Up for Debate: U.S.-Iran policy

So far, US policy seems to be working, albeit unevenly.

 

The following is an excerpt:

With the designation of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, the push to drive Iranian oil exports to zero, and other planned steps, the Trump administration, with support from Republicans in Congress, is moving to build a wall of deterrence to keep companies out of Iran even if a new president tries to lift sanctions as part of a reentry into the JCPOA.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may decide to play for time, hoping for Trump’s defeat in 2020. But with sanctions biting and the economy in turmoil, Tehran may now welcome a diplomatic process whose purpose is to blunt the “maximum pressure” campaign.

Read all of Mark’s argument on FDD’s website here and on Middle East Institute‘s website here.

Gigot: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps controls much of Iran’s national economy, including construction, banking and telecommunications.  It also oversees the regime’s ballistic missile program. So what does the terrorist designation mean for the IRGC and for the future of U.S.-Iran relations? Let’s ask Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he heads up the Iran program. So welcome, good to see you.

Dubowitz: Thanks Paul.

Gigot: Do you agree with the designation of the IRGC?

Dubowitz: I do, I have long supported it. It’s been under discussion for about 11 years in this town and I think it’s long past the time to finally recognize the IRGC as the terrorists they are, they’ve been killing and maiming thousands of Americans for years and the argument against it, which is, we shouldn’t call the terrorists terrorists because they might act like terrorists I think is a ridiculous argument.

Gigot: So what does the designation mean in practical terms? What does it allow us to do to the IRGC and how does it constrict their behavior in ways that weren’t possible before?  

Dubowitz: So we are adding the IRGC to the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, there are about 60 terrorist organizations on that list, which include Al-Qaeda and ISIS and Hezbollah, Hamas, so again recognizing this as a leading terrorist organization, one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world. It has huge practical implications for anybody who wants to do business with Iran because 20-40% of the total economy is controlled by the IRGC, so if you do business with key strategic sectors of Iran’s economy, you’re doing business with a terrorist organization, and that’s a huge risk: legal, civil and reputational for companies.  

Gigot: So if you are a, let’s say a German or a British bank and you want to finance something that the IRGC has a big stake in, in Iran, you would then risk punishment by the United States if you do that. Is that right?  

Dubowitz:  That’s right, you would risk criminal prosecution, being denied visas to enter the United States for you, potentially your family, and even though the IRGC has been designated before, this new designation under the Foreign Terrorist Organization State Department law means that if you’re providing any kind of material support at any level: financial, technical, advisory, any kind of training to the IRGC, in any capacity, you can be designated. And not only if there’s a U.S. person, but a foreign person, and not only if there’s a nexus with the U.S. financial system or a U.S. market, but even if there’s no nexus, if you’re providing any kind of support, you can find yourself in a U.S. jail.

Gigot: What’s been the reaction over the world? We know what the Iranian reaction is, but what about Europe and elsewhere, and China or Asia, where there are some people who do business in Iran? What’s been their reaction?

Dubowitz: Their reaction has been interesting, Paul. On the one hand, everybody says this is kind of earth-shattering and the IRGC is going to retaliate and they’re going to you know kill Americans, and this is a terrible decision by the Trump administration. But in the same breath they’ll tell you this is unnecessary and redundant and we already have laws that actually prohibit business with the IRGC. So you can’t really have it both ways. I think the reality is that the reaction is what it should be, and that is it makes key strategic sectors of Iran’s economy radioactive, and for anybody who continues to do business with the Islamic Republic of Iran, they should be thinking twice about that decision.

Gigot: Well you’ve raised the problem, a potential problem of retaliation and look, Iran has retaliated before, even if they try to keep their fingerprints off it through terrorism. Is there a risk to U.S. diplomats or U.S. soldiers in the Middle-East, or say Iraq, where Shiite militias that answer to Iran are in relative close proximity to U.S. troops?

Dubowitz: There has always been a risk to U.S. individuals, U.S. assets because the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States for 40 years. So I mean the causal relationship, many people get this backwards: they’re provoking, they’re aggressive, they’re killing, they’re maiming, and the United States needs to react to that, and the worst way that we can react to that is by doing nothing, by showing that there will be no consequences for this kind of aggressive behavior. So I think it’s long past the time for the United States to finally be drawing a clear line for the IRGC that any kind of action, any kind of damage to the United States, our people and our assets will be met with all instruments of American power.

