The Iran Endgame: Margaret Brennan on Iran's Nuclear Program, View from Tehran & U.S. Ground Troops

Welcome to the last line of defense. I'm Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In each episode, we'll cover the latest national security news, unpack the issues with experts in the field, and discuss how the headlines impact you. This is the last line of defense. Hi, my name is Seth Jones. We've been following the latest developments in Iran very closely. Margaret Brennan of CBS' Face the Nation is with us today to share insights from her recent conversation with leaders like the Iranian Foreign Minister, members of Congress, the White House, Director General of the International Atomic Agency, and others. Margaret, welcome to the last line of defense. Glad to be on the last line with you. All right. Well, hopefully it's not the last line. This morning, let me just start with this. This morning, you spoke with Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is often somewhat informally known as the UN's nuclear watchdog. Before we dive into a little bit of the tenor of the discussions, can you talk a little bit about what his job is at IEA and sort of what he does? So the Director General, as you said, runs the UN's nuclear watchdog. So they're supposed to be watching all over the world at these declared nuclear powers, or those who are interested in developing a nuclear, either weapons or just nuclear power and program system in their country. And as you know, the UN's supposed to be neutral in all of this, but calling balls and strikes and making sure that all these international agreements are lived up to. And that's why they are so much a part of the Iran conversation, because a lot of the information that's in the public space about what was going on with the runs nuclear development is because of these assessments that their inspectors made, whether it's that amount you keep hearing about, the 440 kilograms of 60 percent in rich material, that came from an IAEA report. They had been calling out Iran, and this was significant as these stated neutral actors, that while they had no evidence of a nuclear weapons program, they also couldn't disprove allegations that there was a secret nuclear weapons program because they weren't being allowed on federal access, because as Grocey told me, you know, they were finding uranium in certain places where there shouldn't have been. And so all of this pattern of behavior led to very public skepticism. And so he has become inserted into this conversation in a very direct way, particularly when the Trump administration is making the argument that the diplomacy that they were undertaking wasn't actually going to result in the kind of end-state present Trump was looking for. It was actually Rafael Grocey who was there in Geneva, in these indirect talks between the United States and Iran, that were mediated by Oman. He was the technical advisor, because Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff as Ambois, they didn't fly in with large technical teams. And he was kind of the guy that went to call those balls and strikes and say, "Well, what would this mean in terms of nuclear development?" So one interesting question that has come up repeatedly, and I think he weighed in on, was what is possible in setting back the nuclear program, particularly with the use of military force? I mean, there have been bombs dropped in and around several of the sites, including Asfahan. And it also, there's been some discussion about deploying teams onto the ground to try to extract the canisters. But so what did he say about how much of the nuclear capabilities can be eliminated by conventional military force? Well, the director is very clear. You cannot eliminate Iran's nuclear ambitions with a military campaign full stop. That is his belief he said for any country you can't. And it gets pretty technical pretty quickly, but the point he was making was it's not just about the three sites, for example, during that 12-day war that the United States bombed and helped Israel bomb, because it's not just about the enriched material that we already know Iran has, you can't bomb away knowledge, you can't unlearn things. And the argument Grocey is making is that in those years since the international agreement known as the JCPOA really kind of disintegrated the US pulled out during the first Trump administration, that Iran has really advanced in some technical ways and key ways. And so it's not just about three sites, it's about the universities, it's about the research centers, it's about other places that material could also be. So when you hear these arguments that you can just sort of send in SEAL Team 6 and fix it all because they're going to throw a bunch of canisters over the shoulder and run out the door, that is a movie and that is not going to deal with the program, he was extremely clear about that. Those are some big canisters too, I mean, I could put them over my shoulder. Right, and by the way, dangerous too is because they're filled with this gas. So one additional question to kind of along these lines is, do you get a sense from him of where the negotiations sort of stand right now? I mean, obviously we've got an active war going on right now and there've been a lot of accusations