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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Iran and Netanyahu Speech; Reviewing Netanyahu's Speech to Congress

Aired March 03, 2015 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: If there was no deal or what would happen if the four European nations and China and Russia all agreed and the United States did not. And he didn't make a suggestion as to what Israel would find agreeable. He simply said, there's nothing that we agree with here. And then he made a number of pronouncements of terrible things that could happen.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, but he did talk about the concept of treating -- if Iran wants to be -- if Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, they should act like a normal country. And he gave three examples, talking about stop with aggression towards their neighbors in the Middle East, stop supporting terrorism around the world and stop saying that Iran wants to annihilate Israel. Those -- so those are concrete asks, right?

FEINSTEIN: All of -- all of those things I agree with. All of those things are what makes it detrimental to a deal. The question is, that if there is a deal and if Iran is willing to give up its nuclear pursuits, at least with exception of the peaceful on -- peaceful pursuit and then have all of the fissile material moved out, that that would -- might indicate a change. But there is no question as to what Iran has done. The game -- the terrible games that have been played and it's got to stop.

BASH: Now, you know what is -- sort of what the parameters of this deal are. I know you told me yesterday that you've learned that in a classified setting. Can you just tell me, is he right when he talks about the fact that they would be able to break out within a year?

FEINSTEIN: I'm not going to comment on that. I do know this, that nothing has been finalized. Nothing has been finalized to date. So I think what we -- the problem with this is, it's really premature. I think we need to wait and see. He laid out a number of red lines, that's correct, in terms of the length of the deal, if it's at 10 years, Israel doesn't like it. They don't like the one-year breakout period that may be part --

BASH: Do you like those things?

FEINSTEIN: I --

BASH: Or does it concern you, knowing what you know? I mean you have access to the intelligence that none of us do. So knowing what you know, does it concern you as well? FEINSTEIN: One of the things that I've seen in my lifetime is time

goes by very fast. And 10 years is not a long time. Fifteen or 20 years is a much better period of time in terms of changing behavior, in terms of showing a better way --

BASH: So it should be a longer-term deal?

FEINSTEIN: I really -- my -- my preference would be that it be a longer deal and that we'd be able to guarantee a longer period of breakout. But that's just me. What he didn't say is what would happen if there is no deal. What would Israel do? What would Israel expect the United States to do. What in many -- much of his rhetoric suggested is that there's a very real possible likelihood of Israel taking aggressive action.

BASH: Is that your concern, that if there is no deal, that Israel would strike militarily?

FEINSTEIN: I would -- I am not there at all. But you have to think, what happens if there's no deal? Does Israel do this? And then, what is expected of the United States and do we respond accordingly? And do we then create a major conflagration in the Middle East?

BASH: Senator, thank you so much for your time.

FEINSTEIN: You're very welcome.

BASH: Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate it.

Back to you, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Some major news there from Dianne Feinstein, Dana, she says she potentially personally disagrees with the president of the United States and the secretary of state. They're working on a 10-year deal with Iran. She says she'd like to see it 15 or 20 years. We'll see what happens on that point.

The prime minister of Israel mincing no words in his 40-minute address before this joint meeting of the United States Congress, saying this current deal that's on the table right now, that's being negotiated in Switzerland, is a bad deal. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: That deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons, lots of them. Let me explain why. While the final deal has not yet been signed, certain elements of any potential deal are now a matter of public record. You don't need intelligence agencies and secret information to know this. You can Google it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That's the prime minister only moments ago.

Fareed Zakaria, you were watching this very, very closely. An enormous gap has now developed publicly between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel. The president wants this deal. He's not sure there will be a deal. He says it's about 50/50, the chances of success. But the prime minister says this is a horrible, horrible deal.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, CNN'S "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Well, I think the chances just went to 60/40 against in the sense that this was a very good speech from the prime minister's perspective. It was brilliantly written. It was brilliantly delivered. It was a piece of rhetoric, as some people have pointed out, but speeches are pieces of rhetoric and rhetoric matters in politics.

It was -- it combined intelligence with emotional appeal. It was intelligent on the floors of the deal. Look, the two problems that Bebe Netanyahu points out with the deal, the number of centrifuges and the length of the time line, the 10-year sunset provision, are problems with the deal. He also then tied it very powerfully to a very moving and eloquent defense of the existence of the Jewish people and the importance that they be strong. You know, I found it very moving and very powerful. So the whole thing was very well done as a package.

