Mark Dubowitz

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan policy institute, recently appeared with Amara Sohn-Walker on CNN International to discuss Russia’s recent announcement to withdraw some of its military forces from Syria.

Amara Sohn-Walker:  Mark Dubowitz CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mark appreciate your time. So first off to this announcement of partially withdrawing Russian troops from Syria, I know you’re going to be watching this closely, do you expect Putin to keep his word and follow through on this partial withdrawal?

Mark Dubowitz:  I think Putin will probably do a partial withdrawal but he will always keep an eye on developments in Syria and will probably rotate Russian troops back in if need be but the reality is, is that Putin, the Iranians, and Assad have won and President Obama had predicted that Putin would be trapped in the Syrian quagmire, and unfortunately Putin has used Russian airpower, Iranian and Hezbollah troops to take back Syria on behalf of Bashar Assad and his murderous regime.

Amara Sohn-Walker:  Propping him up. So big picture here, because Putin’s been on this tour of the Middle East, he visited Syria, Egypt, and now he’s in Turkey and obviously optically this kind of highlights and underscores Russia’s influence in the Middle East region, what is the overall goal for Putin with this trip?

Mark Dubowitz:  Well Putin is demonstrating that he’s back in the Middle East. It was in 1973 when the Egyptians threw the Soviets out of Egypt and now all these years later, Putin is back in Cairo, the Russians are establishing an air base there, they’re going to be able to get rights to fly their planes over Egyptian airspace, so Putin is back, he’s doing nuclear deals with the Egyptians, with the Turks, and he’s establishing himself as a major power player in the Middle East after essentially eight, nine years of the United States not pushing against Iranian and Russian aggression.

Amara Sohn-Walker:  Yeah, he also threw in his two cents about his thoughts on President Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, we know that decision by the US president essentially isolated him from US allies in Europe and in the Middle East but with President Putin speaking out, condemning the US actions, what’s going on here? Is Putin trying to position himself to play a bigger role in the mid-east peace process?

Mark Dubowitz:  Well it’s ludicrous actually because Vladimir Putin and Russia actually recognize Jerusalem as Israel capital before the United States, before the Trump announcement, in fact it happened a number of months ago. So what Putin has done is basically he’s taking advantage of the recent decision, hypocritically of course, but he’s also trying to establish himself as a major power player who’s got good relationships with the Arabs, good relationships with the Iranians, and with the Israelis, and he’s trying to make it very clear, like he did to President Obama, make it clear to President Trump that if you want to do business in the Middle East, there’s only one address and that’s his address in Moscow. You’ve got to go see him because he’s the guy that can deliver.

Amara Sohn-Walker:  Yep, asserting himself on the global stage. Mark Dubowitz, we appreciate you joining us for your analysis, CEO for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Thank you for your time.

President Trump indicated in a Wall Street Journal interview he’s willing to overrule the State Department and not certify Iran’s compliance.  This is Part 2 of an interview that aired July 26, 2017, when John Yang from PBS NewsHour spoke to Robert Malley, a former White House negotiator for the Iran nuclear talks, and Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

John Yang:  Mark Dubowitz, what about that? The idea that it’s better to know what’s going on. To work within this agreement and know what Iran’s doing?

Mark Dubowitz:  Look, I’m glad Rob brought up the fatally flawed North Korea nuclear agreement, because the Iran nuclear agreement is similarly fatally flawed. It contains within it sunset provisions where the restriction on Iran’s nuclear program actually go away over time and Iran can emerge by actually faithfully complying with the deal with an industrial sized nuclear program, with near zero nuclear break-out capability, with a much easier, covert sneak-out capability, with an ICBM, with a powerful economy fortified against our ability to use sanctions and with increased regional hedge money.

So Rob is right. The deal temporarily pushed the Iranians further in terms of break-out, but over the medium term, Iran is going to emerge with everything at once by faithfully complying with the deal. So, we don’t want another fatally flawed nuclear agreement like we had with North Korea. What we need to start dealing with is this flawed agreement and I think the president has already made it very clear that he thinks this is a terrible deal, he thinks it’s a fatally flawed deal, and I think my advice to him is don’t certify compliance, and begin to lay the predicate for a massive pressure campaign and get the Iranians back to the table to negotiate a nuclear deal number two that addresses some of these fatally flawed elements of the deal and, by the way, gives us inspection rights into military sites, which right now we have in theory, but in practice the Iranians are not letting us into their military sites where they’re likely to engage in nuclear weaponization activities like they have in the past. So, we got to rectify this fatally flawed deal or the Iranians are going to get a new ICBMs and they’re going to have the ability to dominate the region like nothing we’ve seen before.

