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unidentified
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Pursuant to Clause 13 of Rule 1, the House now stands adjourned until 11 a.m. on Monday, June 2, 2025. | |
| And the House will be back for legislative work next week on Tuesday. | ||
| Lawmakers will consider an update to opioid addiction and treatment programs, first established under a 2018 law signed by President Trump during his first term in office. | ||
| You can watch live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House here on C-SPAN. | ||
| We're going to continue our live coverage and take you to the U.S. Air Force Academy, where the Branch Secretary Troy Mink will be giving the commencement address. | ||
| We'll bring you back here as soon as his remarks begin. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're talking about U.S.-Iran nuclear talks with Trita Parsi. | ||
| He's Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. | ||
| Trita, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thank you so much for having me. | ||
| So remind us of the Quincy Institute and what foreign policy positions it takes when it comes to arms control. | ||
| So the Quincy Institute is about five, six years old now in Washington. | ||
| It's a new think tank. | ||
| And it's very different because we favor a foreign policy that is centered on diplomacy and military restraint. | ||
| We favor a completely different grand strategy for the United States, one that has far less military interventions abroad and far more focus on how we have to strengthen ourselves at home and the use of diplomacy as the key tenant of foreign policy. | ||
| Well, let's talk about the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. | ||
| Are they talking directly or are they talking through intermediaries right now? | ||
| They're doing both. | ||
| There's both indirect talks, but there's also direct conversations. | ||
| It's been less reported in the media. | ||
| But bottom line is that they are talking, they're making some advances. | ||
| And the fact that they're talking directly is very, very significant, mindful of the fact that during the entire four years of the Biden administration, they never managed to elevate it to a direct negotiation between the actual negotiators. | ||
| All right, so let's talk about where the two sides stand. | ||
| What are the kind of the must-haves on the Iranian side and what are the must-haves on the American side? | ||
| So the must-haves on the Iranian side are very clear because, as you know, this is not a new issue. | ||
| We've had negotiations before. | ||
| The Iranian red lines have been the same. | ||
| They absolutely will not give up enrichment on their own soil. | ||
| This is a red line that they've had for more than 20 years. | ||
| Whenever we have tried to get them to budge on that issue, all that has resulted in is that we don't get a deal, their program further advances, and any reasonable, realistic restraints that we can get on their program ends up getting delayed. | ||
| On the American side, it's a little bit less clear because Trump has never negotiated with the Iranians before. | ||
| He started off talking about his only red line being no weaponization. | ||
| Then a couple of weeks ago, he started talking about that they have to dismantle the program, close their facilities, no enrichment, going back to a position the U.S. has had before and unsuccessfully pursued. | ||
| But it doesn't seem clear to me as to whether that actually is the real red line or if it's part of the manner in which Trump tends to negotiate. | ||
| A lot of public negotiations, a lot of maximalist positions thrown out publicly, but not necessarily the real red lines at the negotiating table. | ||
| It remains to be seen. | ||
| I think, however, if Trump does not go back to his original red line, which is no weaponization, and insist on some of these things that we've tried before and doesn't work, he may miss a unique opportunity because I think he actually has the ability to get a better deal than Obama did. | ||
| Why does the Iranian side insist on continuing to enrich uranium? | ||
| Why is that a red line for them? | ||
| So this is actually a red line for them all the way back from the time of the Shah. | ||
| The Non-Proliferation Treaty does grant states, member states, the right to be able to use and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. | ||
| This entails enrichment on Iranian soil. | ||
| There's no explicit forbidding of enrichment on their solar energy. | ||
| Right, but why do they want to do it? | ||
| They've got plenty of energy. | ||
| They don't need nuclear energy. | ||
| That's not an argument that holds because at the end of the day, yes, they do have a lot of energy, but they're going to run out of that energy one day. | ||
| And other countries that have a lot of energy, such as the United States, nevertheless diversifies, uses all kinds of different energy sources. | ||
| If you're not dependent on import of energy from abroad, it would be quite foolish for you to allow yourself to become dependent on it. | ||
| So I think the Iranians want to make sure that they have this energy domestically so they can export more oil abroad. | ||