It doesn't -- I think as Dianne Feinstein was saying, it doesn't provide you with a sense of the alternative because the problem here is, if there is no deal, the argument seems to be -- you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu's argument seems to be, the same sanctions will stay in place, enforced by the entire world. In fact, you could ratchet them up and wait for Iran to buckle. That is highly unlikely. The other countries involved that have signed onto this set of international sanctions are -- have done it because they wanted to bring Iran to accept what they regarded as a reasonable deal. This is Russia, this is China, this is some of Iran's neighbors. Those sanctions are going to get leaky very soon.

And under the condition of sanctions, particularly American-only sanctions, Iran has been able to build 19,000 centrifuges. So Iran will be able to continue to do that uninspected, unencumbered. It will have more than enough money under any sanctions regime. Because, remember, Iran is an oil-rich country. It has tens of billions of dollars of oil revenue. And then you end up with a situation, imagine 10 years of no deal and where is Iran at that point? Well, we know where Iran has been just in the last few years, almost 20,000 centrifuges. So I would imagine that Iran gets much further to the goal that Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't want it to get to with no deal.

BLITZER: And we should anticipate major public reaction from the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, they're going to all be reacting very, very powerfully, I suspect, in the coming hours to what we just heard from the prime minister of Israel.

The prime minister also minced no words when talking about Iran's supreme leader. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NETANYAHU: Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, spews the oldest hatred -- the oldest hatred of anti-Semitism with the newest technology. He tweets that Israel must be annihilated. He tweets. In Iran, there isn't exactly free Internet. But he tweets in English that Israel must be destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's get some analysis of what's going on. David Horovitz is joining us, the founding editor of "The Times of Israel." Ari Fleischer is still with us, the former press secretary to President Bush. Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Omar Ginsburg is with us as well.

How's this likely, David, to play in Israel? They were watching the speech, five minute delay, on the Israeli television channel. I assume they saw the whole thing. Two weeks from today are Israeli elections and the polls show it's very close. Netanyahu might not be reelected.

DAVID HOROVITZ, FOUNDING EDITOR, "THE TIMES OF ISRAEL": Look, I think, you know, there were people who said he had to give the speech of his life, and I think many in Israel will think that he gave the speech of his life. It was a devastating assault on President Obama, really, suggesting, you know, profound naivety in the administration about the rapacious, religious imperative behind the Iran leadership. And I have to tell you, Wolf, Iran has not been the central feature of the Israeli elections, but it will benefit him. It's a very close race and I imagine he will emerge from this speech stronger.

BLITZER: I want you to stand by for a minute. I want to go back to Jim Sciutto, our White House correspondent.

You've got some more reaction over there, Jim?

Jim Acosta -- excuse me, Jim -- never mind. Never mind. Jim Sciutto's in Switzerland, Montrose, Switzerland, right outside of Geneva. He's covering these negotiations.

Jim Sciutto, what have you got?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I'll tell you, just as an indicator, while that speech was going on, the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, was meeting for the third time today with the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, the two main negotiators for this nuclear deal that the prime minister was criticizing in his speech there. And just to give you a sense, they met for two hours this morning, another two hours in the evening. This is their second evening meeting. So these talks continuing really at quite a marathon pace of shuttle diplomacy between these two sides.

And I'll tell you this, the key concern here really was, were details of these negotiations going to be released from the very beginning of these talks going back more than a year, I've been to Geneva and Vienna and here as they've discussed -- they've done a great job, frankly, of keeping most of the details under wraps. So in this speech, despite the fears going in, you didn't have any new details revealed, but you did, as Fareed was saying earlier, have a description of really the fundamental disagreement here and if the president of the United States is willing to allow Iran not to have a nuclear weapon but to keep a nuclear program.

That's what these negotiating -- negotiators here are focusing on, how do you limit that program? How many centrifuges do you end up with? How advanced are those centrifuges? What do you do with the uranium that Iran has already enriched closed to weapons grade level? They're talking about shipping out of the country. That's really the focus is creating a Rubik's cube of restrictions so that that program, which remains, can be under restrictions and under monitoring by the outside world.

What Prime Minister Netanyahu arguing for here is not only eliminating the program whatsoever but in effect negotiating a bigger deal, stopping Iran's support of terrorism, stopping its aggression in the region and stopping those consistent demands for the annihilation of Israel. So the talks here continue on what they're focused on.

BLITZER: All right.

SCIUTTO: But what they're focused on is a very different goal from what Prime Minister Netanyahu outlined there before Congress.

