Dubowitz & Horton on Lex Fridman: Why JCPOA spared Fordow

1. 0:00 – 1:15

   Episode highlight

   1. MDMark Dubowitz0:00

      If we want to avoid wars, we have to have serious deterrents because our enemies need to understand we will use selective, focused, overwhelming military power when we are facing threats like an Iranian nuclear weapon.

   2. SHScott Horton0:12

      I'm not seeing the peace through strength. I'm seeing permanent militarism and permanent war through strength.

   3. MDMark Dubowitz0:16

      Do you ever, ever hold our adversaries responsible or do you just don't think we have any adversaries?

   4. SHScott Horton0:22

      The easiest kind of nuke to make out of uranium is a simple gun-type nuke.

   5. MDMark Dubowitz0:26

      Are you saying that Mossad fabricated it?

   6. SHScott Horton0:29

      Yeah. Yeah.

   7. MDMark Dubowitz0:29

      That's what you're claiming. Here's the offer, take it or leave it, zero enrichment, full dismantlement.

   8. SHScott Horton0:34

      The Iranians told the IAEA, "You can inspect any five out of ten facilities here. Carte blanche, go ahead." And they did and found nothing.

   9. MDMark Dubowitz0:41

      Experts in Iran's nuclear program, including David Albright who actually saw the archive, went in there, wrote a whole book on it, and there's a lot of detail about how Iran had an active nuclear weapons program called the mod to build five nuclear weapons.

   10. SHScott Horton0:55

       I have to refute virtually everything he just said, which is completely false.

   11. MDMark Dubowitz0:58

       I mean, really everything? There was, there was not one thing I said that was true? Just one thing.

   12. SHScott Horton1:02

       I mean, Iran is a nation over there somewhere. You got that part right.

   13. MDMark Dubowitz1:05

       22 years of working on Iran and I got that right.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:07

       But do you know the population of Iran?

   15. MDMark Dubowitz1:09

       92 million. (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman1:10

       Okay.

   17. SHScott Horton1:10

       Give me a pound, dude.

   18. MDMark Dubowitz1:12

       There we go.

   19. SHScott Horton1:12

       Agreement.

2. 1:15 – 2:18

   Introduction

   1. SHScott Horton1:15

   2. LFLex Fridman1:16

      The following is a debate between Scott Horton and Mark Dubowitz on the topic of Iran and Israel. Scott Horton is author and editorial director of antiwar.com, host of the Scott Horton Show, and for the past three decades, a staunch critic of US foreign policy and military interventionism. Mark Dubowitz is a chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, host of the Iran Breakdown podcast, and he has been a leading expert on Iran and its nuclear program for over 20 years. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and consider subscribing to this channel. If you do, I promise to work extremely hard to always bring you nuanced, long-form conversations with a very wide range of interesting people from all walks of life. And now, dear friends, here's Scott Horton and Mark Dubowitz.

3. 2:18 – 11:00

   Iran-Israel War

   1. LFLex Fridman2:18

      Gentlemen.

   2. MDMark Dubowitz2:19

      All right.

   3. LFLex Fridman2:19

      It's great to have you here. Uh, let's try to have a nuanced discussion/debate and maybe even steel man opposing perspectives as much as possible. All right, as it stands now, there's a barely stable ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Let's, uh, maybe rewind a little bit. Uh, can we first lay out the context for this Iran-Israel war and try to describe the key events that happened over the past two weeks, maybe even the, uh, a bit of the deep roots of the conflict.

   4. MDMark Dubowitz2:50

      Sure. Like, first of all, thanks so much for having me on. Great to be on with Scott. I know he and I don't agree on a lot, but I certainly admire the passion and the dedication to stopping wars, so that's something we want to talk about. So let's talk about how we got to this war. So President Trump comes into office and immediately lays out that his Iran strategy is maximum pressure on the regime and he will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and he makes that clear. Consistently, so I think he made it very clear during his first term, made it clear throughout his career. And thus begins this process with the Iranians which has some kind of multiple tracks, but the one that Trump sees most interested in at the time is the diplomatic track. And he makes it very clear from the beginning in a sort of Oval Office remark, says the Iranians can either blow up their nuclear program under US supervision or someone's gonna blow it up for them. And even though, you know, at the time we think Netanyahu is really trying to push the president into a military campaign, well, I'm sure we'll talk about that throughout the podcast, the president authorizes his lead negotiator and close friend Steve Witkof to begin outreach to the Iranians. And thus begun the Oman Round. And it's Oman Round because it's taking place in Oman with mediation efforts by the Omanis. There are five rounds of negotiations with the Iranians, and through the course of those negotiations, the US finally puts on the table an offer for Iran. We'll talk about the details of that. The Iranians reject that offer and we're now into the sixth round which was supposed to take place on a Sunday. On the Thursday before the Sunday, the Israelis strike and they go after in a rather devastating campaign over a matter of now 12 days, they go over and go after Iran's nuclear program, the key nuclear sites, going after weapons scientists who are responsible for building Iran's nuclear weapons program, and also go after top IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard commanders as well as top military commanders. And yet there's still this one site that is the most fortified site. It's called Fordow. It's an enrichment facility, it's buried under a mountain, goes about 80 meters deep, it's encased in concrete, it has advanced centrifuges and highly enriched uranium. The Israelis can do damage to it, but it's clear it's going to take the United States and our military power in order to severely degrade this facility. And Trump orders the United States Air Force to fly B-2 bombers and drop 12 massive ordnance penetrators, which were these 30,000-pound bombs on Fordow in order to, as he said, obliterate it, more realistically to severely degrade it. So that happens, um, and then he offers the Iranians, as he's been offering all the way through, you have an option. You can go back to Oman. I told you Oman and you decided to force me to go to Fordow, but now we can go back for negotiations. And he forces a ceasefire on the Iranians, gets the Israelis to agree, and that's where we are today. That's where at a, as you say, a tentative ceasefire that-... just came into effect. And we'll see now if the Iranians decide to take Pr- President Trump on his repeated offers, join him in Oman for another round of negotiations.

