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Targeted assassinations, bombings, unidentified military attacks are piling up all over the Middle East. Can the "secret war" between Iran and Israel turn into a major regional if not global confrontation? The two countries are nowadays the two dominant powers in the Middle East.
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03:26In his efforts to impose his Pax Americana on the Gulf, President Bush invited anyone with
03:30any potential influence on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
03:34Europeans, Soviets, leaders of the Maghreb and the Middle East all attended.
03:42Only one country was missing, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
03:47The visceral answer for why Iran was not invited is the hangover from the hostage taking.
03:55It's still with us today.
03:57Hatred of Iran for the 1979 hostage taking.
04:05That is behind U.S. policy today more than anybody thinks or believes.
04:11It's a part of every moment of every thought about Iran.
04:15At the time, consideration was given to making the conference as universal as possible.
04:24But I can't recall that any thought was given to inviting the Iranians.
04:30The United States was the sole superpower, the big Satan.
04:35And the conference was going to involve making peace with the little Satan, with Israel.
04:40So I think Iran was implacably opposed to the very idea of the conference.
04:49And it had really nothing to do with the fact that there was no effort to involve them in the conference.
04:59In Tehran, the new Iranian leaders did not accept their country being outlawed.
05:04Since Khomeini's death in 1989, two figures in the Islamic revolution had ruled the country.
05:11Ayatollah Ali Khomeini was the new supreme leader.
05:16A loyal follower of his predecessor, he was unbending in his refusal to compromise.
05:23Hashemi Rafsanjani was president of the Republic.
05:27A very wealthy businessman, he too was very close to the former supreme leader.
05:32He was a pragmatist and a realist.
05:35Both opted for benevolent neutrality towards the Americans during the Gulf War.
05:41The Iranians did help the United States against Saddam Hussein in that war.
05:47They opened up a channel of communication.
05:49They allowed the U.S. to use Iranian airspace.
05:51The Iranians did this as a way of quietly supporting the United States.
05:57And they thought that after the war they would be rewarded for it and the reward would just be inclusion.
06:12Most importantly, the bankrupt and devastated Islamic Republic desperately needed to emerge from its isolation.
06:20Iran was still reeling from the interminable war against Iraq between 1980 and 1988.
06:30A devastating conflict that left 500,000 dead and deeply traumatized the country.
06:37The regime almost collapsed.
06:40Moving forward, as well as protecting its borders, Iran desperately needed to modernize.
06:45RAF Zanjiani's priority was rebuilding.
06:50Because he thought, and I think he was right, the most important thing is rebuilding the ravaged economy.
06:57So he began normalizing relations with anyone that he could.
07:03He began talking about normalizing relations even with the United States.
07:07That time there were two schools of thought in Iran.
07:10One was saying, don't trust Americans, they are cheating, they are lying, and they would deceive you.
07:20And the other, like RAF Zanjiani himself, said, we are not going to lose anything.
07:25We would show our goodwill.
07:27If they don't, then everybody in this country and beyond, they would know Americans are the guilty part, not the Iranians.
07:37For Iranian leaders, the Madrid conference was proof that the Americans were in no way seeking a thaw in relations.
07:50Would this Pax Americana based on Arab-Israeli reconciliation be turned against them and their interests?
07:56I think a conclusion they may have drawn from the failure to be included in Madrid is not just that they may not be able to trust the U.S.
08:09I don't think they had much trust to begin with.
08:11I think it's a conclusion that they drew that if they're not problematic enough, they will be ignored.
08:18If they have the power to be able to show that they can create problems, then the U.S. would have to deal with them.
08:24If they have the power to be able to trust Iran, then the U.S. would have to deal with them, then the U.S. would have to deal with them.
08:39The U.S. would have to deal with them, then the U.S. would have to deal with them, then the U.S. would have to deal with them.
08:50Ayatollah Khomeini decided to act.
08:53Two weeks before Madrid, he organized his own conference dedicated to supporting Palestine.
08:58It was a conference whose philosophy and program were radically opposed to the American project.
09:09The Tehran conference is aimed at finding ways of bolstering the Palestinian armed struggle.
09:15For the Iranians and Muslim delegates who have converged here from around the world,
09:19believe that Palestinians will only win their rights by fighting for them.
09:24The Supreme Leader managed to bring together the representatives of some 60 movements
09:31from very diverse ideological or religious backgrounds.
