Amb. Robert Joseph Discusses ‘ObamaBomb’ with SFR

FRANK GAFFNEY: Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I like to think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. A man I’ve had the privilege of working with and admiring as he has continued to work in high offices of the United States government over a long period of time, specifically on matters involving non-proliferation, arms control, verification, nuclear deterrence and the like, is our first guest. He is Ambassador Robert Joseph. He formerly served, among other things, as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, under George W. Bush. Also as a U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Nonproliferation. He held positions in the Defense Department, in the National Security Council and elsewhere. Today he is a senior scholar at the highly regarded National Institute for Public Policy. And always a very welcome guest here. Bob Joseph, good to have you with us. Thanks for joining me.

ROBERT JOSEPH: Frank, thank you for the invitation.

FG: Well, this might be as much a wake as anything else for a man like yourself who knows a lot about how to keep people from getting the bomb, and what it means if they do get it. What do you make of President Obama’s claim that that’s just what he’s done with this, what I’d call, “ObamaBomb” deal?

RJ: Well, I think he’s done just the opposite. I think this agreement paves the way for a nuclear-armed Iran. I think if you look at the agreement—and let me tell you, it’s a tough read—but if you do read it, I think you will discover that there are major gaps, major ambiguities, and concession after concession on just about every key point.

FG: And when you say concessions, of course, that means concessions on our part, not on the part of the Iranians.

RJ: It certainly does. The Iranians get everything that they wanted. And if you look at our initial objectives and schedules, we get none of it. The agreement doesn’t deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability. The agreement, once the constraints expire, will not prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon in a very short period of time. Oh, and by the way mounting it on a ballistic missile, including ballistic missiles with the ability to strike the United States. The agreement, in my view, doesn’t even extend the breakout time in any meaningful way. I think fundamentally the agreement is non-verifiable. The provisions from the so-called additional protocol, which the Administration has made so much of, are actually weakened in this agreement. One key example of that is in terms of on-sight inspections. Under the additional protocol, normally there’s a 24 hour period in which the inspected country has to open its gates. Under this agreement, it’s at least 24 days. But more likely, given all of the other factors that are going to come into play, it could go on for months. Particularly if it goes into the Security Council. And I think also one has to look at the signing bonus that Iran is going to get of up to $140, $150 billion dollars, and think of where that money is going to go. It’s going to go to sponsor terrorism, it’s going to go for more arms, including missiles, it’s going to go into the nuclear program. This agreement achieves exactly the opposite of what it is intended to do.

FG: I was talking with Congressman Peter Roskam on this show earlier in the week, Bob, and one of the points that he made—and he’s the Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. A man who knows something about finance and statistics’ bearing on it. He made the calculation that the Iranian economy, being much smaller than ours of course, if you were to try to assess the size of the windfall that this $140, $150 billion dollars represents for the Iranians, by transposing an equivalent amount to the United States, with its, as I say, much, much larger GDP, it would $8 trillion dollars. Which I think really brings home the magnitude of what we’re doing here in terms of, as you say, walking around money for a lot of very nefarious activities.

Bob, let me ask you—and again, you’re a serious student of these matters, as well as an accomplished practitioner of them. You saw the President’s press conference. You saw how he has represented what’s been done here. Notably, but not exclusively with respect to verification. Also with respect to shutting off the pathways—all the pathways—to a bomb. Buying time and rather harshly criticizing those who, like you and I for that matter, who are opponents of this deal. What did you make of the President’s comments and claims?

RJ: Well, Frank, I have long thought that the Administration’s pronouncements on this negotiation have been spin over substance. I tell you, I’ve come to the conclusion—and this is not easy to do, but I think it’s very telling—I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the White House that is more likely to distort the status of the negotiations and the outcome of the negotiations. Much more so than the Iranians. In part that is because the Iranians have stuck to their red lines, in terms of not including ballistic missiles, insisting on enrichment. All of the key elements. Also in the verification area. Whereas we’ve compromised, and maybe compromise would be a generous term. We’ve conceded on all of these issues, so the Administration and the President in particular is left with this twisted, convoluted, disingenuous logic.

FG: And lies, if I may say so. To put a fine point on it.

RJ: [Laughs] I’m being diplomatic.

FG: Yes, as ever, as ever. But let’s call a spade a spade here. We’re going to run out of time very quickly, Bob, and I just want to hit a couple of other things. You’ve done a marvelous job of sort of indicting what’s going on here, but there are two other things in particular that I’d like to get your thoughts on. One is that we are seeing, as part of this deal, an infusion of international help to enhance the Iranian nuclear program. And also, it appears, to protect it. And, it seems, at least from a reasonable reading of the deal, that if the International Atomic Energy Agency says the Iranians are not currently involved in a nuclear weapons program, the time for removing the sanctions, or embargo, on conventional arms importing and exporting, and the ballistic missile program can be greatly truncated. Would you comment on those two things specifically?

RJ: Sure. I think that what is going on in the Security Council, and I think you’ll see this unfolding as early as Monday morning, is a clear and outrageous circumvention of our Constitutional procedures. This is something that’s encouraged by and engineered by the White House in order to overcome any resistance in our Legislative Branch in Congress. It is an outrageous violation of the procedures that were established in our Constitution and that every other president has respected. What this is designed to do is make Congress the fall-guy for this, for not moving forward, with the implementation of this debacle, of this historic debacle that they call a non-proliferation agreement.

In terms of the arms embargo and listing the embargo on ballistic missile activities, well I think those were clear concessions, and they will lead to the strengthening, not of the moderates that the Administration talks about, but of the Quds Force, and the most radical elements within this abhorrent regime in Tehran.

FG: Who apparently were given this get out of jail free card, by name in some cases, in one of the annexes to this agreement.

RJ: Oh, absolutely.

FG: Bob, this is really such a travesty, and I think that clarity with which you are critiquing it and your authority in doing so, is as I say, a man who has come by hard work to have a very, very well-deserved reputation for leadership in this field, is incredibly important. I appreciate you spending a few minutes to talking with us about it today, and we look forward to working with you in the days that come when Congress hopefully will do its job in rejecting this deal. At least for the United States. Thank you so much, my friend. Keep up the good work at the National Institute for Public Policy and come back to us again very soon.