   5. LFLex Fridman6:18

      Scott, is there some stuff you wanna add to that?

   6. SHScott Horton6:21

      Sure. Well, you started with, uh, January, right? Trump's second term here and the maximum pressure campaign. Essentially, as should be clear to everyone now, all these negotiations were just a pretext for war. Trump and his entire cabinet must have known that the Ayatollah is not going to give up all enrichment. That is their latent nuclear deterrent. Their posture has been heavily implied, "Don't attack us and we won't make a nuke." While America's position was, "If you make a nuke, if you start to, we'll attack you." So it was the perfect standoff. But what happened was, and you might remember a few weeks ago, there was some talk about, "Well, maybe we could find a way to compromise on some enrichment. Maybe they could do a consortium with the Saudis. Maybe there's some way that w-" And then, nope, the pressure came down, no enrichment, zero enrichment. But that's a red line. Everyone knows that there's an- even now, uh, it's probably less likely than ever that they're going to give up enrichment. Sure, they bombed Fordo, but they didn't destroy every last centrifuge in that place. And the Iranians are already announcing that they're already begun construction on another facility under a taller mountain, buried even deeper. And, you know, they figured out how to enrich uranium hexafluoride gas, you know, what, 20 years ago now, and, uh, they will always be able to. And this is the slippery slope that we're on with these wars is... In fact, um, I saw our friend here on TV the other day, as he almost pretty much just implied there, saying, "Well, now Trump has to go in." You know, we're told, "It's just Israel doing it, don't worry," but then, no, Trump has to hit Fordo or else now they'll break out toward a nuclear weapon. So in for a penny, in for a pound, in for a ton. And now, once we bomb Fordo again and Natanz again, and the new facility again, then it'll be decided that, nope, as Benjamin Netanyahu said the other day, "You know what would really solve this problem? If we just kill the Ayatollah, then everything will be fine. Then we'll have a regime change." And then what? Then we'll have a civil war with Bin Ladenites again in the catbird seat, just like George Bush put them in Iraq, and Barack Obama put them in Libya and in Syria. And we'll have Hazaris and Baluchi suicide bombers and Shiite, uh, you know, revolutionaries, and whoever all vying for power in the new absolute chaos-stan. If you listen to the administration and Mr. Dubis, they're essentially just implying that like, "Oh, yeah, mission accomplished. We did it. Their nuclear program is destroyed. Now we don't have to worry about that anymore." But that's not true. Now it- there's every reason to believe, and we don't know for sure, there's every reason to believe that at least it is much more likely now that the Ayatollah will change his mind about God changing his mind and will say that, "Actually, maybe we do need a nuclear deterrent." That's really what it's been for this whole time, is a bluff. "We have bullets in one pocket, revolver in another. Let's not you and me fight and escalate this thing." It's the same position, by the way, as Japan and Germany and Brazil. Two of the three of those are under America's nuclear umbrella, I admit, but still, where they've proven they've mastered the fuel cycle and they can make nuclear weapons. But hey, since nobody's directly threatening them now, why escalate things and go ahead and make atom bombs? That has been their position the whole time, because after all, they could not break out and make a nuke without everyone in the world knowing about it. And that's why, Lex, and I'm sure you can vouch for me on this. If you've been watching TV over the past few weeks, you'll hear Marco Rubio and all the government officials and all the warhawks say, "Oh yeah, 60%, 60%. What do you think they need with that 60%?" Implying that, oh yes, either racing toward a bomb. But you see how they always just imply that? They, they won't come right out and say that 'cause it's a ridiculous lie. They've been- they could have enriched up to 90-plus percent uranium-235 this whole time. The reason they were enriching up to 60% was in reaction to Israeli sabotage. First of all, assassinating their nuclear scientists and then their sabotage at Natanz. They started enriching up to 60%, just like they did in the Obama years, to have a bargaining chip to negotiate away. Under the JCPOA, they shipped out every bit of their enriched uranium to France to be turned into fuel rods and then shipped back into the country to be used in their reactors. And so they're just trying to get us back in that deal. It is an illusion. It is... And I don't know exactly what's in this man's mind, but it's just not true that they're making nuclear weapons. And it has been a lie of Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party regime, and for that matter, the Kadima regime of Ehud Olmert before him, that this is a threat that has to be preempted, when in fact, it never was anything more than a latent nuclear deterrent.

4. 11:00 – 42:52

   Iran's Nuclear Program

   1. SHScott Horton11:00

   2. LFLex Fridman11:00

      Maybe a good question to ask here is what is the goal for the United States and Iran in relation to the nuclear... Uh, Iran's nuclear program? What is the red line here? Does Iran have this, uh, need for a latent nuclear deterrent? And what, what is the thing that's acceptable to the United States and to the rest of the world? What should be acceptable?