| And later on, when oil and gas is run out, they still have other sources of energy. | ||
| You mentioned the deal with Obama. | ||
| That's the JCPOA. | ||
| Can you remind us of the provisions in that and why you think that President Trump could possibly get a better deal than that one? | ||
| So the JCPOA, and I was a strong supporter of it. | ||
| I still think it was a very good deal, essentially agreed to limitations to the Iranian nuclear program, massive restrictions on how much they could enrich, how much low-enriched uranium they could have on their own soil. | ||
| They could not have any medium or high-level enrichment. | ||
| They could only enrich to 3.67%. | ||
| They could never have more than 300 kilos of low-enriched uranium on their own soil. | ||
| You need 1,200 to actually build a bomb. | ||
| They had inspections at every level at every stage of their program with IAEA cameras inside of the nuclear program. | ||
| In return, the Iranians were promised sanctions relief. | ||
| Not all of that actually came through. | ||
| The reason why Trump can get a better deal, in my view, is because Trump is willing to put more sanctions relief on the table. | ||
| Obama only lifted secondary sanctions. | ||
| Those are the sanctions the United States imposes on foreign companies if they go into the Iranian market. | ||
| Primary sanctions are the sanctions that the U.S. government imposes on U.S. companies if they go into the Iranian market. | ||
| He never lifted the primary sanctions. | ||
| So no American company actually managed to get into the Iranian economy except for Boeing, who was written into the deal. | ||
| So Trump already back in 2015 when he was complaining about the JCPOA saying that it was a bad deal, saying it was unfair, was pointing to the fact that this deal benefited Russian, Chinese, European companies, but no American companies. | ||
| He's willing to put primary sanctions on the table. | ||
| He seems to have an attitude in which he views sanctions largely as a punishment of American companies. | ||
| If he's willing to put more on the table, he can also ask more of the Iranians. | ||
| But there's a difference between asking for more and asking for everything. | ||
| There is a sweet spot there, and I think if both sides are reasonable and pragmatic, they can find it. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Trita Parsi and ask a question about the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are bipartisan-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans on 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Tell us about Steve Witkoff, his role. | ||
| He's the major, he's a special Middle East envoy. | ||
| And what you see as his qualifications for the role. | ||
| So, Witkoff is an old friend of Donald Trump. | ||
| They have very strong trust. | ||
| He does not have much experience in this specific field, certainly doesn't have expertise when it comes to the technical aspects of it. | ||
| And this would be a very technical deal, although it seems like he's quickly learning a lot of the details about it. | ||
| But he has a couple of qualities that is extremely valuable. | ||
| First of all, he is deeply trusted by Trump, and he does not have an agenda of his own. | ||
| In the past, in these negotiations, there's been some challenges. | ||
| There were efforts during the first Trump administration. | ||
| Trump wanted a deal. | ||
| The Iranians were willing to explore it towards the end of his presidency. | ||
| But the person in between was Mike Pompeo, Secretary Pompeo, who was doing everything he could to sabotage it. | ||
| Now, Trump has an envoy that is really following Trump's agenda. | ||
| That's very important because it gives him credibility at the negotiating table. | ||
| Secondly, precisely because he doesn't have that much of a background, he can be a little bit more creative. | ||
| He is more pragmatic and inclined to actually get a deal rather than be stuck in the old dead ends that have existed in this very, very lengthy conflict that has been going on. | ||
| So he seems to have the ability to be able to get deals. | ||
| Whether the follow-through is there to the extent that it needs to be remains to be seen. | ||
| But it's very fascinating to see that in the region, whether it is with the Qataris, whether it is with Iranians or others, he seems to have gained a lot of respect. | ||
| Well, let's take a look at Steve Woodkoff. | ||
| He was on ABC's This Week recently, and he talked about the status of U.S.-Iran talks and the possibility of Iranian nuclear enrichment. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
| Can you give us a sense of what is the outline of the deal that President Trump wants to get with Iran? | ||
| Well, the president has been very clear. | ||
| He wants to solve this conflict diplomatically and with dialogue. | ||
| And he's given all the signals. | ||
| He's directly sent letters to the Supreme Leader. | ||
| I have been dispatched to deliver that message as well, and I've delivered it. | ||
| But on the other hand, we have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. | ||
| We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. | ||
| We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them. | ||
