[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IRAN ON NOTICE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 16, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-5
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina AMI BERA, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
Wisconsin TED LIEU, California
ANN WAGNER, Missouri
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Ms. Katherine Bauer, Blumenstein-Katz Family Fellow, The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy...................... 4
Mr. David Albright, founder and president, Institute for Science
and International Security..................................... 21
Mr. Scott Modell, managing director, The Rapidan Group........... 30
Andrew Exum, Ph.D., contributing editor, The Atlantic............ 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Ms. Katherine Bauer: Prepared statement.......................... 6
Mr. David Albright: Prepared statement........................... 23
Mr. Scott Modell: Prepared statement............................. 32
Andrew Exum, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................... 40
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 80
Hearing minutes.................................................. 81
The Honorable David Cicilline, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Rhode Island: Material submitted for the record... 83
IRAN ON NOTICE
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order. This
morning we consider options available to the new administration
as it contends with an emboldened Iran.
As one witness will tell the committee, we should start
with this premise: Iran ``gets no special pass'' on its
dangerous and provocative acts. Unfortunately--despite its
promises to the committee--that is not how the previous
administration handled Tehran. Terrorist and missile activities
that should have been designated were not designated. In a
country where beatings and torture and executions are the norm,
just one individual has been sanctioned for human rights abuses
after negotiations began, just one. After that deal was inked,
the former Secretary of State traveled the world
enthusiastically touting that Iran was open for business.
Indeed, the administration went out of its way not to
offend Tehran. In December, when this committee pressed the
extension of the Iran Sanctions Act, the President took the
very unusual step of letting this legislation become law
without his signature.
So it is not surprising that Tehran believes it is in a
``post-sanctions environment.'' But as long as Iran is firing
missiles, fueling terror, and shouting ``Death to America,''
nothing can be normal.
Sanctions can be imposed even while adhering to and
strictly enforcing the nuclear agreement--as flawed as it is.
Remember, even under the previous administration's reading, the
administration has the ability to press back on Iran's support
for terrorism, for human rights abuses, and for missile
development. ``None of these sanctions were relieved under the
[agreement],'' in the words of the former administration.
So Iran's continuing intercontinental ballistic missile
program--whose only purpose is to carry a nuclear warhead--must
be front and center. This month's designations are a good
start. But more can be done to find and target the banks and
companies that are supplying this dangerous program aimed at
us. It also means more extraditions, more prosecutions, and
indictments of sanctions violators. This proactive approach
also means stepping up our defenses and those of our regional
partners.
Second, the administration shouldn't be shy about tackling
Iran's terror arm and that is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps. This is the group fueling the Assad regime in Syria and
this is the group responsible for the death of hundreds of
American troops. Since the Guard has been labeled Iran's ``most
powerful economic actor'' by the U.S. Treasury Department,
there are plenty of options here available. Indeed, there are
hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps affiliates that
are yet to be sanctioned--what one observer calls a
``Revolutionary Guard's Gap.'' These are the front companies
that are funding the missiles that have on the side of them,
``Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.''
These terror outfits need to be sanctioned, and the new
administration should look at ways in which companies closely
linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps--but not fully owned by
them--could be sanctioned. The threat of secondary sanctions
against those around the world dealing with these IRGC units
which even tried to carry out a terrorist attack here in
Washington, DC, to kill the Saudi Ambassador here in
Washington. Looking at this must be a priority, and it has to
be real, and it wasn't under the previous administration.
Around the region, the administration can attack Iran's
proxy Hezbollah thanks to a new law advanced by this committee.
We can focus on increased interdiction of Iranian arms
shipments to the revolutionary Houthis in Yemen, on clearer
rules of engagement, and better defense cooperation with our
partners on the front lines of the Iranian threat.
The nuclear agreement does not leave us defenseless against
Tehran's threatening behavior. Careful coordination with allies
is a must, and all along we should be clear that the choice is
with Iran to end its threatening, destabilizing behavior.
I am going to introduce our panel this morning, and then I
am going to go to Mr. Eliot Engel of New York who is the
ranking member of this committee.
On our panel we have Ms. Katherine Bauer. She is the
Blumenstein-Katz Family Fellow at The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy and previously she served in a series of
positions at the Treasury Department.
We have Mr. David Albright. He is the founder and president
of the Institute for Science and International Security. Mr.
Albright is a trained physicist and former weapons inspector.
We have Mr. Scott Modell, managing director at the Rapidan
Group and previously served for 13 years in the Central
Intelligence Agency.
And we have Dr. Andrew Exum, contributing editor at the
Atlantic and previously Dr. Exum served as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy.
Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements
are going to be made part of the record and you will be asked
to summarize if you could. The members here are going to have 5
calendar days to submit any statements or additional questions,
any extraneous material they might want to put into the record.
So we would start with Ms. Bauer, but before we do that
allow me to have the ranking member of the committee Eliot
Engel open with his opening comments.
Mr. Engel. Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman, and let me also thank our witnesses and welcome all
of you to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
At this point we all know Iran's record of provocative
actions, from ballistic missile tests to transferring weapons
to terrorist organizations and other bad actors that seek to
destabilize the region. Technically speaking, all this bad
behavior doesn't violate the nuclear deal. However, those
actions are inconsistent with U.N. Security Council Resolution
2231 which governs the implementation of the agreement.
Responsible governments around the world have an obligation to
respond.
The Trump administration imposed new sanctions against
several entities involved in Iran's ballistic missile program
and support for terrorism. And just to make sure we are all
being fair, I will mention that these designations matched
exactly the Obama administration's response over the last
several years since negotiations began.
The difference between the Trump administration's response
and the Obama administration's response was a two-word phrase,
``on notice.'' Then National Security Advisor Mike Flynn said
as a result of Iran's provocative actions the United States is
putting Iran ``on notice.'' So what does it mean exactly to put
Iran ``on notice''? How will the administration respond if Iran
tests the President again? Does the administration have a plan?
In a follow-up briefing to the ``on notice'' warning a
reporter asked what that meant. The response was, ``We are
considering what options there are and how we want to
communicate and enforce our concerns.'' That is not really a
plan. I hope that the administration will make it clear what
their plan is on Iran because surely Iran will continue its
provocative behavior.
We cannot afford a half-baked or reckless foreign policy.
Rash decisions concerning America's role in the world could
have serious consequences for American personnel and interests.
American and Iranian forces are operating in close proximity in
Iraq. Who knows what could happen if the administration doesn't
have a cohesive policy? Additionally, if this turns out to be
an empty threat, then this administration will not have done
its job. We have to really confront the Iranian threat and let
them know that we are serious about it, that we mean business.
I don't trust the Iranian Government. I didn't vote for the
Iranian deal. But the Iranian deal is now in place and I think
we have to ensure that Iran lives up to every bit of its
responsibility under that deal. Let me just say this. I look
forward to our hearing from our witnesses about what a
responsible course of action would be. Iran and the terrible
regime in Tehran is not going away and I think that if the
United States doesn't stand up to it, it will only get worse. I
believe with all my heart that everything must be done to
prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. However, looking the
other way and just tough rhetoric doesn't really cut the
mustard. We have got to make sure that Iran understands that
there are severe consequences if they continue their ways. And
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses as to what they
think our response should be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Engel. We now go
to our witnesses.
Ms. Bauer.
STATEMENT OF MS. KATHERINE BAUER, BLUMENSTEIN-KATZ FAMILY
FELLOW, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
Ms. Bauer. Good morning. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Engel and members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today to discuss the future
of U.S. policy toward Iran. My testimony will focus on the role
of sanctions and restraining Iran's malign influence in the
region and disrupting its global terrorism, money laundering,
and procurement networks. It will draw on analysis done in
conjunction with my colleagues Patrick Clawson and Matthew
Levitt at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as part
of a new study that we released earlier this week. I will
summarize key points here.
There is no doubt today that sanctions played a pivotal
role in bringing Iran to the table to negotiate constraints on
its nuclear program. Over roughly a decade, the U.S. and its
allies imposed powerful multilateral sanctions on Iran that
isolated Tehran from the international financial system and
crippled its economy.
Following implementation of the Iran nuclear deal in
January 2016 and suspension of nuclear related sanctions, the
pace of sanctions against Iran under remaining authorities
slowed. Despite assurances the United States would vigorously
press against Iranian activities outside of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Obama administration did so
only sporadically. Thus, in many ways Washington ceded the
narrative to Tehran which successfully convinced many in the
private and public sectors that in the wake of implementation
of the nuclear agreement they operate in a post sanctions
environment.
But the deal was never intended to give Iran a free pass on
its nonnuclear malevolent actions. Iran made no commitment to
cease nonnuclear malign activity and has not in fact halted it.
In the words of Abbas Araqchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister
and one of Iran's chief negotiators of the deal, ``During the
nuclear negotiations we clearly said that questions of
security, defense, ballistic missiles and our regional policies
were not negotiable and not linked to the nuclear talks.''
Sanctions remain a viable and powerful tool to confront
Iran over its nonnuclear illicit conduct. In our study we
suggest a multi-pronged approach that includes taking back the
narrative, emphasizing the sanctions that remain, and
vigorously enforcing them. Such enhanced sanctions will work
best, however, if they are proportional and accompanied by
diplomatic, military, and intelligence measures in a
coordinated campaign against Iran's destabilizing activities.
Sanctions are a tool in such a strategy, but not a strategy
unto themselves. There is a place for unilateral sanctions such
as the action taken by the Trump administration late last month
against Iranian procurement and terrorist support networks.
These actions were likely prepared under the Obama
administration, and as Congressman Engel noted they demonstrate
a bipartisan consensus on targeting Iran's malign activities.
They are also effective because banks around the world look to
the U.S. and to the OFAC list and they can be very disruptive.
As well, they lay the groundwork for other countries to follow
suit.
However, sanctions are most effective when adopted by an
international coalition. Foreign partners have long been
skeptical of U.S. unilateral sanctions when they are viewed as
being capricious. Thus, focusing on Iranian conduct that
violates international norms will be most likely to draw
multilateral support and compliance. In this manner, sanctions
can also demonstrate to Iran the benefits of accommodating
itself to the international order.
Consider the benefits that Iran has gleaned from the
nuclear deal. Oil sales and other exports are up and inflation
has stabilized. Iranian officials claim that hundreds of small
banks have already reestablished correspondent relationships
with Iran. But Iran will not be able to attract the foreign
investment it desperately needs while global banks continue to
view it as a financial pariah, and there is no reason to
believe that Iran has ceased the illicit financial conduct or
sanctions evasion conduct that underpinned the U.S. FinCEN 311
finding of Iran as a jurisdiction of Primary Money Laundering
Concern or earned Iran its place on the Financial Action Task
Force blacklist.
Previously, private sector engagement on the risks of doing
business with Iran proved incredibly effective as a tool to
restrict Iran's operating environment. Given this history, the
U.S. Government should resume such sanctions diplomacy and
engagements with private and public sector actors around the
world to highlight evidence that Iran continues to pose a
threat to the global financial system. Rather than reassuring
banks that doing business with Iran will help enshrine the
nuclear deal, U.S. Government officials at every level should
emphasize that Iran bears the onus of demonstrating its
adherence to the same requirements imposed on every other
country by reining in illicit financial activity and conforming
with international norms.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bauer follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Feel free, Mr. Albright, please.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ALBRIGHT, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Albright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and
other members of this committee for holding this hearing today
and inviting me to testify. I applaud your committee's efforts
to understand and chart a way forward on Iran policy.
I would like to limit my comments to the Iran nuclear deal
which I would like to see maintained, but the deal must be
better enforced and implemented, its nuclear conditions more
strictly interpreted, its verification improved, and its short
and long term deficiencies fixed. I have listed in my testimony
several steps to fix the weaknesses in the deal and will
discuss some of them here.
But first, I would like to talk a little bit about some of
the specific problems in the deal's implementation. As the
chairman mentioned, Iran continues to test nuclear-capable
ballistic missiles. We can argue whether this is inconsistent
with or in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231,
however, the fact of the matter is that a nuclear warhead
without a reliable delivery system is not a militarily useful
weapon. So progress on ballistic missiles today and tomorrow
represents progress toward Iran building a nuclear weapons
arsenal in the future.
The workings of the deal have been far too secret.
Moreover, the IAEA continues to under report the actual
situation on the ground. Many of the Joint Commission decisions
are questionable and I have given several examples in my
testimony. Also, so far Iran has resisted IAEA inspections of
military sites and the risk is growing that Iran is creating
no-go zones for inspectors inside Iran. Moreover, during the
JCPOA negotiations and extending for some time afterwards, the
Obama administration interfered in U.S. law enforcement
efforts. It blocked or did not process the extradition requests
and lure memos aimed at Iranians and their agents alleged of
violating U.S. trade control and sanction laws.
