Mark Dubowitz

Jonathan Silver: President Trump campaigned against the nuclear deal with Iran. It has been central to his presentation of a new vision and America first foreign policy to the American people. I wonder if we can just begin by thinking about where the administration stands vis-a-vis its Iran policy. How do you think it is doing, how does he think about it a little bit differently from the Obama administration?

Mark Dubowitz: So, this administration certainly came into office dedicated to rectifying the mistakes of the past, with respect to Iran, and first and foremost was the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. This administration saw that deal as fatally flawed. It was a deal that, in their view, did not rest Iran’s nuclear development. If anything, it facilitated it over time. It gave Iran, what I called, patient pathways to nuclear weapons because of some fundamental problems of the deal itself, which I’m sure we’ll discuss. But in broader terms, they thought that the Obama administration was myopically focused on the nuclear deal at the expense of the broader Iranian threat and came into office committed to rolling out a broader Iran strategy. They would use all instruments of American power to neutralize and roll back the Iranian threat in the Middle East and globally, and they saw the nuclear deal as a deal that needed to be fixed or nixed, as expression went, but an Iranian threat that needed to be countered and neutralized. So that was very much the Iran strategy that the President rolled out on October 13 and we’ve seen, since then, much effort to identifying the most malign elements of that threat and devising strategies to counter that threat as well as figuring out a strategy with respect to the nuclear deal.

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Jonathan Silver: Defenders of the deal, advocates of the deal, have pointed to the unprecedented ability for the IAEA to come in and review the process of nuclear development. Don’t they have a point?

Mark Dubowitz: Well, I don’t think they do. First of all, it’s not unprecedented. The IAEA has had better visibility to the nuclear programs of other countries, certainly countries like Japan, which are American allies, we don’t worry about the Japanese nuclear program. We have better visibility into South Africa’s nuclear program before they gave up that program, so there’s nothing unprecedented about these inspection rights. The fundamental problem with these inspection rights is the Iranians have said over and over again, “you’re never getting into our military sites.” That’s from the Supreme Leader to President Rouhani to foreign minister Zarif to the head of Iran’s nuclear program Salehi. So they’ve said over and over again, “you’re never getting into our military sites” and, of course, that presents a major problem because it is in exactly those military sites where Iran has conducted illegal military nuclear activities in the past. So, the fact that we have access to the declared sites to Natan or Fordow, which are these declared enrichment facilities, which by the way they were not actually declared by the Iranians. They were declared clandestine sites that the Iranians built in secret that were then revealed to the world by Iranian opposition groups and, we think, the support of foreign intelligence agencies. So, they were declared, they were now declared, the IAEA is in there, the inspectors are in there 24/7, but that’s not where Iran is gonna build nuclear weapons. It’s gonna build them in clandestine sites, and it’s gonna build them in military sites. The fact that we can’t get into military sites, according to Iranians, presents a significant problem and it’s one of the fatal flaws of the deal. We must have unfettered, anytime, anywhere access to those military sites, and so far it’s not clear that we do.

Listen to the full interview.

Erin Burnett: Jim Sciutto, thank you very much and OutFront now David Gergen, who served as advisor to four presidents, Jen Psaki, who served as White House communications director for President Obama and was a part, with John Kerry, of this deal itself, and Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also knows a lot about this deal. The two of you know more than pretty much anybody, except for maybe Zarif and Kerry themselves. David, let me start with you, though. Was this the right move, what the president did today, going against, at least the public utterances, of his top advisors?

David Gergen: It’s a huge and dangerous gamble on the part of President Trump, he’s gambling with what may lead to conflict down the road. Erin, to me, there was a big surprise hidden in this. We understood that he was not going to certify that Iran was in compliance, and then would turn it over to congress to figure out where to go from here. Today, he really raised the bar. He said ‘I’m not only not going to certify, but I’m telling the congress and our allies unless we get a new deal, unless we go to the table and negotiate a new deal that meets my satisfaction, we’re going to terminate the deal, we’re going to terminate the deal.’ That is going to make a much tougher future for where we go from here. The United States is now solidly isolated from its friends, its allies. The other nations that have signed this deal, there are 6 other nations that have signed it, and when the UK and Germ and Fran came out and said they’re sticking with the deal they’re not sticking with the United States, it really underscored major countries, he just doesn’t have the support of major countries to go back and renegotiate this.

Erin Burnett: And Mark, that’s the crucial question, right? That people, we need to be clear here, this is not a deal between the United States and Iran, right? There are other countries involved and the deal goes on without the United States. If the US gets out, it just loses any ability to see inside Iran’s nuclear program, right? I mean, you lose leverage at this point. Forget whether you like the deal or not, it is the deal. So, what is the point?