Gigot: Ok, so we have all these policies that the administration has put forward on Iran, try to isolate and pressure the regime, they call it the maximum pressure campaign. Is there any evidence that it in fact is working in a way that would change Iran’s behavior?

Dubowitz: So there was an interesting article about two weeks ago by Ben Hubbard from the New York Times who actually wrote a very detailed article, showing that as a result of this maximum pressure campaign, the regime in Iran is having to make a fundamental choice between guns and butter. And by having to make that choice they’re cutting payments and credit lines and support to Shiite militias, to Hezbollah fighters, and there’s a real financial squeeze now for these terrorist organizations and proxies that Iran has long supported. The nuclear deal, Paul gave Iran, it didn’t have to make that fundamental choice, it could have guns and butter and now that it’s having to make that choice its economy is struggling, people are on the streets protesting, and at the same time it’s having to cut these transfer payments to these dangerous regimes and surrogates, so it is making that kind of difference.

Gigot: So it’s making a difference on having them pull back from some of their promotion of terror activities and militias, but not necessarily in the nuclear program. And you’ve got about ten seconds here.

Dubowitz: Yeah they haven’t made that fundamental decision to come back to the table to negotiate, which is why I think the Trump administration needs to take the maximum pressure campaign from six where it is on the sanctions dial, all the way to eleven.  

Gigot: Alright, thank you Mark Dubowitz, appreciate it.

Dubowitz: Thanks so much.  

Build an Iranian Sanctions Wall

Some Democrats promise to return to the Obama deal. Trump can stop them by taking action now.

 

The following is an excerpt:

Democrats are talking about re-entering the 2015 Iran nuclear deal if they defeat President Trump next year. At least three challengers—Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren say they’ll do so, and the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution in February calling for a return to the agreement.

 

Read Mark’s piece on FDD’s website here or on The Wall Street Journal‘s website here.

Eric: Mark Dubowitz joins us, CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. So Mark, this meeting, starting February 13th in Poland will help create, they hope, an Arab NATO.  Do you think the Gulf States, the Sunni Arab allies and the European nations that just slapped more sanctions against Iran, do you think they can all unite against that regime?

Mark: Eric I just got back from the Gulf, I met with top leaders in the Gulf Arab countries, I was also in India, and you get a sense from the Gulf, from countries around the world that there is deep concern for what Secretary Pompeo rightly calls the destructive and malign activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. So I would expect dozens of countries to be in Poland to talk about these destructive activities and I think this is something that is necessary — and I think even the Europeans, who have opposed President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal, understand that the Islamic Republic needs to be stopped.  

Eric: Yeah in the Netherlands, the EU is slapping sanctions on Tehran because they accuse the government of sending assassination squads that killed two activists on the streets in 2015 and 2017. Two dissidents shot in the head. Do you think the Europeans really will give up Iranian business for the principal of dealing with this outlaw regime?

Mark: I don’t think they will, I don’t think they want to, but I don’t think they have any choice, because I think President Trump is rightly putting them to a fundamental choice between Iran’s $400 billion economy and America’s $20 trillion economy. Between doing business with the Iranian rial, which has been collapsing in value and doing business with the U.S. dollar which is the world’s predominant currency, so European business leaders are making a very different decision than the European political leaders and they’re high-tailing it out of the Islamic Republic.

Eric: So what do you expect could happen out of this meeting if indeed the Europeans don’t want to give up the dough?

Mark: Well I think the Europeans are acknowledging the reality that they have very little choice and I think there just needs to be a common understanding that regardless of your position on the Iran nuclear deal, I think dozens of countries including the Europeans understand the Iranian regime is engaged in assassinations and support for terrorism and building ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, including ICBMs to target the United States and other countries, and not to mention brutal human rights abuses within Iran. So I think that there is a broader understanding amongst dozens of countries, including the Europeans, that those aspects of Iran’s malign activities need to be addressed immediately. 