I would like to briefly discuss some specific steps to
ensure stricter enforcement in strengthening the JCPOA in the
short term, and I give many in my testimony. There is a need to
achieve greater transparency in IAEA access. The U.S. and its
allies should press IAEA to include greater details in its
quarterly reports to the Board of Governors. Parallel
agreements to the JCPOA should be publicly released. More
importantly, it is critical to ensure that Iran provides
guaranteed, timely IAEA access to Iranian military facilities.
It is also a priority to prevent Iran from developing an
indigenous enriched uranium fuel capability. If they do so this
would lay the basis for an expanded industrial scale centrifuge
program that would be very difficult to stop. Toward that goal,
further exemptions to the 300 kilogram enriched uranium cap
should be deferred indefinitely. There are also numerous
loopholes to the JCPOA that need to be fixed. I will mention
two here.
The Oman loophole for heavy water should be plugged. To
that end all shipments of Iranian heavy water from Oman or
other overseas storage locations should be subject to approval
by the Procurement Working Group. It is also important to
ensure that Iran is abiding by restrictions on centrifuge R&D
under the JCPOA. There are examples where they are pushing the
envelope and the pushback needs to happen.
It is also critical that Iran create and implement a
strategic trade control system that meets international
standards. As part of creating a strategic trade control regime
in Iran, the United States should also interpret the JCPOA as
stating that Iran will commit not to conduct illicit commodity
trafficking for government controlled or owned military,
missile, nuclear, or other industries and programs.
As we await that there needs to be more effective
enforcement of trading bans and sanctions. The administration
should commit to more aggressively investigate, indict, and
extradite those involved in outfitting Iran's nuclear missile
or conventional weapons programs in defiance of U.S. laws and
sanctions. The administration and its allies should step up
efforts with allies to detect, interdict, or otherwise thwart
Iran's illicit procurement efforts that violate national and
international laws.
At the same time, the United States and its allies should
take steps to better detect and block Iranian cooperation with
North Korea on ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and
conventional arms. They should also devote more intelligence
resources determining if North Korea and Iran are cooperating
on nuclear programs or transferring nuclear or nuclear related
technology, equipment, or materials.
Beyond the short term problems, the Iran deal has
fundamental long term deficiencies that need to be addressed.
Which problems to focus on and how to remedy them should be
part of an Iran policy review by the Trump administration and
Congress. Two priorities are extending the nuclear limitations
in the deal and limiting Iran's ballistic missiles. One
suggestion covering the former is to maintain a 12-month
breakout requirement forever.
Since I have run out of time let me end there. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Albright follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Mr. Modell.
STATEMENT OF MR. SCOTT MODELL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE RAPIDAN
GROUP
Mr. Modell. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, members
of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to
come back and discuss what I would call the next generation of
Iran pushback. I have testified here before and I think I am in
the consensus to say that the last 8 years has been overly
passive.
And I have pushed forward--thinking ideas that there are
ways, the tools we have and ways in which we can push back
against what we often call the Iranian Action Network that have
been overlooked and ignored as a result of an overly
accommodating policy over the last 8 years. A lot of the
recommendations I have in here are on the basis of things that
I have already seen that we have that just need to be dusted
off and sharpened, tools we have we have used in the past, ways
in which we can improve on what already exists.
But going back to the overarching theme of putting Iran
``on notice,'' I think that former National Security Adviser
Flynn did the right thing. I think there needs to be follow-up
in that regard, follow-up on what the new rules of engagement
are, follow-up in terms of making very clear to the Iranians
that escalation, we have a very clear intent of reestablishing
escalation dominance, of changing the nature of the dynamics
between the U.S. and Iranians and the Gulf in other places and
Yemen as well.
But I also don't think that we have done nearly enough to
point out the fact that while the original hostage crisis was
in 1979, there is another hostage crisis. The Iranian regime
continues to take Iranian-Americans and Canadian-Americans and
other hyphenated Iranians hostage. It has become the systematic
policy for the IRGC and for those businesses, particularly
foreign businesses that are looking to get back into Iran, I
think that needs to be part of, I guess, an overhaul of our
media offensive and making clear about the dangers and risks
not only to reputation, but literal risks of doing business in
Iran.
So I think Iran needs to be put on notice on various other
dimensions. The other thing I would say is know your customer
and do due diligence. My understanding from foreign businesses,
large multinationals that are going into Iran, is that those
requirements are actually rather easy to satisfy. I think this
committee might consider ways of enhancing those, making those
stricter, raising the bar for companies that are looking to get
back in.
The IRGC has done a very good job of cloaking itself, you
know, two or three degrees removed from the core so that
businesses, you know, can avoid that type of risk. But I think
that they are ensconced in ways that ordinary businesses don't
know and they are not being held liable to actually verify.
Corruption, I think, is the one thing that gets at the
heart of all the Iranians. To the extent that you are going to
move Iranians, channel that anger and get them to do more
inside and outside of Iran to stand up and protest, I really
think that we need to do a much better job of systematically
pointing out how deep corruption is. And I think that there are
certain ways of doing that not only by overhauling what I said,
the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and actually
returning to the day when those were tools that were part of
U.S.-Iran policy, but also on U.S. Government Web sites I think
that there needs to be putting businesses on notice as well.
I also think partners, proxies, and allies of the Iranian
Government as well need to be put on notice and there are a lot
of ways in which we can do that, and Chairman Royce mentioned
some of those in some of the war zones in which we are all
familiar. I look forward to expanding on some of these ideas,
most of which I have mentioned in my testimony. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Modell follows:]
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STATEMENT OF ANDREW EXUM, PH.D., CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE
ATLANTIC
Mr. Exum. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, thank you so
much for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. I
have been asked to present testimony on Iran and I will do so
in my capacity as the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Middle East Policy during the Obama administration.
I left the Department of Defense last month and my testimony
today was cleared by the Department to ensure what I tell you
remains at the appropriate level of classification and is as
boring as possible for the rest of you listening in, but I will
do my best to talk about things within the constraints I have
been given.
The United States has three vital interests in the Middle
East: The security of the State of Israel, countering terrorism
and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and
freedom of navigation and commerce in and around the Arabian
Peninsula which all of you know is the home to vast hydrocarbon
reserves. Iran can and does pose a threat to all of those
interests and it does so in three ways: Its nuclear program,
its buildup of conventional arms, and what we call its
asymmetric activities that support the proxies such as
Hezbollah or some of the Shia militias in Iraq.
During the Obama administration we countered Iran through
what we called our four Ps: Our posture, our plans, our
partners, and our preparedness. With respect to posture, we
have about 35,000 troops in and around the Persian Gulf alone.
We have major airbases in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. We have a
major naval base in Bahrain. And these bases and the troops
operating out of them allow us to ensure freedom of navigation
in and around the Arabian Peninsula, combat terror groups--for
many of these forces are in the skies above Iraq and Syria
right now--and deter conventional Iranian aggression against
our Gulf partners.
We maintain a robust suite of plans to respond to regional
contingencies. In my capacity at the Pentagon I reviewed these
plans. They are real, they are resourced, and our forces are
ready to execute them. Over the past three decades, meanwhile,
we have invested in our regional partnerships, specifically
building partnership capacity in our Gulf partners.
We have a long way to go, but one of the areas where we
have made the most progress, ballistic missile defense, helps
us counter Iran's build-up of conventional weapons. We also
engaged in unprecedented levels of defense and intelligence
cooperation with Israel while making available some of our most
advanced U.S.-made weapons to Gulf partners.
Finally, we have our preparedness, and we chose this word
because we needed the fourth P for people like me to remember.
But what this really stands for, the many dozens of bilateral,
unilateral, multilateral exercises we conduct on an annual
basis to help us prepare for regional contingencies.
So how are we doing? I will be blunt in my assessment and
then offer some words of advice for this new administration as
well as some words of caution for this committee. Specifically,
I will argue that this administration's strategic flirtation
with Russia is incompatible with what I assess to be its desire
to pressure and counter Iran.
First, the Department of Defense did not play a role in
negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, but the deal very much
helped the U.S. military. Despite all the sturm and drang here
in Washington and elsewhere in the summer of 2015, most
strategic planners I have spoken with both here and in the
region see the deal as offering real, positive opportunities
both for the United States and for Iran.
As you know, the Pentagon was always in charge of providing
the enforcement mechanism for U.S. policy. If Iran cheats we
will know about it, and the Pentagon is prepared to act
accordingly. From our perspective then the nuclear deal was a
pretty good deal because it constrained Iran while placing no
such constraints on us.
Iran also has some opportunities of course, and it appears
to be largely squandering them. Some optimists in the Obama
administration had hoped the nuclear negotiations would be a
way to bring Iran in from the cold, so to speak, and encourage
Iran to play a more helpful role regionally. The view of these
optimists was not universally shared within the administration.
Many of us argued within the administration and to our
allies that the reason we needed to sign a deal with Iran was
not because Iran is a benign actor but because they are a
malign actor and thus needed to be prevented from acquiring a
nuclear weapon. Iran's actions since signing the nuclear deal
have vindicated the pessimists. Iran continues a robust build-
up of conventional weapons, including what we military folks
call anti-access, area denial weapons like anti-ship cruise
missiles and air defense systems, and while I don't think our
own military commanders are losing sleep over these weapons
just yet, I know our regional partners are.
And here is my first word of caution. These weapons systems
for the most part are not indigenous to the Islamic Republic of
Iran. These are Russian weapons, sold by Russia to Iran with
the aim of constraining U.S. freedom of maneuver in
strategically important waterways and airways. Any serious
effort to counter the build-up of these Iranian capabilities
has to take Russia into account.
Iran is also continuing what I would call its asymmetric
activities. Its support to Shia and allied militia in Lebanon,
Iraq, Syria, and Yemen continues. The presence of anti-ship
cruise missiles in Yemen is especially concerning since it
threatens a key commercial waterway, the Bab al-Mandeb.
And let me be blunt again regarding the administration's
overtures to Russia. In Syria it will be exceptionally
difficult and likely impossible to reach any accommodation with
Russia and the regime in Damascus that does not end up
strengthening Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah. So
before the administration goes down that path they should
recognize that in the short term at least they are going to
embolden some of the very people they have pledged to counter
in the region. And they will embolden Iran and these groups to
the detriment of Israel's security.
In Iraq, meanwhile, the Islamic State is on a clear path to
defeat. But the long term threat to Iraq's sovereignty is both
Kurdish separatism and the Shia militia, many of them supported
by Iran, that exist only loosely affiliated with the Iraqi
state. In addition, Iraq's long term stability will be
dependent on the United States being able to keep a small
contingent of trainers and special operators in the country,
which is why the President's dismissive comments about the
Iraqi Government, his comments about how we should have taken
Iraq's oil, and his ban on Iraqis coming to the United States
have been so strategically misguided.
This all plays into a narrative of an Iran that very much
views Iraq as a zero-sum game with the United States. It has
spent millions of dollars to convince Iraqis that we have the
types of malign activities toward Iraq that the President seems
to in fact have but which few other share. If the United States
wants to push back on that it needs to do so in the President's
words and with robust diplomacy.
I would also caution this administration from trying to
push back against Iran and its proxies in Iraq right now. We
have a Sunni terrorist enemy to defeat in Iraq and our 5,000
soldiers in Iraq need to focus on them not on war with Iran's
proxies. I fought in Iraq, and as any of you who fought there
remember, Iran can make our life pretty miserable. So we don't
need that fight right now and we should sequence how we push
back on them.
Finally, a few words on Yemen. We have talked about Islamic
fundamentalism, but I am somewhat of a freedom of navigation
fundamentalist. The United States should be prepared to
robustly counter any threats to key waterways, and I am not
going to lose any sleep if a couple of Houthis die because they
made an error of firing an anti-ship cruise missile into the
Bab al-Mandeb.
I should note though that the vast, vast majority of
commercial traffic--1,400 vessels, 80 million tons on a monthly
basis--that flows through the Bab al-Mandeb is not American. It
comes from the European Union, India, China, Korea; these are
the countries that have the most at stake in any actions which
threatens shipping, and before the administration escalates a
war in Yemen it should start with some multilateral diplomacy
telling Iran, in essence, to knock it off, lest their own
commercial interests be at stake.
In conclusion, in Secretary Mattis we have a Secretary of
Defense who keenly understands the threat posed by Iran. And in
Secretary Tillerson and Gary Cohn we have, respectively, a
Secretary of State and a director of the Economic Council who
understand the centrality of market access to hydrocarbon
resources in the Gulf to the global economy.
