down their throats. Right. Which is fine, but it's inconsistent with having a deal and not something the IAEA should be interested in doing.

From an IAEA perspective, I have never been able to get someone who can explain to me what the purpose of the visit is going to be. I mean, what happens is you ask people and you get this sort of like, well, we need a baseline. Which is a nice kind of abstract statement like, well, I have to be able to inspect because once I know what they've done, it's then easier for me to verify them going forward, right?

But if you actually ask like, okay, well, how does – like what is the piece of information that you need and how does that fit into your baseline? I never get an answer. So I tried to come up with an example, which is – it's a terrible example, but it's because I don't know that there's necessarily a good one.

Like, well, I need to see the chamber because I have to see who the manufacturer is so then I can go talk to the manufacturer, something like that. You know, like I could understand like, okay, that's a baseline, but the reality is it's, it's an empty building at a site that's been cleansed. Right. And, and, you know, Amano has already said, you know, I went in and if there was a chamber there, it's not there anymore.

Right. And so while I, like, I think they had a nuclear weapons program and I think this is where they did the implosion testing. It's actually unclear to me what access I could design to Parchin that would fundamentally improve my baseline.

Cheryl 12:59

I totally agree. I've been asking myself the same kinds of questions, trying to evaluate what would access to Parchin give us that we don't have. And I think something that we have to keep in mind Is that the experiments, if they were done there, and I'll express a little more skepticism than you are, although I do think there was a nuclear weapons program until 2003, as the U.S. National Intelligence estimate has said, if there was a chamber at Parchin, it's long gone, might have even been gone before It became an issue with the IAEA.

2003 is 12 years ago. Instruments, technologies, techniques have changed. The Iranians' relationship to the IAEA has changed. A whole lot of things have changed. So anything we know about what the Iranians did at Parchin before 2003, I just don't see how it's going to Tell us what they're likely to do in the future.

Jeffrey 14:13

Yeah. So, I mean, I understand now, I mean, there is an issue of principle, I suppose, at stake, although that's, you know, that's always a sign when a negotiation has reached a silly point, right? Because the principles are suddenly substituting for what you actually need to accomplish your mission. Right. The IAEA insisted that it resolve the issues at Parchin, although I have to say, I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations about what the IAEA resolving an issue looks like.

Cheryl 14:44

I think that's probably true, too. And, you know, there's different degrees to which an issue can be resolved. Actually, in my War on the Rocks article, which occasioned a little bit of Twitter controversy, Commentary over the past month I pointed out that what they're looking for depends on what kind of experiments were done but for instance if initiator experiments were done or if hydrodynamic experiments were done there might be some uranium to be found on the other hand there might not be So if uranium is found in the swipe samples that were taken, what will that tell us?

Well, it will tell us that maybe some kind of experiments were done there. But on the other hand, it might come from something else. So an isotopically interesting uranium sample, which would be either depleted or enriched, would say that Probably some kind of experiments were done, but natural uranium might not tell you anything at all. I don't see any way that information from the samples will be unambiguous.

And I think that the only way that the Parchin mystery will ever be solved will be interviews with scientists and documents.

Jeffrey 16:24

Yeah, you know, I was thinking of just something even simpler than that, which is we have one case where the IAEA has resolved or clarified an issue. And all they end up saying is that Iran's explanations are consistent with the information that's available to the agency.

Cheryl 16:40

Right, right. I mean, that's what they say publicly, yeah.

Jeffrey 16:43

So from my perspective— You know, so they go in and they take photographs and they take samples and it shows nothing because the Iranians have cleaned the site and the Iranians offer some explanation, right? For Danilenko's presence. And, and maybe they don't, maybe the IAEA doesn't ask and they don't confirm the intent, but they describe the activities in considerable detail to the point where the Iranian description of the activities is consistent with the Description that Danilenko gave the IAEA, and that's it.

