<html><body><P>American Enterprise Institute</P> <P>December 2, 2008</P> <P>[Edited transcript from audio tapes]</P> <P><BR> <TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>10:45 a.m.</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Registration </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>11:00</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><EM>Panelists:</EM> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><A target=_blank href="http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter.all,scholarID.121/scholar.asp" target=_blank>John R. Bolton</A>, AEI</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Gary Milhollin, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><EM>Moderator:</EM></DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><A target=_blank href="http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.50/scholar.asp" target=_blank>Danielle Pletka</A>, AEI</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>12:15 p.m.</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Adjournment </DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P> <P> </P> <P>Proceedings:</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Good morning, everybody. I m Dany Pletka from AEI.  Welcome to this session on Iran and their nuclear timeline.  We ve spent a lot of time this year - we spent a lot of time every year in the past few years talking about Iran, talking not just about their nuclear ambitions but about Iranian activities in the region, the sponsorship of terrorism, destabilization of Iraq.  They ve had a big setback with the signing by the Iraqi government of the Status of Forces Agreement but in truth I d say, on balance, this has been a good year for the Iranians, and they have moved, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and according to what we see at least leaked from the world s intelligence agencies, beyond the trouble that they ve had in the past to some success and some real momentum in their nuclear weapons program.  We used to get lot of questions about when the attack on Iran was going to be and who was going to do it first and I wonder whether either of those questions are front and center in anybody s minds here today, perhaps they are.  If so, I know that our two panelists are well prepared to discuss them.  I think the answers will be different than they would ve been six months ago, a year ago, and maybe more.</P> <P>There are a few important questions.  We re really not here today to re-visit the question that I think we have visited on many, many occasions in the past, which is, should we talk to them?  Shouldn t we talk to them?  Engagement?  Not engagement?</P> <P>The presidential election is over.  I m not sure that I entirely agree with some of my friends who are close to the incoming Obama administration who suggest that the president-elect has what I ve heard called a mandate to engage Iran.  I hope he doesn t think that, I don t think he does, but in any case, only a very few short weeks will bring us some of those answers and we will see.  Either way, however, things have continued to progress in Iran and we have here two people I m sure well known to you.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin is director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.  He is going to talk a little bit about just where the Iranians actually are in their quest for nuclear weapons -- and I hope nobody minds me actually stating that they are looking for nuclear weapons despite their denials and Russian denials as well -- a little about the details of that, what we can expect in terms of their progression, potential pitfalls and more, so we really get an understanding of what it is that the Iranians are doing on the ground.</P> <P>John Bolton, of course, is a senior fellow at AEI, a former ambassador to the United Nations, former undersecretary of state for international security and nonproliferation.</P> <P>Gary is going to speak first, John will follow him and then we will turn to our audience for some lively questions.  Let me just note to everybody, if you would be kind enough to put your cell phones either on vibrate or turn them off, we would be most grateful.  Thank you.  Gary?</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I m going to talk about numbers, kilograms, centrifuges, that sort of thing.  And I just have a few comments about diplomacy and then John s going to talk more about diplomacy and I m going to try to keep it short because my understanding is we re going to have a Q&A.</P> <P>Okay, first, what are the numbers here?  My organization has done calculations which are on -- time for a commercial announcement already -- on our Iran Watch website, that s iranwatch.org.  You can find all the numbers there.  I ll go through them quickly.  We estimate that as of December first, yesterday, Iran had enough low-enriched uranium to be able to make a bomb quickly. That is within two months, possibly three, if Iran decided to re-circulate this low-enriched uranium through its centrifuges and raise its enrichment level to weapon grade, I should say to fuel a bomb.  I don t personally know whether Iran already has the elements of a nuclear weapon prepared or not; that s called weaponization.  In most of the analysis that has been done on this subject for the last 20 or 30 years, it s assumed that a country would have the device ready for putting the fuel into it if the country decided to break out and go for the bomb.  That s probably a safe assumption but I don t know what the status of actual weaponization is and I haven t seen anybody who claims that that is known. </P> <P>So our estimate is that right now, Iran has enough low-enriched uranium to make a bomb if it wanted to do so.  We also estimate that by June 2009, Iran will have enough for a second bomb and by November of 2009, enough for a third.  This is based on calculations of how much U-235 Iran has actually produced.  Iran now has about 3,800 centrifuges running.  It probably will be able to field around 6,000 centrifuges within a few months and once it does that, it s going to boost its ability to break out, that is to make a stockpile of low-enriched uranium, and it s also going to cut down the time necessary to re-enrich the material and raise its enrichment to weapon grade.</P> <P>So if you look at the numbers, one thing you should conclude is that the Iranians are succeeding with uranium enrichment.  They are mastering the process of putting together and running a small cascade which is sufficient to make bomb quantities of material. So, I would be happy to take questions about that.  My estimate also assumes that they would only need 16 kilograms of highly enriched uranium--that is weapon-grade uranium--to make a bomb.  Others estimate more.  My estimate is based on just what I know about the physics of it, and second, the fact that Saddam Hussein s design, found in Iraq, called for 16 kilograms and that design has been around a while and probably is in the possession of the Iranians.</P> <P>Now, after that grim message, I have a second one which is a little bit diplomatic and the subtitle of this is, You cannot eat bombs.   Iran wants to be a successful country.  