   3. MDMark Dubowitz11:25

      Yeah, like, so, the- there was a lot to unpack there. So let's sort of just back up a little bit and let's talk about, first of all, the regime itself. Islamic Republic of Iran came into power in 1979. Um, it has been declared a leading state sponsor of terrorism by multiple administrations, dating back to the Clinton administration, um, by Obama, by Biden, by Trump. And it is a regime that has killed and maimed thousands of Americans, not, not to mention, obviously, uh, hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners. Um, it is a regime that has lied about its nuclear program and never actually disclosed its nuclear sites. All these sites were discovered by, um, Iranian opposition groups, by Western intelligence agencies. And the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the UN agency responsible for preventing proliferation, has come out again and again over many, many years in reports, very detailed reports, describing Iran's nuclear weapons program. Um...Um, there have been multiple attempts at diplomacy with, with Iran. I'm sure we're going to talk about it. Scott mentioned the JCPOA, so we should certainly talk about the JCPOA, which was the 2015 deal that Barack Obama reached with Iran. Um, but multiple attempts to, to actually get the Iranians to negotiate away their nuclear weapons program. I mean, it's worth mentioning that if Iran wanted to have civilian nuclear energy, there are 23 countries in the world that have it. But they don't have enrichment and they don't have reprocessing. Uh, we, we sign these deals called the Gold Standard with the South Koreans, with the Emirates, with others, and we say, "Do you want civilian energy? You can have power plants. You can buy your fuel rods from abroad. But there's no reason to have enrichment or plutonium reprocessing because those are the key capabilities you need to develop nuclear weapons." Now, the five countries that have those capabilities and don't have nuclear weapons are Argentina, Brazil, Holland, Germany, and Japan. And I think it's the view of many administrations over many years, including many European leaders, that, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is very different from those aforementioned countries, because that it, it has been dedicated to terrorism. It's been killing Americans and other Westerners and other Middle Easterners, and it is a dangerous regime. You don't want to have that dangerous regime retaining the key capabilities and needs to develop nuclear weapons. But I ... But I want to kind of get back more to the present. I mentioned this was around negotiations at Oman. Scott's saying that President Trump had said, "Here's the offer. Take it or leave it. Zero enrichment, full dismantlement." Well, in fact, that wasn't the offer that was presented to the Iranians at Oman. They ... The offer was a one-page offer, and it said, "You can temporarily enrich above ground. You've got to render your below ground facilities 'non-operational'," and then at some time in the future, three or four years as Scott said, there'll be a consortium that'll be built, not on Iranian territory. It'll be a partnership with the Saudis and the Emirates. It'll be under IAEA supervision, and that enrichment facility will create fuel rods for your nuclear reactors. So that was the offer presented to Iran, and that offer would come with significant sanctions relief, billions of dollars that would go to the regime. Uh, obviously the economy there has been suffering. The regime is- has not had the resources that it's had in the past to fund its, its what I call its axis of misery, its proxy terror armies around the world. And it was a good offer, and I was shocked that Khamenei rejected it. Um, he did reject it, and I think he rejected it because I think he believed that he could continue to do to President Trump what he'd done to President Obama, which was just continue to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the Americans at the table in order to ensure that he could keep all these nuclear facilities, all these nuclear capabilities, so that at a time of his choosing, when President Trump is gone, he can develop nuclear weapons. Now, it- it is a bit interesting to say that Iran has no intention to develop nuclear weapons. And let- let's examine the nuclear program and, and ask, does this sound like a regime that's not interested in building nuclear weapons? So they, they built deeply buried underground enrichment facilities that they hid from the international community and they didn't disclose. Right? They had an active nuclear warhead program called the Amad, which ended in 2003 formally when the United States invaded Iraq. And we know that because not only has that been detailed by the IAEA, but actually Mossad, in a daring operation in Tehran, took out a nuclear archive and brought it back to the West, and then the IAEA, the United States, and the intelligence communities went after this detailed archive, went into it and discovered that this supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, had an active program to build five atomic warheads. And it was a very detailed program with blueprints and designs, all of which was designed under Amad to build a nuclear weapons program. So again, it's, it's, it's interesting to say that he doesn't have the intention to build nuclear weapons when he actually had an active nuclear weapons program. Uh, and we can talk about what happened to that program after 2003, and there's a lot of interesting details. So when you, when you combine the fact that he has an active nuclear weapons program, he has sites that are buried deep underground, he has weapon scientists who, who's, who have come out of the Amad program and continue to work on the initial, uh, metallurgy work and computer modeling design to actually begin that process of building a warhead, and all of this has been hidden from the international community, he has spent estimates of a half a trillion dollars on his nuclear program, uh, in direct costs and in sanctions costs. And one has to ask, and I think it's an interesting question, to compare the UAE and Iran. All right? The UAE signed the Gold Standard. They said, "We'll have no enrichment capability or reprocessing." They spent about $20 billion on that, and it supplies 25% of their electrical generation. Khamenei spent a half a trillion dollars, and that program supplies maybe 3% of their electrical needs. In fact, they have a reactor that they bought, they bought from the Russians called Bushehr, and there, that reactor, it's exactly what you'd want in a proliferation-proof reactor. They buy fuel rods from the Russians, they use it, and they send the spent fuel back to Russia so it cannot be reprocessed into plutonium. So I just think it's important for your listeners to understand just some of the technical nuclear history here in order to unpack this question of, did Khamenei want nuclear weapons? What was his goal here? And then we can talk about, was this the right operation in order to, for the United States to-... order the B-2 bombers to strike these facilities in what, again, was a limited operation as President Trump has said. A- and in order to drive the Iranians back to the negotiating table, and finally do the deal that President Trump has asked them to do since he came into office in January.

