transcript from video:
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Hi, I’m Julian Zelizer from The Long View.
JONATHAN ALTER:
And I’m Jonathan Alter of Old Goats.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Well, Jon, we’ve been talking about the military operations, air strikes, war in Iran—whatever term you want to use. And people sometimes remember that in 2015, President Obama had been part of a negotiation that put an agreement into place called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It was the product of long negotiations. It was a multilateral agreement, which included the United States and several other countries, as well as Iran. And it revolved, from my understanding, around creating a system of transparency and inspections. Iran would agree to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions.
And in 2015, that marked a big moment in Obama’s presidency. There was a lot of controversy, right, on questions about some of the limits of the agreement, attacks from conservatives that the Iranians couldn’t be trusted. But it marks a difference, certainly, from the approach that President Trump has taken to deal with the issue of Iran and nuclear weapons.
So how do you think of these two in comparison?
JONATHAN ALTER:
Well, first, in 2016, I went to Israel, and I interviewed the former head of Mossad and the former head of Shin Bet. These are top national security people in Israel. And they all told me something in private that was at odds with what they or anybody else could say publicly. Not just Netanyahu, but all of them had to be against this deal, because it didn’t rid Iran of nuclear weapons and it expired after ten years.
So when I’d interview these people, they’d say, “Your president, he doesn’t make a very good deal,” talking about Obama. “A terrible deal, terrible deal.” And so I finally said, “Well, are you against it?” And they’d say, “No, no, of course it’s worth doing, because it buys us ten years.” So it’s worth doing, but they couldn’t say that publicly.
Just to get a little granular for a second on what that deal did: right now, as a consequence of Trump blowing up the deal, the uranium that has been enriched—some of which is now under rubble but also stored elsewhere—is enriched to about 60 percent, which is basically weapons-grade. The agreement kept it at 3.67 percent enrichment, which was a long way from a nuclear weapon.
Not only did it cap enrichment at that level, it removed about 98 percent of Iran’s enriched uranium when it was implemented in 2016 and 2017. And it was enforceable, because there were cameras everywhere as part of the deal. Nobody who actually looked at this closely said that the Iranians were violating the agreement. They had essentially been denuclearized by this very important deal.
And of all of the horrible things that Trump has done, blowing up that deal is close to the top of the list in terms of consequences. It’s why we have the situation we have now. Yes, Israel has assassinated some of their scientists, but they still have the know-how to build nuclear weapons. And they will do so now, because it’s the only thing that will prevent and deter another attack by the United States and Israel.
So you can expect them, once they get back on their feet, which they will, to race toward the development of a nuclear weapon. And this is a terrible, terrible thing for the peace of the world.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Well, that’s a sobering history and an important look back at that agreement and what happened after.
Thanks, Jon, and we’ll talk next week.
JONATHAN ALTER:
Thanks, Julian. Bye-bye.
