"Officials pessimistic about agreement between U.S. and Iran amid tense talks" PBS NewsHour 12/1/2021
Excerpt
SUMMARY: For the first time Wednesday, the recently elected Iranian government is negotiating its nuclear program with the world powers who signed the nuclear deal back in 2015. Iran wants relief from economic sanctions. The U.S. and Europe want Iran to roll back nuclear advancements. Nick Schifrin is covering the talks and joins Judy Woodruff with more.
SUMMARY: Somewhat ominous developments have occurred recently around two flashpoints of American foreign policy: Iran and North Korea. On Sunday, National Security Adviser John Bolton announced a carrier strike group was moving into the Persian Gulf because of unspecified threatening action, purportedly from Iran. Meanwhile, North Korea conducted a missile test. William Brangham talks to Nick Schifrin.
SUMMARY: Iran said it plans to cease complying with portions of the nuclear deal it signed with Western powers in 2015, though it didn't withdraw from the agreement altogether. But the announcement increases already escalating tensions with the U.S. Nick Schifrin talks to Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, about why Iran made the decision now and whether it can trust President Trump.
SUMMARY: Iran announced its partial withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear treaty on Wednesday, citing the failure of other member nations to deliver promised economic relief after the U.S. pulled out of the deal a year ago. What does the development mean for the relationship between the U.S. and Iran, already tense? Judy Woodruff talks to Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran.
SUMMARY: A year after the Trump administration withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Iran itself warned that it will stop complying with the agreement unless it receives promised economic benefits. Judy Woodruff talks to Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who served as lead U.S. negotiator for the nuclear agreement with Iran during the Obama administration, about the impact of recent U.S. policy toward Iran.
SUMMARY: U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 meant that Iran didn't receive some of the billions of dollars of economic benefits it was promised when it entered the agreement. Now, France, Germany, and the U.K. have formed a company intended to direct funds and goods to Iran, bypassing U.S. sanctions. Nick Schifrin talks to David O’Sullivan, EU Ambassador to the U.S., about their motivation.
SUMMARY: Relations between the U.S. and Europe took another hit Thursday when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration would impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum. European Union Ambassador to the U.S. David O'Sullivan joins John Yang to discuss how the tariffs will affect the global economy and the alliance, plus the fallout from the U.S. withdrawing from the Iran deal.
SUMMARY: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus join Amna Nawaz to analyze the week’s news, including President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, reactions from voters in Elkhart, Indiana, where President Trump held a campaign rally on Thursday, the contentious confirmation hearing of CIA director nominee Gina Haspel and more.
Amna Nawaz (NewsHour): And now to the analysis of Brooks and Marcus. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
Thanks so much for being here.
Let’s jump in.
Earlier this week, one of the biggest stories, David, obviously, the President making good on his promise to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. That’s despite the protest of a lot of U.S. allies.
Politically, was that a smart move?
David Brooks, New York Times: I think so.
One of the things you notice with the President is that he comes from a background where basically, in the real estate business, he worked with a lot of thugs and he cultivated a lot of thugs, and he was a little thuggish himself.
But, in my view, that helps him, for all his drawbacks, understand thugs. And so North Korea, he understood that being tough with a thug produces some results. And we’re in a better situation with North Korea than we were otherwise.
He’s been much tougher on the Chinese in trade. And a lot of people thinks he’s adopted the right policy, because sometimes you have got to just stand up to people. And Iran, I have very mixed views about whether Trump did the right thing.
But President Obama, the argument he made for it, which is that Iran would moderate and become a more familiar member of the company of nations. That has turned out to be clearly false.
They are the most genocidal nation on the face of the earth. They export violence, terror around the earth. And so Trump standing up to them at least has some legitimacy. It’s possible that he understands people like that better than people who have higher SAT scores.
Amna Nawaz: You wrote in your column this week thug is going to thug.
(LAUGHTER)
Amna Nawaz: But, Ruth, looking ahead to North Korea now, how do you break from a deal like this one, and then legitimately go into negotiations with North Korea to say, no, we’re going to stick with whatever deal we agree to?
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post: Kind of a good question. I have had that question myself.
I think, in general, there’s legitimate questions about the Iran deal, both whether it was the best deal that could have been gotten and whether it had the hope for effect on Iran’s behavior.
But the question really is, is pulling out of it — and I was a supporter of the Iran deal, so despite those concerns. But even if you weren’t, is pulling out of it better or worse than staying in, and not just because of the impact on Iran? Because of the impact on our relationships with our allies.
Thug’s going to thug, but we’re not thugs, and we have to continue to maintain decent relations with our allies. Now we’re talking about threatening them, betraying the agreement that they agreed with, and going after their companies with secondary sanctions.
And then you have this question about, if you have proven that your word as a country can’t be trusted beyond the course of a single President, doesn’t that get priced into the price of negotiating with North Korea?