   4. LFLex Fridman18:35

      Yeah, that is one of the fascinating questions, whether this Operation Midnight Hammer increased or decreased the chance that, uh, the, Iran will develop a nuclear, uh, weapon.

   5. SHScott Horton18:44

      Okay, before you ask any more questions, I have to refute virtually everything he just said. Which is completely false.

   6. MDMark Dubowitz18:48

      I mean, really, everything? There was, there was not one thing I said that was true? Just one thing.

   7. SHScott Horton18:52

      I mean, Iran is a nation over there somewhere. You got that part right.

   8. MDMark Dubowitz18:56

      All right. 22 years of working on Iran and I got that right.

   9. LFLex Fridman18:58

      So, but do you know the population of Iran?

   10. MDMark Dubowitz19:00

       92 million.

   11. LFLex Fridman19:01

       Okay.

   12. SHScott Horton19:01

       (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman19:02

       (laughs)

   14. SHScott Horton19:02

       So first of all, they were trying to buy a light water reactor from the Europeans or the Chinese in the 1990s, and Bill Clinton wouldn't let them, and put tremendous pressure on China to prevent them from selling them a light water reactor, a turnkey reactor that produces waste that's so polluted with impurities that you can't make nuclear weapons fuel out of it. By the way, they never have, to this day, had a reprocessing facility for reprocessing plutonium, even their current plutonium waste for their heav- from their heavy water reactor at Bushehr, to make weapons fuel out of that. They have no plutonium route to the bomb. Under the JCPOA-

   15. MDMark Dubowitz19:37

       They have that at Arak, not Bushehr. There's a difference between Arak and... Arak is a-

   16. SHScott Horton19:41

       Arak is where they poured concrete-

   17. MDMark Dubowitz19:43

       ... is a reactor-

   18. SHScott Horton19:43

       ... into the reactor and shut it down.

   19. MDMark Dubowitz19:45

       And the reason they poured concrete, the-

   20. SHScott Horton19:47

       Under the JCPOA.

   21. MDMark Dubowitz19:48

       Not- not they, but the Obama Administration, he's right, under the JCPOA, poured concrete into the Kalendrye in order to prevent them from using that reactor to reprocess plutonium. So there's a distinction between Arak and Bushehr. Scott's exactly right, Bushehr is a reactor, a heavy water reactor, provided by the Russians, as I described, for the generation of electricity. It's proliferation-proof. Arak has, is the opposite. It's a heavy water reactor that was built for a plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons, which is exactly why under the JCPOA, they literally had to pour concrete into the, into the middle of it to prevent it from-

   22. SHScott Horton20:23

       But you're, you're-

   23. MDMark Dubowitz20:24

       ... reprocessing plutonium.

   24. SHScott Horton20:25

       I think we're gonna need, uh, a scientist to come in here and split the difference, or maybe we need to, uh, go and look up some IAEA documents, 'cause I don't believe that Arak ever had a reprocessing facility for their plutonium waste. And the deal under the JCPOA, the Russians would come and get all their plutonium waste, which the waste comes out all polluted and not useful. You need the reprocessing facility to get all of the impurities out.

   25. MDMark Dubowitz20:51

       Yeah, yeah. Just to clarify, 'cause it's really important.

   26. SHScott Horton20:52

       It could be that I'm wrong about that, but I don't believe that they ever had a reprocessing facility at Arak that they could use to remove all those impurities and then have weapons-grade plutonium fuel, as the North Koreans do.

   27. MDMark Dubowitz21:05

       So the Obama Administration was very clear under the JCPOA, "We are gonna pour concrete into the, into the Arak facility," as, as Scott acknowledged, "because we are concerned that Arak can be used for reprocessing plutonium, for a plutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon."

   28. LFLex Fridman21:21

       Can be used, but we don't know if it was used.

   29. SHScott Horton21:24

       Oh, we know it never was. There never was any reprocessing of weapons fuel.

   30. LFLex Fridman21:28

       We, we... There was.
5. 42:52 – 54:55

   Nuclear weapons and uranium

   1. LFLex Fridman42:52

      um, just a couple of things I think that are worth your viewers knowing 'cause Scott's right, I mean the nuclear physics is complicated and it's also important.

   2. MDMark Dubowitz43:00

      Um, so the Iranians have assembled about, they say about 15 to 17 bombs worth of 60% enriched uranium. And I think it's always important for your listeners to understand, what does this all mean, enriched to 3.67%, to 20%, to 60%, and then to 90% weapons-grade uranium? Like, what- what does this actual process mean? Um, first of all, obviously enriched uranium is a key capability to develop a nuclear weapon. It can also be used for other purposes, civilian purposes, and research purposes. You can use it to power a nuclear submarine. So, le- let's just, if you don't mind, if I could just break it down.

   3. SHScott Horton43:35

      Yeah, that's fascinating. Yes, yeah.