09:35In attendance were revolutionaries, nationalists and Islamists.
09:39The Supreme Leader managed to bring together the U.S. and Islamists.
09:40The Supreme Leader managed to bring together the U.S. and Islamists.
09:58All expressed a rejection of American domination in the Middle East,
10:03rejection of the occupation of Palestine, and rejection of the State of Israel.
10:07We found that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were the organizations most inclined to maintain resistance
10:18and continue the struggle against Israel.
10:27We knew that the liberation of Palestine could only be achieved through resistance.
10:32Negotiations or compromises would not lead to liberation,
10:34rather to the confiscation of a large part of Palestinian land.
10:39So we began to support Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
10:44Here, behind the scenes at the conference, close links between the Lebanese Hezbollah,
10:54the Palestinian Islamist Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad began to be forged,
10:58giving rise to what Tehran would later call the axis of resistance.
11:05This axis very quickly became a target for the United States and Israel.
11:11The Shiite community in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital was in mourning.
11:12At least 50,000 were there to mourn the death of their leader.
11:14The Shiite community in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital was in mourning.
11:16At least 50,000 were there to mourn the death of their leader.
11:17The Shiite community in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital was in mourning.
11:21At least 50,000 were there to mourn the death of their leader.
11:26Sheikh Abbas Moussaoui, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, recently seen at the Tehran conference,
11:31had died the previous day along with his wife and son, killed by the Israeli army.
11:36The Shiite community in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital was in mourning.
11:39At least 50,000 were there to mourn the death of their leader.
11:41Sheikh Abbas Moussaoui, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, recently seen at the Tehran conference,
11:46had died the previous day along with his wife and son, killed by the Israeli army.
11:56Israel had never before eliminated such a prominent leader within the Shiite organization.
12:09There's no question that our capacity to defend ourselves and their capacity to attack us have changed dramatically.
12:16We will be able to defend ourselves better, they will be able to hit us not as effectively,
12:21because the organizing brain has been removed.
12:26What happened?
12:28In early 1992, faced with the kidnapping of its soldiers in southern Lebanon,
12:33Israel decided to seize key members of Hezbollah to carry out a prisoner swap.
12:39Sheikh Moussaoui was a prime target.
12:42On February 16, military intelligence was informed that the Shiite leader was about to drive to a village in southern Lebanon to attend a ceremony.
12:53They decided to have him followed by surveillance drones.
12:57He was on his way to the village. We had all the information.
13:03So we knew exactly how many cars he was traveling with, the distance between each car, and who was with him.
13:12He was on his way to the village.
13:15He was on his way to the village.
13:16On this February 16, early in the afternoon, Moussaoui arrived, as scheduled, at the ceremony.
13:22But he had no idea that his every move was being closely monitored in real time by the Israeli services.
13:30We knew we had high-level information, which would allow us to strike at our objective, Moussaoui.
13:41There was no need to wait three or four months, and I said as much to the chief of staff.
13:46Rather than kidnapping Moussaoui, Yuri Sagi advocated eliminating him.
13:56Another opportunity was unlikely to arise for a long time.
14:00Now was the time to strike.
14:03A helicopter took off with orders to kill the Shiite leader as soon as he left the ceremony.
14:09Prime Minister Shamir was asleep.
14:13He slept in the afternoon, so he was out of the loop.
14:16Two minutes beforehand, we told him we were going to kill someone.
14:20He asked, is he a bastard?
14:22Yeah, he's a little bastard.
14:24Well, that's fine then.
14:30Shortly before 4 p.m., Moussaoui's Mercedes was engulfed in flames.
14:35The sheikh, his wife and son were killed instantly.
14:44The Israeli army appeared to have gained the upper hand over Hezbollah.
14:53From an intelligence point of view, the strike was unquestionably a success.
14:58But from a strategic point of view, it was a disaster.
15:02It was a state catastrophe.
15:05In a decision like that, there is no word for it.
15:13It's actually quite pathetic.
15:18Before his elimination, there was no discussion about whether or not we should do it,
15:23and what the consequences might be.
15:25Everyone agreed, but no one considered the consequences of the action.
15:36I told them,
15:42Look, it may provoke a terrorist attack overseas.
15:44There may be consequences.
15:46I was told, no, no, no.
15:58A month later, on March 17, 1992, a car bomb exploded in the front of the Israeli embassy in Argentina.
16:0528 people were killed, with 250 injured.