And he will say, well, yes, you, but, he, Kim Jong-un, yes, you say this, but what happens next time around? So, giving a little bit less.
So, all in all, I think — you asked about whether it was better for him politically. He promised it. It may make his base happy to see him thugging around. But I think, as a strategic matter of the U.S. national interest, not better.
SUMMARY: From nuclear deal to no deal, President Trump on Tuesday made good on his vow to get out of the 2015 agreement with Iran -- his predecessor’s signature foreign policy achievement. Nick Schifrin looks back at Trump’s determination to derail the deal, and then joins William Brangham to discuss what happens in Iran now.
SUMMARY: President Trump's announcement that the U.S. is leaving the Iran nuclear deal is going to raise the risk of unnecessary war in the Middle East, says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va). A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kaine also tells William Brangham that the decision has driven a wedge between the U.S. and European allies, and makes the U.S. weaker.
SUMMARY: President Donald Trump made good on his campaign promise Tuesday with the announcement that the U.S. would leave the Iran nuclear agreement. But America’s exit does not cancel the deal altogether, Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Defense Minister and Prime Minister, told PBS NewsHour correspondent William Brangham.
Barak said he thought the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was “ a bad deal when it was made” — something Trump also said as he signed a memorandum terminating U.S. participation in the Iran agreement.
“But once it was signed it became a matter of fact,” Barak said, adding that he wasn’t sure Trump’s decision was the best way to make changes to the agreement, and that he believed the deal's six other signatories would stay in the pact.
Here are some other highlights from the interview, tied to the release of Barak's 2018 memoir, “My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace.”
William Brangham (NewsHour): The other thing that really comes through in your book is that Israel continues and must find some resolution to how it deals with the Palestinians.
As you well know, the government in Israel has very much right now a fortress Israel position. Do you have any sense of hope that the resolution with the Palestinians will come?
Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister: Yes, of course. I have not just hope. I’m quite confident it will happen.
The government of Israel, it’s a freely elected government. It’s my government as well. But I did dispute with them about what is good for the country, especially in the last three years, with Bibi more and more deeply diving into this mind-set of extreme pessimism, passivity, anxiety and self-victimizing mood, which is a quite good recipe for practical domestic politics, but very poor one for statesmanship.
I think that we are heading — beyond these daily events, we are heading into a direction which is clearly wrong. The intention of this government, led and directed by extreme right, is to torpedo any possibility of separation or disengagement between us and the Palestinians.
This leads us basically into one state named Israel covering or reigning over the whole area from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan. But that means, because we are 13 million people there, 6.5 million Jews and 6.5 million Arabs.
William Brangham : Yes, the demographics are not in your favor.
Ehud Barak: It means — yes, it means that it will end inevitably either non-Jewish or non-democratic. Neither is
(INAUDIBLE).
And based on our successes, we — you know, founding of the state of Israel is the most successful national project of the 20th century. We have a huge amount of achievements.
But, based on these achievements, we are the strongest country, and we can take our fate in our hands. I am not caring about the Palestinians. I am caring about our own identity, future, and security.
And our interests demand that we will disengage from the Palestinians, delineate a line within which we will have all our security interests, most of the settlers, and a solid Jewish majority for generations to come.
I always follow — I used to quote Robert Frost saying good fences make good neighbors. And we need it in the Middle East. Never lose the focus on the objective and on understanding. Whether it takes time, more or less time, we will ultimately reach a normal situation in the Middle East.
SUMMARY: Nearly three years since the Iran deal was sealed, The Guardian reports that top Obama White House national security officials Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl were the targets of elaborate efforts to delegitimize the agreement. An Israeli private intelligence firm allegedly tried to dig up information that might discredit the men. John Yang learns more from Julian Borger of The Guardian.
Leading Democrats have bundled their push for a tough stance on Russia with escalation towards Iran.
Leading Democrats have consistently pegged their anti-Trump “resistance” to a more confrontational stance toward Russia—and bundled this demand with a push for greater escalation against Iran. Now, the danger of this strategy is undeniable: These same Democrats helped set the stage for Trump’s disastrous “withdrawal” on Tuesday from the nuclear deal with Iran—and are playing a meaningful role in pushing U.S. foreign policy to the right.
Under the 2015 Iran deal, the United States ostensibly loosened sanctions in exchange for an agreement by Iran to roll back its nuclear program (Iran did not have an active nuclear weapons program). Trump’s withdrawal puts the United States and its allies on course for further military confrontation with Iran and its allies—and forces ordinary Iranians to suffer the consequences of devastating sanctions, including medicine shortages and food insecurity.
Every single Democrat in Congress had a hand in creating the political climate for Tuesday’s developments. Last summer, nearly the entire House and Senate voted in favor of legislation that grouped together sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea. The final version of the bipartisan legislation materialized after sanctions against Russia were tacked onto an existing Iran bill in a measure introduced by Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Steny Hoyer (D-N.Y.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).