   4. MDMark Dubowitz43:36

      Yeah. Just- just, I think it's, again, important just to understand the- the sort of basics before we jump into the- the allegations and claims and counterclaims. So if you're gonna enrich to 3.67% enriched uranium, um, that's for civilian nuclear power, right? But when you do that, you've basically 70% of what you need to get to weapons-grade, right? So you've, you've done all the steps, 70% of the steps in order to get to weapons-grade uranium. If you enrich to 20%, you are now at 90% of what you need to get to weapons-grade uranium. Now, why would you need 20%? You may need it for something like a research reactor, right? And so-

   5. SHScott Horton44:15

      Medical isotopes.

   6. MDMark Dubowitz44:16

      ... Iran has. Correct. Iran has, uh, a Tehran research reactor for medical isotopes. Now, you can ... By the way, you can buy those isotopes from abroad or you can en-, or you can produce them at home. If you're gonna enrich to 60%, right, then you've done 99% of what you need to get to weapons-grade uranium. And then ni- 90% is "weapons-grade" uranium. By the way, you can use 60% to actually deliver a crude nuclear device, um, that- that has been done in the past. But you wanna get to "90%," that's- that's weapons-grade uranium, as Scott's defining it. But just again, to clarify, the- these huge stockpiles of 60% that Iran has accumulated, right, this 16, 17 bombs worth of 60%, is 99% of what they need for weapons-grade. So I- I just wanted to explain that.

   7. SHScott Horton45:03

      Yeah, but w- when you say, you're saying i- if you include the mining, the refining of the ore into yellowcake, the transformation of that into uranium hexafluoride gas, the driving of it in a truck over to the, uh, centrifuge, and then spinning it, this is where we get this 90% number from, right? In- in place-

   8. MDMark Dubowitz45:22

      Yeah.

   9. SHScott Horton45:22

      ... of 90% enriched uranium or- or 80% enriched uranium. It's 90% of the way on some chart that includes picking up a shovel and beginning to mine, right?

   10. MDMark Dubowitz45:33

       Like, so j- again, just to clarify, I- I just think it's important to understand the definition of terms, um, to get what ... Once you have 60% enriched uranium, you've done 99% of all the steps, including some of the steps that Scott's talking about. You've done 99% of what you need to have weapons-grade uranium.

   11. SHScott Horton45:48

       (laughs) That's just meaningless. Why is that meaningless? Well, as I've already established numerous times here, under the JCPOA, they shipped out every bit of their enriched uranium stockpile. The French turned it into fuel rods and then shipped it back. That's the deal they're trying to get the US back into, and we're obviously clearly willing to do. And again, the only reason they were enriching up to 60% was to put the pressure on the Americans to go ahead and get back into the deal and, bad bet, it gave them an excuse to bomb based on the idea that people are gonna listen to him pretend that somehow that's 99% of the way to the bomb when you're including, yeah, driving to the mine and mining it, and converting it to yellowcake, and all these other things.

   12. MDMark Dubowitz46:28

       I mean, if you're gonna have a deliverable nuclear weapon, so you need the weapons-grade uranium. And just to repeat, they have multiple bombs worth of the 60% enriched uranium, which again is 99% of the steps you need to take for weapons-grade. So they're ve- they're very close to- to weapons-grade. It's- it's 1% more that they need to do to enrich to weapons-grade. The second aspect of a deliverable nuclear weapon is obviously the delivery vehicle, and those are the missiles. And according to the DNI and- and other, I think, credible sources, Iran has got the largest, uh, missile inventory in the Middle East. Um, 3,000 missiles before the war began. And, uh, at least the ballistic missiles, 2,000 capable of reaching Israel. So there's no doubt that Iran has the ability, once they have the weapons-grade uranium and the warhead to affix that to a missile and deliver that, uh, certainly to hit Israel, hit our Gulf neighbors, hit Southern Europe. They also have a active intercontinental ballistic missile program, an ICBM program, which ultimately is designed not to hit the Israelis or the Gulfies, but to hit deeper into Europe and ultimately to target the United States. So- so that, let's just understand the missile program. I think it's an important part of it. The third leg of the stool, and- and Scott has already alluded to this, and we've had some debate on this, and I think we should talk about it, what it really means in detail, is you've got to develop a warhead, right, or a crude nuclear device. And according to estimates from both US government sources and, uh, nuclear experts, it would take about four to six months for Iran to develop a crude nuclear device, right? This is something that you wouldn't use a missile to deliver but you would use a plane or a ship. Uh, and it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of- of about a year and a half to deliver or to develop a warhead, and that's to affix to the missile. So it's sort of the three legs of the nuclear stool, right? The weapons-grade uranium, the missiles to deliver it, and the, uh, and the warhead. So I- I just wanted to sort of define terms so that when we're having this big debate-

   13. SHScott Horton48:32

       Yeah.

   14. MDMark Dubowitz48:32

       ... your listeners kind of understand-

   15. SHScott Horton48:34

       You know, I-

   16. MDMark Dubowitz48:34

       ... what we're talking about.

