Aspen Security Forum | Let’s Get This Strait: The Future of Iran

Thank you very much, Andrea, and Minister Safadi and Ambassador Cower. We are greatly looking forward to our next panel on a topic that's on everybody's mind. Let's get this straight: the future of Iran. I'd like to welcome our distinguished panelists to the stage. Please, please join us. Come on up. My colleagues are finished setting up the stools. We want to get as much time out of this as possible. Thank you.

Excellent. So let me just briefly introduce the panel before I turn it over to our moderator, Jim Shudo of CNN. With us on the end, we have Roxana Saberi, who's a journalist and author. Next to her, we have Karim Sadjadpour, who's a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment. We have Senator Chris Murphy, the US Senator for Connecticut, who sits also on Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Appropriations. And then we have Mr. Robert Greenway. I first met him when he was at Heritage. He's recently joined American Global Strategies as a senior vice president. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a big round of applause for keeping this conversation open. Thank you.

Thanks very much. One reason I love coming to Aspen, beyond the weather and the bear sightings, is getting to sit on stage with such a collection of experience and knowledge and insight. Because we have a wealth of it here, I'm not going to quite ask for TV-length answers, but you know, relatively short, just so we could get as much in as we can. Tonight, Mr. Greenway, if I could begin with you. At the start of the war, the goals were articulated as eliminating or significantly reducing Iran's ability to project power, missiles, drones, etc., putting an end to its nuclear program, and at times, from time to time, regime change. The stated goal now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. By redefining success or victory in this war, has the president made it any more winnable? And what confidence should we have that the same application of power, military power, to attempt to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table, albeit more military power than we saw previously, will be successful now when it hasn't yet been successful?

First, thanks to the forum for the opportunity to speak, and thanks to everyone attending, and appreciate joining the stage with an august group such as this. I'll try and keep it brief. First, to the purpose, accounting for the fact that rhetoric may be employed at different times to explain why and how and what you're doing. I think the objectives of this, in my judgment, have been relatively clear because they were documented in the second presidential memorandum signed by the president in February after taking office, and the purpose, the policy goals and objectives are exactly the same, almost verbatim, from NSPM-1 written in November of 2019. And so, to my mind, the goals and objectives have been the same. The simplest formulation, I think, is this: that essentially Iran is a problem. You're never going to eliminate the motive. They are going to retain that ideological perspective, and that is very difficult to remove, just as anyone's opinions and beliefs are. On the other hand, what they're left with then is means and opportunity. And the goal really is to eliminate the means and opportunity with which they can constitute a threat to vital national US interests, which are global. And there are stability of the global energy markets. They are stability of global trade. They are prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ensuring terrorist attacks don't occur in the United States. Those objectives, I think, to my mind, have been clear, but understand that sometimes rhetoric used to explain this to different audiences can diverge to a certain extent. The question you asked at the end, the important one, is: are we any closer to achieving it? And to my judgment, as someone who's looked very closely at Iran's military capabilities for three decades and their nuclear capabilities for three decades, there's no question in my mind that they have been significantly attrited. Their means and the opportunity to constitute a threat to US vital interest and to global interests, as a matter of fact, are at the nadir, probably the lowest they have ever been since 1979. And from an enrichment standpoint, they haven't been at zero enrichment capacity since 2006. So, from an empirical perspective, I would say yes, progress has been made, and I think at this juncture, I would be pleased with that progress, and I don't think there's a lot left to be done to eliminate the remaining threat.

I know from my own experience in Israel during this war and multiple previous phases of the war that from the Israeli perspective the objectives have changed and been watered down. I mean, they're not happy with, certainly with the outcome. So, Senator Murphy, I wonder, do you agree that the objectives have remained consistent and that significant progress has been made?

Yeah, I think this is the greatest foreign policy disaster of the last 20 years. One of the greatest mistakes any president has made in the world in our country's history. And I do not think you can ignore the repeated goals of this operation, and those goals, as you articulated, were to get rid of their missile program or significantly degrade their drone program and to stop Iran's nuclear program. We haven't even sniffed those goals. There are reports, for instance, that of the 33 missile sites that line the Strait of Hormuz, we have only taken out three of them. And Iran has essentially taken our best shot and survived and realized that through this action, they can take control of the Strait of Hormuz and use it as leverage to increase their position at the bargaining table on the nuclear program. The most significant lever that we had at the bargaining table, and would have had, had we sat down again in a meaningful way, was our sanctions on their oil program. They now know that they can get those sanctions removed simply by reopening the strait, effectively giving us no meaningful leverage when we try to get done the most important thing to US and regional security: the elimination of their pathway to a nuclear weapon. So Iran is stronger today. We have done nothing to achieve our objectives. They control the Strait of Hormuz and will control it for the foreseeable future. And by the way, we have expended $100 billion in taxpayer money. We have depleted our stocks of munitions to a dangerously low level. If China was to move on Taiwan today and the United States decided that we wanted to defend Taiwan, we could not, because we have half the number of stealth missiles that we had at the beginning of this campaign, and I can just go down the line as to our other capacities. So no, we have achieved none of our objectives. Iran has come out of this stronger. America looks weak and feckless and unorganized, and the American taxpayer is going to pay a big, huge price for this in the long run. Not just because they are paying more at the pump, not just because farm bankruptcies are at an all-time high as diesel and fertilizer prices go up, but because in order to fill in the gap that has been created by the expenditure of $100 billion, it will be education funding, it will be road funding, it will be nutrition funding that will be the victim here. So I don't think we have come to understand the full panoply of hurt for us, reputation abroad, and US consumers and taxpayers here at home.

