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Dan Kurtzer, now with Princeton University, where he's Professor of Middle East Policy, is former US Ambassador to Israel and has been in the room for talks like the ones we're describing today in Geneva. Mister ambassador, welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. It's great to have you. Do you share the optimism of the UK Foreign Minister when it comes to these talks today in Geneva.
Well, there's no basis to be optimistic unless they've heard something from the Iranians that they'll communicate to the President. What they need to hear, and what the President would need to hear is that the Iranians are ready to come back to the talks and understand that they will have to give up Enrichmond on the Iranian soil. If the Europeans can produce that kind of a commitment, then the President can talk to Nitanyahu about holding up a
little bit and giving diplomacy a chance. But otherwise, aspirations are nice, but we're really far down the road beyond simply hope.
Well, you hear the phrase unfettered access and it brings you back to the nuclear deal with Iran in two years long before that, and even to Iraq. You remember how this goes with weapons inspectors, and it's typically not to meet expectations. With Iran, They've turned back on a number of promises before. Why would this time be any different?
Well, the reality is that in twenty fifteen, with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for three years, the Iranians adhered to that agreement and each time a small violation was uncovered, it was fixed right away. So there is at least a small track record of Iranian compliance, which of course ended when the United States pulled out of the Now I think that we would need a much stronger JCPOA two point zero. We'd have to have no
end date. You remember the JCPOA was supposed to come to an end within twelve to fifteen years, So no end date, better assurances with regard to the reconstitution of the program. But you know, a tougher agreement could lead to Iranian compliance and end of the war, and therefore an end of the Iranian nuclear program.
Is Iran more or less likely to agree to stop enriching uranium as it is being bombed by Israel. Is this maximum pressure campaign the type of thing that works in this scenario or moves Iran further away from an agreement like that.
Well, it's a great question and the answer is unknown. Before the Israeli bombing, Iran was stuck on the idea that it would not give up the right to enrich uranium. So we don't know whether the debilitation of Iran's military capabilities, its missile program, and its nuclear program will now make a convincing argument otherwise, I think much of this is going to depend on what's happening within the opaque system
in Tehran. The ietola still is calling the shots, but there are quite a few different factions playing in this, including more extreme elements in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the so called Besiege who have argued for years that Iran should simply develop a nuclear weapon, so they will be pressing for that. Others might say, look, we invested a lot, we lost a lot, we have no allies in the region, and it's time to give it up.
It's been some interesting reporting on US intelligence estimates when it comes to Uran's ability to end motivation to make a nuclear weapon. We are frequently not on the same page as Israel when it comes to this, ambassador, and I wonder your thoughts about the assessment we're reading about today that Iran has yet to decide whether to make a nuclear bomb, even though it does in fact have
a large stockpile of enriched uranium. The idea is that it would be more likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the US decides to get involved offensively with Israel. Do you believe that to be true?
Well, our intelligence community has been consistent since two thousand and three in saying that Iran is not trying to weaponize the capability of using a nuclear weapon, and that was something that Tulsey Gobard back in I guess was March April testified to Congress, and it's something that the President simply said he didn't agree with, even though it's
his intelligence of people telling him that. So you have to just distinguished between the weaponization program, which appears not to be in place, as opposed to the preparatory steps that Iran has been taking and accelerating since twenty eighteen since we pulled out of the JCPOA and they started enriching at a much higher level up to sixty percent and there's some indication that at least at one point they went beyond sixty percent, which would bring them very
very close to being a threshold nuclear state with a breakout time that's essentially days, not even weeks. So they're prepared, I think, to move expeditiously. Their capabilities are much less today as a result of Israeli bombing. Question is how do you make sure that what Israel accomplished militarily is sustainable and that Iran cannot reconstitute his program.
So, Ambassador, what do you expect to take place then in the next two weeks, and if the US managed to strike a deal with Iran, what Israel trusted?
Well, what I expect to take place is a lot of back channel conversations. We know that the President's envoys, Stephen Witkoff, has tried to reach out to the Iranians. We now have this European meeting. There's going to be a lot of chatter behind the scenes, and I think the President will factor that into the equation. Are the Iranians really ready as a result of having been bruised, Are they really ready to come to the table and give up enrichment which would make a jcpoa two point
zero possible. Whether Nittanyahu would be satisfied with that. Look, as far as the Israelis are concerned, unless FORDAW has taken out the heavily fortified underground facility, they think their job won't be done. As Nick suggested, there may be other ways of doing it. I'd simply be too bombing. You knock out the electricity, the entrances, the air supply,
and you keep at it for a while. So you're going to see I think in these two weeks back channel contacts, sustained Israeli attacks, including against FORDAO, and within that two week period, whether the President can put this all together in a diplomatic package is literally anyone's guess at this point.
Wow, I wouldn't want to be a worker at Foteaux right now, Ambassador, we just ran a headline across the terminal. The Iran European nuclear talks in Geneva have come to an end. We are standing by for a statement as we wait for a readout and in our final moment here together, Ambassador, Where's Russia and China on this or are we learning right now that they have no influence on what's happening.
Well, they certainly have little influence. The Chinese are heavily dependent on Iran's oil and gas, and therefore they're concerned whether this war escalates and whether attacks against the energy infrastructure take place, or whether Iran in response blocks the Straits of Hormuz. So the Chinese are nervous. The Russians are incapacitated because of their own war, but nonetheless it would behoove the President to think about including them in
any multilateral diplomatic approach. After all, it was the Russians, Chinese and the three Europeans who joined us in twenty fifteen to make the jcpoa work at that time. So they're not going to be major players in this, but they'll be important players if Iran sees that not just the Europeans and the Americans, but also their friends in Moscow and Beijing are telling them it's time to call quit.
Great to have you with us, Sir Dan Kurtzer, former US Ambassador to Israel, now princeton with us here on of power. This is bluebone