Less money is now coming in, sanctions are having an effect and I think that over the long term, sanctions are the greatest threat to the survival of the Iranian regime.  That isolation, diplomatically and politically, dooms a country s future, and I think we ought to all keep our eye on that fact.  That s a very important fact.  You cannot eat bombs.  You can make them but they don t turn you into a successful country.  </P> <P>That implies that we ought to make the sanctions stronger, and I am a proponent of that.  So far, the world hasn t been ready to do that, to make sanctions really strong because it s easy to be in favor of nonproliferation as long as it s just giving a speech.  But if you have to take a hit economically, give up exports, give up diplomatic relations, make people unhappy, then it becomes harder and people try to figure out how to avoid the cost.  So we ve been doing cost avoidance for some time and we re down to the point now where either the sanctions have to get a lot stronger or we just have to sort of get ready for a nuclear Iran.  </P> <P>I think that Iran won t break out, probably, before it has enough low-enriched uranium for several bombs.  There s a general assumption that one bomb is just a target whereas several bombs gives you an arsenal.  You can then retaliate after an attack if you have several bombs.  So the most likely--I hate this word--scenario is that Iran will wait until it has enough low-enriched uranium to be able to make several bombs in a hurry, four or five, and then it will have the ability to become a nuclear weapon power in a hurry if it wants to.  I promised to be short and so I m going to keep my promise and turn it over to John.  </P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  If it s all right, Gary, I just want to ask you a quick question before you sort of completely wrap that up though.  Do you think that technically speaking, the Iranians will feel that they need to test or not?</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  Yes.  Not just technically but politically.  If you think that you want to have a nuclear arsenal, you want it to have a deterrent effect and the way to achieve that is to test one.  It s a great fait accompli to test a bomb.  It shows that your bombs work.  It shows that you have enough so that you can test one and still have more.  Also I think they ll do an implosion device which requires testing.  We tested the Nagasaki bomb because it was an implosion device.  We wanted to make sure the implosion would work.  It wasn t necessary to test the Hiroshima bomb because it was a gun device and we knew it would work.  </P> <P>I think because of the shortage of material, they will do implosion.  In fact, my analysis assumes that they ll do implosion, so they ll want to test.  I mean, if they decide to get a nuclear arsenal, I think they will test.  They won t just declare that they have an arsenal without proving it.  But that s a guess.  I remembered -- well, I used to comment a lot on Saddam Hussein s activities and people would say, Well, do you think Saddam s going to do this or do that?   Who knows?  Saddam Hussein didn t know what he was doing half the time.  He was also getting very bad advice.  No one really knows what the Iranians will do but I think a test will be likely for them.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Thank you, Gary.  John.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Thank you very much and I thank Gary for his research which I want to build on.  You know, at the end of eight years of the Bush administration, it s fair to ask as we look toward January the 20, where exactly do we stand with Iran and its efforts to get nuclear weapons.  And there has been, as Dany said, there has been a range of viewpoints on that over the past eight years and longer.  Some people, not many, fewer than before said that Iran really wasn t seeking a nuclear weapons capability, that they did want civil nuclear power.</P> <P>I think the overwhelming majority view is that Iran has been seeking nuclear weapons and that we should do everything that we can to stop them.  That s not the universal view.  General Abizaid, the former director of J-5 on the Joint Staff, former CENTCOM commander has said, among others, that he thinks a nuclear weapon Iran is tolerable and containable.  So he would take the view that they are seeking nuclear weapons but that if they get them, we can handle it.  The view of, at least the latest view, as of the last time I looked, of both president Bush and president-elect Obama is that it is unacceptable, the word they use over and over again, unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.  When I was in the administration I used to say President Bush is a man of his word and when he says something s unacceptable, I think what he means by that is it s unacceptable.  I don t believe that anymore because if you really believe something is unacceptable, you don t accept it.  </P> <P>The policy we have pursued for the past six years, however, has come to the point where it has failed.  Diplomacy, largely conducted by our friends in Europe, has given Iran the asset that it couldn t have bought for love or money and that s time, time to get to the point that Gary s calculations described, where they have overcome all of the complex difficulties, scientifically and technologically, to do all the steps they need to do to have complete indigenous mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle.  I think it is possible, given the mismanagement of the Iranian economy, for close to 30 years, by the Islamic revolution, that sanctions could have dissuaded Iran at some point from continuing to pursue nuclear weapons, but that time has passed.  It s clear that the European Union lacks the will, lacks the economic fortitude to impose meaningful sanctions on their own.  We see the Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that in Germany, they re conducting seminars about how to get around the sanctions and the idea that the European Union will actually do something that constrains Iran I think is past the point of believing.  </P> <P>People have said, Well, why don t we convince major petroleum companies not to invest in Iran s oil and natural gas assets anymore?   It s a good idea.  It s not like people haven t thought of it maybe five or six years ago.  And the European countries and their large corporations were not willing to do it.  They re not going to be willing to do it now.  I can remember negotiations in New York on the first Security Council sanctions resolution where we were discussing among the Perm 5 plus Germany, the question of export credits which we wanted to preclude from being extended to Iran and the chairman ambassador said, But if we cut off export credits, it will reduce our exports to Iran.   And I said, Right.   He said, Oh, but we don t want that.   Well, you know, you cannot have sanctions without pain.  You cannot have sanctions without pain.  And if it weren t a problem with our friends in the European Union, I think the latest discussion in New York at the opening of the general assembly when the Security Council delivered itself of another resolution that said, You know those last three sanctions resolutions?  