16:14Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
16:18But in Israel, many saw it as a direct response from Hezbollah and Tehran to Moussaoui's assassination.
16:23I can't speak for anyone else, but I had misgivings about the whole thing.
16:37Did I know what we were doing?
16:39Did I properly assess the risk-benefit ratio?
16:43Given that the elimination of Moussaoui had led to dozens of Jews killed in Argentina?
16:47Perhaps the Shia devil had become even more fearsome.
16:57Make no mistake, they didn't want peace.
17:00But sometimes you can hasten things when you don't intend to.
17:03It was decisive.
17:17It initiated something new in our relationship with Hezbollah,
17:20and in our relationship with Iran.
17:25Because, in actual fact, we had directly affected Iran.
17:33Israeli intelligence then learnt that the situation might get even worse.
17:38In addition to using Hezbollah, Iran also had plans to develop nuclear weapons.
17:44If Israel failed to react, it was no exaggeration to think that the country's very existence might be at stake.
17:51Israel was first, in the 1990s, to discover that Iran was planning to develop nuclear weapons.
18:02It was all taking shape at that time.
18:07And we were the first to pick up on it.
18:10It took American intelligence another two years, even though we had evidence.
18:13Then the Europeans realized it, but only in the 2000s.
18:23One man was determined to thwart this threat.
18:26The new Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
18:29When he came to power in June 1992, a few weeks after the attack in Argentina,
18:35he was already part of Israel's history.
18:37Born in British Mandate Palestine, Rabin was a veteran of the War of Independence in 1948.
18:47Later becoming a general, he was the great winner of the Six-Day War in June 1967,
18:53which gave the Israelis control over East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights.
19:00Faced with the prospect of an Iranian bomb, Rabin implemented a strategic revolution.
19:10Israel had to reach an understanding with the Palestinians.
19:14If the Palestinians kept quiet, it would be easier for Israel to protect itself from Iran.
19:21He realized that to tackle the situation, he had to significantly reduce the level of instability
19:28and violence in the region.
19:31That called for an Israeli-Palestinian initiative.
19:35This wasn't out of any affection for the Palestinians or the desire to give them more territory.
19:41But he understood that it would help guarantee the existence, identity, and security of the State of Israel.
19:48Rabin, not us, and the intelligence services said,
19:52we must hurry to reach a peace agreement with the Arab countries and move forward on the Palestinian issue
19:59before the Iranians develop nuclear weapons.
20:03It was a historic and enduring image.
20:13After months of secret negotiations, former warlord Rabin agreed to conclude the Oslo Accords at the White House
20:20with the man he had always called a terrorist, PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
20:27For the first time since the creation of the State of Israel, a genuine peace process was beginning between the Israelis and Palestinians.
20:36The children of Abraham, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, have embarked together on a bold journey.
20:46Together, today, with all our hearts and all our souls, we bid them shalom, salam, peace.
20:55Peace.
21:08As he shook hands with Arafat, Rabin was also thinking of Iran, the country he would be able to better protect himself from now that peace with the Palestinians had become possible.
21:19Three weeks later, however, a bus exploded near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
21:30Responsibility was claimed by Hamas.
21:37Then it was the turn of an Israeli settler to commit a massacre in Hebron.
21:41In Israel and the occupied territories, tragedies followed, one after the other.
21:48Extremists from every side were doing their level best to thwart the peace process.
21:56It was a godsend for Tehran.
21:59It was time to get back into the game and defeat Israel's strategy.
22:03Iran has never been in the favor of peace process, I tell you very openly, very frankly, very sincerely.
22:16Because from the day one, Iran believed Israel is after cheating.
22:21And Israel is not ready to accept the rights of Palestinians.
22:25Iran was convinced from the day one, and since 100% was convinced this is a plot to kill the time and to kill the wishes and the dreams and the rights of Palestinians, Iran was not ready to accept it.
22:46Above all, for Khomeini, the success of the Oslo Accord signaled the victory of a regional order, dominated by the United States and Israel, that had finally rid itself of the Palestinian question.
23:07A regional order that would relegate Iran to a supporting role.
23:11So to re-establish his country at the center of the chessboard, the Supreme Leader decided that the covenant sealed during the Tehran conference of October 1991 must be translated into action.
23:25To that end, it stepped up support for the Palestinian Islamist movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
23:33The Iranians support all those who are against us.
23:37We see their influence in the Gaza Strip, and in Judea and Samaria.