Then the IAEA says Iran's explanation is consistent with the other information available to the agency, and then it's over. I feel like people have these unrealistic expectations that the IAEA is going to Well, I think the reason this is popular among people who are against the deal is I think they have this hope that the IAEA is going to elicit from the Iranians a humiliating confession that they had a weapons program and then that's going to leak to the New York Times and that's going to sink the deal.

But that's not what's going to happen.

Cheryl 17:54

No, that is not going to happen. And, you know, I think we have to keep in mind here, what is the purpose of the JCPOA? And that is... To monitor and safeguard Iran's program in the future. So I think that whatever happens at Parchin is going to tell us very little about the future. And I think that for those of us who think that the JCPOA is something worth working with, I think we should be concentrating on other issues and how to make it work better and You know, let the past go.

Because, frankly, we're not going to get an unambiguous answer. And the public answer from the IAEA, as you say, will be, yes, we're okay with this.

Jeffrey 18:50

Although I suppose that will be yet another opportunity for people who don't like the JCPOA to then complain that the IAEA is sweeping this under the rug, even though, you know...

Cheryl 19:03

And more fun for us with our friends on Twitter.

Jeffrey 19:05

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I can hardly wait. Well, we should talk about what is publicly known about the arrangements for... It's funny, this is now all focused on sampling. But apparently it was originally sampling and photographs, and the photographs just get dropped out of this conversation. But there's a discussion of sampling. And the dreaded question of whether the information...

Does the available information support the patently ridiculous claim that Iran is inspecting itself?

Cheryl 19:47

All right. Well, I tried to address that in my War on the Rocks article as to how... The IAEA might conceivably be monitoring what is going on and there are indirect methods for monitoring an Iranian sampling crew even if the IAEA people are not directly looking over their shoulders and that would involve the sealed video and still cameras that the IAEA has A unique object to be placed in all of the photographs so that the IAEA can make sure that the photographs are being taken and video are being taken on that day at that time.

Jeffrey 20:43

Yeah, we should back up for a second though, because we should, well, because I think this is important and I think some people are trying to rewrite Their stories as new information becomes available. So, so I mean, from my perspective, tell me if you think this is, this is right, right? The original, right? So, so George John from the Associated Press sees a document.

Cheryl 21:05

Right.

Jeffrey 21:06

And that document is very brief, contains a number of curious statements. Yes. But seems to say that That the facility operator, which is the phrase the IAEA would use, but the document says Iran, will provide the samples and the images, and that the IAEA will authenticate them.

Cheryl 21:29

Yeah, I think that's more or less what it says, yeah.

Jeffrey 21:33

And what is interesting to me about that is that gets headlined as Iran inspects itself. Right. Which is not a correct use of the word inspect. Correct. Since we do have cases where facility operators take samples, hot cells being the most famous case. But we also have the case of the Brazilians who take photographs of the piping of their centrifuges out of view of an IAEA inspector.

And so for a lot of us, the question was, if AP didn't have any details about the authentication process, they didn't have a story.

Cheryl 22:13

Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

Jeffrey 22:16

And so what you did, sorry to talk over you, but what I thought was really valuable is you then outlined how an inspection might typically go and the kinds of things one could do for authentication. And that was very consistent, not accidentally consistent, it's consistent because it's based in evidence, with the kind of thing that Mark Hibbs and Tom Shea wrote in The Hill, which emphasized physical presence of inspectors, but established the general process, which is, by the way, much more than just taking the samples.

Cheryl 22:57

Yeah, you know, I think that is something that That confuses a lot of people. You know, people say, oh, a swipe sample, so you just take a tissue and you rub it over the wall, or a soil sample, so you take a trowel and you dig something up. And for those of us who have actually Overseen authenticated sampling that's going to be used in some sort of legal or quasi-legal way.

There's just a whole lot more to it. There are always procedures. The IAEA, for example, has kits for their swipe samples that include the swipes, which are chemically treated, and then plastic bags to put the swipes in. And We always have to talk about the chain of custody because this is something that has to be treated like evidence in criminal cases is treated.

