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For U.S., JCPOA Is DOA. What Now?

(Cipher Brief) Norman Roule interviewed by Suzanne Kelly - For two and a half years, the Europeans have done very little to confront Iran for its regional behavior and missile programs. The Iranians committed to allowing inspectors to visit any location needed. Iran's IRGC and Supreme Leader have stated they would not be allowed to visit military sites. Which is it? How do we deal with all of Iran's behavior? When the JCPOA was originally constructed, Secretary Kerry and President Obama routinely stated that the deal did not prevent us from using sanctions and other tools to constrain Iran's behavior. The Israelis cannot tolerate the establishment of a surface-to-surface missile architecture in Syria, aimed at Israel or aimed at enhancing Lebanese Hizbullah capacity against Israel, and they shouldn't tolerate this. It is an existential issue, given the capacity of Iran to strike so many strategic sites in Israel from such a close proximity. So I anticipate the Israelis will continue to do what they have traditionally done, try to get rid of those facilities before they come online and work with regional countries and the U.S. to pressure Iran to stop sending material into Syria. There is no reason to believe that the Israelis won't continue to do this with every ounce of energy they've got. Norman Roule served as National Intelligence Manager for Iran at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2008 to 2017.
2018-05-11 00:00:00
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