A number of Iran experts and a former U.S. government official expressed serious doubts about the success of a nuclear deal with Iran, underscoring the harmful intentions and nefarious activities of the regime both at home and abroad. The panel debated the issue in Washington on March 12, 2015.
The event, entitled “The Islamic Republic of Iran: Peacemaker or Revolutionary,” was organized by New York University and included a panel of experts and policymakers to discuss the consequences and potential outcomes of the ongoing nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime.
The panel included Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs; Andrew Bowen, director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest; Blaise Misztal, director of the Foreign Policy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC); and Ali Safavi, member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and President of the Near East Policy Research (NEPR).
The debate was moderated by Audra Grant, an adjunct NYU professor and a political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
The speakers pointed to the regime’s intransigence in the region, its human rights record at home, and the inherent flaws in the nuclear agreement being negotiated with Tehran.
They expressed concern that the deal would prompt other regional actors to launch their own nuclear programs to check Iran’s capabilities.
NCRI member Ali Safavi said, “The underlying reality is that when you’re facing a regime like the one in Iran, whose constitution says it wants to establish global Islamic rule, if they do acquire nuclear weapons, the entire security of the Middle East would be undermined.”
Pointing to a potential nuclear deal with Tehran and the issue of transparency on the part of the regime, Blaise Misztal said transparency by itself would not prevent a nuclear Iran. “The issue really isn’t just about monitoring and verification, it’s about having in place some sort of system to punish transgressions, if and when they happen.”
Tehran, he said, has not come clean about the extent of its nuclear program.
Safavi added, “For the sake of argument, Let’s say tomorrow, there is some evidence that the regime is cheating. Of course, the Iranian regime will deny it. How will [the international community] prove it? And [claims] will go back and forth. And by the time a conclusion is reached, you have lost one year.”
“The regime has been involved in denial, deception and duplicity for 30 years,” he added.
Ambassador Bloomfield highlighted examples of Iranian interference in the region, including the activities of the regime’s proxies Lebanon and Yemen, and said, “[The U.S.] did nothing about these things, and now you have pictures of all the ayatollahs adorning buildings in Baghdad, where so many Americans died and were wounded.”
By prolonging the nuclear talks, the regime “wanted to paralyze our diplomacy to create some sandbags to hold off the Arab Spring and the Persian Spring in 2009. … That regime was in trouble in 2009 and they knew it,” he added, referring to the massive popular uprisings that threatened the regime.
“Iran has essentially pushed out the sandbags to the Mediterranean and Yemen to keep democracy away from their borders.”
Safavi characterized the results of the overall U.S. policy toward Iran as “pretty harmful,” and added, “In addition to the nuclear threat, Iran conducts nefarious activities in the region.”
He noted that Washington lacks a comprehensive strategy on Iran that goes beyond the nuclear crisis.
“Whatever diplomacy is being pursued now has fallen into a strategic vacuum,” Safavi said.
“Despite some rhetoric, there is absolutely no specific strategic agenda vis-à-vis Iran’s mischievous behavior not only in the region but also at home.”
He added that Tehran “relies on two elements: domestic suppression and export of terrorism and crisis. I haven’t seen any assertion of the position of the United States vis-a-vis these two issues, if and when [a nuclear] agreement is reached.”
Andrew Bowen echoed that sentiment, saying, “If you do sign this deal and deliver potentially on economic sanctions, then what policies are you going to do to really constrain and limit Iran’s actions in places like Iraq, in Yemen, and other parts where they are threatening American national interests.”
“There has not been much strategic thought into how to promise sanctions relief and to also make sure you hold Iran accountable on other issues,” Bowen added.
Safavi also criticized Washington’s concessions to the regime, saying, when looking at the 30 year history, “The more concessions you give to the mullahs, the more brazen and emboldened they become.”
He called for a more comprehensive strategy on Iran that relies on the Iranian people’s overwhelming hostility toward the theocratic regime.
“Parallel with everything that is being done to prevent Iran from going nuclear, there must be concrete and serious efforts to compel the Iranian regime to stop its domestic suppression and to stop its involvement in Syria and Iraq.”
Ambassador Bloomfield noted, “We are all fighting over centrifuges and the difference between a good deal and a bad deal … while there’s been a dearth of consent to govern, in Iran more so than the Arab world. This is a multi-generational quest for popular sovereignty.”
Referring to routine popular protests in Iran against the ruling regime and its nuclear program, Safavi added, “The one key missing element [from U.S. policy on Iran] are the Iranian people and those opposition individuals and groups who are trying to bring about a different Iran.”