We really mean them. </P> <P>I ve just returned from the Persian Gulf.  I ve talked to a number of leaders in the area, they said to me in private what I personally thought: this resolution was a joke.  And if that s what we thought, surely, that s what they believe in Tehran, as well.  So I think the possibility of economic suasion turning Iran around on this question has pretty well been used up and given the proximity that they are to having enough uranium in the pipeline to enrich to weapons grade levels to make one, two, three and more weapons and given also that Gary s figures are based on what we know publicly from the IAEA, one can only guess what the Iranians may be doing that we re not aware of.</P> <P>The only thing that stands between Iran and a nuclear weapons capability at this point is the potential use of military force.  As I implied earlier, I once thought the Bush administration might use military force.  It s unacceptable to have a nuclear weapon-capable Iran, unacceptable.  Well, January the 20th is coming and on January the 19th, I m sure President Bush will still be saying it s unacceptable.  And Obama will say it on January the 21st and neither one of them will be prepared to take the necessary step given that everything else has failed.  </P> <P>That leaves open the question what Israel will do.  And I don t claim any insight there; I don t know what their decision-making is.  I have felt for some time that if they were going to use military force as they did against the Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981, as they did on September the 6th last year against a North Korean reactor being constructed on the banks of the Euphrates River, if the Israelis were going to take action, they should do it before January the 20th.  </P> <P>One thing I did not count on in coming up with that analysis was complete internal confusion in the Israeli political system, they have exceeded even my and most close observers wildest expectations.  With an election now coming in early February, I could easily see decisions being postponed for that reason and for other reasons.  Who knows how those elections will turn out?  Who knows what the decision-making in Israel will be?  So absent this possibility of the Israeli use of force, which I simply cannot handicap at this point, I think there is now essentially nothing that stands between Iran and nuclear weapons.  </P> <P>Now, how they demonstrate they have that capacity, whether it s through testing which is one possibility or whether it s through some version of the approach India took with what they used to call the recessed deterrent of, metaphorically anyway, having all of the pieces of a nuclear weapon on the table that they could put together in a very short time that everybody knew they had.  I don t know what the Iranian strategy will be but I think that it really is in their hands when they make it clear that they have the nuclear weapons capability and what they do about it.  </P> <P>So I have turned reluctantly to the conclusion I have resisted for about eight straight years, which is we are going to have to deal with a nuclear Iran because everything else has failed, and it is a very unappealing subject to think about.  It s unappealing for the GCC Nations on the Arabian Peninsula who don t want to see an Iran with nuclear weapons, who don t like Iran s support for international terrorism but who, faced with this combination of assets that will dramatically increase Iran s influence in the region.  They re going to have to deal with that.  This is going to be I think substantially affected by the terms and conditions under which America withdraws from Iraq, a precipitous withdrawal, I think, will not only lead to instability in Iraq which would be a terrible thing but I think it will manifestly increase Iran s influence in Iraq and therefore in the larger region as well.  </P> <P>So I think Iran has pretty well achieved its objectives.  It s certainly on track to do that within a foreseeable period of time and I just come to conclusion that all the debates about negotiations are over, all the debates with one footnote about Israel, all the debates about the use of military force are over.  I think the debates in effect about regime change are over because we re about five years late starting that.  I think the issue now that all of us have to confront us is, what do you do with an Iran that has nuclear weapons?  Thank you very much.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Thank you, John.  You ve both given everybody a lot to think about and I know that everything we read about what the Iranians think is that they agree with both of you.  They re well on track, things are going well.  They ll have enough independence.  I don t think they ever talk about nuclear material explicitly but they ll have enough independence to be able to resist the blandishments or the persuasion of the international community by middle to the end of next year in their estimation.  They can withstand whatever weak sanctions are there and that they are persuaded, and I think that this is what we hear from their neighbors, the Iranian regime is persuaded that there will not be a military action from the United States or Israel to interfere with their plans.  </P> <P>The implications are very broad.  We have tended to think a little bit narrowly about what it means for Iran to have nuclear weapons.  We ve talked about the possibility of them sharing those weapons with terrorist groups and things like that.  What we really haven t talked a lot about is the power that it gives them and how it destabilizes the region.  A lot of people have concentrated on the question of the Americans toppling Saddam Hussein as being a very massive destabilizing force in the Middle East and have spent very little energy or attention on the question of what an Iranian nuclear weapon would do to the region.  </P> <P>I m sure that John heard as I know that Gary and I have also heard from Iran s neighbors including Saudi Arabia, including the United Arab Emirates and others, Egypt to potentially Turkey, and of course, we know Syria, all have made clear that if Iran ends up as a nuclear weapons power, they too will feel compelled to head in that direction.  I think conversations have already been had between a variety of Gulf countries and interlocutors in places like Pakistan about being able to buy such a weapon off the shelf.  Consider the implications of that.  Who lives in Pakistan?  Who is currently operating inside Pakistan?  Pakistan decides that it wants to now become the Wal-Mart that A.Q. Khan began in a much more official sense for the Middle Eastern region.  How do Islamic extremist dedicated to overthrowing the Saudi government and the others react to that?  How does Hezbollah inside Lebanon largely in control of the Lebanese government react to that?  </P> <P>The Kuwaiti papers reported today, I don t think reliably, but certainly interestingly that the Hezbollah has made ready plans to overthrow the Syrian government should they sign a peace treaty with Israel.  Again, a far more credible threat if, in fact, the power that backs them is a power that nobody is willing to take on because they have nuclear weapons.  