| And so that's important. | ||
| We want to get to a solution here. | ||
| And we think that we will be able to. | ||
| But everything begins from our standpoint, John, with a deal that does not include enrichment. | ||
| We cannot have that because enrichment enables weaponization and we will not allow a bomb to get here. | ||
| But short of that, there are all kinds of ways for us to achieve our goals in this negotiation. | ||
| We think that we will be meeting sometime this week in Europe and we hope that it will lead to some real positivity. | ||
| And that's where we are, sir. | ||
| Steve Woodcoff, and he said not even 1% enrichment he would allow for Iran. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I think if that ends up being the final position, there's not going to be a deal. | ||
| We have plenty of experience, more than 20 years of seeing that not working out. | ||
| There may be some variations of this. | ||
| So there is some talk right now that there may be an international consortium, meaning that enrichment would take place on Iranian soil, but there would be other countries involved in the enrichment activities and present in the facilities. | ||
| that may then be able to be presented as a no enrichment only by the Iranians because they won't be doing it alone. | ||
| So there may be some areas of flexibility there. | ||
| But if the position is entirely zero enrichment, which is the same position that John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and others pursued, which gave Trump zero wins on this issue, then I don't think we will have a deal. | ||
| And unfortunately, given what Trump has said, it means that there will be a gravitation towards a military confrontation. | ||
| Do you think that they would be willing to take a temporary cease to their enrichment activities to say, you know, stop for one year and we'll give you this much sanction relief? | ||
| I find it very unlikely. | ||
| They've done it once before in 2003 to 2005. | ||
| That was with the Europeans, not with the United States. | ||
| This was meant to be a confidence-building measure, but once it was tied to the duration of the negotiations, once they stopped enrichment, the Europeans slowed down the negotiations because as long as the negotiations technically were going on, the Iranians were forced to retain that suspension. | ||
| When they broke it in 2005, there was a major crisis. | ||
| If the same thing happens this time, this is part of the reason why I think the Iranians are so suspicious of this, that what is supposed to be a temporary halt ends up becoming a permanent halt because the cost of restarting it is going to be so high. | ||
| So I find that unlikely. | ||
| Could it end up being a week, two weeks, something like that? | ||
| Perhaps. | ||
| But what the administration appears to have thrown out is for there to be a three-year halt, which means for the duration of Trump's presidency. | ||
| I find it to be essentially impossible for the Iranians to agree that. | ||
| Now you talked about sanctions relief for Iran. | ||
| They also want their oil revenues to be unfrozen, those assets. | ||
| Can you explain how that's working, who's freezing them, how much money are we talking about? | ||
| So as part of the sanctions that the United States has imposed on Iran, a lot of Iran's oil revenue is held in foreign banks in other countries in which the Iranians no longer have access to them because the banks are not allowed to release the money to the Iranians. | ||
| There were some efforts during the Biden administration in which those monies would be released about $6 billion, but it actually wouldn't go to the Iranians. | ||
| They would sit in Qatar. | ||
| And then whenever the Iranians needed to buy some food or medicine, they would send the list. | ||
| The Qataris would check it with the U.S. government, and then the money would be used to purchase that. | ||
| But when the actual JCPA was struck, then those monies were released back to the Iranians because it's their money and the sanctions had been lifted. | ||
| How close is Iran to being able to weaponize and to make a nuclear weapon? | ||
| So this is a very, very concerning situation right now. | ||
| During the JCPOA, as long as Iran was in the deal, which they were, as long as the U.S. was in the deal, but Trump pulled out of the deal, the Iranian breakout capability, as we call it, is the amount of time it would take for them from making a decision to build a bomb to having the material for a bomb, not having a bomb, but having the material for a bomb, was a minimum of 12 months. | ||
| Today, as a result of Trump pulling out of the deal and the restrictions falling off, the Iranians are somewhere between three and seven days from having, but that's having the material for the bomb. | ||
| Having a bomb is a different thing because they have to test it, they have to put it on a vehicle, etc., etc. | ||
| That could probably take another year or two years. | ||
| But it means that they're much, much closer and have much more leverage than they did before as a result of us pulling out of the deal, insisting on unrealistic demands such as zero enrichment, which as I said earlier on has only led to their program expanding and the kind of realistic restrictions being delayed. | ||