23:43They work behind the scenes providing financial, political and social support, even supplying the ammunition used in attacks.
23:50And then, as it was also used to be a threat to the war and the war.
23:53And the U.S. war.
23:54We knew at critical moments in the Oslo process, the Iranians were encouraging, pushing, rewarding, incentivizing acts of bombings against the Israelis.
24:09We knew it.
24:10We knew it.
24:11We had the information.
24:12We had information where they were promising Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
24:17If they would kill this many Israelis, they would get so much money.
24:21If they would kill twice as many, they would get even more money.
24:23Iran is responsible, with the other extreme Islamic groups, for the setup of international terror.
24:33And in addition, Iran tries to build military capability, conventional and non-conventional.
24:44The specter of an Iran armed with weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them haunts not only Israel, but the entire Middle East, and ultimately all the rest of us as well.
24:56The United States, and I believe all the Western nations, have an overriding interest in containing the threat posed by Iran.
25:05Thank you all very much.
25:35However, it would not be Tehran behind the tragedy that was soon to strike at the very heart of the United States.
25:44A tragedy whose symbolic and political significance would usher in a new era for the entire Middle East.
25:52It was the most deadly and spectacular attack in the history of terrorism.
26:13With nearly 3,000 casualties, it was dawning on an astonished United States that the real enemy may not be the Shia Islamism of Iran and Hezbollah.
26:38Rather, the Sunni radicalism embodied by Al-Qaeda and its Saudi leader, Osama Bin Laden.
26:47President George W. Bush elected the previous year, had no choice but to react.
26:53We will not only deal with those who dare attack America, we will deal with those who harbor them and feed them and house them.
27:11Make no mistake about it. Underneath our tears is the strong determination of America to win this war. And we will win it.
27:28Devoid of any international experience, a fervent evangelical Christian, the President had surrounded himself with neoconservatives such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
27:47They declared that the United States was on a mission to defend American values, to be ready to intervene wherever necessary, anywhere in the world.
28:00September 11th was a wake-up call. A call to arms.
28:06I think the rest of the world, and even many in the States, underestimate just how traumatic 9-11 was.
28:15You know, the fact of the matter is, it's this great trauma. And for the administration, it's a shock. It's a complete shock.
28:24And the effect of the shock is to think, if this could happen, what else could happen?
28:34After 9-11, Bush acquires a... He finds his voice. He finds his mission. He finds his... He has a built-in sense of confidence as a result. He knows why he's President.
28:52The President fixed an objective to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that for many years had hosted, supported and funded Al-Qaeda.
29:03Secretary of State Colin Powell was head of American diplomacy and tasked with preparing the ground before the offensive.
29:12A former chief of state during the first Gulf War and not a member of the neoconservative faction,
29:18He understood that his country needed to act with the help of a very unexpected partner.
29:24I was asked by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, to take on the responsibilities initially for working with the Iranian opposition to form a successive government to the Taliban.
29:40I recognized that I needed to talk to the countries that had been supporting the Afghan opposition.
29:49I made clear that I thought I needed to talk to Iran as part of my responsibilities, and Colin Powell agreed.
29:59Iran. Seeking help from Tehran, sworn enemy of the United States?
30:08As well as sharing nearly a thousand-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic was the ideal ally to bring down the Taliban regime.
30:17The Taliban was an anti-Iranian, anti-Shia extremist group. It had victimized the Hazara, the Shia minority in Afghanistan.
30:30The Iranians themselves almost went to war with Afghanistan in 1998 after the Taliban struck the Iranian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif and killed roughly 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist.
30:49So the Iranians have deep animosity and enmity with the Taliban.
30:53There was a coincidence of interest. It wasn't that they needed anything more to cooperate. They were cooperating for the obvious reason that we had a similar set of objectives.
31:02The first American bombardments fell on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom had just begun.
31:25A month later, the Northern Alliance, the Northern Alliance, the main coalition opposing the Taliban, took Kabul with the help of American troops, backed and assisted by Iran.
31:44The U.S. entered Afghanistan only because of Iranian Revolutionary Guard support, because the old Northern Alliance groups, they were working with Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
32:06But the Bush administration considered it to be of secondary importance. For them, the defeat of the Taliban was, first and foremost, a demonstration of U.S. military might.
32:25The pressing concern now was to build the Afghanistan of tomorrow. In early December 2001, an international conference chaired by Washington got underway in Bonn, bringing together all the Afghan factions.