   17. SHScott Horton48:34

       ... if I can jump in here on this point too, and I'll turn it back over to you, but I actually have a bit of a correction to make for anyone who's seen me on, uh, Piers Morgan or, uh, Saga and Crystal, I actually oversimplified and made a mistake. I've been off of the Iran nuclear beat for a- a little while doing other things. And, um, and so I- I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify, and I'm gonna try to clarify with them on their shows too, was, um, I have ... A- an old friend of mine used to make nuclear bombs, Gordon Prather, and I only just found out that he died two years ago, uh, unfortunately. He used to write for us at antiwar.com and is a brilliant, uh, nuclear physicist and H-bomb developer. Uh, and he had really taught me all about this stuff. And, um-So I'm not correcting anything you said. What, what he said essentially is right, I'll maybe add a little more detail. The easiest kind of nuke to make out of uranium is a simple gun-type nuke, like they dropped on Hiroshima. It was Little Boy. It's essentially a shotgun firing a uranium slug into a uranium target, and that's enough. They didn't even test it, they knew it'd work, uh, it was so easy to do, to do the Hiroshima bomb. The Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium implosion bomb. It's virtually always plutonium that's used in implosion bombs, um, and, and in miniaturized nuclear warheads that can be married to missiles, right, as opposed to a bomb you can drop out of the belly of a plane, as he was saying, right? So a gun-type nuke, you can't put that on a missile. That is by far the easiest kind of nuclear weapon for Iran to make, if they broke out and made one. Right? But it'd essentially be useless to them, right? What are they gonna do, drive it to Israel in a flatbed truck? Right? They, they got no way to, to deliver that.

   18. MDMark Dubowitz50:11

       So they have to drop it as a bomb?

   19. SHScott Horton50:13

       They could... Yeah, they could test it in the desert and beat their chest, but essentially that's all they could do.

   20. MDMark Dubowitz50:16

       Or you could drop it from a plane like we did, as, as Scott said, in-

   21. SHScott Horton50:19

       Yeah.

   22. MDMark Dubowitz50:20

       ... with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

   23. SHScott Horton50:21

       Yeah. Well, very slim chance of Iranian heavy bombers getting through Israeli airspace, but anyway. Um, but to make an implosion bomb, they would have to do years worth of experiments, unless the Chinese or the Russians just gave them the software or gave them the finished blueprints or something, which there's no indication of that whatsoever. The only people who gave them blueprints for a nuclear bomb was the CIA. Remember Operation Merlin, where they just changed one little thing and gave them nuclear bomb blueprints, but the Iranians didn't take the bait?

   24. MDMark Dubowitz50:49

       The blueprints were given, just, just to clarify, it's just interesting, just in the terms of the history of proliferation. Um, so Iran's initial nuclear program, right, which is built on centrifuges, as Scott and I have been talking about, um, that was actually given to... The designs of that were given to them by A.Q. Khan, who was really the father of the Pakistani nuclear program. Um, and he actually stole those designs from the Dutch and handed it to the Iranians. He also handed it to the North Koreans and the Libyans and others. So they were able to illicitly acquire this technology, or at least the blueprints for this technology, from the father of the Pakistani bomb. So I think that's an interesting point. But if you-

   25. SHScott Horton51:30

       But it was-

   26. MDMark Dubowitz51:30

       ... if you don't mind if I-

   27. SHScott Horton51:30

       But it was, as I said earlier, because Bill Clinton clamped down on the Chinese and wouldn't let them sell, or anyone else, wouldn't let them sell them light-water reactors, so then they went to A.Q. Khan and bought the stuff on the black market.

   28. MDMark Dubowitz51:41

       Yeah, and they, and they obviously bought heavy-water reactors from the Russians, which they've been using for electricity. Um, I want to just get to the, the second thing, I think it's just important for our listeners to know, and then I wanna get to JCPOA.

   29. SHScott Horton51:52

       So w- I was in the middle of saying though, when you're trying to make a uranium implosion bomb, or a plutonium implosion bomb, it's a much more difficult task than putting together a gun-type nuke. It takes an extraordinary amount of testing. And that's why he repeated, probably unknowingly, some false propaganda about Iran having this advanced testing facility. I think he was implying, correct me if I'm wrong, he was, I'm pretty sure you're implying at Parchin, that they were testing these implosion systems, but that's completely debunked. It's completely false. What they were testing, what they were doing at Parchin with that implosion chamber, uh, um, was making nanodiamonds, and the scientist in charge of it was a Ukrainian who had studied in the Soviet Union at this, uh, military university where they said, "Oh, see, they study nuclear stuff there." But that wasn't his speciality. His name was Danilenko, and he was a specialist in making nanodiamonds, and that facility was vouched by Robert Kelley in The Christian Science Monitor, told, um, Scott Peterson of The Christian Science Monitor that that stuff was nonsense, that, that that facility, that implosion chamber, could not be used for, in testing, uh, for testing an implosion system for nuclear weapons. And I know from Dr. Prather telling me that when the Americans were doing this, and the Russians too, that they tested all their implosion systems outside, and you have to do it over and over and over again, with lead instead of uranium in the core, and then you take all this high speed X-ray film of the thing, and it's this huge and drawn out and incredibly complicated engineering process. And this is probably why, the week before the war, the CIA said, "Not only do we think that they're a year away from having enough nuclear material to make one bomb, we think they're three years away from having a finished warhead." That must have been assuming that they would try to make an implosion system that you could put on, uh, in other words, miniaturize and put on a missile, as opposed to, in, in other words, skipping a gun-type nuke that would be useless to them. So it's very important to understand then that if, if they have a uranium route to the bomb, if they withdraw from the treaty and kick out the IAEA inspectors, and d- and announce that now we're making nuclear bombs, they can either, one, race to a gun-type nuke that's essentially useless to them, or they can take their ponderous-ass time trying to figure out how to make an implosion system work.

