Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - IRAN - pariah no more? with Mark Dubowitz

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Today we sit down in Israel with Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), at a time that Saudi Arabia is reopening its embassy in Tehran, and Iran's relations appear to be flourishing with Beijing, Moscow and much of the Sunni Arab Middle East. Six months ago, Iran was under enormous pressure. What happened? In his role as CEO of FDD, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC, Mark has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and he has testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. According to The New York Times, “Mark Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader.” According to The Atlantic, “Dubowitz has been helping design and push forward sanctions on Iran…establishing the FDD as D.C.’s ground zero for research and policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the flaws in the nuclear agreement.”

The Ayatollah Khamenei has, for a long time, tried to turn Tel Aviv into Seoul. Now, what I mean by that is if you look in the Korean peninsula and you look at Seoul, Korea today, right, Seoul is like Tel Aviv. It's a vibrant, high-tech, dynamic capitalist economy. To the north sits North Korea. North Korea's got nuclear weapons, but it also has massive conventional armory right on the border of North Korea. North Korea's got nuclear weapons, but also has massive conventional armory right on the border of South Korea. So the idea is surround Israel on every border in order to threaten Tel Aviv, threaten the

industrial heartland or the technology heartland of this country, and in doing so, undermine, if not completely vitiate, the IDF's military capabilities. When I last sat down with today's guest, Iran expert Mark Dubowitz here in Israel, Iran was on the back foot under enormous enormous pressure domestically, and increasingly a pariah state in the region and internationally. Today, Iran seems to be under a lot less pressure domestically, and its former adversary, Saudi Arabia, is in the midst of reopening its embassy in Tehran, at the same time that Tehran has seemingly new and flourishing relationships with Beijing and Moscow. So what is actually going on with Iran at home, in the region, as it relates to Israel,

and internationally? And what is going on with Iran's nuclear program? As I said, we have Mark Dubowitz on. Mark is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. He's advised the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. He's testified more than 20 times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. He's a former venture capitalist and tech executive. He's a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University. According to the New York Times, quote, Mark Dubowitz's campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iranian nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader, close quote. Is Iran transitioning from pariah status? Is Iran on the march? And what does it mean for Jerusalem and Washington

and Beijing and Riyadh and Moscow? This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my longtime friend, very longtime friend, Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. We are having this conversation in Israel's capital, in Jerusalem, where Mark spends a lot of time. We've had conversations in Washington. We've had conversations in Tel Aviv. Now we're having a conversation in Jerusalem. Mark, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Dan. So there's been a lot happening in the subject matter area that you are certainly one of the foremost experts on. You're one of the few people whose brain I want to pick whenever this topic is in the news, which is why I'm glad we got a chance to get together, which is Iran.

And I know you've been following events closely. I want to go back to April 6th just to set up this conversation because on April 6th, Israel is accustomed to rockets flying into southern Israel, the central part of Israel, from the south, from Gaza. But on April 6th, Israel experienced something it had not experienced in a very long time, which is rockets coming in from the north, from Lebanon, from Hezbollah. And of course, when that happens, given Hezbollah's effectively a proxy army for Iran, all the speculation begins, is Tehran making a move? Is this some kind of escalation by Tehran?

So you've been here, you've been following events, you've been in and out of the country. You obviously follow Iran closely, as I said. What should we make of what happened on April 6th? Dan, April 6th was interesting because, as you said, rockets came from the north. About over 30 rockets were fired at Israel. But it turns out that, according to the IDF, the rockets were fired by Hamas,

which traditionally has been firing rockets at Israel from Gaza. Yeah. But over recent years, Hamas has set up a significant military presence in southern Lebanon with Iranian and Hezbollah complicity. And a guy named Aruri, who is the deputy leader of Hamas, works for the chief of Hamas, Haniyeh, has been spending a lot of time traveling between Turkey, where he's based, and southern Lebanon, setting up Hamas operations and kind of a nerve center involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So on April 6, Hamas fired rockets into Israel. The IDF responded to those rockets

by hitting Hamas targets in southern Lebanon, but made a real point of trying to separate that from Hezbollah. And everybody knows those rockets could not have been fired without Hezbollah's complicity. But the IDF decided they didn't want to get into a full-scale escalation with Hezbollah now, because that may come in the future. And there's been a lot of reporting. I've been reading this piece by Amos Harrell from Haaretz, a military analyst, journalist, where he talks about all this intelligence now about meetings in Tehran between, I guess, Hania and deputies to Nasrallah, Hezbollah. So it really does have the feel of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, like what you're describing, the meetings in Tehran to make a move. Yeah. And in fact, there are also meetings in Beirut with the head of the Iranian Revolutionary