And the chain of custody involves lots of stickers with barcodes on them so that you know that this sample goes with this paperwork, with this photograph that was taken of the sampling location. And there's just a lot Of paperwork that goes with it. In fact, after the weekend's sampling activity, the Deputy Director General at the IAEA, Tera Varyaranta, gave a list of what he says, 12 of the main elements, which implies that there are more.

And there's some variability, but basically his 12 main elements Correspond pretty nicely to what I described in a more narrative version, and one of the, one of the 12 elements is the chain of custody. It's just a very time-consuming and even tedious set of procedures, but the procedures have to be followed in order for the things to be.

Jeffrey 25:06

Yeah, I mean, I was really struck by how – well, I shouldn't say – I mean, I wasn't surprised. But as he outlined the process, that process looked a lot like what Tom and Mark outlined and a lot like what you outlined. And so as I look at it, one of the things that I find so frustrating is that people get away – With conflating the whole inspection process from the picking of the site where the sample goes to the analysis of the sample at the lab with the actual act of taking the swipe.

Right. And it's – to me it seems so obviously tendentious since nobody says that the Brazilians inspect themselves just because they take the photographs. And nobody says that hot cell operators inspect themselves. And nobody says that people self-drug test themselves when they have a camera watching them pee in a cup. And what I can't decide is how much of that is – How much of this is driven by just not really understanding or thinking comprehensively about the process?

And how much of it is driven by not caring about the process, you know, but just making what I think is a political point?

Cheryl 26:38

I wonder about that, too. And, you know, it's hard to tell from Words on a screen.

Jeffrey 26:45

Oh, you know, something we should say, because we will be accused of this. Even though we mentioned the document, we will be accused of saying the document is fake. So we have to say we don't think the AP document is fake.

Cheryl 27:01

As we have been about Once at least once a week for the last month. Yes.

Jeffrey 27:07

Yes. Whenever, whenever we point out that there's something that's confusing or inconsistent about the document, it's you're saying it's fake. No, I'm not saying it's fake. I'm saying you did a bad job of reporting it. One thing that really struck me was the, the document At least the version that was put online. And, and again, you know, maybe it's been translated once.

Maybe these are just notes of the document. And so errors were introduced in transcribing it, you know, who knows, but it says activities will be carried out using Iran's authenticated equipment consistent with technical specifications provided by the agency and the agency's containers and seals. And Vario Ranta or, or as I'm just going to call him T-Var because I can't possibly pronounce it.

Yeah. I can use his first name. Like he's my buddy, Taro. You know, in his statement, he says the opposite, right? He says you know, that there are specific requirements for equipment to be used. Our sampling kits, containers, seals, camera systems, GPS systems, a lot of these kinds of things. So, you know, like... I don't know. Is it just... Yeah, go ahead.

Cheryl 28:28

The supposed document...

Jeffrey 28:32

Now, don't even call this a supposed document.

Cheryl 28:34

I just realized I said that.

Jeffrey 28:37

People will take that out of context.

Cheryl 28:40

Right.

Jeffrey 28:42

Call them John's notes.

Cheryl 28:44

The text of the draft agreement between IAEA, Iran, which is the title of the AP, the way the AP presented it. Frankly, it looks to me like Something that the parties sat down and said, what do we need to include in this agreement? And then they wrote down, one, Iran will provide to the agency photos, blah, blah, blah.

And went through six points. I mean, I've sat down with people and worked out how are we going to do this and written down a list of points. And that's what it looks like to me is it's It's a very early draft of the points that need to be included in the agreement between Iran and the IAEA.

But there's just a whole lot of detail that's not filled in. Vardaranta provided a little bit more of the detail. I imagined more of the detail and What I imagined is consistent with what Barrio Ronta said. So it's not that the AP document is fake, but rather that it's insufficient. The AP did claim that the document, their document was fake.

Identical to or word something like that, the final. And that's true in the sense that the six points that they have are covered. But there's just a great deal more detail that would have to be agreed between Iran and the agency before I can imagine Iran letting the agency on site or the agency doing the sampling or working the thing out, I'd guess.

The final document was anywhere from a quarter inch to a half inch thick.