I do want to give you a chance to respond because I saw some of it in your facial expressions, but I want to get to Karim first because I'm interested in your view of how Iran perceives its current position. Does it, in the simplest terms, believe that it's winning, and how much more pain can it eat, particularly not just from strikes but also from the blockade?

If you haven't read Roxana's pieces, taking the pulse of the Iranian people on this war, I think you should, many published in the Times and elsewhere. Rox, I'm not going to ask you to speak for the Iranian people. I always preface when I interview on the air with that. But I do, you have managed to speak to a wide variety of people there. When you speak to them, do they believe, and let's keep in mind that the president early on said, you know, we're coming to help you out in the midst of the awful massacre of protesters earlier in the year. Do they believe they've gained anything positive from this war? And is the war giving them the help that they'd like?

I would say that many of them don't think that the war has given them anything positive, but there are some who are still hopeful because they were so opposed to the negotiations between Iran and the US, and they thought these negotiations and the memorandum of understanding which was announced in June legitimized this regime and empowered the regime. And indeed, we've seen examples of that just domestically with so many more human rights violations and executions of political prisoners and protesters. Just in the past few days, I've been trying to get a pulse of what people in Iran are saying about these renewed strikes. And among the anti-regime Iranians, who according to polls are maybe 80% of the 93 million people or so of Iran, I would say there are three broad groups. The first being anti-strikes. They're opposed to the resumption of strikes. The second being pro-strikes, and the third just being numb and trying to survive. That group that is anti-strikes thinks that the first war, the first part of the war, brought them nothing but pain and suffering, especially the ordinary people economically as well as civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. And they recall President Trump saying, "Help is on the way," when so many people were massacred in January by the regime, and yet President Trump reached an agreement with the regime and said this is a new regime, whereas the Iranians say it's not a new regime. I would say this group is large and growing, and we've already seen some civilian casualties in this latest round of strikes. The second group, who are pro-resumption of strikes, I'd say many of them are desperate because they have no hope for any other change that they're hoping for in Iran, being freedom and democracy. For example, one woman told me, "I'm glad Trump realized the Islamic Republic isn't capable of genuine negotiations. I hope the war continues and ultimately leads to the destruction of the Islamic Republic. For my part, I'm willing to pay the price for freedom." And what's interesting is I spoke to a therapist who's part of a network of 200 therapists across Iran. So they have thousands of clients and patients. And she said there is some crazy infighting between these first two groups within families and among friend groups, and they take their pain and anger out on one another because they're unable to take their pain and anger out on the Revolutionary Guards and Israel and the US. And that third group, I would say, is just numb and traumatized by all the events of the past year. Economically, they're just struggling to buy milk, to buy eggs. Back in January, there were about 40% of Iranians under the poverty line, according to the Iranian government, and that has just gotten harder in recent months. And at the same time, there are these human rights violations that are mounting. 47 political prisoners executed just through yesterday since the war began, including 21 related to the January protests. As one protester told me, she's thinking that simply staying alive has become a form of resistance, a way of saying, "Hey, you bastards, I'm still alive."

I always think that when the folks who talk to you, and I managed to speak, if you know Yalda Moayeri, who's a news photojournalist in Iran, when they speak to us outside the country, they're taking an enormous risk. And when we debate the existence of political courage in this country, in that country, there's no shortage of courage, right? These are real risks that they're taking.

All right, Robert, as I give you the opportunity to respond to the senator, if I might ask it in this way: if you were explaining to the American people who wanted to know why this war was good for them and why this sort of no-pain-no-gain line works for them, that they have to accept the higher prices, perhaps the loss of US forces, as the president considers ground forces as well, how would you argue for this war to the American people?