| All right, let's talk to a caller. | ||
| We'll start with Bob in Greenbush, Michigan, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I've seen speculation from experts that Iran is just delaying a talk long enough to get an agreement similar to NATO's Article 5 with Russia, China, and North Korea. | ||
| Is there any validity to that? | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| I find that completely unlikely. | ||
| The Chinese, the Russians, are not in the habit of providing that type of Article 5 agreements with anyone in which they actually would go and defend another country. | ||
| Nor are the Iranians seeking that. | ||
| The Iranians are seeking to make sure that they have as much of an independent capacity to defend themselves rather than relying on some form of a guarantee from another major power. | ||
| The Iranians view themselves as a major power. | ||
| And as a major power, they don't ask for security guarantees from anyone else. | ||
| It says, this is Lou in Montclair, Virginia. | ||
| He's asking, why does Iran insist on enriching uranium beyond 3 to 5% when only 3 to 5% is needed for peaceful nuclear power purposes? | ||
| Well, the Iranians actually don't insist on that because in the JCPOA, they were up to 20%. | ||
| And as a result of the JCPOA, they went down to 3.67%, which is the level you need in order to be able to build fuel pads for reactors to produce civilian energy. | ||
| In this deal, if there is a deal, they will have to agree to go down to 3.67 again. | ||
| And they have not made any indications that they won't agree to that. | ||
| What they have made very clear is that they won't go down to zero. | ||
| Now, we talked about sanctions relief. | ||
| We talked about lifting of the frozen assets that Iran has from their oil sales. | ||
| The criticism, of course, is that they will fund terrorism around the world. | ||
| They fund Hamas, they fund Hezbollah, they fund the Houthis, some of the Syrian, of course, the Syrian regime that fell, the Assad regime. | ||
| What do you make of that? | ||
| I mean, on the one hand, you know, that is a bargaining tool, but on the other, we certainly don't want more funding going to terrorist organizations. | ||
| First of all, the amount of funding is so minimal it will not be affected by this. | ||
| But the real logical conclusion of that argument is that you have to starve Iran completely to death in order to avoid that. | ||
| So that's now how things work. | ||
| The way things work is that if you actually have a deal with the Iranians, particularly if Trump manages to open up the Iranian economy to American companies, and you have an improvement of relations, then you have leverage to be able to pressure the Iranians to abandon or limit or change many of those different relationships. | ||
| Now, something has also happened in the last year, which is that, first of all, Hamas and Iran's relations were never particularly strong to begin with, but that relationship is more or less gone at this point. | ||
| As you pointed out, there is no Assad regime left. | ||
| Hezbollah is significantly weakened. | ||
| The Houthis were never, never an Iranian proxy. | ||
| That is absolutely clear. | ||
| This is a very independent movement that oftentimes publicly have criticized the Iranians for not being aggressive enough vis-a-vis the United States or vis-a-vis Israel. | ||
| So much of Iran's network in the region have already been significantly weakened. | ||
| This is part of the reason why there's an argument saying, well, Iran is so weak, you should actually push for zero enrichment. | ||
| It is true. | ||
| They're weakened in the region. | ||
| They're not weaker in terms of their nuclear program or in terms of their missile program. | ||
| That's part of the reason why it's very important in negotiations like this, making sure that we have a realistic assessment of where we are and where they are, so that we don't make demands that actually miss the mark. | ||
| Same thing is true for the Iranians. | ||
| If the Iranians were to come out with some dramatic demands for complete sanctions relief on everything and removal of U.S. troops from various regions or things of that nature, or doing what the Saudis have asked, for instance, wanting to have a security pact with the U.S. or things of that nature, those would be complete non-starters and would cause the collapse of the negotiations. | ||
| I wonder what you see as the situation with Israel specifically. | ||
| Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. | ||
| They've never done that in the past. | ||
| There have been an exchange of missiles in the past, but never on a nuclear facility. | ||
| How did you react when you heard that? | ||
| That they are making those threats. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So I personally don't believe that the Israelis actually will act without the United States for several reasons. | ||
| First of all, I don't think that Tanya is willing to challenge Trump in the same manner that he was quite comfortable challenging Biden. | ||
| And Trump has made it clear that he doesn't want to see any attacks because he sees it as an effort to sabotage the negotiations that he is currently conducting. | ||