going back and forth between administration and what's left of the Iranian administration. But what do you say about where negotiations sort of stand right now? Well, there are not active negotiations underway now, but the UN through his agency, they're clearly hoping there will be and there are conversations happening. Große, well, he was here in Washington, was talking not just to the energy secretary, but to White House officials. Steve Whitkov had been his contact and we also know that he had outreach from the Iranian side. And the man who was that interlocular or that negotiator of Osiragchi, the foreign minister was on face the nation just a few days ago, he was the point person on this nuclear file, not just now, but back in that old 2015 deal, the JCPAOA day. So he's someone who would likely be the person to lure back to the table. If this regime continues to exist in some romp form and certainly US intelligence assessments seem to say that the regime is surviving. And so that idea is, can we revive it all? Now, the diplomacy had been at this, what, three rounds of limited conversations, but there wasn't active attempt by the Omani government as a neutral actor to try to get both parties to come to some kind of agreement on the nuclear file. And it all went out the door very quickly, as you know, February 28th. And there are elements of that that, for example, a boss or a raised on face the nation that made I heard it as a little bit of a dangling for an opportunity, for example, bringing up that they had offered to dilute the existing enriched uranium supply at 60% that they have. And that in the future, it could be the agency, the IEA that could come in and look at their facilities. So he seemed to be dangling that out there as some sort of maybe diplomacy for the future. But how do you have the US and Iran sit down at the same table after all of this? And particularly when the US bomb twice in the course of nine months, like there's not a lot of trust there. So finding some other way to have a negotiation or the Trump administration would argue capitulation, maybe we'll re-end up, but I don't know how you develop on President Trump's promise to avoid Iran ever having a nuclear program without having negotiations. Yeah. So one question kind of taking this a little bit further is because I know you've talked to some folks on the hill about the imminent threat. So there have been some, including an administration that have argued that Iran posed an imminent threat, including where the stage of its nuclear program. What are you hearing actually either from grossy along those lines or from others on a hill about how imminent the threat was? Well, this is kind of one of those word games here because it had you define eminence and also you heard the director of national intelligence under a testify only the president can define an imminent threat, which for a lot of national security officials are like wait a second, I actually thought that was the job of intelligence professionals to just without policy say here are the facts and here are the potential threats and risks. So there seems some creativity around defining eminence in terms of the nuclear capability. Grossy is saying I have no evidence of nuclear weapons program now they did have a nuclear weapons program that well it is well known that the Supreme Leader had put hit pause on in 2003. And the US intelligence community publicly acknowledges that where it gets sticky and tricky is around what options they were providing themselves like whether the Supreme Leader had said go make the weapon. A lot of Israeli officials would argue there were puzzle pieces and a rocket or excuse me grossy acknowledge some of this that Iran was giving itself these little puzzle pieces that they could perhaps in the future fit together to a nuclear program with a weapons capability and relative short order but some of the timelines we've. heard the Trump administration officials say on TV, don't match up with what the IAEA says is possible in terms of, you know, turning things on and automatically having 10 bombs, for example, or more Steve Whitcaw at one point said 40 or 50 bombs. That does not match. That does not match the IAEA's assessment of where the Iranians were likely. Yeah. So a sort of big question based on your conversations, what's the emerging sense of the end game based on where we stand today? How does this and I realize there's no actual answer to that question, but what are you hearing from folks you're talking to? Well, this is the tricky thing with the way President Trump communicated this, which I think, I mean, obviously I'm an advocate for talking about things in the public space as a journalist, but that one of the things we've seen are CBS polling is that the president's failure to do that in terms of bringing the public along with him and making the case for this has hurt public support for the war. The majority of Americans, according to our polling, don't support this. The president's co-sporters, Maga, do. But when the president did communicate, he gave changing military objectives. You could say he was very clear on missiles, for example, but even in that space is it is at the short range because during the state of the Union, he was talking about long range missiles