So there is some cause for optimism that this
administration will eventually put together a coherent strategy
to counter Iran's malign activities in a way that serves U.S.
interests. But the contradictions in the administration's
strategic initiatives thus far, not to mention the alarming and
unprecedented dysfunction within the national security decision
making process, leave plenty of room for worry as well.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to go over.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Exum follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Exum. Thank you to the
panel. One of the questions that I was going to direct at Mr.
Albright concerned a portion of your testimony where you said
that the previous administration interfered in U.S. law
enforcement efforts when it came to them blocking the efforts
to arrest and convict Iranians and their agents engaged in
breaking U.S. export and sanctions laws.
One of the focuses I have is sort of reversing that policy,
especially with respect to the IRGC, but what measures can we
take to send the signal that extraditing and arresting and
convicting those that are involved in breaking our laws has to
be a priority?
Mr. Albright. Well, first thing, I think some of these
memos and extradition requests should be revisited. I mean they
still exist, some cases may still be active. I mean these are
not public cases. The other, and I must say one of the impacts
that I heard very clearly was that this in a sense interfering
in what the investigators were doing in our enforcement
agencies was discouraging, and these are hard cases to launch
and they hesitate to do more.
So I think the administration should send a very strong
signal that it fully supports these investigations and
prosecutions of these Iranian and Iranian agents.
Chairman Royce. So that would have to be through State and
so it was the State Department----
Mr. Albright. That is right.
Chairman Royce [continuing]. That put the kibosh on it.
Mr. Albright. Well, that is where they tended to die.
Chairman Royce. Yes.
Mr. Albright. So that is where they tended to die, but I
think it has to be done at the White House level.
Chairman Royce. Okay.
Mr. Albright. And to get these cases moving again, because
I think my understanding is Iran hasn't stopped its illicit
activities and it is very important to counter them.
Chairman Royce. Well, another way to counter it, and I will
go to Ms. Bauer's comment here, but I bet there would be a
tremendous ripple effect from sanctioning just one or two
European companies for transactions with the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are the main economic player in
Iran.
And I think you had a line in your testimony where you said
that the application of U.S. secondary sanctions for dealing
with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps remains a
significant risk for companies looking to reengage with Iran
and that this application of secondary sanctions has never been
done.
So another question is why not and what would the impact be
if our response now to their missile tests and maybe to General
Soleimani's trip 2 days ago to Moscow is such a robust action?
And let's push that button there.
Ms. Bauer. Thank you, Chairman. Indeed, the remaining
sanctions on the IRGC and the fact that they include secondary
sanctions risks remains a great deterrent to businesses looking
to reengage with Iran. And in fact that is one reason I think
why you haven't seen action against a European country in
particular is that they do not want to lose access to the U.S.
financial system, and so they are able to look at the OFAC list
and ensure that they don't do business with anyone on that list
or anyone who holds a 50 percent or an aggregated 50 percent
share of a business they are working with.
So they are able to do some due diligence. Where they are
not confident with the due diligence it appears that they are
not engaging. But there are things that could be done to make
it harder and to isolate the IRGC further, for example,
designating additional IRGC affiliates to make it clear to
those companies going in.
Chairman Royce. So maybe those with less than a 50 percent
ownership share but you could expand that out, or you are
saying there is affiliates out there that we haven't captured
yet?
Ms. Bauer. There are affiliates who haven't been listed.
Even those that are not listed by operation of law, companies
are restricted or could be sanctioned for doing business.
Chairman Royce. Why don't we do this on that answer. Why
don't I just ask the panel if you have ideas on that, if you
could give me some specifics, and I could just get to this
Soleimani question which I wanted to ask, because it was a
surprise to me, you know, to see him travel again to Moscow.
This is the third time he has done it, and as a matter of fact
he is there right now. And I would just ask the panel for any
creative solutions for effectively pushing back on his
continued travel.
And the thing I find most objectionable here is that he has
been, you know, fingered as the fellow behind the death of many
Americans, the one who plotted the Russian-Iranian tag team
slaughter that went on in Syria in the middle of the Iranian
negotiations. I mean there have been so much that this guy, as
head of the Qud Forces--which is in charge of assassinations
outside the country--has been responsible for, attacks across
Europe and so forth where they take out anybody perceived to be
an enemy of the regime.
I mean this is a really bloodthirsty guy. And it seems to
me that the reason he is headed to Moscow for these meetings
has got to be the ballistic missile systems or other weapons
systems that he intends to introduce into the theater. So ideas
on how to react to that? Maybe Mr. Modell, do you have a----
Mr. Modell. One of the things that I have thought and again
what I hear from Iranians all the time is why is the U.S.
Government not doing more to come up with a large matrix of all
IRGC officials that we know of, businesses that we know that
are linked, and publicize it constantly and to show their links
to corruption? I mean this isn't necessarily going to directly
address the Soleimani issue, but I think it is going to
significantly weaken the IRGC.
So when you are talking about publicizing the----
Chairman Royce. Well, I think this cuts into another point
you made in your testimony here about the need to make some
changes of the broadcasting into Iran so that yes, it is
objective but we do touch on issues that is important there. We
now have a single head of the agency who has the ability to
direct information.
And so as information spills out about corruption or
whatever that access to that information on social media and on
a platform of radio and television should be available so that
people know exactly what has happened here with respect to the
IRGC taking all of these assets usually through nationalization
and transferring them to the ownership of the Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
I need to go to Mr. Engel. My time has expired. Thank you
very much, panel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Exum, let me ask
you this. In your testimony you pointed out one way in which
Russia and Iran collaborate to destabilize the Middle East. You
mentioned that Russia provides Iran with anti-access, area
denial weapons like anti-ship cruise missiles and air defense
systems. Obviously this is very disconcerting to us and our
allies because their goal is using these weapons to inhibit
freedom of movement in strategic waterways and airways.
There have been Russian media reports that Iran and Russia
are in discussions over $10 billion in weapons. How would you
suggest the Trump administration respond to this?
Mr. Exum. Well, I think one of the things that the Trump
administration can do and then here with respect to sanctions
that defer to the sanctions experts, because I am sure that
there are aspects outside of the military lane that you can
use. I think with respect to diplomacy, I will just focus on
diplomacy and the military steps that I think he can take with
respect to diplomacy by constraining the access to waterways.
And look, these are, we don't need the oil and gas that is
coming out the Persian Gulf as much as the global markets need
them and as much as we need them for the stability of the
global economy. So it is not just the United States or the
Trump administration that has a stake in this, that has a stake
in freedom of navigation and freedom of commerce in and around
the Arabian Peninsula. I would think that you would start with
a large multilateral effort to pressure Iran on the deployment
of these weapons systems and on Russia on the sales of these
weapons systems.
From a military perspective we are already doing quite a
lot. Again I don't think that the commander of NAVCENT would
argue that his freedom of movement is in any way constrained
right now, but it is clear that we need to do two things. We
need to increase the degree to which we have ballistic and air
missile, or integrated air and missile defense systems, within
the Middle East. That includes both sales to partners and
increasing partner capacity, but it also means that our
partners in the region need to get more serious about their own
maritime capabilities. Historically, maritime capability of the
Navy has been the third of three services within most of our
Gulf militaries. They need to get serious about their own
efforts to be able to keep the waterways in and around the
Arabian Peninsula secure.
And I would defer again, like I said, to my Treasury
colleagues or my colleagues from the Washington Institute with
respect to what more we can do in terms of sanctioning those
Russian businesses or those Iranians that are purchasing these
types of weapons systems, Mr. Ranking Member.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Anybody else have comments on that?
Mr. Modell. Mr. Ranking Member, the only thing I would say
is that it is a very asymmetric process that Iran is involved
in and that includes commercial acquisition of the conventional
military stuff. Building on what Dr. Exum is saying, I think we
have not done enough to work with our allies in the region,
particularly in the GCC which is often the site of enabling
Iran to do these things, to front companies based in their own
Emirates, for instance, to develop the capabilities to work
asymmetrically in a defensive capacity. And I don't think we
are systematically oriented in that sense.
Mr. Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Albright, let me ask you this. You have criticized the
IAEA for lack of transparency in reporting and I quote you,
this is what you said: ``The IAEA reporting continues to lack
critical technical details that implementation of the
agreement. Its lack of information in the IAEA reports combined
with the secrecy surrounding the decision making of the Joint
Commission is a serious shortcoming on the implementation of
the JCPOA and erodes support for this important deal.''
Let me ask you this, what information is missing from IAEA
reporting and what information do you need to be made public?
What specific recommendations do you have for the Trump
administration and Congress to encourage more transparency so
that experts like you can better evaluate the implementation?
Mr. Albright. Well, in my testimony I gave there is a
footnote and I apologize for making a footnote. But essentially
the IAEA is not reporting on almost any of the technical
details that it used to report on--levels of enriched uranium,
controversies with Iran. I mean Iran is pushing limits of the
JCPOA. The IAEA may or may not be pushing back but it could
report on the status of that. So I would say that they are
providing very little information.
On heavy water we hear a lot, well, they are over, you
know, the cap of 130 tons by 100 kilograms, they leave out 70
tons was sent off to Oman in a kind of a clever trick that in
essence allowed Iran to be 70 tons over the cap on heavy water,
if you judge that cap by the heavy water Iran owns and
controls.
So I think that there is a lack of information inhibiting
analysis, and the lack of information is providing a false
narrative about where things are at and we need a lot more
information. Now I will say under pressure, some from Congress,
some from us, some from the media, the Joint Commission did
decide in December to start releasing its major decisions
publicly. I mean I don't think they wanted to do that but I
think that they felt the absolute need to do it. And so I think
pressure does work in this case and I think the Trump
administration should push for much more openness.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, my time is up. Thank
you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel. We go to Mr.
Rohrabacher of California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like
to thank you and the ranking member for again providing us the
information and a focus on a very significant element to our
nation's security, and so thank you both. And I would identify
myself certainly with your opening statement.
I am however, and this panel has not changed my, I don't
know if it is observation or my analysis that frankly our
policy toward Iran and the mullah regime in Iran has been
detached from reality in that it is basically wishful thinking
of the worst sort. Let me just mention about Russia and how
they have armed the mullah regime, this horrible dictatorship,
with weapons to shoot planes out of the air and take care of
that type of military threat.
Quite frankly, we are not going to invade Iran. I don't see
it even if they have a bomb we are not going to invade Iran.
Those weapons are aimed at preventing some sort of, or
countering a military threat to that regime which now has a
positive relationship with Moscow. That if we are going to get
rid of the mullah regime it won't be U.S. military personnel
with U.S. weapons going in and doing that job.
If we are going to get rid, and unfortunately all the talk
about that and all the details about every little increment in
which the Iranian mullah regime now is closer to getting a bomb
has taken us away from the real solution, the only solution
which is make sure that we deal with the people of Iran who
hate the mullahs. And you are taking focus away from that by
talking about weapons systems and this.
We need to make, while we left the Baluch who would be in
charge of the Strait of Hormuz I might add if we would support
their fight against the mullah regime. The Kurds, there are
more Kurds in Iran than there are in Iraq. The Azeris, we have
Azerbaijan right next door that is willing to help. But all of
this time, and even the Persian element were as ready to
overthrow the mullahs several years ago in this Green
Revolution and we let them go without any, even verbal, support
for their effort.
Now getting rid of the mullah regime by helping the people
of Iran is the answer. You have Persians, the MEK, I know as
everybody criticizes them because they have a checkered past,
well, they also, they have been willing to help us get rid of
the mullah regime and they have been struggling for a more
democratic government along with the other Persians who are
there. Ninety percent of the Persians don't like it. And like
you said as you would expect from a journalist to focus in on
the corruption and the repression that is going on. Well, if we
focus on that that is how we would mobilize the only real power
we have to get rid of them which is the Iranian people
themselves.
And one last note about this idea about all this focus on
how much heavy water they have and et cetera, et cetera. We
gave them $150 billion with this nonsensical treaty that we
signed with them, $150 billion were made at their disposal. How
much do you think it would cost them to buy a nuclear weapon
from Pakistan? It wouldn't cost, I bet it wouldn't even cost $1
billion. I bet they could get it for in the tens of millions,
if not $100 million. The fact is that regime with its hands on
a military capability of nuclear weapons, that is the threat.
It is the regime, it is not the weapon itself.
So I think we should quit focusing America's attention on
things that will not change the situation and make us any
safer. And again talking about how much heavy water they have
and how are they going to be able to stop them from building
their own bomb, if they want to bomb now they can afford to buy
it. And the answer is the mullahs have got to go. The mullah
regime has to leave and how we get rid of it is not through
American military operations, but instead reaching out to the
people of Iran and helping them win their freedom.
And that is, if anybody in the panel would like to spend
their time refuting that, please go right ahead. How about my
journalist friend, go right ahead.
