"Iran's Strategic Concerns and US Interests"
Unedited Transcript
Fifty-First Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy
IRAN'S STRATEGIC CONCERNS AND U.S. INTERESTS
Speakers:
GARY SICK,
Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor, International Relations, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University
TRITA PARSI,
President, National Iranian American Council; Author
RAY TAKEYH,
Senior Fellow, Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
BARBARA SLAVIN,
Senior Fellow, Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program, United States Institute of Peace; Senior Diplomatic Reporter, USA Today
Moderator/Discussant
Chas W. Freeman, Jr.,
President, Middle East Policy Council
2168 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, DC
CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR.:
Good morning. We're waiting for a microphone for the question-and-comment session, which, however, won't
start for a while. We're also waiting for Trita Parsi, who is going to be a little late. But I think we should begin. I'm Chas. Freeman., president of the Middle East Policy Council, and I'd like to welcome you to this session on Iran's strategic concerns and U.S. interests.
First, a few words about the Council: We are an organization that's a bit over a quarter-century old. We are educational in nature. We don't take positions on issues. We do three things: First, we convene discussions like the one today on issues that are controversial, politically incorrect, neglected and misunderstood, not to prejudge the nature of the discussion. And then we take the transcript of these sessions and we make it the first item in the second thing we do, which is our quarterly publication, Middle East Policy, which I'm proud to say is the most often cited in its field. It focuses contemporary U.S. relationships and relationships within the region that bear on U.S. interests.
The third thing we do - and I'm very delighted to see Barbara Petzen here. Barbara, you want to stand up for a second? Barbara is currently in the process of reorganizing our long-standing and very effective program of teacher training at the high school level. We've trained 18,000 teachers throughout the United States on how to teach about Islam and Arab civilization. I know Persians don't believe there is any Arab civilization, but I don't hesitate to use that word. We probably thereby affect, confuse, if you will, somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 million kids a year with a fact or two about the Middle East which they would not very likely otherwise encounter in our splendid public education system. So those are the three things we do.
And now to the business at hand: We are here to talk about an issue that has become, rather oddly I think,
almost a national preoccupation, which is the question of Iran, its interests, its policies, its influence,
its programs, and its challenge to the United States in that regard. Some people might argue, that this preoccupation is simply a reflection of an enemy-deprivation syndrome on the part of Israel or perhaps the United States, that is to say the sick feeling you get when an enemy of comparable conventional military capability disappears and you are left to justify your modern military arsenal by finding some new enemy.
Or perhaps Iran has become such a preoccupation because its existence is annoying and its influence is a challenge to American hegemony in West Asia. Or perhaps it is because of the nuclear threat to Poland that Iran allegedly presents or its potential to dominate the region's political life. For whatever reason, it is clear that Iran is now a centerpiece of American policy. The president spent a great deal of time on his recent tour of the region speaking about it.
We're here today to talk in part about the history of our relationship, which is long and convoluted. Each speaker will speak for 10 to 12 minutes. Despite my bad back, which may cause me to sit down today, I'm still strong enough to throw them off the podium if they exceed 12 minutes and I will not hesitate to do so. I have spent a long time preparing the bulk necessary to be a tackle. And so I warn them that 12 minutes is about it. And when we finish the discussion, I would ask simply that those of you who have comments or questions keep them reasonably succinct and identify yourselves when you speak. Hopefully we will have a mike too, so I won't have to mangle your question by repeating it to those who didn't hear it and to the transcribers.
So Gary Sick, I think, is going to talk about something of the history of the relationship, I hope not going back to World War II, but leaving some space for Barbara Slavin at the end to talk about current events. And Ray Takeyh, who - welcome back, Ray; you've been a participant in many of these programs in the past - will talk about Iran's neighbors, that is Iraq, the Gulf Arab countries, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, all of that in about 10 minutes. And when he arrives, Trita Parsi will discuss the numerous clients that we have bestowed upon Iran in recent years, having driven Hamas into the arms of Iran by leaving it nowhere else to go, empowered Hezbollah's dominance of Lebanon and bolted it onto Iran in ways that can't be pried loose, and ensured that Syria has no alternative to its reliance on Iran, as well as of course allowing Iran to conduct a political occupation of Iraq under our military auspices. So Trita, who's not here so he doesn't have to react to that characterization of the Iranian policy and our own, will discuss that.
With these few words, I'd like to throw the meeting open and to invite Gary Sick, who really needs no introduction to a Washington audience, even though he is currently at Columbia University. Gary is a many-time incumbent of positions on the National Security Council and a national treasure on the issue of Iran and the Persian Gulf. Gary is going to speak, I think, sitting down, and I'm going to join him in sitting down. Thanks.