Jeffrey 30:57

So the last thing I want to talk about is this question of the IAEA, its presence at the site, the politics of its presence at the site, and the politics of confidentiality. Because I think as details have emerged that suggest that the IAEA had a – Pretty plausible plan to let the facility operator take the samples and to authenticate them.

And something I didn't mention, which, you know, the U.S. doesn't have the document, right? But the U.S. has been briefed on the details. And apparently the Secretary of Energy said, Asked a four-person panel drawn from the National Labs to red team the IAEA's authentication plan, and they signed off on it. One thing I get frustrated is people are like, when the details come out, you'll defend it.

It's like, well, of course I'm going to defend it. The IAEA has signed off on it, and the National Labs have signed off on it. They're probably right. Right. Yes, I probably will. It sounds pretty reasonable to me that you've got redundant continuous surveillance of a not unusual process that's been signed off on in Vienna and in the labs in the US.

So yeah, it's fine. But that One thing that's been interesting to me is the original claims are now basically, in my opinion, being reinterpreted. So that the idea of self-inspection, which I think is not supported by the evidence that we have now, and we should give a big shout out to Reuters, which I think has added a lot of details.

It's basically, you know, the claim is, well, but that one little part that the facility operator took the samples is still true. Right. And and that's that's kind of that's what they have left. And and what's interesting to me is then the politics issue this raises, because the Iranians, right, are going to these incredible lengths to minimize any IAEA presence at the site.

And, you know, I mean, even though it's a slightly separate issue, the ceremonial visit they offered Amano, I mean, they went through incredible lengths to say it was a ceremonial visit, it was very brief, he didn't even have a cell phone. It's so interesting to me how important it is for the Iranians to minimize the access that the IAEA had to the site for their own political purposes.

And I think that's fascinating because I think it raises the possibility that, you know, the reason the IAEA is so tight-lipped And a motto like we'll just give nothing on the details is precisely, I think, because the IAEA, they don't care about the debate in Washington. They care about their relationship with their member states and their reputation for protecting safeguards, confidential information, and the reality that if this information leaked, it would blow up in Iran and I think would fatally compromise their ability to do their job.

Cheryl 34:11

Well, yeah, I think something we need to say here is that the reason for the IAEA confidentiality is to retain trust with the member states, and not just with Iran, but all of their member states, including the U.S., that they can inspect, you know, like a centrifuge facility, and not go out and say, oh, hey, you know, you guys over in wherever, I'm trying to think of who would be competing with us, but it's actually a European centrifuge facility.

You know, we're going to tell Russia how you do your centrifuges. And, you know, once the IAEA starts doing that, they will no longer have access to the places they need access to in order to inspect, and they will no longer provide Be able to be called the watchdog, as the press loves to do, of the nuclear world.

So the confidentiality is really important.

Jeffrey 35:19

Well, and I would say one other thing, which is something I detect in a lot of these statements, and I guess it's worth being explicit about. I actually gave a public talk where I emphasized this. This deal is unusual in the sense that it's a deal between Iran and the E3-EU plus three. But the E3-EU plus three don't verify the deal.

The IAEA verifies the agreement. And so there is a third party that has to be impartial. And I detect in a lot of these statements about the demand for the IAEA to release the information, which by the way, I should say that strikes me as weird because the IAEA has released the information, right? The IAEA has briefed the EU, the E3 EU plus three on the details.

So people who want the IAEA to release the information want it released publicly or to member states will leak it to them, which I, you know, like I don't, I mean, I would love to be able to demand the government tell me stuff.

Cheryl 36:25

Make your job a whole lot easier.

Jeffrey 36:28

And I mean, I suppose I could do it, right? If you don't declassify this document, I'm going to throw a giant tizzy. I'm going to say nasty things about your mother. But I do think that what happens is some people don't like the idea that the IAEA is the verification body. They don't trust the IAEA. And so while this is nominally about whether the arrangements that the IAEA has reached are good enough or not, I think the reality is there are people who don't like the IAEA, and so they will inherently say...

