WTH is going on with the Iranian nuclear program? David Albright analyz secret nuclear archives Episode #105 | June 2, 2021 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and David Albright Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. Marc Thiessen: And I'm Marc Thiessen. Danielle Pletka: going on? Marc Thiessen: Well, Dany, today we've got a spy story and it's real life, but it's like a James Bond movie. In 2018, the Mossad carried out an operation in which they basically raided a warehouse in Tehran and stole the Iranian nuclear archives. I just want to read you a little bit of a description of what happened. This is from the New York Times, the story of July 15th, 2018. "The Mossad agents moving in on a warehouse in a drab commercial district of Tehran knew exactly how much time they had to disable the alarms, break through two doors, cut through dozens of giant safes, and get out of the city with a half ton of secret materials, six hours and 29 minutes. The morning shift of the Iranian guards would arrive around 7:00 AM, a year of surveillance of the warehouse by the Israeli spy agency had revealed, and the agents were under orders to leave by 5:00 AM, so they had enough time to escape. Marc Thiessen: Once the Iranian custodians arrived, it would be instantly clear that someone had stolen much of the country's clandestine nuclear archives documenting years of work on atomic weapons, warhead designs, and production plans. The agents arrived that night, January 31st with torches that burned at least 3,600 degrees. Hot enough, as they knew from intelligence collected in the planning of the operation, to cut through the 32 Iranian-made safes. But they had left many untouched going first other ones containing the black binders, which contained most of the critical designs. When the time was up, they fled for the border hauling some 50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos, and plans." We have today the guy who got to read those 50,000 pages and the 163 compact discs of memos, videos, and plans, and has written a book about it. A guest we've already had on the show before, David Albright. He's going to tell us what was in those archives and what it means for the future of the Iranian nuclear program. Danielle Pletka: This is a particularly timely discussion. We are at a critical moment. As everybody who's listened to us and reads the news knows, the Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Obama Iran deal. The Europeans didn't pull out, the 2 Iranians were still bound by their obligations, but they immediately began violating them. One of the things that team Biden and when I say team Biden, I mean team Obama but with a different president has promised to do is to get back into the deal. They have been racing. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of all news coverage. Many have suggested that the Biden administration is on the verge of desperate to get back into the deal. There are elections taking place in Iran in June of this year that will completely change the folks who are dealing with the Americans and likely change exactly what's going on inside Iran. Understanding what the Iran deal was, what the Israelis discovered, and the analysis that David Albright brings to this is hugely, hugely important. Marc Thiessen: Just to underscore your point about the desperation, while Israel and Hamas were engaged in combat where Hamas was attacking Israel with Iranian weapons provided to them by the regime, the Biden administration was and continued to negotiate with Iran in Vienna over this nuclear program. These things were happening simultaneously. Iran was waging a war by proxy on Israel through Hamas, and they didn't skip a beat, didn't pause, didn't stop. Just kept talking because the Iran nuclear deal is the most important thing. What kind of message does that send, Dany, to Tehran about how desperate Biden is to get this deal back? Danielle Pletka: Look, I think we've talked about this before. This is the projection of weakness to a party that is very sensitive to when the United States is weak. They recognize just how hungry the Biden folks are, and something struck me yesterday. A lot of people don't remember who Jason Rezaian is, but Jason Rezaian was the Tehran Bureau Chief of the Washington Post. He was arrested during the Obama administration. He was tried and convicted of espionage, something he clearly was not involved in, and he was subsequently released during the Obama administration. On the day of his release, the administration released $1.7 billion in frozen Iranian funds. Jason has been a pretty warm advocate of engagement with Iran of the JCPOA. Danielle Pletka: It was especially notable to me, and I want to read you a few sentences from this pretty important piece that appeared on May 27th in the Washington Post. He said, "As someone who has believed and continues to believe in the value of diplomatic engagement to resolve complex geopolitical issues with Iran, in this instance I think it's time to slow down. Today, superficially, Washington and Tehran's roles are reversed from the state of play under the Trump administration. The US wants to re-enter the deal and the Iranians appear to be dragging their feet. Biden should just wait and see what happens." He talks about the election taking place in Iran and how it is going to result in a very different set of actors on the stage in Tehran. Marc Thiessen: Well, they just kicked out all the moderate candidates. Moderate meaning like, moderate Nazi. But I mean, all the people who don't wake up in the morning and the first thing they say after drinking their coffee is, "Death to America." Danielle Pletka: They did do that. Here's Jason again, "The main arguments against employing a slower approach today are that a deal may be available now but won't be under a more insular administration in Tehran, and that negotiating with the hostile elements in Iran's regime would further legitimize them. This, however, seems AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 3 like a risk worth taking." Here's how he concludes, "The Biden administration has promised a longer and stronger deal. It's a worthy goal that won't be reached by shortcuts. Slowing down to better understand the playing field after Iran's elections could help." Now, this is someone who has been a really strong advocate of the Iran deal. A very, very, virulent critic of the Trump administration and even he says slow down. That, in conjunction with the fact that we have learned so much from the documents that the Israelis stole, I think suggests that we are headed for absolute disaster if we don't slow down. Marc Thiessen: Well, first of all I wouldn't say stole, I'd say liberated, number one. Two, you're absolutely right. I mean, look, the Biden administration seems to think that it's gotten into a time capsule and gone back to 2014 and that all we have to do is restore the status quo ante and pretend the Trump administration never happened. Well, a lot of stuff happened during the Trump administration, both in Iran and our leverage in terms of the sanctions regime that we placed on the Iranians. The Biden administration has enormous leverage that it could use to get a better deal, to fix some of the flaws that Mike Pompeo laid out when he was on our podcast that were in the original Iran nuclear deal, such as not covering ballistic missiles. We're going to stop you from building a weapon, not really, but you can build the delivery systems to be ready for when you break out of the deal. Marc Thiessen: There's a lot that could be fixed by any objective standard, including among people who supported the deal, I think would acknowledge that there were flaws in the deal and things that could have been improved. Now you've got enormous leverage to use to pressure them to get those. Why don't you use the leverage and get a better deal? Danielle Pletka: Well, I think that's what a lot of people have been arguing. Frankly, I am surprised, perhaps that's the wrong word... I'm disappointed in the fact that the senior-most officials in the Biden administration during their nomination hearings all promised a go-slow approach, all promised a more balanced approach. All said it was a new world out there and yet they have acted exactly as you suggested. The most important thing for me actually is not that we rehearse these political arguments, Democrats love Tehran, and Republicans love Saudi Arabia and Israel. But rather that people have a better grasp on what exactly the Biden administration is proposing to allow the Iranians to do, and what it is that the Iranians already have know-how to do. Danielle Pletka: That's what David Albright and his colleagues have really laid out in their new book c founder of an NGO called the Institute for Science and International Security. My favorite is their Twitter handle, you guys have heard me say this before, they call weapons, and he has been an advisor to the IAEA as well as to numerous other inspections regimes for nuclear weapons.