John Yang:  Rob Malley, what would be the consequences. What’s at stake here? What would be the consequences if the president did say Iran is not living up to this deal?

Rob Malley:  But first I have to say, I’m a little bit confused about the argument that Mark was making. Is the argument that the deal was fatally flawed, and therefore we shouldn’t accept it, we should walk away, we should renegotiate it, which would be one path. Very dangerous and I won’t get into that. Or, is his view, the deal is okay for now, but is it over in 12, 13, 14, 15 years as some provisions are going to expire and so we should think of whether we can negotiate what happens afterwards, but in which case we’re going to have to give something to Iranians in return. The Iranians are not going to accept and negotiate more restrictions in exchange for nothing. So, I think we need to clarify, right now we’re in a much better position than we were at the time President Obama took office, because we have these restrictions and according to every inspection that has been done, every report by the IAEA, Iran’s in compliance.

Now, if tomorrow the president were to decide to announce that Iran is not in compliance. First of all, I think we would have a little bit of a deja vu in terms of Iraq. I think most people in the international community would believe that we’re just fabricating evidence, because we haven’t shared it. Because right now, we’re the only ones who are claiming that Iran is not … we would be the only ones claiming that. That would not put us in a strong position.

If you were to do that and that’s it and continue to honor the deal, it would be a hiccup, it would, once again, signal to the world that we have a rather erratic administration. If you were then to impose sanctions, to reimpose the sanctions that were lifted, reimpose sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, then we would be in breach. Either Iran would itself say, “We’re no longer bound by our own commitments.” And we would have a possibility of Iran trying to acquire a nuclear bomb. Or, we’d be isolated in the international community, because the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, everyone would say, “It’s on you. It’s not on Iran.” Why would we want that?

John Yang:  Mark Dubowitz, I want you to respond. What would happen … practically would happen if the president said they weren’t complying and then what should the next step be?

Mark Dubowitz:  Well, practically speaking, what Rob’s not telling you is that, if the president says they’re not complying, but he doesn’t say that they’re in material breach, then actually nothing happens. Then we don’t go to the Joint Commission. We don’t snap back UN and U.S. sanctions. We merely say Iran is engaging in incremental violations and we know that the Iranians violate incrementally, not egregiously, even though over time, the sum total of the incremental violations is always egregious. What Rob’s not telling you is that he knows, and we know, that the Iranians have been incrementally violating this deal. They’ve exceeded heavy water caps. Heavy water is the essential ingredients you need for a plutonium bomb. They’re testing more advanced centrifuges than they are permitted under the nuclear agreement. They’ve been illicitly procuring nuclear and ballistic missile technology in Germany, according to German intelligence services, and they’ve exceeded they’re enrichment caps. So, the fact of the matter is, there are violations. They’re not material breaches, they’re incremental violations. The president should state that, certify that and say Iran is not in full compliance.

Now, the second step is to say whether it’s a material breach, and it’s not. It’s not a material breach and he should move ahead with a maximum pressure campaign.

John Yang:  Mark Dubowitz, I’m sorry, we’re out of time. Mark Dubowitz, Rob Malley, we’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you, gentlemen.

Rob Malley:  Thank you.

Mark Dubowitz:  Thanks a lot.

 

 

President Trump indicated in a Wall Street Journal interview he’s willing to overrule the State Department and not certify Iran’s compliance.  This is Part 1 of an interview that aired July 26, 2017, when John Yang from PBS NewsHour spoke to Robert Malley, a former White House negotiator for the Iran nuclear talks, and Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

John Yang:  Candidate Donald Trump ran against the agreement, but President Trump has twice followed the State Department’s advice and certified that Iran is complying with it. But now, in a Wall Street Journal interview published today, Mr. Trump indicated he’s willing to overrule the State Department when the next certification is due in October.

[Video Clip] President Trump:  We’re giving them the benefit of every doubt but we’re doing very detailed studies and … personally I have great respect for my people. If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago.

[Video Clip] Wall Street Journal:  Do you expect them to be declared noncompliant the next time?

 [Video Clip] President Trump:  Personally, I do.