There is a real cascade effect that takes place in the Middle East that I think we have not begun to contemplate.  And it does beg the question about not how effective sanctions can be, because I think Gary is right, that that s probably the only road ahead but whether sanctions will make any difference other than assuaging our own desire to do something slightly more effectual.  </P> <P>Let me open up the floor to questions and remind everybody of our ground rules.  If you would be kind enough to raise your hand, I ll call on you, you wait for a microphone, a young man will bring you a microphone, identify yourself and put your lengthy and fascinating statement in the form of a question.</P> <P>Maury Amitay:  Hi, I m Maury Amitay, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.  One element that hasn t been noted is the ideological, the religious element --the ideological element of religious fanaticism.  During the Cold War we had two rational governments we felt would be deterred.  Can traditional deterrence work in a situation where you may have leadership in the Iranian side whose background is ideological and when Rafsanjani a number of years ago, that if we attack Israel and wipe it off the map, we will lose 10 million people in retaliation but we re still ahead of the game.  To what extent is the religious component here important?</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Well, certainly one reason that I have felt, for these past several years, that it was so critically important to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons to begin with, was my fear that they could not be contained or deterred.  And that General Abizaid, for whom I have a great deal of respect having worked with him and knowing of all of his qualities I think misestimates what goes on inside the decision-making process inside Tehran and also misestimates the effect of a nuclear Iran on others in the region, as Dany said, Saudi, Egypt, Turkey, maybe others.  So that you re in a situation where it s not simply that the decision-makers in Iran don t have the same calculus that we do or the Europeans do or even the Soviets did during Cold War days.  When you prefer life in the afterlife to life on earth, this is a very key variable on your cost-benefit analysis, not one that I share that s for sure.  </P> <P>But the fact is it s even more complicated than that because if you have several, two, three, many nuclear weapon states in the region, each with a relatively small number of nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future, their calculus very much leans in the direction of first mover, that is to say if you have a limited number of weapons and you re worried about what one or more of your neighbors are doing, the incentive to strike first is much higher.  So while we have focused the discussion on Iran and I think properly so, part of what we re going to have to think about now is not just a bipolar nuclear standoff like Cold War days but a multi-polar nuclear standoff in the Middle East with multiple players with conflicting motives and very different cost-benefit analyses.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  I d actually like to press the question a little bit further if I might.  One of the things that -- your question or at least your type of question comes up a lot and that for most of us who grew up during the Cold War, this is the model that we think about.  We think about deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and we also tend to think about nuclear weapons with the same stigma that was attached to them during that era, that there was a really high threshold to jump over.  </P> <P>I would say that in addition to the policy community that continues to think in those models and has not evolved on the question of the role of the ideologue, there s another community that hasn t evolved -- and I want to kind of press Gary into this conversation as well -- and that is the arms control community which while I think still embraces the stigma attached to nuclear weapons has again not evolved beyond its desire to actually force the United States and secondarily Europe to disarm, perhaps as a way to lead by example the Iranians and the North Koreans as if.  I got, and maybe others did, in the mail the other day a fundraising letter from the Arms Control Association and it had in big headline letters --</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I didn t get it.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  I can get you a subscription.  I know people.  And it had in big bold letters at the top, Now is our time.   Isn t there a little irony there?  Is now really your time when more and more countries are talking about this?  Now, you re an old-time arms control guy that s why I want to bring you into this.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I know you d get around to me sooner or later.  I guess I d make a few points about the ideological question which is an interesting question.  There was a time in my lifetime when we thought the USSR was ideological so there re ideologies and ideologies.</P> <P>Male Voice:  No suicide bombers though.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  And I remember when lots of ink was spilled about extended deterrence that is using your nuclear weapons to achieve sort of nonnuclear geopolitical goals.  I think we have to think about that with Iran as well.  That is if Iran becomes a nuclear power, Iran could decide to use that power to bolster the activities of the people it sponsors.  Danny made this point.  And of course, there is the proliferation point.  </P> <P>That is the example of Iran could inspire others to want to follow, but also Iran, once it gets the ability to make fuel for a bomb and once it gets the ability to make the bomb itself, they can transfer those things to other people that is directly, not just inspire other people to react but it can transfer things.  Like North Korea, North Korea has transferred missiles, it s transferred reactor technology, and now that the USSR no longer exists and it s going in the direction of capitalism, our direction, it s becoming a proliferation throughout because it also is beginning to put out stuff to other countries like some of our European friends.  So I guess I would just say that it s difficult to predict this.  The ideological point is one that, I think, is very difficult to quantify or predict or to see how it might play out.  So I think we ought to be modest in our assessments of the importance of this factor.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Let me just say one other thing on that.  You know, even if we are merely returning to the days of mutually assured destruction, I don t think that ought to make any of us happy.  It was more through good fortune rather than inevitable calculus that we avoided an exchange of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.  And the idea that somehow this is a stable regime under which to live, I just find completely unattractive.  But yet, this is the kind of thinking I think we re now going to have to engage in.  </P> <P>I just want to underline, I think it s impossible to believe there s anything that s going to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and that means that if the negotiations continue, as they surely will, what we re going to see is the price Iran will try and extract rise and in fact, it will get things because people will be pursuing this mirage that they can get Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program.  We will see the real legitimization under the Obama presidency of Iran despite its failure to renounce terrorism, it is going to be more and more powerful I think as the years go by.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  Dany, I d like to make one more point on that.  You know, the Iranians, if they get the bomb, they ll go through a period where they will not have a second strike capability.  That is they will go through a period where they won t be able to retaliate if they re hit with a nuclear weapon.  So if they make a nuclear threat, they have to consider that they are vulnerable.  That is somebody could decide this is intolerable, we re going to protect our population, they re going to press the button and anything that is associated with Iran s nuclear program or any known location site for a nuclear weapon disappears.  They ll go through that period.  So the incentive for them will be to get a second strike capability just like it was for us and for the Russians and for the small nuclear powers in the world who went to sea in order to have a second strike capability that they could afford.  </P> <P>There will also be a period of experimentation.  That is, once Iran gets the bomb, it s going to have to get used to being a nuclear power and that means that it s going to have to learn a whole new set of rules.  That s what happened between us and the Soviets.  That is we went through this period of learning how to dance together in a nuclear arena and the Iranians don t know how to do that yet so they re going to go through a learning curve when they get nuclear weapons and they could make mistakes going up that curve and that could be very bad for them and for everybody else.  So, there are other factors here that we can draw from our Cold War experience that will be relevant to the day when the Iranians went off and declare themselves a nuclear power.</P> <P>John Wohlstetter:  John Wohlstetter, senior fellow, Discovery Institute seek comment on two aspects of nuclear doctrine.  One is on the commanded control of nuclear forces that there is a particular tradeoff I d like you to comment on.  On one hand, we would like them to have control over their devices.  On the other hand, the more control they have such as permissive action linkage, dual alarming might make it easier for them to transfer it to a terrorist group without the worry that it might be used in an unauthorized fashion.  </P> <P>The second is as to the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, should the Iranians detonate a device 300 miles above Dorothy s Kansas and zap out about 70 percent of our industrial infrastructure as our Congressional panel has warned, how plausible is it that we would retaliate given that there would be very few prompt fatalities, maybe a few airplanes going down if they couldn t land under visual rules and it would only be thousands over let s say a year while we recover, how plausible is it that we would retaliate with nuclear weapons against Iran or some sort of massive retaliation in response to that kind of an attack and do we have a doctrine for it?</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Let me take a shot at your first question.  I ll let Gary take a shot at your second question.  I d have to say on the EMP thing --</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  Thanks a lot.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Yes, anything for a friend.  I think they re a long way from an EMP capability.  But on the first one, I don t worry so much about Iran not being able to keep control of its nuclear weapons.  I think they will have control, that doesn t make me feel any better.  It s just one less risk and I think they will have the capability to deliver weapons to terrorists.  They don t have to do it via ballistic missile and I think in fact, to the extent that using terrorist allies to deliver a weapon on target really is much more problematic for us in the short term, even in delivery by ballistic missile because our forensic experts are quite concerned that a properly constructed weapon -- that is to say mixing highly enriched uranium from a number of different locations -- can leave you with an ambiguous result when you try and ascertain what the provenance of the nuclear weapons was.  </P> <P>So for example, a terrorist group sets off a nuclear weapon in, let s say a European city and the forensic experts look at it and say we are 70 percent certain that came from Iran.  What is our response?  Are we going to retaliate 70 percent of what we would ve retaliated if we were convinced it was from Iran?  Do we retaliate at all?  What does that do to the calculus of deterrence?  I think this is a very, very serious problem and I think that given we know the extent of cooperation between North Korea and Syria on that reactor, it s impossible for me to believe that Syria engaged in that kind of cooperation without Iran s consent probably involved in probably financing.  So the possibility of cooperation not just in the ballistic missile field but in the nuclear field as well between Iran and North Korea is very high and I think that makes the possibility of masking the origin of weapons is quite high.</P> <P>Gary Milholin:  One other point.  If Iran gets nuclear weapons, it s going to be what s called an inheritance issue.  That is Iran is not particularly stable, neither is Pakistan so we have to start worrying about what happens to the weapons if the government suddenly changes hands or falls or you go through a period of chaos just as we have to worry about that in Pakistan.  There s one more on the inheritance list.  We d have to worry about who inherits the weapons.  I think that s a very large question.  It may be the most dangerous one because we re seeing now in Pakistan and that s the main question for Pakistan.  So I d just like to point out that we ll have an inheritance issue in Iran.  I think John has covered command and control and he has generously handed me the EMP issue.</P> <P>Well, I d just say, I think it s unlikely that a country would attack the United States with a nuclear weapon just to create an EMP effect.  I mean, think about it.  You re attacking a country with thousands of nuclear weapons and you re -- with a nuclear weapon -- and you re hoping everything is going to be okay?  I don t think that s very likely.  Well, you have to be very ideological to do that.  You d have to believe in EMP I think.  So, I think if you re going to attack somebody with a nuclear weapon, you got to expect to get a lot of them back and so I just don t think it s very probable that Iran s going to launch an EMP attack on us.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  I think, Hillel, I saw you first.</P> <P>Hillel Fradkin:  Thanks.  Hillel Fradkin of the Center on Islam of the Hudson Institute.  I wanted to ask Mr. Milhollin a technical question on the timeline issue, maybe even two aspects of it.  