BLITZER: All right, Jim Sciutto, stand by.

Elise Labott was listening very, very carefully. You just spent the last several weeks in Israel. You heard David Horovitz say it's probably going to help him in Israel, this speech by the prime minister of Israel. But he really, really, after praising the United States, praising the president for all the help he's given Israel in various areas, he then blasted the president of the United States for in effect being naive about Iran.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, and he blasted, although in the last couple of days we've been hearing he's going to release all this sensitive information and that was the big fear of this administration, that he was going to reveal sensitive negotiations. I think that he actually helped himself by not doing that because he -- what he did, Wolf, was he made the case. He lays out the nature of this regime, talking about the tentacles of terror that it has in the region. Then he builds up to the deal itself and everything we've been talking about, about the restrictions being lifted in time and the architecture that's left in place and why Iran could move towards the bomb.

And then he talks about the consequences in the region. In an already combustible Mideast, a nuclear arms race and a tinderbox, a region in a tinderbox. And so I think he did lay out what he thought was the alternative, a tougher deal with tougher sanctions. The problem is, as you see in Geneva, Jim was just saying what they're talking about, that deal does not exist. And so if you don't have a deal, then you have Iran continuing at an alarming pace with no inspections, with no restrictions really and I think that's what everybody --

BLITZER: But there's no doubt, Gloria, that this speech by the prime minister of Israel will put enormous pressure on the president of the United States, the secretary of state right now, at this delicate moment in this negotiation.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, those of us who cover politics in this room know that that -- this was a great political speech because he praised Obama before he buried Obama, and that is exactly what he did. He praised him and said, look, we understand everything you've done for us, iron dome, everything else, but, by the way, he's negotiating a lousy deal and people in the Middle East are afraid of this deal. When Iran's economy becomes unshackled, they're going to only become more aggressive and we're the ones who are going to suffer.

And then at the end of it, when I think he really veered off into political territory, I don't know if it was on a delay at that point, but when he sort of raised the specter of the Holocaust and never again and (INAUDIBLE), I mean, there was this great -- Ari Fleischer could have -- could have done this great political speech.

ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER BUSH WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: (INAUDIBLE) prime minister who doesn't talk about the Holocaust. That's not political. That's called survival. That's called learning the lesson that created the founding of Israel.

BORGER: Well, exactly. But for an American -- but also for an American audience, for an American audience, if you are building the case --

FLEISCHER: That's not political.

BORGER: That's not political? Let me --

FLEISCHER: Talking about the Holocaust is the history of the Jewish people.

BORGER: But what I -- but what I am saying is that this was a powerful moment, political -- you can call it political, you can say it wasn't political, but it was a powerful moment --

FLEISCHER: I don't call it political.

BORGER: At the end of this -- at the end of this speech for not only the audience back home but the audience here.

BLITZER: John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The prime minister came here with two goals. One was to help himself back home, because that election is in two weeks. It is hard to see those images of the reception in the Congress not helping him back home. A fight with the American president, that's a little bit more dicey. But the images today, pretty positive. His other goal was to make it harder for the president, number one, to finish this deal. And if he does finish this deal, to sell it to the United States Congress and to the American people. And I think the prime minister left the platform thinking he had done that. His critics will say, we've heard this before. You know, if you go to

bed tonight, you're going to wake up tomorrow with a nuclear Iran. His timetable, the American intelligence, the American political debate between the Israelis, there was nothing new there.

I think what was most effective, though, his goal was to -- in this point, counter point, to put the president back on his heels, to make the administration now come out and defend its position. What was most effective was saying, look, he said the president of the United States is, quote, "betting the security of the world on the hope that Iran will change its behavior." His point was, well, get them to change -- I don't mean to call this the little stuff -- but get them to change the stuff they could change tomorrow, stop supporting Hezbollah, stop supporting terrorism, stop saying you want to wipe Israel off the planet. Why would you keep negotiating with these guys, the prime minister said, until you get some proof they're willing to change their behavior. That's effective.

BLITZER: Let me bring in Mike Rogers. You served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until recently. You're a CNN national security commentator right now. You heard the prime minister of Israel. You're privy to a lot of the sensitive information about Iran, the nuclear negotiations underway right now. Here's the question, who is right, the president of the United States who wants this deal, the prime minister of Israel who says it would cause a disaster?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it will cause a disaster. Remember, this speech was long in the making. I've been in some very spirited meetings with the prime minister and U.S. officials on any sense of negotiation with Iran, even as long as two years ago in Israel and back here in the United States. So when they started to frame out this deal, imagine where the prime minister of Israel's looking at this deal. First, they leaked -- senior White House officials leaked their plans in 2012 about refueling airplanes. That is about as a low blow as you can possibly get when you leak your allies' military plans for any disruption of their nuclear plan.