Guard Corps, Quds Force, which is the overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guards, run by a guy named Kani, who had replaced Qasem Soleimani, who you remember was killed by a drone attack by the United States under the Trump administration. So this Quds Force chief assembled the head of Hamas, the head of Hezbollah, the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Beirut for planning meetings ahead of that rocket fire and has been coordinating these Iran-backed terrorist organizations to basically try to surround Israel on every border. So we were going to talk about this later in the conversation, but I'm just going to get to it now. Why now? And I know we talked offline about the internal situation and a sense of disunity, lack of stability, low-level chaos inside Israel over the last 12, 14 weeks, over the debates, protests, some histrionic rhetoric being flown in all different directions over the government's judicial reform proposals. And you were telling me you thought that there was this military intelligence report that pointed to countries in the region, in Israel was weakening Israeli deterrence,

and Israel's enemies were seeing an opportunity to take advantage of the discord inside Israel in order to continue what has been a long-time plan to escalate against Israel. I mean, one has to remember that the Ayatollah Khamenei has, for a long time, tried to turn Tel Aviv into Seoul. Now, what I mean by that is if you look in the Korean peninsula and you look at Seoul, Korea today, right, Seoul is like Tel Aviv. It's a vibrant, high-tech, dynamic capitalist economy. To the north sits North Korea. North Korea's got nuclear weapons, but also has massive conventional armory right on the border of South Korea.

And as a result of the ability of the North Koreans at any time to really just lay waste to Seoul, the South Korean military option against North Korea has disappeared. And I would even argue, and I think many experts, U.S. military experts would agree, that the U.S US military option against North Korea has all but disappeared. Well, Khamenei wants to turn Tel Aviv into Seoul. He wants to do the same thing. He wants to surround Israel and every border with massive weaponry, with rockets and missiles

and particularly precision guided missiles. He's been very successful in doing that in Lebanon, in Gaza. He's attempted to do that in Syria, though for the past few years, the Israeli Air Force has been striking Iranian and Hezbollah positions inside Syria to try and prevent that from happening on that border. Certainly, the Iranians have got a plan, and they're executing on it quite effectively to take over the West Bank and to use their terrorist proxies like Hamas and Islamic Jihad to set up yet another front against Israel.

So the idea is surround Israel on every border, use conventional, massive conventional arsenal in order to threaten Tel Aviv, threaten the industrial heartland or the technology heartland of this country, and in doing so, undermine, if not completely vitiate, the IDF's military capabilities. So a few weeks ago, when Defense Minister Gallant here gave that public statement on a Saturday night, urging for pause of the judicial reforms, and cited his security concerns as the basis for, this is what he was referring to? This is what he was referring to? This is what he was referring to.

I mean, Galant just didn't just, you know, pluck that from some file folder. He had received a detailed briefing from Israeli military intelligence and from Mossad and other experts within the Israeli security system. And he was expressing a genuine, deep professional concern

that what was happening internally within Israel had significantly undermined Israel's deterrence and Israel's enemies, particularly Iran, were seeing an opportunity to really now escalate against the country. So when this new government was formed, the whole narrative of this government got overtaken by the debate over judicial reforms. I had Prime Minister Netanyahu on this podcast, and he said it on this podcast, he said it elsewhere, that one of his priorities was going to be normalization with Saudi Arabia. And that if he could, on behalf of the State of Israel, you know, normalize relations, it would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict. You've been spending a lot of time in Saudi Arabia. You're close to a number of officials over there. I think just a few days ago, within the last few days, Saudi Arabia has officially reopened its embassy in Tehran,

which is sort of shocking for those of us who've been observing the trajectory of Sunni-Gulf-Iran Iranian relations over the last number of years and the idea that there's now embassies being reopened between those two countries. How shocked were you by this rapprochement between Saudi and Tehran? I mean, I guess, Saudi and Iran, how shocked were you by just the reopening of diplomatic relations? And then I want to – second question is how surprised or worried are you by China's role in all of it? So we were aware that the Saudis and the Iranians had been speaking for a couple of years. And every time I was in Riyadh speaking to Saudi officials, I would ask them how the conversation is going with the Iranians.

And they'd say terribly. We're very far apart. I say, that's interesting. So any potential for reconciliation? No, no way. We're way too far apart. So I was shocked when it did occur. And I was equally shocked that it took place under the auspices of the Chinese. And I think that is as much as the White House has been trying to spin it as no big deal, nothing to see here or, oh, actually this is a good thing because it de-escalates conflict in the Middle East. This is terrible for US national security.