Mr. Exum. Well, sir, first off, thank you for that. I will
be blunt. First off, you know, if it were to come to those
types of activities, and then I well know your biography, I
know your experience, you would know that the Department of
Defense, this is not within our wheelhouse so to speak. You
know, any outreach toward separatist movements is usually done
either clandestinely or overtly through diplomatic channels.
And there have, you know, certainly been examples where we have
done that.
I think with respect to, I will focus on one thing which is
the note about the dollars that Iran has. First off, you know,
Iran always has the cash on hand if they wanted to, you know,
purchase a nuclear weapon. I think--and I hate to do this, I am
putting on my Ph.D. hat now--there is a lot of academic
literature and a lot of analysis that would suggest that that
is not a really likely thing.
So if you were the Pakistanis and you sell a nuclear weapon
to somebody, first off, you lose all of the control that you
would have on that nuclear weapon and you would get all of the
blowback if it is used. So I think that threat, although it is
real and it is something that we carefully monitor, it is
something that contains a lot of risk for anybody that would
sell that.
The second thing I would say is that when it comes to money
and what the Iranians are doing in terms of the asymmetric
activities, in terms of these nefarious activities, a lot of
these things are really cheap and they didn't need the money to
keep doing this stuff. What they are doing in Yemen, what they
are doing in Syria and Iraq, it is not that expensive to begin
with.
And as we have established, if the Quds Force wants to get
a piece of the budget they are going to get a piece of the
budget. They are going to get their way and thus far they have
gotten their way with respect to I guess what we would call the
Islamic regime's discretionary spending. But, and I don't think
that the amount of money that was freed up, which is a little
less when you look at actually the liquid assets, has had much
of an effect on what Qasem Soleimani and his lieutenants are
doing in Iraq and Syria.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Brad Sherman of
California.
Mr. Sherman. The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce,
makes some interesting points and the chairman was quite
indulgent with him on time. I hope that inspires a whole new
approach.
Chairman Royce. Well, certainly with respect to Mr. Brad
Sherman it does, so thank you.
Mr. Sherman. Because I do want to deal with some of the
points he raises. But before I do that in some minds the
picture of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this regime, is the
smiling face of its foreign minister Javad Zarif--dapper,
debonair--in Geneva. The real face of this regime, the real
picture of this regime is Alan Kurdi, that 3-year-old boy on
the beach in Turkey in the Mediterranean, one of 400,000
Syrians who died as a result of the Islamic Republic's support
for the butcher in Damascus.
I for one don't think that we can excuse Russian arms sales
to Iran on the theory that we are going to achieve regime
change any time soon. We have watched the Arab Spring. We have
seen which regimes survive and which don't. Those regimes that
have 50,000 thugs willing to machine gun their own citizens
survive. Those whose army is unwilling to do that and are
confronted by their own people don't. And we have had other
panels so I want to ask this panel, I have been assured by
other panels that there are tens of thousands of Quds Force
soldiers willing to machine gun other Iranians if that is what
it takes to keep this regime in force.
The gentleman from California says that the weapons that
Russia is selling they are only defensive, it wouldn't affect
us. But of course the S300s are the anti-aircraft weapons that
make it much more difficult for Israel or even the United
States to take out this nuclear program if that becomes
necessary, and the fact that all options are on the table is
the only thing that keeps Iran from not cheating more on the
JCPOA and one of the only things that got them to sign it.
But I want to focus on the gentleman from California's idea
of buying a nuclear weapon. He mentions Pakistan, but Pakistan
might well listen to their friends in Saudi Arabia. If they
have a bomb for sale maybe they would sell it there. They are a
Middle Eastern country, or nearly one, and would be directly
affected.
I want to focus a little bit about our friends in North
Korea. The death of Kim Jong Nam illustrates that we should
never have taken North Korea off of the State Sponsors of
Terrorism list. North Korea provided the kit that was used to
create a nuclear bomb-making facility that was destroyed by
Israel, located in Syria, destroyed by Israel last decade. Do
any of our panelists have any idea how much money North Korea
got in return, not for a nuclear weapon but just a kit to build
one, technology? I am seeing four shaking heads.
But I would point out that North Korea is in need of cash.
Iran has some already loaded on pallets wrapped in cellophane.
And I know that Iran would want the indigenous capacity. I know
that they would want more than one weapon. But will any of you
comment on why has Iran not purchased a weapon from North
Korea? Knowing now that North Korea has a few more weapons than
they need to defend themselves from us, they could afford to
part with one. Mr. Albright.
Mr. Albright. Yes, I think there is worry. I mean, and a
nuclear weapon can be transferred in different ways. It doesn't
have to be a fully commissioned, workable----
Mr. Sherman. Yes, it could be just the fissile, they could
sell the fissile material, they could sell the weapon, they
could sell----
Mr. Albright. That is right. And I think there is a lot of
worry.
Mr. Sherman [continuing]. The two separately.
Mr. Albright. Yes, and I think there is a lot of worry and
I think it needs to be looked at, just what is the level of
cooperation? I mean I don't know of any credible evidence right
now saying that Iran and North Korea are cooperating on nuclear
weapons related or nuclear weapons issues, but there is a lot
of cooperation on missiles. They have common enemies. And I
think it needs to be looked at much more----
Mr. Sherman. Do any of you have an opinion on whether the
Syria-North Korea transaction of last decade would have
inevitably involved Iranian observers, advisers, or cash?
Anyone have an opinion on that?
Mr. Albright. There has been statements or some evidence
that Iran would have had some involvement in it. I was never
able to confirm direct involvement. But given the closeness of
Iran and Syria, fortunately that reactor doesn't exist anymore
and there could certainly, cooperation could----
Mr. Sherman. I am going to try to sneak in one more
question which is indulgent of the chairman, but on the comment
that we need to prevent U.S. banks from financing any aircraft
sales to Iran because that creates an incentive for U.S. banks
to come here and lobby us in favor of Iran to make sure they
get repaid.
The press reports are of discussions of a $10 billion
military hardware deal between Russia and Iran including tanks,
artillery, and aircraft. The JCPOA says Iran can't buy those
kinds of weapons without the approval of a secret, five-member
committee that operates in secret but we have a seat on that
and can veto such sales. Is there any possibility that the
United States would approve or fail to veto, any transfer of
weapons from Russia to Iran?
Mr. Albright. I don't think so. If I can say the problem is
that the ban ends after 5 years or earlier if the IAEA issues
its broader conclusion on the additional protocols. So really,
this duration issue transcends nuclear to conventional and
ballistic missile and it is something the Trump administration
is going to have to factor in strongly into its policy review
on Iran of how do we deal with these exemptions that in essence
take place in not that distant future.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. I will give one more comment and then I
will yield back. No, I will yield back.
Chairman Royce. Let's do this.
Mr. Sherman. I will yield back.
Chairman Royce. Let's get back to 5 minutes and let's start
with Steve Chabot on that from Ohio. Thanks.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you for your indulgence. As we all know,
ultimately the President became aware because most of us didn't
like or agree with the Iran deal and ended up taking action on
his own. And some would argue that the previous administration,
the Obama administration, had so much invested in the deal that
they overlooked provocative actions, overlooked, arguably, a
whole series of flagrant violations of the deal itself, and
Iran pretty much got away with murder, I think, literally in
some cases, but figuratively also.
I would just like to go down the line and see, what do you
think of what a lot of people think about this, the fact that
the administration did overlook far too much, some of those
things which you have already commented on here today, because
this was one of their great accomplishments, something some
people thought couldn't be done.
So I will start with you, Ms. Bauer.
Ms. Bauer. In terms of potential violations on the margins
of the JCPOA, I think it is important to consider proportional
responses. In my testimony there is a section where I look at
the use of proportional responses to what the previous
administration may have called ``deviations'' in terms of
compliance with the deal, but what this administration might be
more inclined to call ``violations.''
And so I think it is important to have options available
short of abrogating the deal. Those could be things like not
approving decisions that come in front of the Joint Commission
or suspending licensing, not the licenses themselves perhaps,
but suspending licensing under the agreement until such issues
are resolved.
Mr. Chabot. Mr. Albright.
Mr. Albright. I think my criticisms are fairly well known.
I thought that conditions should have been stronger in many
cases. I mean I did not support the deal despite a lobbying
effort on the part of the administration. And I had supported
publicly the JPA, but I thought there were several cases,
conditions that just weren't strong enough where I could
support them. I didn't come out against it.
I have since, with implementation, become more critical of
that. I think too many concessions were made, many more noes
should have been given rather than yeses, and I think it has
made this situation more difficult to deal with. And one of the
challenges of the Trump administration is going to be to
reverse this, and I think it is going to be challenging.
And I think the things I put in my testimony, the short
term things, are the things to do today. I mean obviously you
can't get them all, but there are a lot of opportunities to
start changing the nature of the implementation that can start
today and the U.S. has the power to do it. But I do think it is
going to be tough.
And then there is this issue of, there are these problems,
I mentioned one, and Congressman Rohrabacher in a sense is
alluding to them, that the duration is a real problem in this
agreement. I mean I wish 10 years was a long period of time in
the Middle East, but it is not. And in some sense the major
limitations of the deal start to unwind quicker than it took to
negotiate this deal, if you go back to the start point as 2003.
And so you have a real problem of how does now the
administration deal with these conditions that are going to
unwind in the future with conventional weapons, ballistic
missiles----
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Let me cut you off there because
some of us are being held to 5 minutes.
Mr. Albright. Okay, I apologize.
Mr. Chabot. Mr. Modell.
Mr. Modell. No, to a couple of things to Mr. Rohrabacher's
point, I think that the deal is actually a large setback to
those in and outside of Iran who were eager to see us to
actually do things that would lead to momentum for channeling
resistance against the regime.
And I think, you know, everything from 2009 when the Green
Movement started happening and there was a moratorium on
dealing with members of the Green Movement and actually aiding
people as they were trying to channel resentment and figure out
how to take disparate clusters of resistance and form an actual
resistance movement for the first time in 35 years at the time,
it was a tremendous failing and it was all in the interest of
ill-conceived rapprochement in the nuclear deal.
I won't comment on the nuclear deal in particular, but the
one thing I think it is important to consider is that the deal
itself--in a sense from an intel perspective or a law
enforcement perspective--was a real setback, because now
everyone is so eager to preserve the deal that we are putting
the brakes on and we are cautiously walking around the idea of
law enforcement. The verification of this still is critical.
And I think to the extent that the CIA and the intelligence
community were actually on the right path of developing better
ways of working with law enforcement--detecting, disrupting,
and dismantling counter proliferation networks--there has been
a setback to that degree. And I think now we have an uphill
climb in terms of verification and counter proliferation.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
Can Dr. Exum respond? I leave it up to you.
Mr. Exum. Mr. Chairman, with permission, could I briefly
respond?
Chairman Royce. Yes.
Mr. Exum. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. First off,
Congressman, I believe we overestimated the degree to which the
diplomatic channel we established between Secretary Kerry and
Zarif who could bear fruit outside of the nuclear negotiations.
I think we thought it could, bottom line is it didn't. They
didn't want to talk about anything except for the nuclear deal.
Second, in terms of pushing back against other things Iran
was doing, there were lots of reasons having nothing to do with
the nuclear deal why we didn't. In Syria, the President as you
all know took several options off the table in terms of what we
could do in Syria. In Iraq we had a fight against the Islamic
State to prosecute that we didn't want to endanger by pushing
back against Iran too soon. And then third, in Yemen, I don't
think the administration wanted to get drawn any deeper into
Yemen. It is actually in Yemen and specifically with respect to
the threat to freedom of navigation where I think we could have
been more aggressive and think that would have made sense.
Chairman Royce. We now go to Mr. Greg Meeks of New York.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me just say,
first of all, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to
examine our policy toward Iran. I think that this will be our
seventh full committee hearing on Iran in the past year, and I
appreciate the opportunity to understand the threat that Iran
poses to the Middle East and I know that we will have further
questions.
However, I must also say with the ongoing new
administration and President Trump's bizarre policies toward
Mr. Putin and Russia, as you have said, Mr. Chairman that
Russia has demonstrated that the hope of cooperation cannot
survive the cold calculation of his narrow interests, I would
hope that and I know that we are going to have some hearing on
Russia in a couple of weeks or so, but I hope that we have more
focus on Russia and its involvement because it seems to be
threatening our very democracy.
It has come out clearly about the Russian involvement in
our elections for the President of the United States here in
America, and Russia's involvement in France and in Germany and
those elections there. It seems to me that there is a great
threat of what Russia is doing around the world.
And being a committee that has gotten together and, you
know, I see the Senate is starting to move on that side in a
bipartisan way to start talking about where Russia is and what
Russia is doing, whether it is in Iran or other places around
the world, and what the connections are between Russia and our
current administration, because it seems as though every day
there are more ties to Russia's intelligence services that are
being discovered at the highest level of our national security
apparatus.