that could hit the United States. Well, US intelligence says they couldn't hit the United States unless they decided to make a ballistic missile that could carry a warhead. And that wasn't until 2035. So, you know, there are these sort of changing messages. And if it truly is about the nuclear program, if that really is the threat, then how do you address it? If the UN nuclear watchdog is saying, bombings not going to make this go away. And did you by bombing trigger that turn to say, okay, we are going to try to make those puzzle pieces fit or we are going to take the knowledge we have and ultimately now under a new Supreme Leader charged toward a weapon. These are all the questions that I have in terms of how do you define success? We didn't hear a quantifiable metric for success, in my view, from the president and from his team because you heard it was the they were going to inoculate themselves with the ballistic missile capability, the short range. In other words, make it hard for the US to bomb in the future to take out a nuclear weapons program. I think a lot of American people heard this and thought that Iran was on the verge of having a nuclear weapon that could hit the United States. And that is not what anyone is actually arguing. And under questioning when Secretary Rubio was brought before Congress or among the intelligence chiefs were brought before Congress, they weren't even making that argument. So it's a little bit hard to figure out where you define success. And maybe politically that makes things easier for the president to just say mission accomplished, right? Because you could pick any metric is air superiority or naval superiority a metric. I think now the Iranians with their asymmetric warfare have put oil and gas in there as question. Can you actually declare success without regaining control and eliminating the threat of drones hitting a vessel in the future going through the straight-of-hormose? They've changed things a bit. Yeah, I think as we've listened to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for example, General Cain, talk through a range of pretty limited military objectives on degrading Iran's ballistic and cruise missile capabilities or drone capabilities or even degrading the navy. I think all of those are achievable. Again, it kind of hinges on degrading, but there's been enough evidence that even that we've looked at in our satellite imagery and open source that most of those areas, the Iranians are degraded in virtually all of those areas. And I think the sticking point then becomes how much of the regime are you okay with staying in place? And also, now how much of do you feel like do you have to reopen the straight-of-hormose and use American military forces to do that before you walk away? Well, I think you raised an interesting point, which is the President's top military advisor. It uses very precise and measurable language. President, however, told us in January that he had a problem with the regime itself, right? And that, you know, he was concerned about human rights. And so how do you declare success now, if, unless you're saying forget about January, if you're going to leave a rump regime in place? And that's one of the things in the shop I have as moderator is trying to pull these threads together and say, well, what is the most complete picture? And I think it continues to change. Right? And when we hear from US intelligence that they think the regime is going to hold on, well, then yeah, how do you declare? With no boots on the ground. It's very difficult to do. I mean, I can't really think of a case. And even in the case like the Coast of the War, we had intelligence embedded with the Coastal Liberation Army. And they were on the verge of conducting operation. There was a big threat. But that was a coalition war. I did want to go back. You mentioned some of the polling you've done. And I did want to go back briefly. You met you in the Sunday program last week. You spoke with President Trump's Top Economic Advisor, Kevin Hassett, who announced that 12 billion was what? He was briefed, had been spent so far on the war. From among other things, your conversations with members of Congress, how are they and some of their constituents responding to the costs involved in that? And you talk a little bit public opinion before, but then we've got the money being spent. Right. And I don't know what happened in four days to get from Sunday, the President's Top Economic Advisor saying, we don't need more money from Congress. We don't need a supplemental. We have the weapons already. We spent 12 billion in the first 16 days, but it's going to be limited to four to six week mission. Did the mission duration change? Is that how we went from that number to 200 billion? I don't know. But something changed certainly because that's a tremendous leap to make. And the four to six weeks is something I continue to hear from Kevin Hassett, or for example, the energy secretary and the business community really does want, like put it put a marker on this, give me that metric of how long this disruption is going to be. And I don't know that things are actually that clear as you well know, you know, once you actually start a conflict, it's hard to sort of schedule beginning and end dates that are going