John Yang:  What would it mean if Mr. Trump said Iran is not complying. What’s at stake here? We get two views. First, Rob Malley is here in the studio, a special assistant to President Barack Obama. He was the lead senior White House negotiator for the agreement. He’s now a vice president of the International Crisis Group. And joining us from Toronto is Mark Dubowitz. He’s chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C. based think tank. He’s been advising the Trump administration on Iran policy. Rob, let me start with you. What’s your response to what the president said. I should also point out that in that interview he went on to say that he thinks Iran is taking advantage of this country. He said, “They’ve taken advantage of a president named Barack Obama who didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

Rob Malley:  Okay, I won’t respond to that, but let’s get the facts straight. We have now, since President Trump has been in office, twice the administration certified that Iran was in compliance with the deal. Twice the administration waived the sanctions, which is a way of indicating that it’s mutually reciprocal. This is the administration’s response to the fact that Iran is doing its share. We do our share. Twice the agency, the international agency that’s responsible for deciding whether the sides are in compliance, whether Iran is in compliance with it’s nuclear restriction. The International Atomic Energy Agency, twice, since President Trump has been in office, it has said that Iran is living up to its deal, and twice the Joint Commission, which is the commission formed by all of the members, countries that negotiated the deal. Including the United States, twice, including recently, they have said that Iran is in compliance.

So maybe the president has information that he hasn’t shared with anyone else, but at this point it’s clear, that for almost every objective observer, every objective observer, the subjective observers may have another view, but every objective observer has said that Iran is in compliance. So, I don’t know where he comes up with saying that he knows, that others don’t know. Even his cabinet disagrees apparently, but he knows that Iran is not in compliance, so that would really be breaking our own obligations under the deal, but also breaking with our allies, which would put us in a very difficult position.

John Yang:  Mark Dubowitz, you are advising the administration. Obviously, I presume, you wouldn’t want to talk about that advice, make that advice public, but what should the president do? What do you think the president should do when this next certification comes up?

Mark Dubowitz:  So, the president should make it very clear that Iran is not in compliance with the deal. It’s been very clear in the Secretary Tillerson’s letter to congress, again, made it very clear that there are incremental violations of the deal. The president actually didn’t certify that Iran is in full compliance of the deal. He merely said that Iran meets certain conditions that were laid by congress, which didn’t require full compliance. So, my advice to the president would be, state the facts, which is Iran is incrementally violating the deal. But, unless there’s a material breach of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal, don’t go to the Joint Commission, don’t snap back the UN sanctions, but use that noncompliance as a predicate to roll out a much more comprehensive Iran policy that deals with all forms of Iranian malign behavior, not only nuclear misbehavior, but Iran’s malign behavior across multiple fronts. That’s a full comprehensive policy, and it gets us away from this myopic focus on the nuclear deal, which I think paralyzed U.S., Iran policy under President Obama.

John Yang:  Rob Malley, myopic focus on the nuclear deal and should there be a broader consideration as he says?

Rob Malley:  There should. There has been and will continue to be. I mean, what the Iran administration or President Obama did, was take one issue, which was a critical issue, not only our national security experts, but Israeli and other experts said, if Iran was to rush to a bomb, we would be in a very difficult situation. Let’s look at the case of North Korea. We wouldn’t want to see a North Korea in the Persian Gulf. That was a priority at that point, was not to give up on the other issues, let’s at least make sure that Iran is not in a position to get a bomb. At the same time, let’s push back on the original activities and see what we can do about their ballistic missiles, but the deal itself, and deliberately was about this issue.

It wasn’t a case of myopia, it was a case of, “We’re going to deal with this issue. We solved it. At least for the time being. And let’s work on the other issues at the same time.” There’s nothing in the nuclear deal that would prevent us from taking action against Iran if it engaged in terrorism, ballistic missiles, human rights violations. The question at the heart of what the president said is whether we are going to continue to honor our part of the deal to make sure that Iran also honors its part, and doesn’t rush to nuclear bombs, so that we don’t have what we have now in North Korea. In North Korea we have a country that has a nuclear bomb and we have no visibility on what they’re doing. In Iran, we have a country that doesn’t have a nuclear bomb and we have almost maximum visibility as a result of the deal in every aspect of their nuclear program.

The following is a transcript from a Fox News interview with Mark Dubowitz and Julie Banderas for America’s News Headquarters on the Fox News Channel on June 3, 2017.

Julie:  Defense Secretary Jim Mattis dialing up the pressure on North Korea, calling the rogue regime a “clear and present danger.” The Pentagon chief speaking at a security conference in Singapore where he also warned Beijing about its activities in the South Cina Sea. Let’s bring in Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thank you very much for talking to us.

Mark Dubowitz:  Thank you.

Julie:  When we look at what the Defense Secretary is saying here, he’s essentially saying that they believe that China is in fact and they’re encouraged by China’s efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, so that’s encouraging. Then, if you look at what China did on Friday by blocking tough new sanctions against North Korea, pushed by the United States and the UN Security Counsel, that doesn’t exactly sound like playing ball to me, so what say you?

