Monday Morning Politics: Status of the Iran Deal

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**Brian Lehrer** (0:40)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, we are now on day five of the 60-day ticking clock in President Trump's MOU, Memorandum of Understanding with Iran.
Since Friday's show, according to reports from the region, Israel and Hezbollah both violated the Lebanon portion of the ceasefire agreement. Iran reclosed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel's attacks that, according to Lebanon, have killed 47 people, mostly civilians, including children, after four Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah.
Then Iran said it opened the strait again after Israel and Hezbollah stopped fighting again. Also since Friday, President Trump violated the MOU's provision for no threats of military force by not only threatening again to destroy Iran, but also threatening to kill the peace negotiators who were talking to Vice President Vance in Switzerland about how to get to a permanent agreement in the 60-day window. Those two days of talks have now concluded. Vance says they agreed on something called a de-confliction cell regarding the Lebanon situation. We'll talk about that. And that came after Vance said this on Thursday about Israel's ongoing attacks deep inside the country that have killed many civilians.

**JD Vance** (2:01)
Look, the President has been very clear. He does not withdraw from Israel. No one could withdraw from another country without the right of self-defense. Israel has the right to defend itself. But fundamentally, the Israelis, just like everybody else, have to respect this peace process that is fundamentally good for them and good for the entire region. What the President has grown frustrated sometimes is that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement. And then all of a sudden, there's a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut. And a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That's not acceptable. That's the sort of thing that we've asked for closer coordination so that we insure it doesn't happen. And our message to the Israelis, just as our message to everybody else is fundamentally, we want this peace process to be good for you.
We do not want Hezbollah attacking Israel. But in order to insure that that happens, we have got to actually build the kind of regional framework that can cut off the money to Hezbollah, cut off Iranian support for Hezbollah, and also insure that Lebanon's territorial sovereignty is respected by all parties.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:06)
JD. Vance, Thursday on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon. We haven't even talked about the nuclear part of the negotiations yet, but we will with our guest, Fred Kaplan, who writes the column War Stories for Slate. Also a new column he just began called Trump's America in the British publication, The Eye Paper, and he is author of two books about nuclear weapons, The Wizards of Armageddon and The Bomb, Presidents, Generals, and The Secret History of Nuclear War. Fred, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.
Let's start with the newest news first. It seems like at least two possibly good things came out of the two days of talks in Switzerland. Vance says Iran agreed that UN nuclear program inspectors could start visiting Iran again, and they established this deconfliction cell regarding Lebanon. Can we start with your specialty first? Can you explain what role these inspectors from the United Nations, the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency have played in the past? And then tell us what you think it would mean if they resumed their presence in Iran now.

**Fred Kaplan** (4:14)
Well, yeah, this is what Vance called the most exciting development in these talks of the last couple of days, that they've agreed to have inspectors come back in. Well, Brian, guess when the last time inspectors came back in? It was under the Dred Obama Iran Nuclear Watch Group. If you look at a little task for your listeners, Google JCPOA, that's the initials for the Iran Nuclear Deal, then do a search word for IAEA, that's the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Their role in monitoring that agreement is all over the place. It's a 157-page agreement, and they're on at least 40 or 50 pages of it.