to match perfectly with your objectives. So that's something that will impact in the polling because we did see that, that those questions of not just what are the what's the end game, but like how long does this last? So does the does the President's core MAGA as self-defined MAGA base stay with him if this goes beyond the four to six weeks? That I think is huge. For energy costs that is the most, I mean, anyone anywhere around the world worries the most about what impacts them most directly and in their pockets, right? It is not just what they put in their cars when they go to pay for the pump, but it's the ticket talk costs that we heard airline CEOs say are going to go up. It's, you know, the transportation costs. So going into the midterm races, those members of Congress you're asking about, they are certainly mindful as Republicans how they're going to have to explain that that this is a trade worth making that the President campaigned on lower prices, but you're paying higher ones right now, but it's for a short period of time. You know, it just raises more and more questions and I think it's going to become a big political issue for Republicans running for reelection. Democrats are certainly jumping all over this, right? And you're hearing that from them saying, you know, the premise for this was was not clear or legal or saying that, you know, gas prices went up, but the Iranian nuclear program has been an outstanding question for multiple presidents, either, you know, the president decides somehow he's going to see this through and get some negotiated deal. Or does he just continue to pass that along if the revolution I guard remains in power as they are today? I don't know. Yeah. I don't I don't think any of us know. I do want to get to the Iranian foreign minister, but before I get there and your conversation with them, I do want to ask one sort of follow up on including whether any Republicans you're talking to what their general reaction is on how this war is playing out, particularly from some of the mega base we've with or how people are perceiving Joe Kent speaking out publicly the the and his recent interview and Tucker Carlson speaking out a little bit more bluntly on this issue. What are you hearing on that that part of the spectrum and and and a pushback to the president? Well, I think it's interesting because as I've been saying in our polling, we're not seeing a splinter from that base from some of the more vocal members who have platforms like Tucker Carlson does and certainly now. the newly exited just quit Joe Kent, the head of counterterrorism. It is certainly causing ripples. I think perhaps they are vocalizing some things, but there are questions about the motivation as well. And you heard some of that when the DNI was before Congress today again. But CBS is reporting that Joe Kent is under FBI investigation and that it had begun prior to his exit. And so I think there's more to this story we need to understand in regard to his personal case. Tucker Carlson has been clear for some time that he was not a fan of military action in Iran. And he is a vocal supporter of the president. I'm sure this present is uniquely receptive to television and broadcast and what people are arguing on it. So you do wonder what that feedback loop is like. I wonder about that sometimes. The president certainly does watch the program. So, you know, bring it back to face the nation. I thought it was so unusual that the Omani Foreign Minister, the same day he came to Washington to try to sell the administration on the deal that we know failed ultimately. He went from JD Vance's office to face the nation set in what was clearly an attempt to argue to perhaps even the president himself through the airwaves that if he had more time, he could get a diplomatic deal that would have hurt strikes. That very same night, the strikes happened because we talked that Friday. And I think that's such an interesting thing with how this president receives information that even a mediator, you know, the Switzerland of the Middle East, so Monde went public and saying, "We could avoid this if you just give me more time, give me 90 days." And that interview in that moment, we had such tremendous feedback. We had incredible interest, I think, because people were suddenly starting to realize that we really were in a case of war or peace. This was a deciding point. Now, whether the merits of that diplomacy were there to actually make a deal or not is another matter, something we discussed with Groce himself. But, you know, when you get to that question of who's influencing the president, being vocal is part of trying to influence the president, whether you're for or against this. That's right. And we are where we are right now. So we may have been close at one point, but this does bring me to the Iranian foreign minister who I know you spoke to. And he said, "I'm going to quote him. We don't see any reason why we should talk with the Americans because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us." And that was for the second time. There is no good experience continuing to quote, talking with Americans. We were talking, so why they decided to attack us? Question mark. So what good is, is it if we go back to talking once again? End quote. Many of