So I would think that this committee, and one of the things
that I do like about this committee is that we work in a
bipartisan way. That we would be the committee, since it does
not seem that anybody on the House side, and I do see some
senators on the other side of the aisle starting to talk about
doing something, but I would hope that--and I don't hear any
committee or anything being done on the House side. I know that
when we had Benghazi, et cetera, there was other committees
that stood up and did certain things at their end for
investigation.
I would hope then that the Foreign Affairs Committee in a
bipartisan way would step up and say, ``there is a threat to
our democracy,'' and we hold many hearings. In fact we could
lead Congress in coming together to say that we are going to
look into what is happening in Russia and Russia's narrow
interest in how they are affecting us here in the United States
of America.
And look at what the President's positions have been and
the people that are affiliated with him, because just recently,
just even yesterday it comes out that even during the campaign
there has been many individuals from the Trump campaign that
had some contact with Russia. And clearly when we had General
Flynn, who had to leave because of his connections with Russia.
So I think that it provides a unique opportunity for us to
have some continuous hearings on Russia, its relationship and
contact with the United States, what it is doing, what it is
not doing, its connections with the current administration.
That conversation is very important to every American whether
you are Democrat, whether you are Republican, whether you are
Independent, it is something that I think is going to the
heart.
And as the camera of history rolls it will be looking back
on what did we do in the United States Congress? What did we do
at the time that our own democracy was threatened by outside
entity? Did we fully investigate and go into it as an
independent body, a separate branch of government to make sure
that we have done everything to protect ourselves?
So, you know, it is good that we and we could even talk
about----
Chairman Royce. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Meeks. We could even talk about, and I am not going to
get a minute left, but I know we only get five.
Chairman Royce. I understand.
Mr. Meeks. We could even talk about, you know, Russia, you
know, and I think we have had some of these conversations about
Russia and its involvement with reference to Iran, of clearly,
you know, we have heard questions here today talking about
Russia providing ballistic missiles to Iran. We have talked and
heard about that had Russia, had discussions over $10 billion
in military hardware. So that is, you know, a problem to us
even as you talk about dealing with Iran.
And then when you figure out, you know, Russia and the
consequences of the U.S. and Russian cooperation which has, you
know, this administration has expressed openness to U.S.
cooperation with Russia in Syria and how does that affect us in
Iran and can you do an agreement with Russia? What is this deal
with Russia and this administration?
We have got to get to the bottom of this, and I think there
is nothing more important for us as members of the legislative
branch and the Foreign Affairs Committee for us to focus on
where, what, when, and how Russia is involved with this
administration. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Well, thank you, and I thank the gentleman
for yielding. Even before this week's events I have been
discussing with Ranking Member Engel a hearing focused on the
way in which Russia works to undermine Western democracies
including the United States, including France and Germany, and
including efforts to undermine NATO. As the intelligence
reports from January noted, they did that here. They will do it
again in the upcoming European elections in France and Germany.
So it is appropriate that we hear from experts on the
appropriate steps to be taken in response and this will
continue the critical oversight role that our committee has
played on U.S.-Russia policy. I will remind the members that we
have had hearings specifically on Russia and its aggressive
acts in the past and, after all, this is the committee that led
the way to impose sanctions on Russia. We did that after its
invasion of Ukraine. And this is the committee that has been
sounding the alarm about Russia's weaponization of information
if you go through the hearings that we have had on RT, and I
would expect that to be the first hearing we hold after next
week's recess, as I have shared with Mr. Engel.
So I appreciate the gentleman's observations and we now go
to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Chairman Royce and
Ranking Member Engel, for continuing to focus on the real and
serious threat of Iran. As recent events have indicated and as
you both have pointed out, Iran's provocative actions have not
subsided in this post nuclear deal world and in fact, in many
aspects, its illicit activity seems to have been on the rise.
Iran remains a direct threat to our national security, to our
friend and ally the democratic Jewish
State of Israel, and to the stability of the entire Middle
East.
Often lost in the discussion of the JCPOA or Iran's
ballistic missile test is how closely this all mirrors North
Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Our Middle East
Subcommittee has convened several hearings on this topic in the
last few weeks. North Korea and Iran have been suspected of
having some level of nuclear cooperation; at the very least,
Iran learned from the North Korea playbook on how to win
concessions from the West and still get its nuclear weapons.
For certain these two rogue regimes have a long history of
collaboration on ballistic missile development. Iran's latest
test was apparently a ballistic missile of North Korean origin.
This is a very dangerous alliance, we must not continue to view
Iran and North Korea as two separate tracks. We have the Iran,
North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act, INKSNA, which now
could be a valuable tool to prevent proliferation of nuclear,
radiological, chemical, or ballistic missile material to these
regimes. Unfortunately, the previous administration was
severely deficient in its reporting requirements under INKSNA.
A GAO report found that the administration was years behind in
its reporting, years behind, which had the unfortunate
consequence of delaying sanctions on proliferation activities
by Iran. By doing so, the previous administration effectively
blocked key sanctions against Iran while the nuclear
negotiations were ongoing, much to our detriment.
In order to be effective we must fully and vigorously
enforce sanctions and we must look at ways of expanding them if
we are to curb Iran's dangerous actions. This includes, Mr.
Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, rigorous enforcement of the
JCPOA and it includes reimposing some sanctions lifted by the
JCPOA that fell under more than just nonproliferation
sanctions. That is why I will introduce my Iran, North Korea,
and Syria Nonproliferation Accountability Act which will modify
the existing law and give us greater flexibility to hold these
regimes and those individuals and entities accountable for the
proliferation of their illicit activity. So I ask the panel
kindly, could you tell us a little bit more about the Iran-
North Korea nexus and what that proliferation network looks
like, especially as it relates to their ballistic missile
collaboration?
And finally, Mr. Albright, you discussed Iran repeatedly
taking advantage of loopholes and going over the threshold on
heavy water and low enriched uranium. For what purpose would
Iran need to enrich more than the alloted 300 kilogram cap on
low enriched uranium or 130 metric tons of heavy water?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member.
Mr. Albright. It is very hard to penetrate the Iran-North
Korean cooperation. I think it is better left to closed
hearings to really get into that. I mean one thing that can be
said though, and it is a little bit of an answer to an earlier
question, is I think it is very important for the United States
to sanction companies in Europe and in China that are linked to
providing goods to Iran and North Korea.
And I bring up the European side of this mainly because it
is very hard for the European countries now to do that. Their
sanctions or listing of companies can be challenged quite
easily because of the nature of their system, and I think it is
important that the U.S. sanction European and Chinese
companies.
Now in terms of taking advantage of the loopholes, and I
listed several, now why would it need to enrich more? I mean I
don't think it does. I think it just wants to push the
envelope, create precedence. It wants to undermine the
limitations of the JCPOA that were, at least from the U.S.
point of view, intended to be pretty robust on that limit. They
want to be able to justify why they would need a large gas
centrifuge program, and one of the ways they are going to try
to do it is by developing an indigenous fuel fabrication
capability that uses low enriched uranium which of course has
to be tested, you have to go above the limit to make more
enriched uranium for the test fuel.
And by doing that when the international community would
want to stop enrichment, the justification for the enrichment
would be deeply embedded in a civil nuclear argumentation
whether that is the original or the ultimate intention or not.
So I think again it is for Iran----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, sir, I am sorry, I was long-
winded and ran out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, sir. Thank you, again.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the
chairman's recitation of groundbreaking work done by this
committee on Russia and I agree with him. I guess the concern
on this side of the aisle that could easily be reassured is
moving forward. Minority wrote----
Chairman Royce. If the gentleman would yield.
Mr. Connolly. Only if he suspends my time. If you suspend
my time I am happy to yield, because you only give me 5
minutes.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Connolly, go ahead with whatever points
you want to make.
Mr. Connolly. All right. Three months ago, the minority
wrote a letter to Eliot Engel, the ranking member, asking him
to deliver it to the chairman asking for an immediate hearing
even before the inauguration on this Russia connection. We
have, to my knowledge, not received the reply.
Earlier this week, Mr. Cicilline and all of the Democrats
signed a letter asking that General Flynn be brought before
this committee so this committee can examine the foreign policy
implications of what just happened. And I certainly look
forward to an answer on that request. So I associate myself
with remarks of Mr. Meeks that moving forward that is what we
are concerned about.
And I continue to hear gratuitous slaps at the previous
administration on the subject of Iran because the agreement
wasn't all encompassing. Dr. Exum, are bilateral agreements
between us and another country, are they typically all
encompassing? Is that the record?
Mr. Exum. No, they are not. And in this case we again, this
one particularly----
Mr. Connolly. So when we sign nuclear, well, going back to
the very first nuclear test ban treaty during the Kennedy
administration with the then Soviet Union, you mean those
agreements did not address human rights violations or Jewish
immigration or Gulags or misbehavior in other parts of the
world that were causing us great grief?
Mr. Exum. Not only that, Congressman, I seem to recall that
we still faced significant conventional overmatch in the
continent of Europe.
Mr. Connolly. So, well, certainly the JCPOA has failed
though, Dr. Exum, isn't that right? I mean every single metric
set by the JCPOA has been violated by Iran or they have
cheated, and we have caught them at it, right?
Mr. Exum. Well, I think with respect to the JCPOA I think
that there is room to push back against Iran in a more robust
way, but we ought to do so with caution.
Mr. Connolly. Dr. Exum, is there a single metric they have
not reached?
Mr. Exum. I am not, I would defer to the Energy Department
and to the Department of----
Mr. Connolly. Enrichment of uranium--they reached the goal.
The Iraq production facility, plutonium reactor--they filled it
with cement. Shipping enriched material out of the country--
they did it. You know, inspections--they have done it. I mean
by all accounts they have pretty much met the metrics. Now we
have to monitor it, and I agree with my friends on the other
side of the aisle. In fact, I have introduced legislation that
would create a Helsinki-like commission to do just that so it
is hopefully removed from politics and partisanship.
But compliance obviously remains an issue, but you can't
argue that the JCPOA has been a failure. And that is why after
hearing all of the predictions for a year or more of how it
would fail and they would cheat and by the way it would
accelerate them as a nuclear power, surely you would agree that
is not what happened. They are not closer to nuclear
development today than before the JCPOA, are they?
Mr. Exum. No, that is exactly right. Now Mr. Albright may
have more to add, but as far as I----
Mr. Connolly. I only have 1 minute and 24, and I have a
feeling the chairman is going to be strict about it, so let me
talk about the Russian connection. How about we talk about the
new President.
Mr. Exum. Sure.
Mr. Connolly. And I listened with interest to your
testimony. In some ways this Russia connection makes it harder,
not easier, for us to try to deter or address Iranian behavior,
does it not?
Mr. Exum. Well, I believe it absolutely does.
Mr. Connolly. Please explicate.
Mr. Exum. Well, especially with respect to Syria, I think
we have seen many disturbing, and on the one hand the coalition
in Syria they are not as, the opposing coalition in Syria they
are not as stable as our own counter-Daesh coalition is, so
there are some fissures between the Russians and the Iranians,
for example, or between Hezbollah and the Russians.
But I am growing increasingly alarmed by the degree to
which their coalition activities in Syria have brought Russia
and Iran closer together. We have certainly seen just images on
social media of Russian Spetznosts on the ground in Syria with
Hezbollah patches on in a way that alarms us in the same way
that U.S. special operators on the ground in northeast Syria
working with Kurdish groups alarms the Turks.
And I think quite frankly we have reason to believe that
Russia's introduction and escalation in Syria in the fall of
2015 made it more difficult, not easier, to push back against
what Iran was doing in Syria and elsewhere in the region, sir.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Joe Wilson of South
Carolina.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you
and Ranking Member Eliot Engel for your bipartisan approach to
the issues that we are facing concerning Iran. I am grateful
that we had a bipartisan success in adding language to the
National Defense Authorization Act to require an analysis of
Iranian missile testing.
The Trump administration took a good first step in
designating Iranian missile proliferation networks in response
to the recent tests. More needs to be done. And for Ms. Bauer,
what are your recommendations for near and short term actions
to address Iran's ballistic missile system?
Ms. Bauer. Thank you. I think there are a lot of options to
use the existing authority. It is like the authority that was
invoked in last month's action to continue to identify
procurement networks. What is especially impactful can be
targeting those previously non-public affiliations between
commercial fronts and Iranian actors, because these front
companies need to operate, they need to appear to be legitimate
in order to procure dual use goods. They need to hold bank
accounts, and exposing this publicly can be incredibly
disruptive.