| Do you think that's true? | ||
| Do you think that's why Israel would strike in order to sabotage those talks? | ||
| The Israelis apparently have told Trump, or at least told the media that they told the U.S. government, that they may strike even if there is a successful deal. | ||
| At the end of the day, from the Israeli perspective, any deal seems to be unacceptable because any deal would reduce U.S.-Iran tensions. | ||
| And the Israelis ask themselves a question: does that entail a proportionate reduction in Iranian-Israeli tensions? | ||
| And they don't believe it will. | ||
| And as a result, it kicks in the fear of what they call abandonment. | ||
| That the United States would move on because the region is not that important to the United States any longer. | ||
| The vast majority of Americans want American soldiers to come home. | ||
| They absolutely do not want another war in the Middle East. | ||
| So the Israelis see this and they realize that the United States is going to leave and it's not going to have the same tensions with Iran, but Israel is going to have still tense relationship with the Iranians. | ||
| And as a result, they want to keep the United States involved in the region, strong presence militarily in the region, and be fully on Israel's side in case of a conflict. | ||
| So we've had plenty of experience of seeing. | ||
| There's nothing that actually appeases the Israelis in terms of some modalities of a deal that would be acceptable. | ||
| So why does Iran back Hamas? | ||
| What are they gaining from doing that? | ||
| So the Iranian strategy in the region, which at this point clearly has been quite a failure, has been what they call forward defense. | ||
| The fact that they believe that if they don't do these things, if they don't have investment in Hezbollah, in Hamas, in other movements, particularly Iraqi militias, the United States after 2003 would have also invaded Iran, which clearly was the path, the plan. | ||
| We know that, that that was the Bush administration's plan. | ||
| But the Iranians sabotaged and destabilized Iraq, built up these militias, making sure that the U.S. got stuck in Iraq in order for it not to be able to continue onto Iran. | ||
| After that, they expanded this strategy and built it out further. | ||
| At this point, much of this has been a failure because, as we talked about, Syria has fallen, Hezbollah is much weakened, and Iran has much more ended up becoming a target rather than being able to have these layers of defense that it could rely on so that the Iranian mainland itself would be protected. | ||
| This is part of the reason, not the only reason, that I think the Iranians are much more willing to make a deal now than they were just a couple of years ago. | ||
| Another part of the reason is precisely the fact that Trump is willing to put far more sanctions relief on the table. | ||
| The Iranians need sanctions relief. | ||
| Their economy is in shatters. | ||
| And if they continue on this path, eventually, it's not close to collapse at this point, even though it's very, very bad, but eventually Iran will fall behind the rest of the region so much that it will cause all kinds of different problems for them. | ||
| This provides the U.S. leverage, particularly if the U.S. is willing to put sanctions relief on the table. | ||
| And this is why I do think that there is an opportunity to get a deal. | ||
| But both sides have to drop any maximalist positions that they have. | ||
| Let's talk to Anthony in Greentown, Pennsylvania, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Anthony. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning, Amy. | |
| Good morning, sir. | ||
| Good morning, Shastan. | ||
| I have a question, a few questions, actually, if you don't mind. | ||
| I have three. | ||
| The first one is, when Obama made the deal with Iran, there was a limitation for a number of years where Iran could not build a nuclear weapon. | ||
| To my understanding, that extension of that time would have ended by now or would have been close to ending where Iran would have a nuclear or would have the ability to build a nuclear weapon at their disposal without anybody saying a word. | ||
| That's question number one. | ||
| Number two, the Israelis, I understand, effectively took out all of Iran's, maybe not all, but a large majority of Iran's defensive weapons when they bombed them the last time. | ||
| What gives Iran the ability to prevent an attack now? | ||
| And why is that a strong position for them? | ||
| Because the Israelis would like to take out those nuclear facilities. | ||
| And I understand there's not much keeping them back except for maybe Mr. Trump. | ||
| So that gives Trump a very strong position with Iran to negotiate. | ||
| The third one is, where are the people in Iran about this? | ||
| Are they in the loop? | ||
| Are they able to potentially overthrow this regime? | ||
| Whether or not that's a possibility, I'd like to answer that question as well. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Those are three excellent questions. | ||
| Let me start off with the first questions about their missile defenses. | ||
| The Israelis took out some of the missile defenses that they had. | ||