our youths, this conflict should be solved politically, diplomatically, rather than militarily. From your perspective, where do the Iranians sit? I mean, you've talked to them recently. Where do they sit on this? And what do you think is realistic? I think the Iranian foreign minister is communicating to the outside world at a time when he's literally being bombed from the skies because he was looking for an opportunity. He has been speaking publicly for a reason to advocate for the regime. And this was one of the controversial things about diplomacy to begin with. Is anyone who's negotiating with the regime is giving the regime a lifeline? Like you are talking to the group of people you say are brutally repressing and killing up to, you know, 32, 35,000 of their own people. Do you sit down and talk to them? That may ultimately be where we end up, because US intelligence is saying they are still holding onto power. So if you're going to end this in some way, who do you actually negotiate it with? And if it ultimately, you know, if you go to that, what the Israeli ambassador has argued on fascination in other places, that we want the Iranian people to rise up, well, how, with what arms, and still then, what happens to all this nuclear material and the nuclear program and the nuclear scientists and the like. I think there is going to be some diplomatic table somewhere that the United States is going to have to be part of and whoever is representing the Iranian government at that time. But the United States bombed twice within nine months in the midst of diplomacy. And that hurts the ability to have trust that you are negotiating good faith. Like the threat of force helps make diplomacy credible, but blowing it up in the middle of talking really did hurt. And that came through with the Iranian Foreign Minister as well. So there's going to have to be some creative construction here. You know, the Omani's were floating. Can we make it regional talks? Because of course, the Saudis want a peaceful nuclear program. They say a civil one. And can we make it a regional consortium? I don't know that that's going to work, but who's leading this? The Brits and their Europeans had rounds of diplomacy with Iran. Do they ultimately get us there? I just don't know. Yeah, but it doesn't sound like from-- It's not a four to six week proposition though. No, it's not a four to six week. It's not a four to six week. It is not a four to six week. He refuted the idea that this was an existential crisis for them. They're trying to show that they do still have power asymmetrically, even against the incredible Israeli and American armed forces. They've surprised the United States, particularly in their way they have used these drones. I think that is under reported in terms of the miscalculation and underestimating how they use those drones. I think that's right. Last question, and then we'll wrap up so you can be brief if you want, is on hostages. I wanted to touch on your recent conversation with Iranian hostages. Can you share any insights or stories that they shared with you that help put the current conflict into some type of perspective, especially regarding what the Iranian regime is capable of? First of all, probably helpful to just briefly mention who you talked to and then any findings you got from them. So I spoke with Siamak Namazi and Ahmad Sharqi, who were wrongfully detained according to the US government by the Iranian regime for many years. Siamak was in there for about eight years. He was left behind in multiple times with multiple diplomatic deals under both presidents, the past two presidents. And he came on to talk about at least four, they say probably more like six Americans who are sitting in Evan prison. And as they argued on the program, that prison is such a symbol of the revolutionary guards repression that it's not just a place for like thieves and criminals. It's where they put the political opposition. It's where they put political leadership. So it was just interesting to have that conversation as they were advocating for the Americans that first of all Israel shouldn't bomb Evan prison as they did during the 12 day war. That was one thing they argued also that Americans need to know about their fellow Americans who were wrongfully detained and being held because they carry a blue American passport. And so they're viewed as bargaining chips in some way. And their families are scared. They don't know if they're being retaliated against. They don't know if you know how they're doing inside those prisons where the conditions were already pretty bad. So this was a plea from fellow prisoners for current ones and for the American people to be aware of it. And they were clearly trying to get a present present Trump's attention since he has made freeing hostages in the past such a priority. Yeah. Well, thanks for talking to them and thanks for talking to all the others that you do and to help inform the American public and even broader audiences appreciate you taking the time to come on the program today. Thanks. Thanks for everything. Seth, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to our episode today. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts for more analysis. Please visit CSIS.org. This is the last line of defense.