Mr. Wilson [presiding]. And I appreciate that. And of
course what they are doing violates U.N. resolutions too, so it
really is insulting in light of the Iranian nuclear deal that
everything seems to continue. In fact, Mr. Albright, apologists
for the dangerous nuclear deal claim, ``If Iran cheats, we will
know it.'' I agree with Mr. Rohrabacher earlier who said this
is wishful thinking which puts American families at risk of
attack. What is your assessment?
Mr. Albright. In the short term, with the program rolled
back quite a bit the chance of detecting cheating is pretty
good, but in the longer term I would say it is not. And that is
why it is critical to, in a sense, really deal with this issue
of access by the IAEA. Iran will have greater incentives to
cheat in the future if it now can limit the ability of the IAEA
to access.
And in the longer term, I mean I don't think this deal can
be verified after a certain number of rollbacks in the
conditions. If you are talking 10, 15 years from now, I think
it will be extremely difficult to verify this arrangement if
Iran builds up its nuclear program as it stated it is going to
build up.
Mr. Wilson. Well, to me it is such wishful thinking, the
notification, the number of days we have to provide, the fact
that there are no Americans serving on the inspection teams.
This is beyond wishful thinking. It is putting the American
families at risk.
Mr. Modell, Obama administration officials repeatedly
incorrectly testified that the dangerous nuclear agreement
would in no way impact our pressing Iran on human rights and
sanctioning those responsible for the brutal treatment of the
Iranian people. However, there have been no designations for
human rights abuses since the nuclear deal was implemented
despite continued calls from Congress to do so. What specific
steps can the new administration take to press Iran on human
rights?
Mr. Modell. First of all, in terms of the first thing is
listing individuals for human rights abuses. The second thing
though, and I have spent a great amount of time here on human
rights abuses and terrorism and the other violations of the
Iranian regime, but on human rights in particular is to use the
media tools that we are funding that we are spending millions
of dollars on every year to highlight those things and to make
it an integral part of U.S. policy pressuring the regime from
the outside.
Mr. Wilson. And I appreciate so much Mr. Rohrabacher
pointing out that the prior administration, we had such an
opportunity with the Green Revolution. I had many friends in
South Carolina, of all things, Iranian-Americans who had such
hopes for regime change to give opportunity to the
extraordinary people of the culture of Persia, to be under a
theocracy that is so debilitating and so threatening to all the
neighbors. And with two sons who served in Iraq, I know
firsthand where the IEDs came from, and anyone who has faced
that understands.
And this really follows too, something never to be
forgotten and that was the bombing of the Beirut Marine
barracks. Hundreds, 283, I believe, Americans murdered and it
was by the Iranian regime, the largest explosive device since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It should not be forgotten.
I now yield to Mr. Deutch of Florida.
Mr. Deutch. I thank the chairman. First, Mr. Modell, I want
to thank you for bringing up the issue of Iran's abduction of
Iranian-Americans and dual nationals.
I would also like to take this opportunity to note that
March 9th will mark the 10th anniversary that my constituent
Bob Levinson went missing off of Kish Island. And as I have
said at every hearing that we have had about Iran, that has to
continue to be Issue 1 in every discussion that we have with
the Iranians. There is a new administration here, and I urge
this administration just as I urged the last administration to
make this a very important priority. And I appreciate you
raising the issue.
Mr. Albright, you criticized the IAEA for a lack of
transparency. I am very concerned about that as well. My
understanding is that the new administration hasn't reached out
to the IAEA yet to discuss its monitoring of Iran. Clearly that
is a problem. They need to hear from our representatives to the
IAEA. There needs to be an exhaustive discussion with the
coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation, whom I understand
still holds that position. The administration should do that,
but I also, Mr. Chairman, would urge this committee in order to
tackle the issue of transparency to request that our
representatives to the IAEA and the coordinator come to testify
here in front of us to address specifically the transparency
issues that Mr. Albright has raised. They are very serious.
They will impact not just this deal in this year, but as Mr.
Albright rightly points out, as the deal carries on for the
remainder of its term. So Mr. Chairman, I hope that you will
consider that.
And finally, Dr. Exum, I want to just spend my remaining
couple of minutes talking to you about the ``strategic
flirtation,'' I think is how you referred to it, that this
administration has engaged in with Russia. Before getting
specifically to Russia and Iran that flirtation also takes
place as there is a Russian spy ship off of our coast and as
there is a mock attack on a U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea and
at a time when Russia has now deployed a cruise missile, and
then focus with that as background focus on Iran for a minute.
How do we engage in the ways that this administration has
seemed intent on doing with Russia while Iran has thousands of
fighters and proxies like Hezbollah fighting alongside the
Russians in Iran and as this committee and this Congress look
at additional sanctions outside of the nuclear area, Iran's
support for terrorism, for example, how do we do that in an
effective way when we are simultaneously engaged in this new
relationship with Russia that weakens our ability to do what we
need to?
Mr. Exum. Well, thank you, Congressman. I will be blunt. I
don't think you can do it. I think that--and I am unfortunately
the veteran of many weeks spent across a negotiating table with
Russians in Geneva over the last year trying to find some way
forward on the conflict in Syria. We conducted these
negotiations as Russia was enabling the destruction of East
Aleppo and the slaughter of thousands of Syrian civilians. We
did so in an effort to determine whether or not Russia might be
some sort of partner in Syria, whether they could use their
leverage over the regime, over Iran, over Hezbollah, to broker
some sort of peace in Syria.
And at the conclusion of that quite bluntly, Congressman, I
don't think that Russia necessarily has the influence over the
Syrian regime to be able to broker any type of peace. And I
think that frankly Russia and the Iranians have more common
cause than they do any strategic disagreements.
So for me again, Congressman, I just don't see the
administration's outreach toward Russia, I just don't see how
they can do that without strengthening the Iranian hand in
Syria, without strengthening the Iranian hand regionally,
without strengthening the hand of groups like Hezbollah which
pose a clear threat to the state of Israel, and without
emboldening groups like Hezbollah and these Iranian-backed PMF
that potentially pose a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq in
addition to the Iraqi state.
Mr. Deutch. I appreciate that.
Mr. Chairman, just before I yield back I would note for the
record the reason that it is so important to engage immediately
in a bipartisan investigation into the relationship between the
White House and Russia is not just because of leaks, which
seems to be the President's biggest concern, but because of the
policy implications that stretch not just to U.S., Russia, and
our discussions with our NATO allies, but all the way to Iran
and the threats against the United States and our allies in the
region that Russia may be contributing to. And with that I
yield back.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Mr. Deutch. We now yield to the
judge, Congressman Ted Poe of Texas.
Mr. Poe. I thank the chairman. I am going to talk about
Iran which is I think the basis of this hearing. Maybe we will
have a hearing on Russia at some point.
I think we gave away the farm, the mineral rights, when we
made the Iranian deal. I couldn't disagree with you more, Dr.
Exum, about the Iranian deal. It was a bad deal for the United
States. We gave them $150 billion that they should not have
gotten. I believe that money did not go to build schools and
hospitals in Iran, it went to the IRGC which runs 80 percent of
the economy, and the IRGC funds terrorist operations throughout
the world, namely with their proxy group Hezbollah.
So I want to talk about Iran not Russia, and Iran and their
status in the world today. One of you mentioned rules of
engagement, hopefully we will change the rules of engagement
with Iran. I hope that we do and we don't find ourselves in
another situation like in the last administration on January
the 10th or 12th of 2016 when two of our river command boats
surrendered to the Iranians, surrendered.
So much for the American phrase, ``Don't give up the ship.
We gave up two ships to the Iranians, and Secretary Kerry
almost apologized. We still haven't gotten the facts of that
situation. Maybe we will change the rules of engagement where
we don't allow Iranians to capture our ships without a fight
over in that part of the world.
But I want to talk about the IRGC. Do you think that the
IRGC has planned and executed terrorist attacks throughout the
world including against Americans, Mr. Modell?
Mr. Modell. Thank you for the questions, Congressman. I
don't that there is any doubt whatsoever that the IRGC,
particularly the Quds Force, has planned terrorist activities
against the U.S. and U.S forces, U.S. persons, and its allies
around the world. I think between 2012 and 2015, there were at
least 30 such activities that were in some way traced back to
the IRGC. So I don't think that there is any doubt about that
whatsoever.
Mr. Poe. Does the IRGC have training camps in Iran that
train other people from other parts of the world in terrorist
activities?
Mr. Modell. I think the publicly available information
would point you to Iranian sponsored and run training camps in
southern Lebanon. Are there training camps in Iran? I think
that is probably meant for discussion in a more private
setting.
Mr. Poe. Well, how about in South America? How about South
America, can you answer that question?
Mr. Modell. South America, beyond the rumors of Iranian
training camps in Margarita Island and certain parts of
Venezuela I have not heard of anything. I have heard of Iranian
outreach in various nefarious ways to certain groups in Latin
America, but the links between for instance the Vice President
of Venezuela and Iran have been long discussed and long, there
has been a lot of speculation about links therein to terrorism
and destabilizing activity----
Mr. Poe. How about the Iranian sponsor of Hezbollah in
Syria and Lebanon?
Mr. Modell. I don't think there is any doubt about that.
Mr. Poe. That it happens. I mean they sponsor the terrorist
group Hezbollah.
Mr. Modell. Not only do they sponsor the terrorist group
Hezbollah, but I can tell you when Syria began in full force
and Iran really started to take a leading role, Hezbollah
actually put up some resistance and said we are not sure that
we really want to become embroiled in this, and the Iranians
strong-armed them and said yeah, you are going to do that. So
it is not a matter of Iran supporting or sponsoring them, it is
about them controlling them to a large extent.
Mr. Poe. Do you think that the IRGC based on their
activities worldwide and their sponsorship of terrorism should
be back on the list or on the list as a sponsor of terrorism,
that the Treasury Department should designate them as a
terrorist organization? Just want your opinion.
Mr. Modell. In my opinion, I don't think so. I don't think
so. I think that there are certain parts of the IRGC that
should be and the Quds Force. I don't think that the original
purpose of the designations for foreign terrorist organizations
were meant for entire militaries, and that is essentially what
the IRGC is. I think it is overreach and I think, actually I
don't think it will have much of an impact.
Mr. Poe. I am not asking for a foreign terrorist
organization designation, I am asking if you think that the
Treasury Department under their power should designate it as a
terrorist organization. It is a different designation.
Mr. Modell. Treasury designating the IRGC as a terrorist
organization makes sense just given the depth of IRGC
involvement in all facets of Iranian terrorism, so yes, in that
regard it is. It would be sensible, yes.
Mr. Poe. I am out of time, I yield back. Thank you very
much.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Cicilline of Rhode Island.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for calling this hearing. Now more than ever the United States
must show the world that we are serious about holding Iran to
account and enforcing the JCPOA as well as examining Iran's
destabilizing activities around the world. But it is impossible
to talk about Iran and not talk about Russia, particularly when
you consider Russia's blocking of sanctions against Iran at the
U.N., and Russia's support of Iranian activities in Syria.
But I fear that we are at a disadvantage when we have a
President who seems unable and unwilling to stand up to
Vladimir Putin, Iran's biggest supporter and patron. As the
body in the House responsible for our foreign policy it is
incumbent upon us to examine the very real consequences of
President Trump's pivot toward Russia and what that means for
our national security, our relationships with allies, and the
function of our own Government.
Mr. Chairman, it has been 8 months since we had a full
committee hearing on Russia. I believe we are long overdue, and
we must have witnesses from the administration appear before us
and give a full and honest accounting of what their plans are
for dealing with this unprecedented Russian aggression and
meddling in the United States.
Moreover, as the body tasked with oversight of our foreign
diplomacy apparatus, we absolutely must require General Michael
Flynn to appear before this committee and answer truthfully
about what his relationship and contacts were with Russian
officials before and during his tenure as national security
adviser. The issue impacts the United States' relationship with
our friends and foes around the world. If we cannot be an
honest broker in our dealings with Russia we lose credibility
everywhere.
And that is why 19 of my colleagues on this committee and I
sent you a letter asking that we have Michael Flynn testify
before this committee as soon as possible. I ask unanimous
consent that a copy of this letter be entered into the record.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
Mr. Cicilline. This request is made in the context of the
following facts: Unprecedented Russian interference in our
elections directed by Vladimir Putin to help elect Donald Trump
as concluded by 17 intelligence agencies; a sophisticated plan
of hacking, fake news, and a sophisticated use of propaganda;
repeated contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians
during the course of the campaign. Three members of President
Trump's inner circle--Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and now
Michael Flynn--have had to leave the inner circle because of
their ties to Russian officials. Secret conversations between
the national security adviser and the Russian Ambassador, then
Michael Flynn lied to the American people, lied to the Vice
President of the United States, and denied those conversations,
those conversations happening right on the day that sanctions
were imposed for interfering with the American Presidential
elections.
