Is the Iran 🇮🇷 deal set to unravel? - UpFront

while the Iran nuclear deal was hailed as a triumph of diplomacy by its supporters around the world he's really Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a very bad deal and Donald Trump called it the worst deal ever the US president recently decided to officially decertify what's formerly known as the jcpoa the joint comprehensive plan of action between Iran and six other countries so as the historic deal hangs in the balance in the US will the other five signatories follow Trump's lead and what the deals unraveling lead to a new war in the region joining me to discuss this our treat a Parsi founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and author of the new book losing an enemy Obama Iran and the triumph of diplomacy and from Los Angeles Danny Allen former Israeli deputy foreign minister and former Israeli ambassador to the u.s. thank you both for joining me in the arena Danny let me start with you you've been a staunch critic of both Iran and the Iran nuclear deal the jcpoa you welcomed President Trump's decision to decertify the deal in October because as you said at the time it creates an opportunity to fix it what is it about the deal that you think needs fixing I think that the jcpoa legs in two major things first of all it does not include Iran's terrorism support of terrorism throughout the region trying actually to subvert and in in many may in many ways to disrupt everything that goes in the region and the second thing is the ballistic missiles that they continue to to test and with the cooperation that they have with North Korea and we know North Korea just this week have launched the most powerful ballistic missiles so far this creates a very very dangerous situation so I would say to sum it up we are all dependent right now because of this agreement on the goodwill of the Ayatollah and before I asked Ritter to respond to that just to be clear for the sake of our viewers because you're criticizing parts of the deal and you're saying the deal itself is inadequate are you saying that the deal needs to be amended or are you saying it needs to be scrapped well I think there realistically I don't see being scraped we have to remember that it has six parties Vasavi Ron so it's not just the United States it will be very very hard to bring the Europeans on board let alone Russia and China but definitely I think we can do some summer fixings I think it's also the interest of all the other parties as well treaty policy at Daniel Island says that you cannot you cannot have a deal that works it depends on the goodwill of the Iranian government a lot of people listening to that even if they don't support the Israeli line on the Middle East will say that's a very fair point how do you have a deal that's based on the goodwill of Iran's government because you don't have a deal that is based on the goodwill of the Iranian government you have a deal that has put on Iran the most intrusive inspections and limitations that ever has been achieved fortunately thus far nine IAEA reports have made it very clear the Iranians are living up to every aspect of the deal and the IAEA has the access that they need it is not based on their goodwill I think it's important to understand if the United States through Congress right now tries to change the deal even if it's an attractive change from the US or from the Israeli perspective it is a violation of the deal if a single country goes in and just tries to change the terms of this deal so if one is concerned about not scrapping the deal it makes me very curious why are we then doing things that would ensure that the deal will get scrapped well I would say unfortunately the situation is not as sanguine as treati describes because military installations are exempt and in any case the IAEA inspectors have to give enough time they cannot do just random and the surprised checks so they run ins have ample time to to disguise whatever they do also we don't know what they we don't know twitter from the Israeli perspective there's been a history of making demands that are simply completely unrealistic you're saying it's Israel makes unrealistic demands on the inspections front what about the ballistic missiles that Danny mentioned but that's not just the Israelis Ban ki-moon when he was Secretary General said he was concerned Iran's missile launches were not consistent with the Contin octave spirit of the nuclear deal the French the British the Germans have all made noises about the fact they're not happy that Iran keeps firing these but test firing these ballistic missiles that's not exactly helpful or conducive cheaper than helpful but at the same time you have to understand that security doesn't go one way the Saudis right now are out spending Iran with a factor of 5 to 6 on military spending you cannot expect Iran to not have any defenses what we can do however is to learn from the diplomatic experience that we've had here there's only one example in the last 37 years in which we have seen that was being able to change dramatically one of Iran's core policies and that's through these negotiations what the change happened in the nuclear deal so everything else has failed so if we want to address the ballistic missile issue that I agree with you many countries have concerns there is a path for it the path is through diplomacy so we could have additional negotiations to address those issues okay but that's not what we're doing right now we're trying to scrap the deal I want to come back to the diplomatic angle and whether you know you know this option of are we you know are we heading towards a new conflict before I get to that point Danny I have to ask you I mean there's no point saying you know the Iranians don't allow inspections the Iranians aren't transparent Israel actually has nuclear weapons and doesn't allow anyone to come and inspect its nuclear facilities isn't it a bit hypocritical for your country to be leading the charge against Iran's non nuclear weapons program as it is now well Marty that's a good question but but not really first of all you know Israel's let's say long tradition policy has not changed that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East so next to that Israel is a democracy with checks and balances and also Israel is the only country in the world that its existence is has been threatened when the ayatollahs threatened to erase Israel or when Saddam Hussein at the time did or many others whether it's Hezbollah I understand the Israeli defensive posture I'm not questioning that I'm simply asking a simple question the UN resolution 487 for example calls upon Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the IAEA Iran is have intrusive IAEA inspections as treat to point out you say you want even more intrusive edges I'm saying why not