Your estimate of where they will be at the end of 2009 is either material for three or more bombs depending on whether they go to much higher levels of centrifuges.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  Yes, I m saying they would have a sufficient LEU to allow them to get there in a hurry.  Two or three, yes.</P> <P>Hillel Fradkin:  And my impression is that over the past few years, our intelligence agencies have estimated a timeline -- a while back, you have 2015 and more recently 2012, 2011.  I was wondering whether you could offer some information about what s led them to those kinds of estimates?  And secondly, on the question on the bomb itself or the construction of a bomb, I think I ve also read that either we or IAEA or both are in possession of materials or any of the materials that show that they had fairly extensive bomb designs and I wondered whether that -- in light of that and the kinds of bomb designs they have, how long will your estimate would be that they could weaponize?</P> <P>The other question I wanted to ask was really of, of Mr. Bolton since it s a scenario question, and that is, if it were the case that they produced one bomb or one or two bombs, is there any scenario under which you might imagine in which people would then get dramatically serious about the use of military force prior to their having sufficient capacity to really have a second strike capability and what that would look like?  Thank you.</P> <P>Gary Milholin:  Okay.  Why is it our intelligence community has been coming up with such different results?  You got me.  I mean, this is linear.  There are not even squares or cubes here.  It s addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  The IAEA reports -- that is in the past -- the Iranians have been producing 1.8 kilograms of U-235 each month, okay?  That s almost two kilograms of fissile material a month.  They are doing that now.  That is they ve been doing that up to now.  I would say that by the end of this year, they re going to be at two or more kilograms per month, okay?  So, a year has 12 months.  Multiply two times 12, you get 24.  That s in 2009.  You already got one -- enough for one -- now, so in 2009, you re going to have enough for two more.  Now I don t know what they re doing over at Langley, maybe their slide rules are broken, I have no idea.  Maybe the same people are in-charge of this who are in-charge of the estimates, before the latest invasion, of WMD, I don t know.  But if I can get there with my little calculator -- and as I said, it s all linear, no exponents here -- so I don t know.</P> <P>Second question, weaponization.  How long?  From what we know, Iran has the designs.  There s a lot of open literature about how you do it.  You can model the behavior of all of the components of an implosion weapon without using any uranium or fissile material.  That s what we do.  That s what we did.  And you can do this in a laboratory and you can do it on computers, you can do it on the weekend.  It s hard to detect so it s hard to know where they are in terms of weaponization but this has been done before by lots of people -- that is successful implosion -- and we did one in 1945 using plutonium which is more challenging to use than high-enriched uranium; 1945, it s been 60 years.  So you have to assume that they have the capability to do weaponization if they had the capability of running a successful centrifuge cascade, I would say.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Yes, there s no question that they ve got extensive weapons design information and the reason the IAEA has it today is because we gave it to them, and the fact of this information was first revealed publicly by Secretary Powell in November of 2004 in a press conference in Manalas, Brazil.  I call it the press conference in the jungle for good and sufficient reasons, I m sure, he said we had this information which I was delighted to have him say publicly so that I didn t get blamed for it when it leaked.  The real issue is not can you build a nuclear device that will detonate.  The real question in delivery terms is, can you fit it into a warhead, on a missile of the capability you have, to get it to target X and that s the tradeoff between size and weight and payload of the weapon and the effectiveness of the ballistic missile; that s what they re really wrestling with I think, and that work continues to go on.  But there s just no doubt that they ve had this information, this knowledge, much of which is as Gary said, it s completely publicly available.</P> <P>We know, just anecdotally, that when A.Q. Kahn was selling nuclear technology to Muammar Gaddafi, one of the things he turned over to us was Pakistani weapons design with Chinese markings on it.  Now that s what A.Q. gave to the Libyans.  There is no reason to think he didn t give it to the Iranians as well.</P> <P>In response to your second question, would there come a point where someone would contemplate the use of force against Iran s program if they only had a small number of nuclear weapons before they achieved a much larger number, I think under an Obama administration, that possibility is essentially zero.  What happens in Israeli government-decision making, I don t know.  I think that s the only variable that we can t pin down.  But I see after January the 20th, zero chance of the U.S. use of force against Iran s nuclear program.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  I do want to make a point that I have made only about 98 times here so why don t I make it again, and this that those who suggest, as Senator Hillary Clinton, if confirmed, our next secretary of State, has said which is that if Iranians used or shared nuclear weapons that we will retaliate against them.  Now, people talk about questions of provenance, so could we figure out where it came from?  John talks about the 70 percent solution and whether that would actually lead to it.  I believe that Iran does not see things that way.  The Iranian government, successive governments have used proxies to attack the United States repeatedly and without any retaliation whatsoever.  Whether it was the then largely Iranian controlled Hezbollah attack on the marine barracks in Beirut, whether it was the Iranian intelligence coordinated, indicted in U.S. court, ministry of intelligence attack on Hobart Towers that took place in Saudi Arabia that killed nearly 20 American servicemen.  The Iranians have been involved in killing Americans over the years through proxies and they have never paid any price whatsoever.  I think that that lesson is very, very much ingrained in their strategic thinking and indeed, why wouldn t it be?</P> <P>Turn to another question over here on the far wall.</P> <P>Martin [indiscernible]:  Martin [indiscernible] from the General [indiscernible], I have a question.  Do you think there is an effective use of military force against the nuclear weapons in Iran because I know that the Israeli government and the Israeli military also has doubts if a military strike really could be effective?  Second question, you said there might have been a chance for regime change in Iran, when was this chance ever there and if we take into account that Iran will possess nuclear weapons, what could be smart policy to contain Iran?