Mark Dubowitz: Erin, I think the point is to make it very clear to the Europeans that the United States is not going to prepare to live with a deal that gives Iran patient pathways to nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, because the restrictions on the program go away over time. And I think that signal has been sent to the Europeans, which is precisely the reason why French President Emanuel Macaron has come out on three occasions and said that as long as the United States keeps the deal, France is prepared to start to examine other issues to supplement or complement the deal, including dealing with the sunset provisions, Iran’s missile program, and of course Iran’s destructive regional behavior. And so you’ve seen a shift in the French position for sure, from a position of keep it, while others have been saying nix it, to a position today where the French are saying ‘we’re prepared to fix it as long as the United States under Donald Trump is not going to nix it.’

Erin Burnett: Jen, do these other countries, is Mark accurately portraying this? That they care so much that the US stays in that they’ll do whatever Trump wants to keep the US in?

Jen Psaki: No, I think you saw pretty clear responses from a number of leaders from around the world. You also hear privately from them about their concerns, about how erratic and reckless Trump’s statements about the Iran deal have been. I think Mark touched on a key point here that is not consistent with what Trump said, which is to keep and maintain the deal. I think everybody would like to address ballistic missiles, we certainly would have in the deal, and if deal making was about getting the art of the perfect we would have. But the question is ‘are we better off without this deal or better off with the deal?’ and I think most people in the national security team in the Trump administration, leaders around the world and people in the national security community feel we’re better off with the deal, though there are some additional things we need to address separately.

Erin Burnett: Well, you just heard the chairman of the joint chiefs, Trump’s chairman, saying ‘I do believe the agreement today has delayed the development of a nuclear capability by Iran.’ I mean, Mark, that’s a pretty significant saying. So you can say, and I don’t want to relitigate the deal here itself, but whatever you want to say about it, he’s saying it has delayed the development of nuclear capability. Isn’t that what it was designed to do?

Mark Dubowitz: Well actually, you know, Jen and her team actually talked about the fact that this deal was gonna cut off all pathways to nuclear weapons and now we’re acknowledging the reality, which is it delays it and delay is important. Delay is important because it gives time for this administration to work with our allies.

Erin Burnett (talking over Jen): I think they were pretty clear it was gonna delay it, right, by the term of the deal, 10 years. I remember having Jen on and, you know, holding her feet to the fire on this repeatedly, right, that they always said delay.

Jen Psaki (talking over Erin): Mark, they were public, they were public deals.

Mark Dubowitz: Well, actually Senator Kerry actually said ‘permanently cut off pathways’ so, I mean, the fact of the matter is, again, we don’t have to relitigate this, I think the more important thing is we all agree let’s keep the deal, let’s try to strengthen the deal, let’s build consensus with our European allies. And more importantly, I think the headline of President Trump’s speech today is let’s roll out a comprehensive policy using all instruments of American power to deal with Iran’s destructive behavior outside the deal, which I know Jen and David and everybody agrees needs to be done.

Jen Psaki: But that wasn’t what he announced today. He said he would rip up the deal, he would get rid of the deal, so what he created is a very dangerous and reckless tightrope walk here that puts members of congress in a difficult spot, puts our allies and partners in a difficult spot. No one is suggesting that it’s giving us more leverage to accomplish a deal on ballistic missiles, or some of the human rights abuses that we all have concerns about.

Erin Burnett: And David, how seriously do you take the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Mr. Salehi saying that this was tantamount to a declaration of war, and by that I’m’ referring specifically not to the president’s decision about the deal itself, but his treasury labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terror organization. They’re saying that’s tantamount to war.

David Gergen: I don’t think we should take that as representing all of Iran. There are different power centers in Iran, we need to listen to all of them before we really know what direction they’re going in.

Erin Burnett: Mhm.

David Gergen: So, I don’t think we’re on the edge of war in that sense and this wasn’t a declaration of war. What I do believe is there’s this distinction and if the president had said ‘we’re going to keep the deal, but we want to launch a separate negotiation with our allies and with Iran to figure out, you know, how do we handle this when the deal expires and what do we do about Iran’s behavior in the Middle East, those are very important to us going forward,’ I think we could have all said that’s fine. But that’s not what he’s saying. As Jen pointed out, what he’s saying is ‘Unless the deal is renegotiated and we’re getting out of it, we’re terminating it, we’re throwing it away.’ And that is what scares a lot of our allies and that is what’s going to unleash Iran, not in 10-12 years, it’s going to unleash Iran very quickly.

Erin Burnett: So Jen, do you think that that’s true? That Iran would get out of this deal and get on that fast track to a nuclear bomb?

Jen Psaki: Well, I think it’s a risk. And look, the situation we have now at this point is the hope that members of Congress will find their higher power here and not be partisan and not put snapback sanctions in place, because that would be a violation of the deal and if that happens then it could be a domino effect with our partners who have been in the deal, and with Iran, and then where are we left? Not in a better negotiating position, we’re left without monitoring and verification tools, without any visibility into what Iran is doing and I don’t think that’s better than where we were a few years ago.

Erin Burnett: All right, we’re going to leave it there. Thank you all so very much.

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.