   30. MDMark Dubowitz54:05

       First of all, I'm glad Scott knows about what's going on at Parchin, because the IAEA doesn't, and they've been asking the Iranians.
6. 54:55 – 1:20:29

   Nuclear deal

   1. MDMark Dubowitz54:55

      weapons. But I wanna get to the JCPOA, 'cause I actually think that's an interesting discussion for Scott and I to have. Um, because I think there's things that we agree on there, and things that we disagree on. Right? So this is the 2015 nuclear deal that Obama reaches. Um, it's negotiated painstakingly over two years, between 2013 and 2015, and it follows the interim agreement that, uh, United States negotiated with Iran. And it's, it's in that interim agreement in 2013 where the United States for the first time actually...... gives Iran the, the right to enrich uranium. There were five UN Security Council resolutions passed with the support of Russia and China that said Iran should have no enrichment capability and no plutonium reprocessing capability because of the fears that Iran would turn that into a nuclear weapons program. But in 2013, they give up, they give that up. 2015 we reached the JCPOA. And under the JCPOA, Iran is allowed to retain enrichment capability and reprocessing capability but over time. So Scott mentioned these sunsets, I just want your listeners to understand what these sunsets are. Essentially, the restrictions that are placed on Iran's nuclear program, right? And there's some really serious restrictions placed on it, especially in the short term. And Scott's right, the enriched material has to be shipped out, not to the French, but to the Russians. Um, and there's restrictions on Iran's ability to operate these facilities in Natanz and Fordow. They're not closed, they still remain open, but there are restrictions on what they can do with it. There's also restrictions on Iran's ability to test and install advanced centrifuges. Now, the reason you'd want an advanced centrifuge rather than the first generation centrifuge that A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, gave to the Iranians, is you need a smaller number of these centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium. If it's smaller, less, it's easier to hide, right? You can put it in clandestine facilities without this large enrichment centrifuge footprint. So there's restrictions on these advanced centrifuge R&D, and Iran gets significant sanctions relief as part of this. But the whole assumption here, from both an Iranian and American perspective, is these restrictions are going to sunset, they're going to disappear over time. In fact, 2025 is the year where some of the significant restrictions on Iran's capabilities begin to sunset, and all of them are effectively gone by 2031. Okay, so in 2031, Iran can emerge with an industrial size enrichment capability. They can, they can emerge with advanced centrifuges that they can install in as many enrichment facilities as they want to build. Right? And Iran can enrich to higher and higher levels. So they can go from 3.67 to 20%. They can go to 60%. Um, there's nothing in the JCPOA that actually prohibits them from going to 90% enriched uranium. And I think at the time, the Obama administration's theory of the case was, "Yeah, sure, in 15 years time, but in 15 years time, we'll be gone. Hopefully it'll be a different government in Iran, and maybe we can renegotiate a different agreement with that government that will extend the sunsets." So that, that's the JCPOA. The reason that critics of the JCPOA, and I was one of them, we objected to the deal, is not because it didn't have some short term temporary restrictions that were useful, but that if you got it wrong, and there was the same regime in power in 15 years, that regime could emerge with this huge nuclear program, with the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons in these multiple hardened sites. Iran, we estimated, would have a trillion dollars in sanctions relief over that 15-year period. And if you got it wrong that it was the same regime in power as had been in power in 2015, then you had some difficulties. Okay, I just wanted to lay out the case against the JCPOA. Now to Steel Man, uh, Scott's argument, right? I think there's a legitimate argument because I actually didn't support the withdrawal from the agreement. Uh, President Trump withdrew in 2018. I did a similar version of what Scott was suggesting, was I thought that the United States should negotiate with the Europeans, the French, the Germans, and the UK, who were part of the original deal, extend the sunsets as an agreement between the United States and Europe, and then collectively go to the Iranians and say, "Let's renegotiate this agreement to extend the sunsets." If you, if you don't want a nuclear weapons program, then you should agree that you would, you don't need these capabilities, and let's extend the sunsets for another 15, 20, 30 years. President Trump-

   2. SHScott Horton59:23

      All right, somebody give me a screenshot of this. Give me a pound, dude.

   3. MDMark Dubowitz59:26

      There we go.

   4. LFLex Fridman59:27

      (laughs) Agreement.

   5. MDMark Dubowitz59:28

      There we go.

   6. LFLex Fridman59:29

      That makes my heart feel so good.

   7. SHScott Horton59:30

      And I think the ayatollah would have gone for it, too.

   8. MDMark Dubowitz59:32

      Well, so I'm not sure if he would have, but, but let's, just a little bit of history. I think it's just useful for the viewers to know, again, the context, especially when Scott and I agree.

   9. LFLex Fridman59:40

      Yeah.

   10. MDMark Dubowitz59:41

       Um, so a process was begun-

   11. LFLex Fridman59:43

       I'm loving this so much.

   12. MDMark Dubowitz59:44

       ... by, uh, the Trump administration. They, uh, Trump appointed, uh, Brian Hook, or Secretary Pompeo actually appointed Brian Hook as the lead Iran envoy, and he began a process of talking to the Europeans. Now, the Europeans actually rejected this idea. Um, and so at some point, Trump said, "Look, if the Europeans aren't prepared to get on side, then I'm out of the deal. I'm out of the deal." And if you're interested, I can talk about why I thought we should have stayed in the deal, because I thought it gave us some important restrictions in the short term, certain leverage. But Trump decides to withdraw from that agreement because he recognizes that the fatal flaw of the agreement, or the fatal flaws of the agreement, are, one, giving them any enrichment capability, especially at an industrial size within 15 years, right? And two, are these sunsets, as Scott said, which, under which these restrictions are gonna go away, and Iran's going to en- end up with a massive nuclear program. So I think that's just important. We can talk about the JCPOA, the process, and everything else if you're interested.

