Where Netanyahu and Trump teams were right on stabilizing the Middle East
At the recent Republican Jewish Coalition leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Brian Hook (former Senior Advisor to Secretaries of State in the Trump administration) and Israel's U.S. Ambassador Ron Dermer reveal why Trump's Iran & Middle East policies were so vital - and how the Biden Democrat administration can keep from messing it up again.
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| RJC Chair Norm Coleman; Iran expert, Brian Hook; and Israel's former US Amb. Ron Dermer |
During the Trump Administration, Brian Hook served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.S. Special Representative for Iran, and Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. He was a key official on the team that negotiated peace agreements between UAE-Israel, Bahrain-Israel, Sudan-Israel, and Morocco-Israel, known collectively as the Abraham Peace Accords.
Transcribed from taped discussion: Brian Hook: "When we (Republican
administration) were in office we inherited the Iran nuclear deal.
Which, I think, you know many of our partners in the region who then
later made peace with Israel - Bahrain and U. A. E. - thought this was a
betrayal.
And when American foreign policy doesn't stand with
our friends and deters our adversaries, a lot of bad things happen. And
so we reversed that policy. We decided to stand with Israel, stand with
our Gulf partners, deter and counter Iran, and it was very hard to do
that inside the Iran deal because you can't touch the oil! Oil is
the lifeblood of the Iranian regime and under the (Democrats') Iran
nuclear deal you can't sanction their oil! You can't sanction their
their petro-chem, you can't sanction metals... John Kerry was
essentially acting as the president of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce!
That's what the (Democrats') deal does to you! It makes you a champion of the
Iranian economy. Which is the banker for Hezbollah, Hamas, P.I.J., and
all sorts of terrorist activity around the world. President Trump
understood, uniquely, that in order for us to have leverage over this regime, we have to get out of the deal.
We
got out of the deal and then we were able to take, you know, Iran is 3%
of the world's oil supply. That's $50 billion dollars a year in
revenue- the oil! When we came into office, they were at 2.7 Million
barrels of oil a day and we took them down to 70,000 barrels! And when
you do that, the downstream consequences are magnificent because it
causes Hassan Nasrallah to have to do fundraising-drives because his
banker is out of money. It puts Hamas on an austerity budget.
I
think getting, look, the deal also has already started expiring. When
we were in office, the arms of the U. N. Arms Embargo expired. The
deal's gonna keep expiring, There really is no deal left to join. So I'm
a little baffled by the whole theory of the case. And I'll close on at
least on this part of Iran. A successful Iran policy needs just a
couple of components. You have to have maximum economic pressure; The
credible threat of military force to defend our interests; Diplomatic
isolation, and Standing with the Iranian people who really do hate this
regime. And so those are the four pieces and if you have that in place
you can really, I think achieve some pretty significant results."
Former Israeli Amb to US Ron Dermer reveals the problems of the Biden regime's policy towards Iran nuclear weaponizing. (Filmed on Shabbat, Amb. Dermer's observing Orthodox Judaism precludes him from using a microphone).
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| R.J.C. Nat'l Chairman Sen. Norm Coleman |
"President Trump took a lot of grief for canceling pulling us out of the Iran deal. In fact, I had a conversation at breakfast one time with General Mattis, US Secretary of Defense, who was telling me what a disaster would be for Israel if we pulled out of the the the J. C. P. O. A. Talk to us about the regional context of what that deal originally, how it impacted Israel the region. Talk about pulling out and talk about where we should go next. "
Amb. Ron Dermer: "First thing, before I answer your question about Iran, I want to say something about my colleague, Brian. Now Brian was a Special Envoy dealing with Iran and he also was intimately involved in the Abraham Accords. He's the only person in the administration who's dealing with both issues - who I dealt with on a day-to-day basis on both issues. Brian Hook today has a security detail on him. Now, former presidents have a security detail, former vice-presidents have a security detail, occasionally a former Secretary of State has a security detail. It is, I think, unprecedented that a Special Envoy - after the end of an administration - has a security detail on him. And the reason he has a security detail on him is that, day after day in his job, he confronted the enemies of America and the enemies of Israel. And I think we should all show him a deep debt of gratitude! [Applause and standing ovation].
Now I want to remind people why the Iran deal was so dangerous and why it remains dangerous today. And why the decision of President Trump, in my view - Senator Cruz said it yesterday I agree with him. It was the most important foreign policy decision that Pres. Trump made - to pull out of that Iran deal! [Applause] The Iran deal does not block Iran's path to a bomb. That's what was said in 2015 - it was a lie then and it's a lie today. It paves Iran's path to a bomb because the restrictions it puts in place are automatically removed in about 10 to 15 years. And in those two words automatically removed you understand why Israel was opposed to this deal. Because 10 or 15 years, as Prime Minister Netanyahu said in his speech to Congress, that's a long time in the life of politics but it's a blink of an eye in the life of a nation. We are over six years beyond the nuclear deal and everybody's talking about going back. What would going back do? Well, right now they say "well Iran is closer to getting a nuclear bomb" right?
The big money was not that signing bonus and people argued 'is it $50 billion - is it $100 billion?'
What Brian said is right - every single month, Iran was getting another $4-5 Billion dollars. And it wasn't using that money to establish a G.I. Bill for returning members of the Revolutionary Guard! [Laughter] It was doing this to fuel its aggression in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Gaza!
It was only in May 2019 when those waivers were removed - that you actually had maximum pressure on Iran and as Brian said, within a few months you took them from 2.8 3 million barrels a day to a couple hundred thousand barrels a day - it's a huge shift! And it was drying up their resources. So Iran only faced maximum pressure for a year and a half. But they had a lifeline - and the lifeline was that every single person who was running for president on the other side of the aisle was telling them "we are going to go back into this deal." Instead of actually standing with that decision and showing to the Iranians that no matter who you're going to elect here in the United States we're going to continue this maximum pressure policy, they did the opposite and they said basically 'Help is on the way!'
And now we find ourselves in a situation where the Iranians are not even willing to go back into the deal because you know what they think? They're going to get an even better deal from this administration and it's a very dangerous situation the United States should do exactly what Brian said - you need a credible military threat - without that diplomacy will not work. You need to keep maximum economic pressure. And the third element which Brian also mentioned - is you have to reach out to the people of Iran. They are not your enemy, they are not Israel's enemy, they are the enemy of that regime.
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