</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Well, in respect of the regime change point, I think the regime has numerous internal political problems.  I think it has enormous dissatisfaction with the economic situation inside Iran, not because of the Security Council sanctions but because of 30 years of mismanagement of the economy and the petroleum and natural gas assets since the Islamic revolution.  I think there s evidence of that all over the place, number one.</P> <P>Number two, I think the young people of Iran, by that I mean the 70 percent of the population that s under 30, an educated, sophisticated population can see very clearly, they could have a different life than the life under the strict rule of the Mullahs that they now are faced with and I think there s lot of discontent there.</P> <P>And then third, there s enormous ethnic discontent inside Iran.  The population is only slightly over 50 percent Persian.  The ethnic minorities, the Baluchis, the Azeris, the Kurds, the Arabs and others dislike the policies in the central government.  Now, these attitudes do not all point in the same direction.  Some of them are mutually conflicting and regime change is not something you can turn on and off like the light switch and it s not something that can be done easily because you don t want to, by assisting anti-regime forces, discredit them.  </P> <P>It is a complex, difficult operation to undertake which is why if we had started it five years ago, we might be in a different place today.  But I don t suffer any under illusions that if the Obama administration came in and said on day one, we re going to engage in a policy of regime change, we d be ready for it for several years, and that puts it well beyond the prospect of stopping Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.  So I think it was good policy option, it s one we should ve pursued, we didn t pursue it and now I think it s lost to us.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I noticed three questions.  One, was a military strike effective?  Number two, regime change which John has covered.  And three, containment.  </P> <P>With respect to a military strike, you see the arms controller coming out here, I think that a military strike would be a step in the dark.  I think there s so many unknowns attached to a military strike that it makes it a difficult thing to decide to do.  We do have some historical guides in trying to destroy mass destruction weapon programs and the most recent one is Iraq, and when we bombed Iraq at the time of the first Gulf War, we did a terrible job.  We didn t know where things were.  We missed the most important nuclear facility in Iraq because we didn t know it existed.  We got to the point where we knew pretty much what we had hit and what he had missed because inspectors went in after the first Gulf War, the first war with Saddam.  We sent inspectors in and they documented that we didn t get a lot of stuff.  </P> <P>If we bomb Iran, I d be very surprised if inspectors go in after the attack.  And so, are we going to know what we hit and what we didn t hit?  Do we know now what there is to hit?  Saddam Hussein dispersed machine tools in the people s yard, just ordinary citizens yards.  A lot of his most important equipment was on pallets with lift trucks waiting.  You can load those babies into a truck and they d be out of there in no time, and he did that very successfully.  </P> <P>So you have to ask yourself, is this really going to work.  Another problem is that, to work, it would have to be completely unexpected and that would mean that the government who carries it out wouldn t have an opportunity to rally public opinion to support it.  It would have to just happen.  And then it would be an act of war.  So you have to worry about what the Iranians would do in retaliation.  </P> <P>We and the Israelis, I suppose if the Israelis did it, it could, probably, would be, able to sustain what the Iranians might do, but then the question would be, how do we retaliate if they do something really awful.  Do we have the forces available to retaliate in an appropriate way and nobody knows the answer to that one.  A lot of our forces are not very well prepared to fight a third war right now.  </P> <P>So there re a lot of reasons why a military attack would be, as I said before, a step into the dark.  It would be hard to know the things you would have to know with enough confidence I think to be comfortable with the decision and basically I think that would be because of our weak intelligence operations.  That is, our intelligence operations haven t been very good and they would have to be a lot better before we attack Iran than they had been in the past to give you the kind of assurance level you would need.  So I ve droned on here so I m going to stop.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Let me just say one thing on that point.  I didn t answer the question because I don t think there s going to be an attack so what s the point of re-visiting it but you may have noticed the Israelis destroyed the Syrian reactor and I think we know where their uranium enrichment facilities are in Natanz and I think we know where their uranium conversion facilities are at Esfahan and I think they can be destroyed.  </P> <P>The risk is that the Iranians have already replicated those facilities somewhere else that neither we nor the IAEA knows anything about and so you would incur all the potential downsides of a military strike but not accomplish the objective of breaking their control over the nuclear fuel cycle at one or more critical points.  I think that risk increases as time goes by.  That s why the military option is a declining option every day, leaving aside increases in Iranian air defenses against such a strike.  So it s not something you can say, Well, I don t think we ll use the military option today.  I think we ll wait for two or three years to use it.   In two or three years, I think it s an even worse proposition than it is today.  I don t think the military option is attractive at all.  I think it s very unattractive but it is much more unattractive to contemplate Iran with nuclear weapons, which is where I think we are right now.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Back window right in the middle.</P> <P>Frederick Peterson:  Frederick Peterson, U.S. Freedom Foundation.  I m not advocating a nuclear option, however, this walk into the dark, of the unknown, presumably, there s an equal phenomenon that is going on and that is us standing and watching Iran without any intervention, without a counter plan that is better than this walk-into-the-dark.  The point was made that -- and I think there s some difficulty in our looking at the correlation of powers here as being in more or less a Cold War configuration, where we re looking at state actors yet the new phenomenon that we have seen all too frequently now is the new phenomenon of the vassal, non-state actors that is doing the dirty work and can be made very likely untraceable and our response to non-state actors has been said by the panel and others here, is very weak indeed because we haven t come into grips with it.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Question?