32:43The main issue is an interim administration and how to distribute the portfolios within that among the various groups, geographically, ethnically, etc.
32:52I mean, this is a tough, tough issue, like building any coalition is.
32:57Here again, Tehran sought to play a central role. And it was Iranian delegate Mohamed Zarif who managed to obtain a compromise from the Afghan factions for the establishment of an interim government, as well as the wording of a final declaration.
33:13I was reading this document, and Zarif said that he thought it was a good document, but it had a couple of items that were missing.
33:22And he said, well, first of all, there's no mention of democracy or free elections. Don't you think we should be committing the Afghans to democratic government?
33:33And I readily agreed. Well, it makes no mention of international terrorism. Shouldn't they be committing to cooperate against international terrorism?
33:45And again, I thought that was an innocent, that was an unobjectionable addition, and I agreed.
33:54I saw that Zarif was, had a certain twinkle in his eye, and although these were sincere enough, probably, as the proposals, they were also intended as a sort of an effort to tease me a bit, that it would be Iran that was proposing democracy and counter-terrorism, not the United States.
34:13Iran was jubilant. Ten years on, they had avenged their ban from the Madrid conference, proving that, given the opportunity, they could play a stabilizing role on the international scene, proving also that they did not deserve the sanctions weighing down their economy.
34:36The Iranians told me they were interested in a broader dialogue. I said, I wasn't authorized to talk about anything but Afghanistan, but that I would pass their interest along.
34:51The message went nowhere. In post-9-11 America, the advantage was firmly with the neoconservatives.
34:58That is to say, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, for whom the collaboration with Iran was only a tactical and thus temporary arrangement.
35:09Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld took over the process.
35:12Every time a run would be a policy agenda item on the National Security Council's list, Dick Cheney would make sure it came off.
35:21So by making the system dysfunctional and by not having a discussion on Iran, there never was, the decision was by default, we don't talk to evil, which is what Dick Cheney said.
35:37Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States.
35:41The devil then was Iran, but it was also North Korea, and especially Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
35:56Thank you very much.
35:57States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world by seeking weapons of mass destruction.
36:12These regimes pose a grave and growing danger.
36:16The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.
36:23With his axis of evil speech, Bush definitively closed the door on any reproachment with Iran.
36:40Here then was the new foreign policy he intended to impose on the Middle East.
36:46The war on terror was the new mantra.
36:48The aim was to remove by force any regime that was not supportive in order to replace it with a government that could be relied upon.
36:57There's an irony here. Terror is an instrument. It's a means.
37:02It's not an ideology.
37:05There may be an ideology that uses and employs terror, and maybe you have to have a war on that ideology, but a war on terror doesn't make sense.
37:13The administration, I think, rationalized that by saying it's a war on those who support terror.
37:21And so we will not, Bush said, we will not draw a distinction between those who carry out acts of terror and those who in some way provide a kind of sanctuary for it.
37:30Starting with Iraq, moving on to Syria, moving on to Iran, maybe Lebanon, maybe Egypt, the whole region needed to be in turmoil, because if it were in turmoil, Persians, Arabs, whatever, then it could not coalesce, it could not unify and attack Israel.
37:48So their whole philosophy was the best security for Israel is chaos all around Israel, which is counterintuitive if you think about it hard, but that's what they wanted.
38:08I heard it briefed a number of times. They wanted chaos.
38:12That's not over yet.
38:23Thus, by May 1, 2003, the first objective had been achieved.
38:28By crushing Saddam Hussein's regime, Bush Jr. put an end to the campaign initiated by his father in 1991 during the first Gulf War.
38:41He could wallow in victory among his soldiers. Nothing, it seemed, could stand in his way.
38:47Obviously, when the United States invaded Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq under false pretenses and after lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and lying about a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda,
39:09the Iranians were concerned that the United States would try to destabilize Iran or invade the country.
39:22So ever since the invasion of Iraq, Iran has been preparing itself for some sort of American attack or invasion or some sort of conflict with the United States.
39:34Three days after the American victory in Iraq, Tehran took a staggering initiative. An initiative with the potential to change everything in the Middle East.
39:53At the State Department in Washington, a fax arrived via an intermediary, Tim Goldman, the Swiss ambassador in Tehran.
40:04He had been representing the interests of the United States in Iran since the closure of their embassy in 1979.