The only “no” votes on the House version—H.R. 3364: Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act—came from the isolationist Libertarian-leaning Republican wing: Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). An anti-war front rooted in solidarity with the people of Iran, Russia, and North Korea was nowhere to be found. Even Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who built her name on her courageous stand against war in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, voted for the bill.
Days later, on July 27, the Senate passed the same bill in a 98-2 vote. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was the only lawmaker in Congress who caucuses with the Democrats to issue a “no” vote. Democrats showed they were willing to risk destroying the Iran agreement in an attempt to punish Moscow.
Obama’s former Secretary of State John Kerry warned at the time that the new sanctions ran the risk of upending the Iran deal. At a fundraiser in San Francisco last June, Kerry said, “If we become super provocative in ways that show the Iranian people there has been no advantage to this, that there is no gain, and our bellicosity is pushing them into a corner, that’s dangerous and that could bring a very different result.”
Democrats explicitly cited Russia when supporting the bill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Intercept reporters Alex Emmons and Ryan Grim last July: “I just looked at the sanctions, and it’s very hard, in view of what we know just happened in this last election, not to move ahead with [sanctions].”
At the time, Sanders was harshly criticized for his “no” vote. Adam Parkhomenko, who served as a former aide to Hillary Clinton and founded the Ready for Hillary PAC, said on Twitter last July: “Feel the Bern? Bernie Sanders voted against Russian sanctions today. 98 Senators voted for Russian sanctions today. Sanders voted the same way anyone with the last name Trump would vote if they were in the Senate. No excuses ? Stop making them for him.”
With near unanimous support from Congress, Trump signed the sanctions bill into law in August.
After Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would pull out from the Iran deal, the same leading Democrats who voted for sanctions in 2017 immediately criticized his decision. Pelosi called it a “sad day” and ranking Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. Bob Menendez—who authored the sanctions bill—called withdrawal a “huge mistake.” Sen. Dick Durbin took Menendez’ assessment one step further, declaring it a “mistake of historic proportions.” Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—who voted to block the Iran deal—said there wasn’t any reason for the United States to violate the agreement. “There are no reports that Iran has violated the agreement,” Schumer told reporters.
Schumer is correct about Iran not violating the agreement, but—according to Iran—the United States had already effectively violated it last summer when Schumer and the vast majority of congress voted for the new sanctions. “In our view the nuclear deal has been violated and we will show an appropriate and proportional reaction to this issue,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview after the sanctions passed.
While most Democrats claim they support the Iran deal despite their reckless pro-sanctions votes, Schumer is among the four Senate Democrats who voted in favor of a Republican-backed bill that would have blocked the deal, along with Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). In the House, 25 Democrats opposed the agreement in 2015.
“I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course, but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it,” said Sen. Menendez at the time. “It is for these reasons that I will vote to disapprove the agreement and, if called upon, would vote to override a veto.”
Now, Democrats who voted for sanctions—or outright opposed the Iran deal—are loudly condemning Trump for withdrawing from the accord. Missing from this discussion is a sober assessment of how Democrats’ push for sanctions and escalation—emboldened by the myopic focus on Russiagate—undermined the Iran deal and created political momentum for Trump’s disastrous decision. Regardless of what one thinks about the motives and scope of Russian influence operations—or their leverage over the Trump administration—the net effect of Democrats’ overwhelming focus on Russia for two years is undeniable: an increase of tensions with Russia and, by extension, its biggest strategic ally in the Middle East—Iran.
There is reason to be concerned that, by killing the deal, the Trump administration is paving the way for military conflict with Iran. Shortly after the President’s press conference on Tuesday, National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters that such speculation was a mistake. However just last year, Bolton told members of the militant Iranian-exile cult the MEK that they will overthrow Iran’s government and celebrate in Tehran “before 2019.”
If this push for war grows louder, it’s hard to envision Democrats doing much resisting.
SUMMARY: President Trump has a major deadline for the Iran Nuclear Agreement looming just 10 days away. What could happen if the President decides to withdraw? Judy Woodruff discusses potential consequences with former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a key member of the American negotiating team that struck the deal, plus a response to charges laid out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
SUMMARY: French President Emmanuel Macron is on what some have called "Operation Save the Iran Deal." On a visit to the U.S., Macron will try to convince President Trump that the deal is working and that it's better to confront Iran while its nuclear program is frozen. But Trump is vowing to pull out of the deal unless the U.S. and Europe can fix it to his specifications. Nick Schifrin joins Amna Nawaz.
SUMMARY: In a state visit hosting the leader of America's oldest ally, the personal bond between President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron was evident, and so were their differences over the Iran nuclear deal. At a news conference, Macron said the U.S. should remain part of the deal, but hold talks to improve it, while Trump said he wants an entirely new agreement. Yamiche Alcindor reports.