| However, the issue with their nuclear program, particularly the Fordo facility, is that it is so deep underground that the Israelis do not have the capability of taking it out. | ||
| It's not a function of whether the Iranians have effective air defenses or not. | ||
| Even the United States has doubts as to whether its bombs have the ability of completely taking out. | ||
| Several secretaries of defense in a row have made it clear that they believe that bombing Iran would only cause the Iranians to dig their program deeper and eventually build a bomb, making it much more likely that they will build a bomb if they are attacked. | ||
| Because at that point, they can walk out of the non-proliferation treaty, kick out all the inspectors, and the program becomes a complete black box. | ||
| As to the first question in regards to whether there would be expirations that would allow the Iranians to build a weapon, the first cause of the JCPOA is in a commitment from Iran to never build nuclear weapons. | ||
| Some of the restrictions that expired did not allow the Iranians to build a bomb. | ||
| It's about the level of the size of the program, things of that nature, not whether the Iranians would be able to build a bomb. | ||
| And the most important aspects of the deal were actually permanent. | ||
| That is the inspections and verification elements of the deal. | ||
| Those would never expire. | ||
| And as a result, the world would have complete insight into what was happening in the Iranian program. | ||
| So the likelihood that the Iranians would have built a bomb after 15 or 20 years is still extremely small and probably as small as we could restrain it. | ||
| As to the third question, the position of the Iranian people, I think, first of all, the Iranian people, by and large, are completely opposed to the current regime. | ||
| They have lost legitimacy. | ||
| There is a small minority, not small necessarily, 15 to 20 percent, that still support the regime. | ||
| But by and large, the population, particularly the younger people, have completely lost faith in the legitimacy of the regime, but also in the belief that the regime actually can be reformed into something better. | ||
| This was a belief that they held 15 or so years ago. | ||
| Today, at least amongst the young people, that belief seems to be gone. | ||
| At the same time, however, it's very clear that they do want a deal with the United States because they need to improve their economic situations and they do not want to see a military confrontation. | ||
| And again, I'm talking about the vast majority, not necessarily everyone. | ||
| I'm sure there's some minorities here and there that would prefer something else. | ||
| But the vast majority have seen what has happened in Syria, have seen what has happened in Iraq, have seen what has happened in Afghanistan, and not surprisingly, they are not jealous. | ||
| Well, Alfredo in Michigan says this on text. | ||
| I think that if certain countries have the right to have nuclear weapons, then all countries should have the same rights. | ||
| What do you think of Iran having a nuclear weapon? | ||
| What does the world look like in that sense? | ||
| There is no such thing as having a right to a nuclear weapon. | ||
| The Iranians themselves signed the non-proliferation treaty already back in 1950 or so, which then means that they have given up any type of an aspiration for a bomb and they need to be held to that commitment because they signed that agreement. | ||
| Okay, but what if they do get one? | ||
| Hypothetically, what does the world look like? | ||
| If they were to get a nuclear weapon, there is a risk that there would be a cascading effect in the region. | ||
| The Saudis have said that they will build a nuclear weapon. | ||
| The Turks may do so as well. | ||
| The Egyptians may do so. | ||
| We would risk seeing the nuclearization of the entire Middle East. | ||
| And given all of the additional problems that we already have in the Middle East, it is difficult to say that that actually would be a movement in the right direction. | ||
| Incidentally, it would likely affect the Iranians more negatively than the others, because Iran is a major country in terms of population size, size, resources, etc. | ||
| It has a conventional natural superiority, vis-à-vis most of its neighbors. | ||
| If it weaponizes and the rest of the region weaponizes, then they're all at parity. | ||
| Tiny Bahrain, which is a fraction of Iran's size in population and geographic size, would be equal to Iran if both of them have a nuclear weapon and both of them can destroy each other. | ||
| So there is a natural resistance inside of Iran to go for a bomb. | ||
| In fact, this is part of the reason why after 50, 60 years of having a nuclear program, they don't have a bomb, because it's not a clear-cut decision for them. | ||
| It has a lot of negativity for them if they build a bomb. | ||
| Here's Steve in Maitland, Florida, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| How are you, guys? | ||
| I appreciate the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
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There's a couple of things that I wanted to bring up that may differ with you, guys. | |
| First of all, we have bombers and we have facilities in Diego, Garcia. |