40:11The document seemed barely credible. It proposed talks on the links with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the disarmament of Hezbollah and weapons of mass destruction.
40:24In return, Iran sought the lifting of sanctions, recognition of its role in the region and access to Western technologies, in particular civilian nuclear power.
40:35Washington pondered the implications. Why would the supreme leader, until now so inflexible, suddenly support such a move?
40:44I think there were people in the Iranian system that had come to the conclusion that the small steps had not led to anything.
40:52And that the only way to break the deadlock was to do something big, comprehensive.
40:58And I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what that would be, had floated those ideas, had created some political readiness in Tehran for it.
41:08But at the State Department, where the collaboration with Iran on Afghanistan had been established, nobody was prepared to take the document transmitted by the Swiss diplomat seriously.
41:19I do remember that facts. It came to Secretary Powell and me, a copy about the same time we discussed it.
41:28Our general view at the time was the Swiss ambassador who are protecting power in Tehran.
41:34The Swiss ambassador was known by us to be somewhat optimistic about the ability to resolve these problems.
41:42Well, in our view is that we had some skepticism about this.
41:51I think there was also a general view that, I mean, this was the sort of height of American hubris.
41:57We just overthrown first the Taliban and then Saddam Hussein.
42:02Now let's make a democratic Iraq and then the Iranians will really, you know, either collapse or make even better offers.
42:14So it was a feeling that the American leverage was increasing and that there was no hurry.
42:19U.S. policy towards Iran has always had a strong element of continuity and the Iranians in the past have seen or had seen that every time they came to the assistance of the United States, the response by the United States was a slap in the face.
42:36So while the impact in Iran or the response in Iran was mixed, some were shocked, some were not so shocked, some were not surprised.
42:46But ultimately what it did bring about was a consensus in Iran that the United States is very hypocritical and insincere in its dealings with Iran.
42:57After their exclusion from the Madrid conference and the discourse on the access of evil, for Tehran, this new refusal to engage in dialogue was proof that Washington was still bent on effecting a change of regime in Iran.
43:19So in order to protect the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei took a radical decision.
43:27He decided to intensify and press ahead with the uranium enrichment program, and in doing so, acquire nuclear weapons as soon as possible.
43:49Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.
43:54And I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.
43:59Then, one man decided to shift the equation and relations between his country and Iran.
44:04Barely three months after taking office, Barack Obama addressed Iran directly on the occasion of the Persian New Year.
44:11It was a first in the history of the two countries.
44:15We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.
44:21The new president was the antithesis of his predecessor.
44:28A staunch Democrat opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he believed in multilateralism and in the force of diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
44:39He also believed that Israel should be prevented from ever attacking Tehran.
44:48If that happened, the entire Middle East would sink into chaos.
44:52It is clear, at least from the priority that the president gave to Iran, that he did feel this was a national security issue.
45:01He did feel that Iran with a nuclear bomb was a threat to the region, perhaps to Europe, to the US.
45:05We wanted to provide Iran a dignified exit and a way to come back into compliance with the rules that everybody else was living by.
45:16Iran wasn't. And diplomacy was part of that strategy. It wasn't the only element of that strategy.
45:23It was a multidimensional strategy that we had, which included various forms of pressure. It included military planning.
45:31President Obama was also very clear from the beginning of his time in office that he was ready to use all tools at his disposal to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
45:42He used this phrase often, all options are on the table.
45:45And what everybody knew that to mean was that he was willing to take military action, if the situation required it, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
45:51But Benjamin Netanyahu was skeptical about Obama's military option in the event of negotiations failing.
46:00In his eyes, the American president knew nothing about the Middle East, while he himself was an experienced leader.
46:08Coming from a very conservative Zionist background and the former head of an elite commando unit, he had already led the country ten years earlier.
46:17Netanyahu had never wavered in his refusal to compromise on Israel's security.
46:24He declared himself ready to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities without Washington's consent.
46:30Israel was quite prepared to act without American backing.
46:36They have never concealed their opposition to an operation like this.
46:40They regarded it as damaging.
46:42But I remember face-to-face discussions with Bush and Obama, or with their security advisers, who were taking notes.
46:47I clearly told them that when we reached a critical stage in terms of the security and future of the State of Israel and the Jewish people,
46:57we would not delegate responsibility to anyone else, not even to you, our closest allies.
47:03We would not give them that.
47:06We would take our decisions in full sovereignty according to our own considerations.