Well, the first point I'd make is that if you are uncomfortable with Iran's ability to disrupt global trade and energy markets, and you should be, then allowing them to have a nuclear weapon and develop that program under the umbrella of a ballistic missile program, then this is the most practical way to solve it. Diplomacy up to this point hasn't prevailed, and it won't as long as you have a disingenuous partner. And Karim's point is the penultimate one, is that unless you get a change in government and the interests that they represent, you're not likely to, which is again why diplomacy is likely to fail when tried. And we've been more successful now, I think, applying the military instrument. And so now Iran cannot defend itself from any attack by the United States or, frankly, anyone else. And again, perhaps it's because I have a career in uniform, I differ slightly with the senator's assessment of what our military has been able to do. We have, by all accounts, and I don't think there are any facts that discount the judgment that Iran's programs across the board, from nuclear to missile to drone, have in any way been anything other than decimated to a point in which they have the least capacity since they've instituted all of those programs. So again, the facts aren't consistent with the opinion, but again, I think in the end, the judgment here is that for the United States, the most clear path to preserving our objectives is to eliminate the remaining threat because it is and routinely used. I would add too that I've been part of this myself. The United States has averaged 29,500 troops in the Middle East since 1950, average. And again, I've been part of that for decades. What I would say is, like, the elimination of the Iranian threat is the fastest way to ensure that we no longer have to surge our capacity to protect our interests, which are inevitable and recurring because this threat persists. Eliminating this threat, physically denying them the means and the opportunity, is the fastest way to do it. And if we think the economic impact is the judgment that allows us to conclude this is an unworthy cause, if at $84 a barrel is painful for a couple of months, consider that between 2010 and 2014, when we were not exchanging shots but we were engaging in diplomacy that ultimately failed, we were looking at an average price for four years over $100 a barrel, $104 a barrel. I would argue that's a crisis, and that's a judgment on a failed approach that I think has been abandoned. So I think this is the fastest way to achieve our objectives and probably the only realistic way to do it. And I think that's happening, and it's empirically true.

Given your experience in uniform, would you send forces on the ground, whether that be Kharg Island or on to strike land positions along the strait and put those forces at risk?

I don't see any compelling need to do so. I think the purpose can be achieved short of doing it. I think there are probably two exceptions to putting boots on the ground. One has already been exercised: the recovery of isolated personnel, pilots that have been left down inside enemy territory. Obviously, we leave no one left behind. The second might be a small circumstance in which there is a commodity or capability that needs to be removed from the country that they're unwilling to surrender otherwise, and there may be a requirement to do that, but I don't know that we're at that threshold. So long as the material, in this case the enriched uranium, remains buried under rubble and we can monitor it 24/7 and Iran cannot prevent our ability to interdict it, there's no way for them to recover that material, and so the threat is not immediate. In the long term, best to recover, but no, I would not advocate for boots on the ground, but I don't think it's necessary.

Senator, we're back in another 60-day window, to the extent that 60-day windows mean anything anymore. Does Congress retain any ability today, under either party, to restrain a president's power to wage war in a practical sense? I know what the wording of the legislation says, but from a practical standpoint?

Well, this is an illegal war. The president does not, under the Constitution, have the ability to undertake this kind of military action that is not responsive to any imminent threat without congressional authorization. Congress has chosen not to exercise its prerogatives under Republican control, but we certainly have those tools. We could pass legislation making it absolutely clear the president doesn't have the authorization. We could deny the funding necessary to carry out the war. Under this Congress, those actions are not going to be taken. But increasingly, this is a deeply, deeply unpopular war. The American public have made their decision. They don't want war with Iran if no objectives can be achieved and if the cost to them is as great as we are seeing at the pump and throughout the broad economy. So I think this will be an election issue. I think there are going to be a lot of voters asking questions of candidates as to whether you're going to go to Congress to facilitate this war, to empower the president's lawlessness, or whether you're going to go to Congress to stop it. And with all due respect, on the question of what the alternative to war is to try to stop Iran's nuclear program, we had the JCPOA, a document that I understand was politically controversial, but a document that was recommended to the president by all of his top national security advisers to continue because it was working. And so the idea that this war is going to get us in the end a better deal than the JCPOA when we have lost our two primary leverage points in those negotiations: one, the oil sanctions, which will not exist if another set of nuclear negotiations begins because we have already conceded that we have to give up the biggest sanctions just to get the strait reopened, and the threat of military action. There was a question whether the regime could survive an American military strike. It hung over the negotiations like a sword of Damocles. The question has now been answered. The question has now been answered. Iran can survive a strike. The regime can survive a strike. In fact, many would argue that this regime is more dangerous, more provocative, harder line than the previous regime was. So the JCPOA is evidence of the fact that diplomacy can significantly constrain their nuclear program. And there is zero evidence to suggest that even if we got back in the negotiating room after the shooting stopped, there is any chance we would get an agreement that was better than the JCPOA.

Karim, is it possible, or maybe even likely, that the Iranian leadership calculates their best approach is to try to wait Trump out, extend the negotiations, endure some pain, talk a little bit, not give real concessions, maybe sign on to a ceasefire but not actual agreement on the hard issues, to string him along, you know, using the president's phrasing? Wait him out for two years?