I mean, it's clear that the US has been signaling since the Obama administration a desire to get out of the Middle East. We're pivoting to Asia. We're pivoting out of the Middle East. They say, I guess nature abhors a vacuum. Well, I guess Beijing adores a vacuum because Beijing has moved in in a very pronounced way, first economically, but increasingly diplomatically and militarily to try and replace the United States

as the major domo of geopolitics of the Middle East. And this was a big win for the Chinese. So it's bad for the United States. It's bad for Israel. Let me just ask you, so you knew that there were conversations going on between the Saudis and the Iranians, but did you and did the U.S. security establishment know that China was midwifing those conversations? Well, I didn't know. You know, I've seen reports from the Biden administration, and there seems to be some disagreement with the administration about whether they knew or didn't know. Yeah. Sounds like the White House says they knew, but the CIA was sort of surprised to hear that the Chinese had been midwifing this. So who knows? But I think the important point is that the Chinese saw an opportunity.

They see an absence of US interest and influence in the region. They saw a Biden administration that right from the time President Biden was campaigning for president, he called Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a pariah. And so for two years, you've had really, I would almost describe it as hostile relations between the Biden administration and MBS. By the way, not helped by Senate Democrats like Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders and others

who've piled on onto the Saudis. And listen, the Saudis deserve criticism for the human rights record, for the murder of Khashoggi. I mean, there's plenty to criticize, but they've been a long time US strategic ally. And it was entirely predictable that if we decided to treat MBS as a pariah, he would look for great power cover from someone else. And that obviously would be the Chinese and the Russians as they've moved into the region. And is your sense that they view the Saudi-Chinese relationship as, you know, we're going to actually pivot to, it's their pivot to Asia, it's Saudi's pivot to Asia, they'll pivot to China, they'll pivot to Beijing,

or we will deepen ties or, you know, we'll warm up ties with China as a means to reengaging the US, that the US, Washington will see us, the warmth of ties with Beijing, and that will make Washington nervous, and then we'll bring Washington back to the Middle East. Yeah, I think it's the latter. I mean, I think, Dan, you've successfully sold companies and successfully dated and married a wonderful woman. So you know this approach of looking for different suitors and playing one suitor against another in order to raise the price for what the company should be sold for or what kind of woman you end up marrying.

So I think MBS is playing exactly the same game. He is saying to the United States, look, there's going to be a price for continued US-Saudi relations. There will be a price to be paid for Saudi-Israel normalization. And I'm going to raise the price. And by raising the price, I'm going to be moving towards the Chinese because I have an alternative suitor. China today is the largest investor, foreign investor in Saudi Arabia. It's the largest customer for Saudi Aramco's oil.

And so economically, the two countries have gotten closer and closer together. And as MBS is transforming that country in furtherance of his, quote, vision 2030, he's looked to Asia and he's looked to China in particular to help fund that expansion. But geopolitically, it was clearly a, I think, it was really malpractice on the part of the Biden administration and senior Senate Democrats to sort of throw away a relationship that in the era of great power competition is a vital relationship that we keep. And do you think the Saudis realize that

ultimately China is not their solution in terms of a long term relationship? They want Washington, they just want, to your point, they want Washington to pay for the relationship, but ultimately they want Washington. I think, look, I think emotionally they want Washington. You know, when you talk to Saudis, I mean, they'll make a point of saying, you know, their kids went to college in America, they own a second home in America. If anybody in their family gets sick, they're sending them to, you know, Johns Hopkins. You know, no one's sending them to hospital in Beijing or college in Beijing, or they're not buying second homes in Shanghai. So I think on an emotional level, the Saudis feel a strong connection to the United States. And that's obviously been informed by a very strong relationship in the post-World War II period.

But they're also hardcore realists. And if they see United States, which on a bipartisan basis, really from Obama to Trump to Biden, there's been continuity- Of disengagement from the region. Of disengagement from the region, Of disengagement from the region. Then they're going to look for a great power alternative. And really, China is the only game in town. Now talk to me about where Syria fits into all of this. So Saudi is also, not just Saudi, the Arab League.

I mean, Syria, it looks like, is on path to reenter the Arab League after being banished from it because of the atrocious human rights record domestically in Syria, the civil war, use of chemical weapons in Syria, now going back, what, eight, nine years? So what's Saudi doing in Syria? Well, the Saudis are bringing Assad in from the cold. And again, as you pointed out, it's not just the Saudis doing that, but the entire Arab League, with a few exceptions, wants to welcome the Assad regime back into the Arab League and try to peel Assad away from the Iranians. I mean, that's kind of the play. The idea is that the Iranians have their claws on Assad right now. They, with the Russians, prevented Assad and the regime from falling. They were complicit in Assad's horrendous crackdown during the Syrian civil war. And the Iranians, to a great extent, both economically, politically, militarily, have entrenched themselves in Syria.