Secondly, fast-forward, they find out -- they found out through their intelligence services that there was secret negotiations by the president with Iran. Unbelievable. And then fast forward again, you have the Russians, last year, cut a special deal with Iran during negotiations on processing fuel. All of these things, if you are the prime minister of Israel, would say, I'm on the short end of this stick and this is a bad deal.

And just lastly, quickly, there are three main components of a nuclear program -- missiles, weaponization and enrichment. They get to keep enrichment, unless something has changed, they get to continue their research on missiles and they get to do anything they want to on weaponization. That's a disaster.

BLITZER: So you think this is a bad deal?

ROGERS: I do. Unless some miraculous thing has happened in the last few weeks, this is a bad deal. BLITZER: Marc Ginsberg, you wrote a blistering account of the prime

minister's visit here to the United States, "The Huffington Post," right? You still stand by what you wrote now that you've heard the prime minister?

MARC GINSBERG, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO: Well, this was quintessential guardian of the Jewish galaxy speech for Bebe. But the fact of the matter is, is that, Wolf, the context of this was, is the U.S./Israeli relationship going to be strengthened or weakened as a result of this speech? He is now on a collision course -- the only thing that was missing from this was the negotiations being in Munich and him accusing President Obama of being Neville Chamberlain. That -- the incredible nature of what he has established here was that this collision course is now heading down a steep slope whereby, in the end, he is trying to set up a blocking majority in the Congress against the -- any context of -- or hope for this agreement. And, remember, he sees Iran the way many of us see Iran, but the administration is trying to basically do business with Iran across a variety of contexts, whether it's Syria or Iran or wherever. And he considers Iran to be public enemy number one. That is the foreign policy divide that exists right now between the president and the Israelis and that is not going to be closed anytime soon.

BLITZER: Did he make -- did he make a good point, though, the prime minister of Israel?

GINSBERG: Oh, he made -- I think he made excellent points. But, to me, the biggest concern is, does this further drive a divide between U.S./Israeli relations, and my answer is yes.

BLITZER: Of course it does. Don't you agree that he was basically accusing, Ari Fleischer, the president of the United States, of undermining Israel's very existence?

FLEISCHER: Actually, Wolf, I think when two democracies have a difference, this is how you air it, you give speeches, and there's nothing wrong with that. And in this case, it comes down to characteristics of the Iranian regime and that's the divide.

(CROSS TALK)

BLITZER: David Horovitz, I know -- hold on a second -- because I know in Israel they're very worried about Iran, understandably so, but they're also worried about the U.S./Israeli relationship, right, David?

HOROVITZ: OK, so there was a divide about the tactic, about whether he should come and make this speech. But don't lose track that there's consensus in Israel about how dangerous Iran is and how abysmal this deal appears to be and really, of course, it's a huge collision course with this administration --

BORGER: And also --

HOROVITZ: Because the prime minister who's saying you're endangering Israel, but you're also endangering the region and the free world. You're doing damage to your own country's interests. So he's prepared to go on that collision course because he thinks the issues are so cardinal.

BLITZER: Yes, looks like a real clash emerging.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: If you thought, as I said before, if you thought it was bad between Netanyahu and Obama before, just wait --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

BLITZER: Because after this speech it's going to get a whole lot worse.

Elise, you wanted to make a point?

LABOTT: But, I mean, and David had a really interesting poll that came out a few weeks ago that said three in four Israelis do not trust President Obama on Iran. So when you look back in Israel, whether this helps him, I think that Israelis, even if they don't agree with him, they don't like Netanyahu, he's falling in the polls. When it comes to Iran, they trust this prime minister to keep them safe (ph).

BORGER: But what's the endgame?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If only -- if only Iran were -- were high in the polls in Israel, in these elections, it's not.

BORGER: But let me ask you, what's the endgame? And maybe, Ari, you can talk (ph). I don't know what Netanyahu's endgame here. Is it to something affect negotiations, which I don't think he can do, or is it to just get Congress to say, should push comes to shove at a certain point when we have to provide waivers on sanctions or whatever, don't do it.

BLITZER: Let me ask Mike Rogers to answer that.