level the playing field and say you know what set a good example to Iran and say we're gonna allow all the inspectors from the IAEA to come into our nuclear facilities well we have actual nukes not hypothetical nukes actual ones well I would say because formality I would say and the legal arguments is on our side Israel has never signed and we are not a party to the non-proliferation and NPA and Iran is so Iran is subject to the to the inspections and to the regulations of the NPT what we have seen that actually while it was a member of NPT they cheated and broke and every and and violated every commitment that they had Israel does not have any commitments or obligations and simply this is the core of our national security policy because of the situation we are in treaty donors from the Israel does have the same legal obligations that Iran does well precisely because Israel is outside of the NPT it makes it very difficult for Israel to criticize the IAEA and their inspections of Iran and what Iran is doing what you essentially are saying is that the rest of the region is at the mercy of the goodwill of the Israeli government the same argument that you falsely used against Iran there's not a single report by the IAEA pointing out that Israel's nuclear program is peaceful so the fact that the Iranians have now signed this agreement is in lying all of these inspections inside of their program is really putting Israel in a very very uncomfortable position in which the hypocrisy of its policy is becoming very very clear Danny yeah well I would say that there is no way to put there to to have any a moral equivalency between Iran and Israel also by the way Israel has never threatened any of its neighbors or any other country Israel has been more than 60 years now but on the other hand we have the Iranian ayatollahs we know that they have been cheating we know that they are subverting and actually supporting terror throughout the region again they ask you tell Israel has nuclear weapons doesn't it everyone in the world knows is right as nuclear weapons well I can only repeat our long tradition the statement that we will never be the first to introduce nuclear wave ski this then a lot of Israeli officials you're here criticizing the deal you could be the one who's leading your position could be the one that leads to more deaths and more war because getting rid of the deal leads inevitably to a new war in the Middle East in which Iranians die Israelis potentially die Americans die etc what's your response to that when I look in history there and and without exception when you had a tyrant a dictatorial and very very aggressive regime ideologically aggressive regime as the Iranians if you must decide on an owner on a war or let them getting more strength I think the the the first option is the former is is much better had Hitler been stopped in the early thirties or the mid-30s maybe the lives of 60 million people would have been saved this is the same situation right now and I can I would have another question maybe for Twitter because you're essentially saying that as long as Iran is ruled by this government you cannot do anything else but actually cut down their power which essentially means going to war that is the argument you're presenting I would I would ask why would I Ron why were they so adamant about not including limitation to their ballistic missile tests if the Iranians understand that by continuing their ballistic testing by continuing trying to topple every regime which is not in their liking whether it's in the Saudi Arabia or any other Sunni country then they would be under severe sanctions again I believe there would be a pressure also from the the population who has suffered a lot under the sections to to have the government change its course is it the problem treaty that when Danny says these things about the Iranian government a lot of populations journalists politicians Heather and say yeah that's true that is part of the problem that we've done this deal with a regime we don't like with a government we don't like which is clearly committing all sorts of human rights abuses which aren't covered by the deal which is supporting a pretty vicious and violent government in Syria and destabilizing that part of the world in their eyes and that's what's undermining trust there so when it comes to your human rights you're absolutely right this is a government that is engaged in tremendous human rights violations right now but the population in Iran supported this deal overwhelmingly you can't make the argument that all this was a deal with the ayatollahs the population was fully backing this deal they were dancing in the streets when the deal was struck they wanted this because they want to break out of their isolation they want to have better relations with the West they want to be able to connect and they can't as long as hardliners in Israel and in Iran in Saudi Arabia are pushing things towards a confrontation that further isolates the population and further increases the repression that they're facing but if the argument is you cannot make a deal with this government because it's a bad government then you're only going to end up making deals with governments you like well governments you like you probably don't have any problems with to begin with so what is the purpose of diplomacy there how worried should we be in your view about a new war with Iran in the Middle East in the coming years I'm very worried that the trajectory of things is going in that direction and that the measures that are being argued here as fixing the deal will end up whether intended or not to kill the deal and once we have no deal we're back to the situation that existed in 2013 and which everything is pointing towards either acquiescing to Iran's nuclear program or going to work Tanny last word my last word is it all depends on the international community if we show a strong hand against the Iranians just as they were in I think it 2013 was a real real missed opportunity because the Iranians were begging for a deal and if we had a I mean the the p5 plus one had a firmer position we could have gotten a much much better deal and it's not late still to to fix it we'll have to leave it there Daniel on treater policy thank you both for joining me in the arena that's our show upfront we'll be back next week you

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Keywords: upfront, nuclear weapons, iran, united states, discussion, iran nuclear deal, trita parsi, danny ayalon, mehdia hasan, donald trump, Iran deal, aljazeera, al jazeera, aljazeera english, al jazeera english, jazeera, aljazeera live, us news, us president donald trump, trump, iran news, iran nuclear, iran sanctions, sanctions, iran us, eu, european union

Id: PrwnorqYqss

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2017