And so I think these are Gulf states in particular taking the lead, trying to peel away Assad from the Iranians. I personally think it's going to end in tears for the Gulf. I don't see that happening. I don't think Assad is stupid enough to throw his lot in with the Gulf and stiff the Iranians who were behind him the whole time. But it is an indication, again, that all of these countries are adjusting to a new great power reality in the Middle East. And that great power reality is their assessment, rightly or wrongly, the United States is no longer committed, both militarily and economically, to flexing its muscles here. And that the Chinese are, the Russians are, and they also have to make new accommodations for this reality.

And that's certainly behind the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation deal. And it's behind the Saudi-Syrian reconciliation deal. But one must remember that the early indicator of all this were not Saudi actions. They were Emirati actions. The Emiratis have been doing this for quite some time. So they had embassy in Tehran. Tehran had embassy in the UAE. The Emiratis were saying, oh, don't worry.

We can have these warmer relations with Israel while we have warm relations with Iran. So it was just as like the Emiratis were an early tell on the Abraham Accords. Exactly right. They're an early tell. That's very well described. Yeah, I mean, the Emiratis have been playing all sides, you know, all through the height of sanctions against Iran, throughout significant escalation between Iran and the United States. The Emiratis were sort of the lung for the Iranian economy. Many Iranian companies were based in the Emirates. Billions of dollars of illicit trade went through the Emirates. So while the Emirates have been a very strong U.S. ally and became a strong Israeli ally,

they continued flirting with Tehran all through this. And they were early to bring Assad in from the cold. We're now seeing increasing with other Arab countries. So always watch the Emiratis there, as you say, an early tell. And do you – Rich Goldberg, your colleague from FDD, was on this podcast a few weeks ago. And he made the point about – I had him on just after Iran-Saudi news was announced. And he says, yes, it's a worrying sign, but keep in mind, it could easily fall apart. There's a long history of tension between Iran and Saudi.

And the idea that this is some massive inflection point remains to be seen. That, in fact, there are long simmering tensions that aren't going to go away overnight. And the reality of those tensions could easily overtake any detente moment that we seem to be experiencing right now. Yeah, Rich is exactly right. But I think the difference now is China. I think you now have the Iranians essentially committing to the Chinese, that they will de-escalate tensions with Saudi Arabia, that they will work to wind down the war in Yemen, that they will stop Houthi attacks against Saudi cities, that perhaps even they've made commitments to the Chinese on their nuclear

program, that they won't go to 90% and develop weapons. We'll see. We'll see if that happens. And again, this may end in tears for the Chinese as well, when the regime in Iran does what it often can't help itself do, which is push forward, be aggressive, attack its neighbors, and try to destabilize the region. But I think it makes a difference that it was China that was responsible for bringing the Saudis and Iranians together. Because I think the Iranians may mess around with us. They may mess around with lots of other countries in the world.

But they would have to think twice about screwing Beijing. You've been working on the isolation of Iran campaign for years now. 20 years now. 20 years? 20 years. Wow. Heroic work. And one area that you were particularly focused on is making it very difficult for Iran to import weapons of any kind, defensive, offensive

capabilities. What I never anticipated is, yes, there was always the efforts that you and others are working on to make it harder and harder for Iran to import weapons. What I never really anticipated is Iran being a major exporter of weapons. And what we're seeing now is Iran exporting these drones to Russia, which is fighting a war that matters a lot to America. And oddly, given the seeming weakness of Iran, the idea that it's exporting to a kind of world-class conventional military. The military of Russia has to depend on Iranian exports. So also under the category of were you shocked? Were you shocked by that A? Is that a real turn of events?

And how worried should we be about it? I wasn't shocked because the Iranians have been proliferating weapons throughout the Middle East for decades. I mean, they've been arming Hezbollah and Hamas. But there was always like second and third rate operations. The idea that they're arming Russia. Right. So that's surprising.

I think you put your finger on it, which is that this, you know, what we thought was this military superpower, all of a sudden depending depending on a third-rate military power for sophisticated drones and maybe even missiles, is surprising. I think it certainly underscores the ways in which many people may have inflated the capabilities of the Russian military, but also maybe a poignant reminder that Iran's own military capabilities are much more sophisticated than we would assume, right? I mean, because of sanctions, because they've been unable to acquire sophisticated weaponry

from other countries around the world for decades, they've been pretty adept at creating their own homegrown military industry, which has got today the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, and a very sophisticated drone industry, and obviously a nuclear program, where they've perfected the fuel cycle and are on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons. So one should never minimize Iranian capabilities, technical capabilities, military capabilities, scientific capabilities. They're a sophisticated country with some pretty capable scientists and military engineers. And I think they're demonstrating that.

