00:00If you were an Iranian leader today, you certainly would be thinking more concretely about whether
00:06or not to develop a nuclear weapon than you have in the past.
00:09It would be a logical thing to do.
00:11Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon according to the U.S. intelligence community and according
00:14to the IEA.
00:15They couldn't have turned whatever uranium they had into a weapon in weeks or months.
00:19You were one of the lead negotiators on the JCPOA under Barack Obama that was signed in
00:232015.
00:24There's been a lot of criticism of the JCPOA, including from some Democrats.
00:26Famously, Chuck Schumer didn't vote for it, a Democratic minority leader in the Senate.
00:31But if he signs a deal tomorrow, the makings of the deal are there.
00:35It was already there in Oman just before the war began.
00:38Is he going to be able to say, well, I got a better deal than Barack Obama did?
00:42You know, it's going to be a very different deal because the situation is very different.
00:46Listen, if somebody asked me, I'm not going to say that it is worse than Obama deal.
00:49I'd say anything in order for him to feel like it's good enough.
00:52Tell him it's better.
00:52But certainly, I think this is incontrovertible, that the outcome would be worse than where
00:57we would be if the deal was still being respected, the 2015 deal.
01:02So I think you could say two things.
01:04The deal may in some ways be stronger and some ways be weaker, but the situation, the
01:08United States would be in a much safer position today if it had respected the deal.
01:12And you said something earlier, which again, and Valli has said it as well, if you were
01:16an Iranian leader today, you certainly would be thinking more concretely about whether or
01:22not to develop a nuclear weapon than you have in the past.
01:25It would be a logical thing to do.
01:26I don't think they'll do it because I think it's a very high risk proposition for them.
01:31I mean, they look at Kim Jong-un in North Korea and they say he didn't get attacked.
01:34And they look at Saddam Hussein and they look at Muammar Gaddafi, the people who gave up their
01:37weapons.
01:38Exactly.
01:38Hold on.
01:39It's interesting for you to say this because you are a private citizen.
01:41You are at the International Crisis Group.
01:43You teach at Yale.
01:44You write books.
01:45But you were President Biden's envoy to Iran.
01:47You were the guy that the American government sent to sit across from the Iranians.
01:51And you're telling me that you are now saying, yeah, it's logical if you're Iranian to think
01:56about wanting to get a nuclear weapon.
01:57So what's a future American negotiator supposed to say?
02:00What's a future Rob Malley going to say?
02:02Because if they're thinking like you, they're like, well, how am I supposed to tell them
02:04not to do this?
02:05What I'd be doing if I was them.
02:07I said, I'm sure they're thinking about it for more.
02:10But if you're across the table from someone who's thinking about it, you can't, I mean,
02:13do you see what I'm trying to say?
02:14Of course.
02:15But I think, I mean, the whole thing has been, or A, do they have an incentive not to buy
02:19it, not to develop a bomb?
02:20And B, do they trust that the US side is going to stick by a deal?
02:24The second part has become much, much harder.
02:26They're going to need, as I say, real incentives to go down that path and some degree of faith,
02:31which I just don't know how the Trump administration could possibly rebuild.
02:34Or even a future American administration, even if it's not Donald Trump.
02:36You would say, well, the next president will sign this deal, but another Trump will come
02:40back and cancel it.