At the same time, Sally Yates, the acting attorney general,
brought that information to the attention of the White House
counsel and she concluded that he was a compromised individual
who could be blackmailed by the Russians. What did they do?
Shortly thereafter Sally Yates is fired, Michael Flynn stays in
place for 17 days with full access to classified information
continuing all of his responsibilities as a national security
adviser.
This is in the context of a President who is bellicose and
fighting with all of our allies--Mexico, Australia as two most
recent examples--but has showered praise on the brutal dictator
Vladimir Putin. He maligns our intelligence professionals,
compares them to Nazi Germany, and at the same time we learn
that Michael Flynn has appeared at a celebration of RT, the
single most powerful Russian propaganda machine, and the
President has refused to answer questions about his investments
or financial dealings in Russia or to produce his tax returns.
Then we learn his son at a real estate conference in 2008
said, and I quote, ``Russians make up a pretty disproportionate
cross section of a lot of our assets.'' And then he went on to
say, ``We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.''
Mr. Chairman, I don't know what else we need to see to
fulfill our responsibilities to get to the bottom of this,
because we can't have a real conversation about foreign policy
or the implications of our relationships with Russia, with
Iran, with the rest of the world until we get to the bottom of
this.
And so while I am anxious to have a conversation about Iran
and anxious to have a conversation about the JCPOA, I am
imploring this committee, Republicans and Democrats, to put
your country before party to bring these issues before this
committee so we can get to the bottom of this. The American
people expect nothing less, and I urge all the members of this
committee to join those who have already asked for these
hearings, because the American people are watching this and
they cannot believe that there hasn't been a bipartisan effort
in the House of Representatives to get to what has been
unprecedented interference in our democratic institutions, that
the sanctity of our democracy, our ability to defend our very
way of life is at stake.
And so I don't have a question for this panel. I thank you
for your testimony, but I think this gets to the heart of our
ability to continue to be a beacon to the world, a place of
democracy, of self government, where foreign governments have
no role in helping to pick our leaders or interfering with
policies that we implement in America. And I thank you and I
yield back my remaining 2 seconds.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk about
the issue at hand, but I, as you know, simply can't just let
the statements of the past remain on their own without
correcting the record.
And as long as credibility has been brought up especially
by the other side of the aisle, for my whole life, for
literally my entire life, I have watched many of my friends on
the other side of the aisle or that side of the aisle sidle up
to and speak glowingly of horrible dictators like Fidel Castro
and----
Chairman Royce. Will the gentleman yield for a minute? Just
in the interest of comity maybe let me make this point. Mr.
Engel and I have already indicated that the first hearing we
are going to do is on this issue after the recess when we come
back. So for the members here what I would just urge is that we
have a panel of experts before us and if we can stay focused on
the issue at hand I think that will allow us, especially with
the time and effort and expertise that these four individuals
have put into studying this problem, allow us to come to some
solutions which this committee can then push.
In the meantime, we can prepare for the upcoming hearing in
2 weeks and we are to deal with the issue, an issue which we
have long dealt with on this committee, but I would just urge
that from members on both sides of the aisle so that we can get
back on topic on something that is quite a challenge. And then
in 2 weeks we will continue with the good work of this
committee and hopefully in a bipartisan way. And with that I
will yield back to General Perry.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
indulgence and I will bring this back home as quickly as I can.
I would just point to at least most recently discounting all of
my life in watching what I saw. Most recently, regarding Iran
and Russia, the Obama administration failed to follow the law
and sanction Russia for the sale of the S300 missile system and
various other weapons system, aircraft, armored vehicles, et
cetera--nary a word. Not a word. Russia invades Crimea--
nothing. Nothing from that side. The full outrage and concern
is what it is, and I would say this as an old soldier.
Mr. Deutch. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Perry. I will not yield. I just want to say this is
complementary fashion, in complementary fashion, and it doesn't
apply to everybody. It doesn't apply to everybody. But in
complementary fashion, welcome to the war. With that Dr. Exum,
thank you for your service to the country.
I would also like to refer to the remarks of the gentleman
from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, while we discuss the margin,
the marginal errors of the agreement or of Iran's actions, the
small infractions, whether it is low enriched uranium, heavy
water stockpiling, ballistic missile activities, the purchase
of conventional weapons, et cetera, I don't think there is any
doubt in the room or around the world that in some fashion 10
or 15 years from now Iran is going to be a nuclear armed with
delivery capability nation. That is who they are going to be.
That is what they are going to be and we are going to deal with
that somehow.
And I would also say in agreement with Mr. Rohrabacher, we
are not going to go to war with Iran. That is not going to
happen. I think the deal is horrible, I always have. It is what
it is and we have got to find a way to move forward.
I just want to follow up with you, Mr. Modell, with where
Mr. Poe is headed because I was headed there already. What are
the ramifications of listing the IRGC as a foreign terrorist
organization with specific ties to how Treasury treats their
transactions and the permutations of the IRGC and those
transactions with other countries, other entities? What are the
ramifications if that were to happen? You said you didn't think
there would be any, it would be marginal. Can you elaborate on
that?
Mr. Modell. Let me elaborate on that. The part that I think
would be not marginal at all would be as it would serve as a
significant deterrent to foreign businesses who were looking to
get into Iran. So the extent that we can declare them as a
foreign terrorist organization by Treasury or by having the
State Department continue to add the individuals to the lists
that exist, Magnitsky List type of sanctions where we are
pointing out corruption and we are actually saying the IRGC's
massive commercial enterprise, buyer beware.
So to a large extent the recovery of Iran's economy, the
ability of foreign businesses to go in there and actually
conduct transactions would be impacted. So perhaps I misspoke,
but I think there would be a significant impact economically
when you think about the extent to which the IRGC has control
over significant sectors of the Iranian economy and to the
extent to which such a declaration would probably cause a lot
more heartburn among companies that are looking to get in.
Companies that I speak to right now in a private sector
capacity--large oil companies, Europeans, multinationals who
are looking--the one thing that they ask is say, hey, you guys
are based in Washington, DC. We have done a lot of due
diligence, we think there is a way we can make a lot of money
in Iran, however, there is still this black cloud of sanctions,
we don't know where the U.S. is going to go. It is a
significant deterrent even when the lawyers have signed off on
it and even when people in leading European companies are ready
to go back in.
So those types of things give people real pause. So I would
stand corrected and say it would have a significant impact.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. I would remind all members that
House Rule 17 and committee decorum requires us to confine our
remarks to the issues under discussion and to avoid discussion
of personality.
And we now go to Dina Titus of Nevada. Thank you.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Exum, in your testimony you talk about the four Ps
strategy that you followed when you were at the Defense
Department under the Obama administration--posture, plans,
partners, and preparedness. Well, it seems to me under this
administration our posture has become negative and hostile, our
plans are nonexistent, our partners have all been alienated,
and our preparedness is just a state of uncertainty.
We have also heard President Trump when the Iranians circle
our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make
gestures at our people they shouldn't be allowed to make, they
will be shot out of the water. We heard this confirmed by one
of the members of this committee earlier who was calling for
virtual combat on the Gulf coast. We also heard President Trump
tell the leadership of Harley Davidson that nothing is off the
table when responding to questions about Iran.
Would you just address how this new approach, all this
saber rattling is affecting not only our relationship with
Iran, but with the other neighbors and potential partners in
that part of the world?
Mr. Exum. Thank you, Congresswoman, for allowing me to
address this question. It is a good one. I think for me what
worries me most about this current administration, and as I
said in my opening statement, I think there are individuals in
this administration, Secretary Mattis for example, who come to
this administration with deep knowledge of the threat that is
posed by Iran as well as the threat to our own troops and our
other various equities within the Middle East, and so I have
certain faith in certain individuals in this administration.
The two things that worry me, Congresswoman, are first off
sequencing. Strategy is often about prioritization and
sequencing. And I see some individuals within this
administration really eager to pick a fight with Iran. And I
think we need to be very careful about how and when we do that
if we elect to do that.
Right now we still have a lot of hard fighting in Iraq, for
example. We have cleared, with our Iraqi partners, to be clear,
have cleared eastern part of Mosul. To clear western Mosul is
going to take several, many more months. The Middle Euphrates
River Valley still has a significant presence of the Islamic
State, and we need to remain focused on that at hand. And I
sense within this administration that there are some voices who
are so eager to confront Iran that they may not have thought
through how exactly they sequence it or what prioritization
they are putting into place.
The second thing, and this is really I think the big
concern is just the uncertainty within this administration. I
don't think that I will surprise anybody here on either side of
the aisle by saying that the upheavals we have seen within this
administration over the past few weeks have been unprecedented
both in terms of personnel, to include the dismissal of the
national security adviser, to also include some of the ways in
which we have alienated some of our key partners such as--I
mean I thought it would take some great effort to offend
Australia, but we managed to accomplish it in the first 2 weeks
of this administration.
And they are a key partner. They followed us in Vietnam,
they are active with us off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula
in terms of maritime patrols. We depend on these partners to
not only defeat Daesh but also to push back against the threat,
the very real threat that my colleagues on this table as well
the members of this committee have highlighted in terms of
Iran's asymmetric activities.
You know, when we interdict weapons shipments off of the
coast of Yemen, for example, it is often not U.S. forces who do
this. It is often our partner forces that do this. We need
those partners, and right now there is a great deal of
uncertainty, I think, among many of them in terms of the
strategic direction of this administration in terms of who can
speak for this administration, and it is worrying to me both as
a former official, but also quite frankly just as an American
citizen testifying before this committee today, ma'am.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Albright.
Mr. Albright. I would like to add I am not part of the
administration in any way, but I don't, and there may be some
voices trying to pick a fight with Iran, but I don't think they
are trying to pick a fight with Iran. I think they are, even
with this idea of putting Iran on notice, I mean they, Flynn
made clear that they want to have a policy review. They don't
have people in place and they need to do a lot of recruitment,
but I think, overall I think they are moving ahead rather
deliberately. But Iran does things and they have to respond.
Ms. Titus. Do you think we can have it both ways? We can be
cozy with Russia and tough on Iran at the same time?
Mr. Albright. On the Russian issue, Iran is----
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Albright. Okay.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Thomas Garrett
of Virginia.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Garrett, let's get that microphone
closer and make sure you have the red button on.
Mr. Garrett. Do I get my 10 seconds back? Just kidding.
Anybody studying the region with any sort of objectivity
understands that the IRGC is the fulcrum of power in Iran. The
2009 uprising failed, I believe, in large part due to what Mr.
Sherman, my colleague from California, referenced as a
willingness of individuals to level firearms at their fellow
citizens. And it wasn't obviously just the IRGC, but subsidiary
elements such as the Quds Force thereof. And so if we are
attempting to ensure better outcomes in Iran, I think we should
focus our efforts on the IRGC. I am not sure if it was Mr.
Rohrabacher or Mr. Perry who initially commented on, and
actually I think it was Mr. Poe who originally commented on
potentially extending the Treasury Department's OFAC controls
to implement actions wherein they would treat the IRGC as a
sponsor of terror, but I can't think of a good reason not to do
this except that as I understand it the JCPOA instructed a lot
of the restrictions, a lot of the sanctions that have been
placed on the IRGC, to be lifted, which seems to me to be
counter to American policy in any number of arenas.
Number one, the previous administration's failure to act in
2015 after the Russians waited 5 years to complete the sale of
S300 missiles to Iran created a circumstance wherein if you
understand the capabilities of the S300 platform, any
generation 4 aircraft carrier based aircraft really can't take
off in the Persian Gulf safely. That is just the reality. And
so we have no Gen-5 assets, F-35 comments withheld, in that
capable range.
And truly I read where we have ``a robust suite of plans
that are real, resourced, and our forces are ready to execute
them,'' and I wonder if we do, particularly in a world where if
we had executed a strike with simply F-22s and B-2s, we have
about what, 10 operational platforms of the latter.
So if we wanted to act we couldn't, we know the fulcrum of
power in Iran is the IRGC, and we are hamstrung by a JCPOA that
doesn't let us attack the fulcrum of power metaphorically, not
literally, the IRGC. And it is hard for me to fathom having
worn a uniform and knowing Ranger Exum--I use that because it
is more impressive than Doctor--and Mr. Perry, fought alongside
and served alongside some of the 500 American service members
who we estimate were killed by IEDs manufactured by the IRGC
and their subsidiaries, which goes beyond the 283 Americans who
died in Beirut. And I could keep going, Lebanon, the Khobar
Towers, a plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador here on this
soil.
