00:00I'm bringing into the program Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow at the Simpsons Centre.
00:04Barbara, pleasure to have you with us here in France 24, as always.
00:06The question on everyone's lips, I suppose, is can Iran and the US, in spite of their differences
00:12and in spite of that central issue of uranium enrichment, can they reach an accord, do you think?
00:18What's your sense of this?
00:21Well, it's obviously not going to be easy.
00:23It depends on whether the Trump administration is willing to compromise and accept that Iran
00:30will insist on its right to enrich, even if it isn't actually enriching uranium for some
00:36period of time.
00:37We've seen a lot of contradictory statements coming out of administration officials about
00:42what the aim of these talks are, and they have to decide on what it is that they can declare
00:49victory over.
00:51If it's going to be demands about ballistic missiles or about domestic politics or about
00:57regional proxies, it's obviously not going to work.
01:00But if they want a narrow deal on the nuclear program that they can portray as better than
01:07what Obama got, I think that's eminently possible.
01:10I think the next few days will be key.
01:13The US has amassed all these military assets in the region.
01:16And Marco Rubio is going to Israel over the weekend, I believe.
01:21We will see if they will allow these technical talks to go on in Vienna that were mentioned
01:26by Iranian officials and others.
01:29That could be a good step if you bring the International Atomic Energy Agency into the
01:34conversation.
01:35So bringing in the International Atomic Energy Agency could be key.
01:40What difference could that make, do you think?
01:43Well, since the United States and Israel bombed Iran last summer, we've had no visibility into
01:51the status of the program, apart from satellite images, maybe some reports from agents on the
01:58ground.
01:58The IAEA will be able to see exactly what the situation is, what the condition of all these
02:04facilities really is, how the enriched uranium Iran has 600, sorry, 900 pounds of 60 percent
02:13enriched uranium sitting under rubble from the bomb sites.
02:18The IAEA will presumably be able to inspect that uranium, see if the canisters are intact.
02:23And once you have a good status report, then you can talk about how to reconfigure the program
02:31in a way that is less worrisome for proliferation.
02:35In terms of the optics as we see them now with the United States having amassed so much firepower
02:42in the region and that threat of more strikes coming up, it really looks like kind of trying
02:48to force Iran into something under duress.
02:50And it's the kind of tactic that if another superpower were to exercise that kind of operation,
02:56that kind of might, there'd be mighty criticism coming their way, and rightly so.
03:01Well, I think there should be criticism of the United States.
03:04There was no reason for this military buildup now.
03:07There is no emergency.
03:09Iran is not threatening the United States.
03:12It is not enriching uranium at present.
03:15I mean, Donald Trump said that the program had been obliterated back in June.
03:20So what's the reason for this buildup?
03:23It's because Donald Trump has dug himself into a hole by promising the Iranian people that
03:29help was on the way when they were protesting their government.
03:32He didn't do anything at that time, but he did begin to amass all these assets in the region.
03:38And so I think he may be feeling like he has to do something in order to not look foolish.
03:43But to make a decision to go to war with Iran now would be highly irresponsible in my view.
03:49And I hope that he is getting good advice from his military, that this would not be quick or easy
03:56and could bring really devastating consequences for the region and for American forces based there.
04:04With Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner leading these negotiations, does the U.S. have the right people in the right
04:10position there?
04:10What's your sense of that?
04:13Well, I don't know who will be going to the technical talks in Vienna.
04:16I would hope that we have real experts on nuclear questions who are going to be participating,
04:22who can actually talk about what safeguards are needed to prevent proliferation.
04:27With all due respect to Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner, I don't think either of them would know a centrifuge
04:32if they saw one.
04:33So it's very important to bring technical experts in.
04:37You may remember when the nuclear deal was negotiated with Iran in 2015,
04:41it took hundreds of people from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and Iran to put together a
04:50long and detailed agreement.
04:52Unfortunately, Donald Trump withdrew from that agreement in 2018, and we see the results today.
04:58Barbara Slavin, we could say more and we could talk about so much more, but sadly time against us.
05:03And thank you for sharing your insight and analysis with us here in France 34.
05:06Always appreciated.
05:07Barbara Slavin, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Centre.
05:10Thank you for being with us.
05:12Sure. Thank you.
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