By the way, I want to get to the nuclear, where Iran stands in its nuclear program in a moment but the ballistic missile program which is such a priority for iran as you say i was just i was just reading that you know on the anniversary of the iranian revolution when they do their big displays the big displays are all about ballistic missiles it's like the the centerpiece and symbolism of Iranian success and progress, quote unquote, since the Islamic Revolution is the ballistic missile. What's that about? Like, why? Well, I think it's about a few things. First of all, I mean, ballistic missiles are capable of inflicting severe damage on Iranian enemies, right? I mean, conventional missiles and certainly a nuclear warhead carrying ballistic missile could do obviously devastating damage. So they're very potent in their own right.

Second is because of sanctions over the years, the Iranians were never able to develop their own air force. So their fighter jets are still like old fighter jets that the United States sold to Shah in the 1970s. Wow. That are flying, you know, but basically are being hung together by scotch tape and bolts because they've been unable to acquire a sophisticated air force. By the way, that's changing now. I mean, that's where they're looking to the Russians for the acquisition of fighter jets and attack helicopters and sophisticated battle tanks and anything the Russians can spare in order to expand Iran's conventional military capability to match the capability of the proxies that they've

developed around the Middle East. So the ballistic missiles have been a replacement for the Air Force. And I think that's certainly been a long time priority for the regime. And remember, during the Iran-Iraq war, I mean, that was a war not only fought in the trenches, but it was a war fought in the skies by the exchange of missiles. And I think the Iranians really developed their security doctrine and contingent on domestic missile development beginning in the Iran-Iraq war. And since then, my colleague actually at FDD, Benjamin Talbott, just put together a really exhaustive monograph on Iran's ballistic missile program.

He knows more about Iran's ballistic missile program than I think anybody in Washington. And he tracks the development of it. And it's very sophisticated. But much of that early technology was North Korean, Chinese, and Russian. And the Iranians took that early technology, built upon that, reverse engineered it, and now have very sophisticated domestic capabilities. Okay. So now let's talk about the topic you spend the most time on, which is Iran's nuclear program.

What is the current status of the program? Well, Iran today is the threshold nuclear weapons power. They have now enriched just shy of 90%. They enriched recently to 83.7%. They didn't accumulate any of that enriched uranium, but they certainly demonstrated their capability to easily get to 90%. Just for our listeners, explain why that 90% is the key threshold. Yeah, 90% is considered weapon-grade uranium. That's the enriched uranium or the fissile material you need in order to then develop a nuclear warhead, attach it to those ballistic missiles.

And now you have a deliverable nuclear warhead and the ability to obviously to threaten not only your neighbors, but eventually the United States. The program has been leaping forward since Joe Biden was elected. Now, there's a very pervasive medium narrative that says Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement. And since Trump's withdrawal, Iran has rushed forward in its nuclear program. It's actually not true. Iran took a couple of incremental steps a year after Trump withdrew from the agreement. Then Trump killed Qasem Soleimani. Head of the IRGC. Right.

The most important architect of violent chaos in the region on behalf of Iran. Right. He was the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Iran's most competent and lethal battlefield commander, and as you say, the architect of Iran's entire regional strategy with Hezbollah and Hamas and Iraqi Shiite militias and using these proxies very effectively against Iran's enemies. So... And just on that, so the United States is involved in the killing of Soleimani. And so what effect does that have on the regime?

Oh, it shakes the regime to its foundations. I mean, at that point, the regime is not clear whether that's it or whether Trump is going to go forward and use American military power to take out Iran's nuclear facilities or even take out the regime itself. So they stopped their nuclear advances for many, many months. Then we're in election season, and Joe Biden makes it very clear that if he's elected president, he's going to abandon the maximum pressure campaign of his predecessor. He's going to move from maximum pressure to maximum concessions or maximum deference. And he's going to take the United States back into the JCPOA. From the time of the election, when Iran knows that Joe Biden is going to be president of the

United States, they begin to expand their program significantly. They go to 20% enriched uranium. They go to 60% enriched uranium. They produce uranium metal, which is a foundational element for a nuclear warhead. They begin installing thousands of advanced centrifuges at their enrichment facilities in Fordow and in Natanz. And they massively escalate their program and they accumulate fissile material and they bring breakout time, the amount of time it takes to develop one bomb's worth of weapons grade uranium. That's the definition of breakout time.

