Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Corker, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the United States’ diplomatic efforts to end the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. I have closely followed the P5+1 talks since their inception – first as an aide to the Secretary of State, then as the official responsible for Iran at the National Security Council, and now as a research scholar – and I while I strongly support a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear crisis, I am concerned at the juncture at which we now find ourselves.

Our negotiators’ mantra with regard to these negotiations is, as it should be, that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But how can one tell a good deal from a bad deal, from the point of view of the United States?

• A good deal is one which clearly advances American interests – not only our interest in nuclear nonproliferation globally, but in the stability of the Middle East and our prestige and influence in that region, which has in recent years declined sharply.
• The talks are a diplomatic effort to address the grave threat to our interests – shared with our allies in the region and beyond – posed by Iranian nuclear efforts.
• As in any negotiation, any agreement must also be acceptable to Iran; but whether any particular deal is acceptable to Iran depends not only on the content of that deal but on whether Iranian authorities believe the alternatives to the deal would be worse.

Our negotiators appear to be on the cusp of a historic deal with the Iranian regime. Whether that deal is a historic accomplishment or a historic error, however, depends on whether it durably ensures that Iran is prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons and advances our interests in the region broadly, or whether it leaves the region less stable, our allies less confident in our resolve, and Iran with sufficient residual nuclear capacity to develop nuclear weapons in the near future.

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