ROGERS: I don't -- I'm not as cynical that he came here for purely political purposes. I don't believe that. I have been in the room with Netanyahu when he passionately discusses, with no cameras, no microphones, how important this is to get right, this relationship, in (ph) a nuclear-umbrellaed Iran. And, by the way, the first time you'll talk about this is when the Kuds force is doing activities in Pakistan and, oh, by the way, the United States, when they tried to kill the Saudi ambassador. I think he mentioned that in his speech.

BORGER: So why do you think he came then?

BLITZER: Yes.

ROGERS: I honestly think he came here because he thinks this is a bad deal that will impact the security of the Middle East and his greatest ally, the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). ROGERS: And there has -- yes, and there just hasn't been a good relationship for years. Remember, this just didn't happen. He didn't decide to do this. There's an election in two weeks. It's been going on.

KING: This was already a tough sell for the president. Though, remember, just a couple of weeks ago it was Bob Menendez, Chuck Schumer, it was Democrats out there, standing, criticizing the president in these negotiations. So I do think this is a tough sell for the president to begin with --

BLITZER: Yes.

KING: And the prime minister's speech will make it a tougher sell for the administration. And that clearly was one of his goals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May I ask --

BLITZER: All right, hold -- hold on one second. I want to play another little clip. This is the prime minister of Israel. The prime minister of Israel talking about what's at stake for Israel right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NETANYAHU: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel. I know that you stand with Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Strong words from the prime minister of Israel. He's trying to make sure, Jake Tapper, that the U.S./Israeli relationship remains strong. It has been very strong. But there's going to be a serious collision right now between him and the president.

TAPPER: Well, he's paving the president's chief negotiation here with the Iranians and the partners as something that not only would not hurt Iran's ability to get a nuclear bomb but something that will pave the way for it. Now, administration officials say that what Netanyahu did not do was present any concrete alternative. And the speech he gave was a regime change speech, calling for new leadership, Iran. And they say that's just not realistic. That's not part of the options presented before them.

BLITZER: Yes, basically his only alternative, short of war, short of a military strike against Iran, was to go back, not only continue the sanctions, but increase the sanctions, try to get even more and put that kind of enormous pressure on the regime in Tehran.

TAPPER: Well, the issue is, as far as the White House argues, and this is just factually correct, that sanctions have been increased and yet the nuclear program has gone stronger and stronger even with those sanctions in place. So for the -- if there are three options, one is this plan, the other is a military strike and the other one is the status quo, which is sanctions and hope that Iran will cave, Netanyahu is essentially arguing for sanctions and hope Iran will cave and the White House says that is a worse idea than the plan because the status quo is Iran can break out and form a nuclear weapon in two to three months. Under the plan, it's about a year, although Israel used to say probably closer to six months.

BLITZER: Yes, the White House is furious right now. Top officials -- they're very angry at the prime minister of Israel for this speech, for in effect saying the president is undermining Israel's very security and survival. They say it's a lot of rhetoric on the part of the prime minister but no real substance.

TAPPER: Well, whether or not it was substance -- and I heard the political panel praising the politics of it, it was a very, very effective speech. And I think it is probably the case that if you were to poll members of Congress right now, they would, swept up in the emotion of what Netanyahu said, with Elie Wiesel in the stands, opt for siding with -- especially the Republican Congress, opt for siding with Netanyahu right now. You heard the response. But at the end of the day, it's not a choice of, we want something better versus this plan, it's going to be a choice of concrete realities.

BLITZER: Yes, there were maybe 50 or 60 Democrats who decided to boycott this speech by the prime minister of Israel, but there were hundreds of Democrats in there, and Republicans, who decided to attend, and as you correctly point out, they -- it was a captive audience. They will pay attention to what they just heard.

TAPPER: It was -- I mean, first of all, not only is that going to be helpful to Netanyahu in his re-election, which is -- which is this month, but also --

BLITZER: Two weeks -- two weeks from today.

TAPPER: It also is a sign to Israel's enemies in the region that the United States Congress is very much with Netanyahu. It is a powerful sign of that.

BLITZER: Yes, certainly is a historic moment right now. A lot of anticipation in advance of this speech. We've now heard the speech. We're about to get a major reaction, not only from the White House, but from all of the parties concerned, including from the Iranians, who are involved in these negotiations right now.

I'll be right back at the top of the hour. Much more coverage on what's going on.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield will be covering the day's other important news right after this quick break.

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