They take breakout time from about 12 months down to less than two weeks. And that's where it is now. And that's where it is now. And most of that expansion occurred since Joe Biden's election. So convenient media narrative, this was Trump withdrawing from the agreement. The reality is when you plot the timeline, political timeline against the nuclear timeline, as we have at FDD, we did an extensive report on this, you see very, very clearly that Iran responds to American weakness or perception of American weakness by massively escalating

its program. But when it senses American steel, right, in the form of killing a Soleimani or the flexing of American military muscle, it backs down. But for two years now, the desire of the Biden administration to go back into the nuclear deal has sent a signal to Iran that it can escalate without any consequences. But some in the Israeli security establishment here that I've spoken to, and I know you're in regular contact with, do at least believe that even though the Biden administration was quite energetically trying to get Iran back into the JCPOA, now that that's frozen for the time being, the Biden administration is very frustrated, not only with the fact that that's frozen and they

realize it's frozen, and there's nothing they can really do about it, but they're also, as I said earlier, very concerned about Iran's role in the Russia-Ukraine war. And so there's actually some alignment between Jerusalem and Washington on what to do about Iran, which one wouldn't have anticipated at the beginning of the Biden administration, given where the Biden administration was in terms of what you're talking about, which is they were so hungry to get back into the deal. Yeah, I think that's right. I think the gap between Washington and Jerusalem has narrowed significantly in two years, as

you pointed out, because of the dawning reality in Washington that the Iranians are not interested in going back to the JCPOA. And they're on the wrong side of this other conflict that America cares a lot about. Correct. America cares about it and Europe cares about it. I mean, you've seen the Europeans finally energetic about Iranian aggression and escalation for really the first time in a long time. People like Macron, I mean, leaders you would have never imagined are taking a harder line on Iran. Right, right. I mean, now that the Iranians are helping Putin kill Ukrainians instead of just Israelis, the Europeans have woken up to the dangers of Iran.

But I think it's still, I think the concern is that even though there is a sense of perhaps dawning reality in Washington that Iran doesn't want to go back into the deal, there's still efforts to try and get the Iranians back into a deal or some kind of deal. And if it's not the JCPOA, then maybe it's the JPOA of 2013, right? That was the interim agreement negotiated by now National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and now CIA Director Bill Burns, who at that time were senior Obama administration officials who ran a secret negotiation with the Iranians through Oman and concluded an interim agreement, which was Iran to take steps to reduce its nuclear expansion in exchange for some sanctions relief.

Now, I think Jake always believed that was a better deal than the 2015 deal that John Kerry and Wendy Sherman negotiated. And I think that's the deal Jake would like to go back to it. In fact, I think that was the deal that he tried to convince Biden to pursue when Biden took office. But I think Biden was at that time convinced by Blinken and others that they should go back into the JCPOA because that was the agreement that Obama negotiated and that was the agreement Trump withdrew from. I think Jake and others in the White House are still trying to pursue this interim agreement. They call it less for less or freeze for freeze. I call it less for more because I think at the end of the day, we're going to get less

in terms of Iranian nuclear concessions. We're going to try to freeze the Iranians at 60% enriched uranium in exchange for what they would call some sanctions relief. But some sanctions relief would amount to significant sanctions relief, the release of billions of dollars from frozen oil accounts, the lack of enforcement of U.S. sanctions. And once you really stop enforcing sanctions, the market response to that is to try to get

back to business with the Iranians. And all of the pressure on the economy in Tehran is lifted and you breathe oxygen back into that economy. So it's less for more rather than less for less. So far, the Iranians have shown no indication of interest in either less for less or less for more or more for more. But that may happen any day. I mean, in a Tehran minute, the Supreme Leader might decide, you know what, I've put down

the protests and I've pursued these military and strategic partnerships with Russia and China. I'm feeling emboldened. I want to plan for my succession, maybe to his son who might become the new Supreme Leader. And now is the time to do a interim nuclear deal with the Americans, get billions of dollars to help breathe oxygen back into the economy. And in the meantime, we'll still be able to pursue our nuclear program on a moment's notice. Have they successfully put down the protests?

But we, you know, I mean, it's over now six months. In fact, when you and I last had a conversation, it was the protests had just been getting underway. I think protests like understates it. It's a much bigger deal than just protests. Have they successfully cracked down? And is it behind them? So, yeah, I mean, these were massive protests.

These were, this was a significant uprising, almost a revolution against the regime, a regime today that is hated by 80% of its people. The regime responded brutally, killing over 500 people, arresting thousands of people, and torturing and jailing tens of thousands. I think the regime today believes that this uprising has been successfully repressed, but there's one coming again. I mean, one has to remember, Dan, and I know you know this, but these uprisings have been happening with greater frequency and greater intensity than we've seen, right? We saw the 79 revolution that brought to power the mullahs.