</P> <P>Frederick Peterson:  So the question is if we do not walk into the dark, do we sit and observe Iran walking in their own direction?  What is the alternative better plan?</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  There isn t any better plan.  Iran s going to get nuclear weapons.  That s where we are.  I don t know any other way to put it; it s very distressing to me and should be to all of us.  I d be happy if somebody would come up with a different plan but I ve worked on this sucker for eight straight years and find that we have completely failed.  We have lost this race.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I think that we have not had a successful strategy for dealing with Iran.  The government has been putting out a lot of information about how this is really not an imminent problem for a long time.  The message is if we can t fix it, it ain t broke.  That s what this administration has been saying about this.  Say that again?  Yes.  If we can t fix it, it ain t broke.  It s going to be in 2011, somebody else can worry about it.  Now, I m not accusing the intelligence community of actually politicizing their reports.  I would never do such a thing but still we ve been whistling by the graveyard here for a long time and now we can t do that anymore but I don t think it s a question of either/or.  You can go ahead and use all your powers and you can continue to say every now and then that all the options are on the table as everybody does by rote almost but these are not mutually exclusive.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  I m going to have time for one more question after this.</P> <P>Charles Perkins:  I ll make my two questions very brief then.  Charles Perkins from APAC.  First, the administration, the Pentagon in particular has been engaged in Gulf security dialogue and Ambassador Bolton, having just returned from the region, I m wondering if you feel that there s any potential for this initiative or others that may follow, from the administration to follow, including robust missile defenses, that these can dissuade the Gulfees from proceeding down the nuclear path themselves?  Also for both of you, if indeed you re correct and Iranians do acquire the capability, I think many may point to the model of the North Koreans and the agreed framework.  Is there any potential through diplomacy and carrots rolling back the Iranians?  I m not very sanguine on this given that the Iranians have already turned down some very generous offers from the 5-plus-1 but I m just wondering for both of your thoughts on that.</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Well, I think there re going to be a lot of additional defense cooperation measures that we should engage in with GCC members and I think that s important.  I think they re going to pursue, certainly the UAE is going to pursue their own peaceful nuclear program and they ve done it in a way that I think can give us some confidence, it really is peaceful.  It is going to be completely transparent.  If you don t have anything to hide, why try and hide it?  So I think they ve at least come to the right conclusion that countries like Iran, Syria, and North Korea never had the wit to come to or maybe it s because they were pursuing nuclear weapons.  I don t think the agreed framework worked.  </P> <P>I don t think that six-party talks are working with North Korea.  I don t think you can talk a country like North Korea out of its nuclear weapons, it s too much a of a trump card and - obviously North Korea is a whole different discussion - where we have failed with Iran has now put them much closer to being in North Korea s situation so that therefore, if you have or are effectively at the point of having nuclear weapons, the bribe price, that the amount of Danegeld that you have to give them to back off just goes up enormously and it s going to be a price we re not going to be willing to pay.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  Yes, I guess I use Libya as a model for being able to just buy somebody s program and that works, you can go in and you can take it all away and send it to a national laboratory, that s fine.  But Libya s program was not a success.  It was easier to sell that program than it is to sell a successful program from the point of view of the government having it.  So I don t think it s impossible to roll the Iranian program back but if that were to happen, you have to create some tremendous incentives on the part of the Iranians to give the program up.  It is within the power of the world to do that.  That could be done.  You could isolate Iran economically and politically and present it with basically the option of having no future.  You could do it but I don t see the will. I don t think the will is there.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  Yes, sir.  Let s make this our last question.  </P> <P>Brian Shaw:  Brian Shaw, United States Navy.  I understand that everything s said and [indiscernible] --[Indiscernible] going [indiscernible] to the panel, if indeed [indiscernible] status and as you said [indiscernible] they will.  Given a strike against the U.S. as [indiscernible] said he wishes for us [indiscernible] go away what, you would have a potentially catastrophic collapse of our economy, social [indiscernible] whatever [indiscernible] would have.  I mean, can we empower this [indiscernible] with nuclear capability that this will [indiscernible] shouldn t happen?</P> <P>John R. Bolton:  Yes, another diplomatic success in the works right here.  We are going to allow it to happen and I think there ll be a lot to discuss in the future about what this means.  I think the gravest threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapon in the short term is not that they ll actually use it but that simply it ll be clear that they have it and they d reap the political benefits of it.  Imagine for example how the breakup of Yugoslavia might ve proceeded differently if Milosevic should have nuclear weapons.  You think our European friends would ve been really tough with the Serbs?  Forget about it.  And that s going to be the consequence that we see in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East more broadly, if you get an Iran with nuclear weapons, added to the risk of other countries going nuclear, too.  I just think that s where we are.</P> <P>Gary Milhollin:  I think John is right, that the use of the nuclear weapon by Iran, if it gets one, will be primarily political but your question is, suppose deterrent fails.  Suppose they actually hit the United States with nuclear weapons.  One or five yes, that s an important question because we re talking about arsenals and numbers, I think that even ten nuclear weapons going off in the United States would be - even, perhaps, five would be a catastrophic development for us and for anyone.  So you can t ignore the possible danger of a small nuclear arsenal in the hands of someone who cannot be deterred and I think that we haven t thought enough about that issue.  That is, the question of deterrence.</P> <P>Danielle Pletka:  On that extremely uplifting note, let me thank our panelists for two very thoughtful and interesting presentations and our audience.</P></body></html>