Anything the IAEA agrees to is just more evidence that the IAEA has sold out to the Iranians. And so I don't think this this debate will end. You know, I think if the IAEA had been present physically, if the IAEA had taken the samples. I believe if the IAEA had accessed Parchin, had taken the samples, and then said the issue is resolved, I believe that the ultimate argument from certain people will be exactly the same, which will be the IAEA is sweeping this issue under the rug because this is really about attacking the IAEA and its credibility and not so much, I think, about getting the information that we would need to verify this agreement.

Cheryl 37:47

And that's our politics, right? You know, you laid out the Iranian politics early on, which are that, oh, no, no, no, the IAEA didn't really have access to the site. And the politics that we're dealing with on our side of things are, well, we don't believe the IAEA and they're going to have to give up their confidentiality.

So those are the two sides to the politics.

Jeffrey 38:13

Although I have to say, I mean, you know, It's unclear to me, and this is I guess my last thought, it's unclear to me whether the politics of this actually played out badly for the administration or not. The story looked bad, and it sounded bad, and it certainly enthused people who were predisposed to be against the agreement.

But I was really struck by people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who I think was a genuine – A genuine swing vote. She really could have voted either way. And she went out of her way to say, when she saw the story, she went to the administration and said, if this is true, I am a no. Right. Got the classified briefing, got told whatever the authentication process is, got told the reasons that people thought it was credible.

And then she highlighted that as a reason, right? Yes. So, you know, I suspect that... You know, even though people are going to defend this story to the death, that it actually had a really beneficial effect in that when people who were open-minded and might lean one way or the other, and I think Chris Murphy is another case, right?

When, when they're confronted with arguments that strike them as being false and, and, you know, that's what both Murphy and Wasserman Schultz said when they got the classified briefings, they decided the story was false. Like that's a great persuasive tool for the administration, right? Because it's like, look, there are no real good arguments against this. People have to make stuff up.

Cheryl 39:47

Yeah, absolutely. And those are only one representative and one senator who spoke out. Presumably, it's entirely possible that there are others involved. Who feel the same way but haven't spoken out.

Jeffrey 40:04

Yeah. So I just – I don't know. I think the whole thing is interesting. I mean it touches on this question of leaks and the political process, which is something I find endlessly fascinating. How do you manipulate – Information in the public sphere in order to change policies that are made in places that are at least intended to be somewhat immune to that.

I think it's a really fascinating story. And, you know, I suspect somebody will write a good history of this in five or 10 years.

Cheryl 40:39

It is. And, you know, one of the things I find fascinating about it is how vehement the reaction has been to our criticisms of the Iran inspects itself story. And I'm looking forward to that history because I don't fully understand that part of it. Ah, yeah.

Jeffrey 41:06

Oh, well, Cheryl, it's been tremendous fun. Are you going to write anything else on this or just wait for more details to leak?

Cheryl 41:14

Yeah, I'm not going to write anything more on this particular thing for a little bit. I have a bunch of things happening for the next week for sure. I'm giving at least two more talks on it locally and one at – can I do a little plug? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. At Ripon College next Wednesday evening.

Jeffrey 41:38

Ripon, isn't that the birthplace of the Republican Party?

Cheryl 41:42

The Republican Party, it is indeed, yes.

Jeffrey 41:45

It's a very different Republican Party.

Cheryl 41:48

Yes, this was back in the days of abolition.

Jeffrey 41:51

Lincoln, my favorite president.

Cheryl 41:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I will be at Ripon College, and we will have a panel, and there will be a person speaking against the president Deal and a couple of students and a professor and me, and I think we're going to have some fun. So anyway, I won't be writing anything much for the next week or so, but who knows what's going to come up.

Jeffrey 42:18

Hey, Cheryl, thank you so much for coming on. It's been great.

Cheryl 42:22

Okay. Thanks, Jeffrey. It's been fun.

Jeffrey 42:24

And thank you for listening. As always, if you like the podcast, you can leave us a review on iTunes. And if you think Iran inspects itself, you can give us one star.