We saw student revolutions in the 80s and 90s. And then we've seen most recently, 2017, all the way to 2023, growing protests. And the protests have been different. They haven't been from just middle-class North Tehranis, like in 2009, yelling, where is my vote after the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now these protests are from the base of the regime. These are the working class, lower class people who are saying, not only where's my vote, but where's my paycheck?

And they're also coming from the women of Iran who have rebelled against the strictures, particularly the mandatory wearing of hijab. And it's hard for the regime to kill its daughters and granddaughters. It's easier for them to kill its sons and grandsons. You mentioned earlier, and I just want to come back to this, the two-week threshold for Iran being able to activate a nuclear weapons program. You talked to a number of Israeli officials. You're following events here closely. I often encounter a divide within the Israeli security establishment. Is there anything Israel can do to prevent or to expand the two-week period to some much longer period before you get to threshold or before you get to an active program? What's your sense of things do you think there could be military action from Israel anytime

in the near to medium future or should there's another strong school of thought within the Israeli security establishment which is we're just going to have to Israel's just going to have to learn to live with an Iranian nuclear program because we've we've missed the moment so the Israeli and American security establishment distinguishes between breakout time, which is the amount of time it takes to develop one bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium, which today is two weeks, and the development of a deployable nuclear weapon, i.e. a nuclear warhead that can then be affixed to a ballistic missile. With respect to a nuclear warhead, the assessment by Mossad and Amman military intelligence here

is that the Iranians have not yet made the decision to develop a warhead. So the Supreme Leader Khamenei has not yet instructed his weapon scientists to now go and develop an active warhead. So the Supreme Leader Khamenei has not yet instructed his weapon scientists to now go and develop an active warhead. And that's a position that the U.S. intelligence services supports. Once he's made that decision, it will take 18 to 24 months to develop that warhead. So the assessment is they have more time. Certainly when we hear this two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, it's not really two weeks.

It's two weeks to a period that then is... Yeah, it's two weeks to the amount of fissile material you need to develop a nuclear weapon. And then it's, they haven't yet made the decision. Once they make the decision, it's 18 to 24 months to develop a warhead. However, the reason there's been a lot of focus on breakout time is that it is much more difficult to weaponize uranium in an enrichment facility without being detected

than it is to develop a warhead. So it takes, at least today, in Natanz and Fordow, you've got weapons inspectors there, you've got Israeli intelligence, US intelligence has, quote, wired up the place quite significantly. They have a pretty good sense of if the Iranians move to develop a bomb's worth of fissile material. Now, having said that, there may be clandestine enrichment facilities. Iranians are developing advanced centrifuges at a great pace. You need far fewer advanced centrifuges in order to enrich that bomb's worth of fissile

material than you do with the basic centrifuges. So they could have an active clandestine enrichment facility with a few hundred advanced centrifuges that US and Israeli intelligence know nothing about. But having said that, if that's not the case, the warhead can be developed in a laboratory the size of a classroom. So that's what's scary. That's really scary. Israeli intelligence today feels relatively confident that they know who all the weapon scientists are and that if Khamenei were to give a order for those weapons scientists to get to work on the warhead, they would be able to detect that. However, intelligence is not 100% foolproof.

And again, it may be that there's a team of weapon scientists they don't know. They may get a warhead from the Russians, from the North Koreans. I mean, it could come through a variety of channels. So it's a scary assertion. And I think that's why there's always been a focus on the fissile material. And still, I think there is a focus on the fissile material by the Israelis as a potential red line for military action. And that gets to the second part of your question. Are the Israelis capable of taking out that program? And there's a lot of disagreement in the Israeli system about that.

I mean, there's people in the system who say, we're absolutely capable and we can do it and need to do it and need to be ready at a moment's notice. There are people in the system who say, you know what, we'd like a couple extra years to develop our own capabilities, particularly to take out these very hardened sites that are very deep underground and surrounded by rock and cement and require some pretty impressive bombs in order to penetrate those facilities. We'd like a couple extra years to further develop our capabilities. And this debate is taking place daily within Israel. One final question. Exhaustive, well-deserved exhaustive news coverage of these intelligence

leaks. A lot of focus right now on the person who is alleged to have done the leaks, who he is, why did it, the world that he inhabits. That, for our purposes, is less interesting than what the sum total of these leaks tells you as an analyst. I mean, it's sort of like real-time, it's like real-time like the Pentagon Papers, if you will, from the Vietnam War, except in real-time. What jumped out at you? So I guess a few things, Dan.