Mark Dubowitz:  Well, Julie, the Trump administration is understandably doing what other administrations have tried to do in the past, which is bring the Chinese on board because they’ve got the most economic and political leverage North Korea. The concern of course is that China will break this administration heart the way it’s broken the way it’s broke in other administrations hearts and doing nothing, and effectively not using their leverage because at the end of the day the Chinese are more concerned about the collapse of the North Korean regime than they are concerned about a nuclear tipped ICBM in the hands of that regime.

Julie:   Do you think China’s putting enough pressure on North Korea?

Mark Dubowitz:  I don’t, I don’t. I mean, the Chinese could do far more. The Chinese are still a major trading partner with North Korea, the biggest trading partner with North Korea to the tune of about $60 billion, and they dwarf anybody else in the world in terms of economic engagement with this North Korea regime. We’ve got to put significant pressure on the Chinese, and we’ve got to shut down these illicit financial and economic networks that sustain the North Korean regime.

Julie:  Okay, so what then, and what do you make of the Pentagon’s chief warning? The chief is warning Beijing about its activities in the South China Sea.

Mark Dubowitz:  Well, absolutely. That’s important shot across the bow literally because the Chinese are trying to essentially militarize these islands in the South China Sea. We’ve got to send carrier groups to the South China Sea. We’ve got to underscore the freedom of maritime navigation, and we’ve got to send again a message to China that we’re not going to allow this aggressive activity to continue. It’s activity that got worse and worse under the Obama administrations.

Julie :   All right. Mark Dubowitz, we appreciate you coming on. Sorry we ha to cut it short. We have some news at the top of the hour. Thank you so you much.

The following is a transcript from a Fox News interview with Mark Dubowitz on May 19, 2017.

Julie Roginsky:  This is a Fox News alert. Iranians voting today in a tight presidential election where the country’s nuclear program looms large. President Hassan Rouhani facing a very serious challenge from hardliner Ebrahim Raisi. The Conservative candidate accuses the incumbent of failing to capitalize on the program, which was supposed to boost Iran’s economy.

Meanwhile, the U.S. announcing new sanctions over Tehran’s ballistic missile program. The sanctions targeting senior Iranian defense officials as well as a Chinese network accused of helping to fund the program. This comes as President Trump kicks off his very first overseas trip with a visit to Iran’s main rival in the region, Saudi Arabia.

Let’s bring in Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mark, thank you so much for talking to us. How big of a danger is the Iranian regime to American and our allies and will the outcome of this election really make any difference?

Mark Dubowitz:  Julie, the Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It’s got a nuclear infrastructure. Under this nuclear deal, it’s got a patient pathway to nuclear weapons and an ITBM. So think about North Korea, but with an economy that is going to be much more powerful and with a revolutionary ideology that is expansive and seeks at least domination in the Islamic world.

Julie Roginsky:  This election ultimately though has little effect. This is not like the United States and our politics on the Iranian regime considering the only person with real in Iran is the Supreme Leader. So how does that impact the Trump administration’s strategy then to get a successful nuclear deal if sanctions don’t work?

Mark Dubowitz:  Well, Julie, that’s exactly right. I mean, this is not a normal election. This is the sham election. It’s going to be a rigged election no matter which way it goes. It’s between two hardcore revolutionaries, Rouhani and Raisi, who are dedicated revolutionaries and are dedicated to imperialism abroad, repression at home and a nuclear weapons program. How it will affect the Trump administration’s policy is that they should ignore this presidential election. They should focus on the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who really has all of the power and they need a comprehensive strategy to use all instruments of American power to subvert and roll back Iranian aggression.

Julie Roginsky:  Yeah. I mean, first of all the Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, designates a defense official who facilitated the sale of explosives to Syria, what we just mentioned in the intro there. Talk about Syria and Iran and the relationship there. After President Trump delivered U.S. airstrikes, obviously delivering a very strong bold message to the Assad regime. What does he do to send a similar message to Iran and China, by the way, considering that China based network was also designated by OFAC for supporting Iran’s military by supplying millions of dollars worth of missile applicable items?

Mark Dubowitz:  That’s exactly right, Julie. In fact, that Iranian defense official who was designated was designated for supplying not just explosives, but actually was supporting the very research center in Syria responsible for the chemical weapons attacks on Syria’s people. So what the Trump administration needs to do is continue to do what they’re doing, which is a much more muscular policy where they recognize that the Assad regime is a close Iranian ally. It is not an ally in the war against ISIS. And that they need to roll back Iranian aggression in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, and they need a government approach to do that country by country in order to subvert Iranian power.

Julie Roginsky:  All right. Mark Dubowitz, great to see you. Thank you so much.

Mark Dubowitz:  Thanks, Julie.