47:09For Netanyahu and Ehud Barak then, military intervention was the only sure way to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb.
47:23But before they took action, they needed the approval of key ministers and leading military and intelligence officials.
47:32To be legitimate, it was imperative that the historic decision to attack Iran met with a broad consensus.
47:39I thought the military option was wrong.
47:44Not because it was technically impossible, but because there was no American consensus.
47:49We didn't have their support.
47:51Even if we managed to destroy certain facilities, it would not solve the problem.
47:56It would merely dismantle the coalition established by Obama.
48:01Israel did not have the capacity to eliminate this threat completely.
48:04The process could be delayed or weakened, but as I pointed out, the situation could end up worse.
48:12You might hasten something over which you have no control.
48:17Outnumbered, the two Israeli leaders were forced to back down.
48:22Obama, however, remained uneasy.
48:25If he was to get a deal with Iran before Netanyahu could convince his cabinet to follow him down the road to war,
48:31he needed to wrestle back control.
48:37At the end of 2012, in the utmost secrecy, he entered into direct negotiations with Iran.
48:45A succession of meetings, both in and out of public eye, ensued.
48:50An agreement was on the way.
48:52Thus, on March 3rd, 2015, Netanyahu made one final attempt to derail the process.
49:00He went to Washington to address Congress, where he launched into a veritable tirade against the policies of his most loyal ally.
49:10It was unprecedented in the history of relations between the two countries.
49:14Ladies and gentlemen, I've come here today to tell you we don't have to bet the security of the world
49:24on the hope that Iran will change for the better.
49:27We don't have to gamble with our future and with our children's future.
49:32So this deal won't change Iran for the better.
49:35It will only change the Middle East for the worse.
49:37We were physically with the Iranians, and we watched the speech with members of the Iranian delegation.
49:49So I'm not saying that it was the focal point for days of discussions,
49:54but it was obviously a topic of conversation, which is Israel's opposition to the deal.
49:59The fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu has every right to criticize, to say it's the wrong thing,
50:04he could say it publicly, but to come to the center of American political body,
50:13and to speak out in this way, that was quite extraordinary.
50:19But the Israeli leader's maneuver proved to be futile.
50:23And his speech changed nothing. Obama won the day.
50:27Four months later, on July 14th, 2015, the nuclear agreement was signed.
50:37Tehran was represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, a certain Mohammed Zarif,
50:44the man who had cooperated with the United States against the Taliban in 2001.
50:49I believe this is a historic moment. We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for anybody,
51:00but it is what we could accomplish, and it is an important achievement for all of us.
51:06Today could have been the end of hope on this issue, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope.
51:14Iran pledged to limit its uranium enrichment program to the production of civilian energy,
51:26and abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.
51:29In return, it would obtain the gradual lifting of sanctions that were stifling its economy.
51:35For the vast majority of Iranians, the agreement was a beacon of hope.
51:47Their country was finally ready to join the global community.
51:54For Netanyahu, it was a disaster.
51:58Strengthened and legitimized, the Islamic Republic was now inescapable in the Middle East.
52:03Israel was more isolated than ever.
52:11But this new dynamic between Iran and the United States would prove to be short-lived.
52:20If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen.
52:26In just a short period of time, the world's leading state sponsor of terror
52:30will be on the cusp of acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons.
52:37Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
52:46This decision by President Trump marked the beginning of a new phase in the long history of relations between Iran on the one side and the United States and Israel on the other.
52:59Since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979, war has never actually broken out between Washington and Tehran.
53:10Nor has there been any real dialogue.
53:14The two enemies have constantly failed to get beyond their different backgrounds to consider each other as valid counterparts.
53:21For its part, Israel perceives Iran as an increasingly radical and deadly threat.
53:30Until the Shia theocracy recognizes the legitimacy of the Jewish state, nothing will be possible.
53:37For over 40 years, then, a state of war has been the norm.
53:44For over 40 years, a deadly rationale of confrontation, a lack of respect for each other's individuality, and incitements to hatred have prevailed.
53:55As if failed relationships should be the rule, as if an endless series of obstacles must be conjured up to forever keep dialogue and peace at bay.
54:07The following personal time and peace at bay is at bay.
54:18The following paced retraining, a strong united states of the United States and the United States,
54:24the United States and the United States, the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States.
54:30The plan of education is the only thing that is true and a great deal in the future.
54:34Transcription by CastingWords
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