First of all, obviously, I mean, there's been a feeding frenzy in the media about this because it is very interesting and it is a significant security leak. It does suggest to me that if a nation state wanted to run a massive disinformation influence operation to undermine U.S. national security, this is how you do it. You dump a bunch of documents, some genuine, some doctored onto some gaming site, and you let this spread. And the media will cover it, even if it isn't able to confirm the validity of those documents. So I mean, this is a message to Iran, to China, to Russia, to North Korea, to our adversaries

that this is a playbook you can follow. So it's not some 21-year-old kid trying to impress his friends on Discord. This is a playbook for nation states to undermine US national security and do so with the willing complicity of an interested media that wants to report on that. The second is in terms of Middle East allies, a couple of things jumped out at me. One, on the Israeli side, we learned that the Israeli security establishment, political establishment is being spied on by the United States, by the NSA. The NSA is using our vast signal intelligence capabilities to keep an ear and an eye on what Israeli leaders

and Israeli security officials are saying and doing. I guess that's nothing new for anybody who's been following these issues for many, many years. One of the things that did jump out was, I think it was a CIA report or a DNI report that they're trying to figure out whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to bomb Iran and they've not able to figure it out. And I think it's, the truth is, I don't think Netanyahu's made up his mind. That's probably why they haven't been able to figure out where he's leaning, even though

rhetorically and publicly he has been speaking for years about his willingness to use military force to stop Iran from developing its nuclear capabilities. But I found something even more interesting. It had nothing to do with Israel. It actually had to do with Egypt and Turkey. And that there were intelligence reports that the Russians were looking to buy Egyptian and Turkish weaponry. I was blown away by that.

Here's Egypt, the second largest recipient of US foreign aid is in discussions with Moscow. Right. And Turkey, a NATO member. Right. In discussions with Moscow. Right. And this is not just, you know, run of your mill, like oil, commercial sanctions busting, right? This is doing what Iran's doing. Right. Which is providing sophisticated weaponry. And probably in both cases, it may have been U.S. weaponry, since we are major, both economic and military partners with the Egyptians and Turks,

to Putin to kill Ukrainians in defiance of U.S. sanctions, European sanctions, and certainly at least a united Western community. I less i mean i've less a fewer question marks a fewer i i've fewer questions about this as it relates to turkey but what i was i was really struck by egypt because i was like how did they think they could pull this off even if they wanted to do it without the united states knowing about it

yeah or or i think dan even worse they probably thought that it would come out. But at the end of the day- Wouldn't matter. As Ayatollah Khomeini once said, the United States can't do a damn thing. And I think it really does underscore something that we've been talking about, a theme throughout this entire conversation, which is that when there is a perception, again, rightly or wrongly, that the United States is no longer committed to the Middle East, it creates a power vacuum. And into that vacuum have marched the Chinese and the Russians.

And as a result, the fear of the United States has diminished. And the fear and respect for China and Russia has increased. And we're seeing our allies taking numerous steps. We've talked about the Saudis. We've talked about the Emiratis. But now this is an example from our Egyptian friends of being willing to defy the United States in some flagrant ways because they don't fear the consequences. And it reminds me of a comment that I remember Rob Malley once made.

Rob Malley is the current Iran envoy at the U.S. State Department. And Rob had said at some point that leverage was something that we should use only against allies, not against adversaries. Because if you use it against adversaries, adversaries escalate. But if you use it against allies,

I mean, the power of America and our leverage against allies was something that was awe-inspiring. And we had significant leverage over our allies. Well, it turns out after two years of this administration and an Iran policy being led by Rob Malley, our adversaries, like Iran, don't fear us. And our allies, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt don't respect us. Right. And in a very, again, I'm, this is not political or partisan. I'm a registered independent and wish the Biden administration great success because great success by the Biden

administration is great success for the United States. But I would say that the past two years, certainly in the Middle East, have been a failure in many respects, even though I admire what Joe Biden has done against Russia and Ukraine. I think the Middle East has been an example of what happens when US power recedes. And in this era of great power competition, we're now seeing what a world dominated by China with its junior partner, Russia, could look like. All right, Mark. You know, I come to see you because no one's closer to these events and has richer analysis of these events than you do. But I always do kind of leave depressed.

So I, I, uh, it doesn't mean I'm going to come see you less, but, uh, it doesn't mean I'm going to be cheery and upbeat and skipping out of our meetings, but thank you for taking the time.

Stay safe and I'll see you soon. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it. That's our show for today. To keep up with Mark Dubowitz's work, you can follow him on Twitter, at M. Dubowitz.

That's M-D-U-B-O-W-I-T-Z. You can also follow the work of the Foundation for Defensive Democracies at FDD.org or at FDD on Twitter. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.