So if we want a better outcome in Iran I would submit that
we need to function in a way that we could penalize the IRGC
which will then destabilize the regime because the guns are
what keep the mullahs in power. Having said that I would ask,
and I don't have a ton of time left, if anybody can tell me if
when we do things like send 400 million unmarked euros at a
time when it would correlate to the release of foreign held
dual citizens--whether it was ransom or not, the optics are
bad, right--if that doesn't encourage the same sort of bad
behavior? And I would point to similar activities undertaken
not just in the Sudan and North Korea subsequent and precedent
to that but also in Iran. Here are your foreign nationals back,
we have our 400 million, we now have some more people.
So I guess, you know, we have what, U.S. citizens and legal
permanent residents to the tune of ten, eight plus two, I
think, held in Iran now, and for us to negotiate in good faith
I would argue is a betrayal of these folks, of my oath to
defend the Constitution and the citizens of the nation that it
rules over and how can we do that?
I mean why not just cut off all activities in any
nonmilitary way that we can with the fulcrum of power in Iran
and refuse to do business with those who do business with these
folks and let them choose between economic activities with the
United States or with Iran? I think I know which way they would
make those choices.
So I guess this is a really convoluted compound question,
but doesn't the JCPOA really hamstring us from attacking
metaphorically, not literally, the axis of power, the fulcrum
of power in Iran, the IRGC, by virtue of the elements therein,
and therefore doesn't it actually serve to perpetuate the
existence of the regime?
Mr. Modell. Sorry, you just got picked at random.
Mr. Modell. No, Congressman Garrett, I couldn't agree more.
I think that if you are going to actually do the things that
Congressman Rohrabacher was talking about and some of things
that I mentioned in my testimony--that is weakening the IRGC--
you have to focus on that.
And I think the existence of this regime depends on the
existence of the IRGC. They are at the center of everything.
For them to control 25 to 50 percent of the economy and not to
be held accountable or for businesses not to be held to a
higher standard before doing business over there, and I think
quite frankly the hurdles are way too low, you are actually
contributing to the perpetuation of a regime that is
fundamentally against us in every way.
Mr. Garrett. Right. And Mr. Chairman, I know I am over a
bit. Did we not with the JCPOA seek to essentially see
hopefully regime change through a more moderate regime before
the Iranians hit that nuclear threshold? That is really the
goal, right? Give us time and if there is a change in the
power, but if we don't hit that fulcrum of power there will be
no regime change. Mr. Albright?
Mr. Albright. Yes. Well, that was some of the talking
points. I am not sure the negotiators necessarily believe that,
but in a sense they were asking to kick the can down the road
and they did.
And on your question on the IRGC I think the impact on the
JCPOA is do we lose the Europeans or not. I mean that is
really, and so I think the issue for the administration is they
are going to have to get out there and manage the relationship
with the Europeans so if they do decide to move forward on
listing the IRGC under the executive order as a terrorist
organization that they don't lose the Europeans, because
certainly it is their business that will be affected.
But I think it can be done, but it certainly, the
administration has to get out there and talk to them. The
Europeans have made it clear that this upsets them, but I think
that it can be managed.
Ms. Bauer. Excuse me, if you would indulge me for just a
moment. I think that you are right that sanctions diplomacy is
very important.
Chairman Royce. I am afraid time is expired, but we are
going to let you put that in writing.
Ms. Bauer. Okay.
Chairman Royce. Let's see, Brad Schneider of Illinois.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me just
start by thanking the witnesses for your testimony here today
and your service to our country and your work across time on
this particularly important issue.
Ms. Bauer, I want to emphasize what you talked about in
your testimony. I think the three points you made are worth
repeating. One, the necessity of taking back the narrative, the
need to emphasize the sanctions that are still in place and to
enforce those sanctions rigorously, vigorously to the greatest
extent possible.
You said in your testimony that sanctions are most
effective when they are adopted by international community, the
international coalition. My question, and I leave this question
with the whole panel, what are the challenges to maintaining,
if not strengthening, international support for sanctions and
the opportunities to bring increasing bite to the sanctions in
place and potential sanctions against Iran's activities not
just around ballistic missiles but human rights and their
activity in conventional weapons throughout the region?
Ms. Bauer. Thank you. I think that one of the challenges to
increasing the bite of sanctions and to rebuilding this
multilateral coalition that we had before is that it does
largely come down to the Europeans and the view in Europe that
an important part of their dialogue with Iran is the commercial
dialogue. But they are divided on this point and they in fact
do maintain sanctions on the IRGC in Europe under their human
rights authorities and they maintain sanctions on Hezbollah's
military wing. So they are divided on this issue.
I think what is important going forward from the U.S.
perspective in more vigorously enforcing the sanctions we have
is that we continue to do those based on conduct, because that
will be, continuing to emphasize the ways in which Iran
violates international norms will be something that will be
helpful in rebuilding a multilateral coalition.
Mr. Schneider. Mr. Albright, you said with the last
question that there is a question, do we lose the Europeans?
What steps would increase that likelihood, what steps should we
be taking to make sure that we don't lose the Europeans in
enforcing sanctions?
Mr. Albright. Yes, I think it, and this would reflect just
visits in Europe. I mean this when they will say, and maybe it
is just the optics of it, the additional signal, but they will
say that this would end business between European companies and
Iran. I understand what Ms. Bauer said and I would actually
defer to her, but what I clearly heard was that there is
something going on here that this other designation would cause
companies to pull back.
And maybe it is not true. Maybe that will be part of the
management is that they should be more careful in the first
place based on having these sanctions in the IRGC. But I do
think that the administration has to get out there and start
discussing these things with them and not just hope for the
best.
Mr. Schneider. I will continue down the panel. Mr. Modell,
you are nodding.
Mr. Modell. No, I would just second that. I would say that
we talk to companies all the time that, you know, have signed
MOUs and they are on the verge of actually making the leap into
Iran and there still is a real fundamental lack of clarity on
their part as to what they can and cannot do. Treasury does a
great job of laying out some of the dos and don'ts, and there
is U.S. Government Web sites where you can go and see what you
can and can't do in the sanctions.
But really quite frankly it is cumbersome and it is a lot
to get through. There is no nice easy dos and don'ts list for
companies. I think there has to be a media offensive that
reminds companies of the dangers of doing it. And quite
frankly, a lot of companies have gone in there and tripped and
fallen and have reputational risk.
There should be some sort of a list, consumer report, some
U.S. Government sponsored Web site that actually details bad
experiences that companies have had in going in there so that
other companies can reach out and say wait a minute, maybe we
ought to think about that sounding board, consumer reports if
you will. But a lot of companies have experiences that we
should exhibiting.
Mr. Schneider. Dr. Exum, I don't want to leave you out.
Mr. Exum. Well, sanctions is not my specialty and I plead
ignorance. I defer to the expertise of the other panelists.
Mr. Schneider. Well, thank you. I have just a little bit of
time left, but I think, and I had raised these concerns when
the JCPOA was announced the need to make sure that Iran cannot
get any closer to a nuclear weapon during the time frame of the
JCPOA or any time thereafter and indeed make it clear that U.S.
policy is Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. And with that
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. I thank the gentleman, and we go to Mr. Ted
Lieu of California.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. Let me first thank Chairman Royce and
Ranking Member Engel for agreeing to have the next hearing be
on Russia. I think we all appreciate that. And thank you to the
panelists for being here, for your expertise and thank you, Dr.
Exum, for your military service.
As you know, Iran is involved in Syria, as is Russia, and
there are two news agencies, CNN and Reuters, reporting that
the Pentagon is considering sending U.S. conventional ground
forces to Syria. That would significantly alter our military
footprint and operations in Syria. I think it is a very, very
bad idea.
The Trump administration has not laid out a plan for what
they would do there. They have not set out objectives they
would want them to achieve. The Trump administration has not
explained who they would support in Syria nor how long they
would be there. I would like to ask each of you, do any of you
think it would be a good idea to send our women and men of our
military in harm's way into Syria? And let me start with Dr.
Exum.
Mr. Exum. So, Congressman, you are asking all the right
questions. If I could be so honest, I think that we would like
to know a lot more about what these soldiers would be doing. I
think we would want to know who they would be. I don't think, I
mean you followed this conflict closely. You know that our
overall strategy against the Islamic State has been by, with,
and through local partners. So we have had forces on the ground
in Iraq and Syria to the degree that they would enable local
partners.
The strategic dilemma that this administration faces
specifically as it wants to go on Raqqa is whether or not you
can push on Raqqa without arming and training the YPG. Doing so
would put at risk our relationship with a NATO ally in Turkey,
and I think that is what this administration is wrestling with.
We made the decision when we constructed the strategy to
counter the Islamic State which had buy-in from not only the
civilians in the Pentagon but also all the uniforms as well
that working by, with, and through local partners would make
more sense, first off, because many of us are Iraq veterans and
we know that the Iraq war cost roughly almost 5,000 U.S. lives.
I think during my tenure at the Department of Defense the
way in which we waged the conflict cost five, the loss of five
U.S. servicemen. It is also less expensive in terms of
monetarily. But more important than that strategically the
logic is it is more sustainable on the ground. Yes, it is
messier. Yes, it takes more time. But if local groups have a
buy-in to the fight they have a buy-in to the victory and that
is something that didn't happen after we defeated the
insurgency in Iraq in 2007-2008.
To get back to your question, deviating from by, with, and
through could potentially, you know, I would caution the
administration from deploying the 82nd Airborne on the ground
in northeastern Syria. I believe that would be a mistake. I
believe it would be costly not just in terms of money but in
terms of lives. If by contrast you are talking about limited
conventional forces to help you breach the outer defenses of
Raqqa in a way that might mean that you don't have to arm the
YPG to the extent that would really inflame the relationship
with Turkey, if that is what they are talking about that is
something different.
So Congressman, I think you are asking all the right
questions. If I am in the position of the Pentagon right now, I
am really weighing those options and trying to think about, you
know, which forces you are really talking about. So it all
depends on kind of the forces that they are talking about.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. So the other panelists, you don't have
to answer unless you think it is a good idea to send a lot of
ground troops into Syria. Do any of you think it is a good
idea?
Mr. Exum. No.
Mr. Lieu. All right. So I have limited time. I wanted to
talk about Yemen, Doctor, as you have mentioned Yemen. As you
know, Iran is involved there.
Mr. Exum. That is right.
Mr. Lieu. I don't have any problem with freedom of
navigation. What I have a problem with is the United States, we
are refueling a Saudi-led coalition of aircraft that drop bombs
in Yemen and we don't have any idea where they drop them. That
has been told to us. I have gone to briefings, and we don't
know.
And it turns out that there has been multiple airstrikes on
civilians. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have
documented over 70 unlawful airstrikes on wedding parties, on a
Doctors Without Borders hospital, on schools; children, women,
civilians are being slaughtered. These look like war crimes,
and U.S. military should not be aiding and abetting war crimes.
And what I want to know, Dr. Exum, is sort of your view on that
issue.
Mr. Exum. So Congressman, you put your finger on why I
think the last administration was reluctant to get deeper
involved in the conflict in Yemen. I think in some ways the
last administration, to put it crudely, tried to be half
pregnant. There is a strategic argument to be made for if you
are going to get involved in the conflict then help the Saudis
and the Emirates and their coalition win and help them win in a
way that is compliant with the laws of armed conflict and that
allows you to have some influence over the way they are
involved, or you completely step away and you say that we can't
be involved with this conflict.
I think we tried to find a middle ground and I think that
is where that led to some of the confusion and some of the
problems. I will say however that we do have adversaries in
Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for example, the
Islamic State in Yemen where it might make sense to partner
with some of our forces on the ground, or some of our partners,
the Emirates, for example, who are kind of a cut above the
other Gulf forces in terms of their competence, and there it
might make sense to partner with them.
Against threats to freedom of navigation that is something
like I said, I think it is a U.S. interest. I also think it is
a huge interest for the Europeans, for India, for South Korea,
for anybody pushing shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb, and so
there should be a concerted diplomatic effort to pressure the
Iranians with respect to the presence of some anti-ship cruise
missiles in Yemen, and if necessary there should also be a
kinetic response, because that is a point where that has always
been a key U.S. interest for 50 years in terms of freedom of
navigation and commerce around the Arabian Peninsula, and I
think you would want to take a hard stand there.
But I take your points regarding the broader conflict and I
think it is one, it was a key topic of debate within the Obama
administration, sir.
Chairman Royce. Well, thank you. Thank you. We want to
thank again our panel. We appreciate the time of our witnesses
today and especially, you know, this focus of what we do in the
light of Iran's continued ballistic missile program and its
continued transfer of missiles to Hezbollah and the other
activities in the region that are threatening to the countries
in the region. And as Ms. Bauer observed we should start, I
think, with the premise that on these violations Iran gets no
special pass.
And we look forward to continuing to work with each of you
in terms of the challenges ahead, so thank you, and with that
we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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