   13. SHScott Horton1:00:39

       I'd like to go ahead and quickly accuse the FBI and the CIA of framing Trump for treason with Russia and pushing the Russiagate hoax. I'm trying to agree with my friend here, because what it is, is that that completely ruined Donald Trump's ability to engage in real diplomacy with Russia for his entire first term, certainly for the first three years of it. He was completely handcuffed. It was, it was, it was, it was terrible, as I'm sure you're well aware, for the future, now our past and current history of Ukraine, as well as for this deal, too. Why couldn't Trump pick up the phone? I don't know the details here, but I'll take his word for it that the British and the French and the Germans weren't being nice to Trump, they didn't like him, they didn't want to do it. Why couldn't he pick the, pick up the phone and say, "Hey, Putin, I need you to call the ayatollah for me and tell him, 'Hey, you'd like to see him with these sunsets too," and this and that? Why? Because they framed him for treason so he was completely unable to engage in real diplomacy with Russia, and I bet that he'd agree with me on that one, too. So, uh-

   14. MDMark Dubowitz1:01:39

       Next, actually, could I just say one thing interesting? And again, I think it's going to be a later topic, and so it, it's going to be a provocative statement. But-I think, let's put it on the table, I absolutely agree with Scott. I mean, I think it was a travesty that th- they, of the accusations against Donald Trump as a Russian agent. I mean, completely debunked, but it, it did, it, I think it paralyzed his presidency for two, two and a half years. I, I agree with Scott. The idea that you would accuse the President of the United States of being a foreign agent for Vladimir Putin, I think is unfounded, and I, I, I thought at the time disgraceful and I thought it was really important, and I think Scott did really good work in, in debunking that. I would say that just a couple of days ago, I was watching a podcast Scott was on, and he accused, uh, Trump of being an agent for Netanyahu and the Israeli government. So I think, again, the accusations that the President of the Unites States is a foreign agent for some foreign government, I think we should just put all of that aside in any discussion and just say President Trump makes his own decisions, whether we agree with them or, or agree with them, but he's not working for the FSB and he's not working for Mossad. President Trump makes his own decisions based on American national security.

   15. SHScott Horton1:02:53

       No, I was making a point. That's hyperbole making a point, but he did. In fact, could you Google this for me, because I always forget exactly how many hundreds of millions of dollars that he took from Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson-

   16. MDMark Dubowitz1:03:04

       Who are Americans, by the way.

   17. SHScott Horton1:03:06

       ... who, who are Americans, who Sheldon Adelson said his only regret in life is that he served in the American army instead of the IDF, and said America should nuke Iran in order to get them to give up their nuclear weapons. He said, "I have one issue. One. Israel." And they gave Trump hundreds of millions of dollars over three campaigns. That's not just a, "Jeez, I really hope you'll think of me in the future."

   18. LFLex Fridman1:03:27

       I def- Scott, first of all, a couple of things. So one, there's a lot of people that are friends with Trump and try to gain influence. I believe that Trump as an American is making his own decisions. Let's, f- for the purpose of this conversation, just focus on that and see what are the right decisions and what are the wrong decisions, and, uh, maybe-

   19. SHScott Horton1:03:45

       I wonder what decisions I could get you to make if I gave you hundreds of millions of dollars, Lex.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:03:49

       Well, me personally, you couldn't give me an... It doesn't matter.

   21. SHScott Horton1:03:52

       I couldn't even get you-

   22. LFLex Fridman1:03:53

       L- Look at you.

   23. SHScott Horton1:03:53

       ... I couldn't get you to drop in on a vert ramp or nothing for 100 million bucks?

   24. LFLex Fridman1:03:55

       Nothing. You cannot control my decisions with money. Let-

   25. SHScott Horton1:03:59

       It's the American system, Lex. That's how it works. It's money.

   26. LFLex Fridman1:04:02

       But I appreciate that, yeah.

   27. SHScott Horton1:04:02

       Right? L-

   28. LFLex Fridman1:04:03

       We c- we can go down that route.

   29. SHScott Horton1:04:04

       It's the same if we were talking about Archer Daniels Midland company throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around. They get policies based on their hundreds of millions of dollars. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? All that.

   30. MDMark Dubowitz1:04:14

       So Lex, I think you're right. I mean, I think Elon Musk spent, what, $400 million to helping Trump get elected? Um, and obviously, there are a number of philanthropists. I think clearly his son, Don Junior has had a lot of influence in who gets selected in these positions in the Pentagon and NSC. I think Tucker Carlson has had a lot of influence. So I think as you say, there's, he surrounds himself with people who have certain ideas, ideologies, policies. The president makes these own decisions. I just want to touch on just one thing, because I, I, I don't want to leave this alone, um, just out of respect for, for the victims of Iran-backed terrorism and hostage-taking and assassinations since 1979. Um, you know, this is the regime that took our, uh, took hostages in '79, took our diplomats hostage. Um, Scott says, you know, '83 was really the only thing that happened, and, and throws out a lot of information, certainly some, some pretty breathtaking accusations that somehow the Israelis knew about this and didn't tell the Americans, and, and-

Episode duration: 4:05:15