Eric: And you just mentioned an assassination plot, there was one here in the United States, where the intelligence services were allegedly behind and a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, in a restaurant in Georgetown. Let me show you some video of the big meeting by the largest opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. They hold this huge rally, there’s Maryam Rajavi, who is the head of that group. They hold this huge rally just outside of Paris every year. And authorities in Belgium and in France, they’ve arrested three people, including an Iranian diplomat in an alleged plot to bomb, that Iran was going to bomb that rally, and it included a lot of former U.S. officials including Rudy Giuliani, who speak every year at that group. So you’ve got a potential assassination planned right there in France allegedly directed by Tehran, and here’s what Ms. Rajavi says about Secretary Pompeo, “The U.S. Secretary of State reiterated that when America partners with enemies suchs as the mullahs, ‘they advance…’ gaining access to weapons of mass destruction, violations of human rights, export of fundamentalism, and terrorism are the four pillars holding up the theocratic regime ruling Iran. The ultimate solution for discarding the mullahs’ religious fascism is changing this illegitimate regime at the hands of the Iranian people and Resistance.” Can that ever be done?

Mark: Well one hopes, I mean people were very skeptical in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan came into office and believed that we had to reach some kind of détente with the Soviet Union that they would be around for generations and Reagan called them rightly so the evil empire and launched a comprehensive policy, using all the instruments of national policy to go after the Soviet Union. Six-seven years later, the Soviet Union collapsed, so I think these regimes are actually a lot weaker than you would expect. They use repression and brutality to keep down their own people. And the Islamic Republic is spending billions of dollars on an expansionist agenda through the Middle-East and through the world. I think that hopefully within our lifetime we will see the end of the Islamic Republic, which is the best guarantee for global security.  

Eric: And they also allegedly targeted two of the National Council of Resistance of Iran officials who live here, in the United States, in Washington. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, always appreciate you coming in and thank you as always, for your insight.

Richard Goldberg is director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction at the National Security Council and previously served as a senior advisor at FDD. On February 11, the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Richard delivered remarks at FDD’s panel “40 Years After the Revolution: Understanding the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Text and footage of Richard’s remarks follow.

40 years of failure: that’s what the Islamic Republic has produced for the Iranian people.

In a country with such vibrant history and culture, advanced educational opportunities and plentiful natural resources, the people of Iran rightly look at their leaders today and wonder: where did all our money go?

Billions of dollars wasted on terrorist organizations far away from Iran’s borders. Billions of dollars wasted on threatening missile systems that serve no defensive purpose. Billions of dollars wasted in Syria. Billions and billions not spent on the Iranian people.Inflation is out of control, prices are rising and Iran’s leaders spend money sending missiles to Yemen?

Workers are striking, the rial is under enormous pressure and Iran is headed into recession – but Iran’s leaders keep pouring resources into Syria?
Layer on top of that the decades of corruption, graft and diversion. The money siphoned away from the Iranian people for the personal enrichment of an elite few.

40 years of failure.

It’s no wonder the Iranian people are finally asking a basic question: Where’s the money going?

40 years of failure; 40 years too long.

The Iranian people could have a much brighter future if their leaders chose a different path – the path of a normal nation. As Secretary Pompeo has said, the United States is prepared to fundamentally change the relationship with Iran – including diplomatic and economic relations – if Iran’s leaders fundamentally change their behavior.

Comply with international obligations and expectations when it comes to missiles, nuclear activities, proliferation and human rights. Release our citizens. End state-sponsorship of terrorism. Stop threatening your neighbors and fomenting chaos outside your borders. Until Iran’s leaders decide to put the interests of their citizens ahead of their own self-interest, the U.S. maximum pressure campaign will continue and strengthen.

We know where the money goes. It doesn’t go to the Iranian people.

And so, the United States will do everything we can do to dry up the money the Islamic Republic uses for illicit, dangerous and destabilizing purposes.
When the President says maximum pressure, he means maximum pressure. As Special Representative Hook recently noted, jurisdictions that received Significant Reduction Exceptions to import Iranian crude should not expect those exceptions to be renewed. The oil market is well supplied and can absorb the loss of Iranian crude. U.S. sanctions will be enforced. As Ambassador Bolton and the State Department have repeatedly said: Special purpose vehicles are no exception. More sanctions are on the way. The re-imposition of sanctions in November should be considered a first step. It is a baseline, not a finish line.

40 years of failure; 40 years too long.

We know where the money goes – and, like the Iranian people, we’ve seen enough.

Video and transcript of FDD’s full panel featuring Gholam Reza Afkhami, Houchang Chehabi, Toby Dershowitz, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Richard Goldberg, Ray Takeyh, and Behnam Ben Taleblu here.