GARY SICK: Thank you very much. I gather you can hear me okay with this -
MR. FREEMAN: You may have to move this over. I think that's for the transcribers.
GARY SICK:
Okay, good. I'll talk - yeah that's good. I hope that works a little bit better.
Actually, being on a panel of this quality makes me think of the old story about the fellow who arrived at the pearly gates and St. Peter said to him, well, one of the things we do as one of our first acts here is you're expected to give a little talk. And this fellow said, oh, well, he said, I went through the Jamestown flood; I've been talking about that for years and years and years. And he said I'll do a little talk about the Jamestown flood. St. Peter said, well, that's all right, but remember Noah will be in the audience. (Chuckles.) And when I'm faced with a group of other people whose expertise is enormous, I think about that. I also think on a panel of this sort, just looking at the average age, is my role will not be of Moses, but maybe Methuselah.
Let me make - I'm going to take a very geo-strategic view of the history rather than trying to go back and recount how the United States and Iran have interacted, which many of you certainly know to begin with. I would like to look at just one element of that relationship, which I think has really interfered with the evolution of our policy. We're coming up, by the way, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, when in fact, the United States lost its position in the Persian Gulf and has never really recovered from it in some respects.
But one of the really curious ironies of the current political situation is that Iran is actually emerging as the pivot of Middle East politics, of Middle East policy, certainly on the eastern side of the Middle East, what we think of as the Middle East, and actually is emerging as natural rival to Israel, which Trita will no doubt be talking about, on the west. And it's kind of an interesting fact that, you know, Iran is a non-Arab, non Arabic-speaking country with a religion - coming from a religious minority position being Shi'a instead of Sunni, and of course Israel is very different, so that you've got these two major parties who are emerging as rivals for political influence in the reason. Neither one of them is the usual Sunni, traditional state, and those states such as Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia are feeling very left out of this process.
And also, they hold us responsible for it. And the reason they hold us responsible is that we are to a very considerable degree. We'll cast your minds back to the early parts of this century when, in fact, the United States initially after 9/11 went into Afghanistan and got rid of, at least dispersed, the Taliban and terminated its government in Afghanistan. And of course the Taliban, among other things, was the worst enemy of Iran to the east. And then before we had finished that job, we turned around and went into Iraq, getting rid of the government of Saddam Hussein, which was clearly Iran's worst enemy to the west and had fought a war of eight years with Iran. And then we went further and saw to the installation of a Shi'a government in Baghdad for the first time in history.
And for all of these wonderful benefits, which the Iranians are most grateful for, they've told me that they think this is, that this was very kind of us, it has left Iran in a power position that is actually remarkable. Iran didn't have to do anything to acquire this kind of influence that it now has in the region. And we did it for them. You might not be surprised then to think that the Arab states, the old line classical Arab states are suspicious about what U.S. motives are.
I was told by a senior U.S. official, when I mentioned this fact to him and why in the world would the United States do this to push the role of Iran to such a degree, and he looked at me for a second and said, well, we didn't mean to. And I can assure you that we probably didn't mean to, but the reality is that the Arabs look at this and say, could you really have done this all in just sort of sleepwalking or without thinking about the effects were. In any case, Iran is enjoying the benefits or our largesse and I think we're going to have to see more about that.
One of the issues that has emerged as the probably cutting issue in - I'm watching - as one of the cutting issues is the issue about the nuclear development in Iran. And this also has a historical relevance because in fact today we are being told by all of the shah's men, the people who were around the shah, who work with him, and who are now out of the job and writing their memoirs and making statements, the one thing they agree with the present Islamic Republic is on nuclear policy. They said, you guys are doing exactly what we were trying to do. That was our objective, that's what the shah intended to do was to create a situation in which Iran was, say, 18 months away from building a nuclear weapon. And I think that's in fact what Iran has been doing.
Curiously enough, and it doesn't get any attention, but Iran has actually been proceeding at an extraordinarily stately, slow pace in this whole process. Most countries that went for a covert nuclear weapon - Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa - basically all of them from the time they made the decision to do this until they actually had a device in hand, amounted to about five or six years. Iran made its decision to go for a nuclear infrastructure 22 years ago in 1985, and today they've got something like 3,000 centrifuges turning and they still are quite a ways away.
They are very much aware of the fact that, as Mr. al Baradei said the other day, that there are some 40 countries in the world that have the capability, if they wish to use it, of building a nuclear weapon. They have the infrastructure necessary. And Iran fully intends to become a member of that club. It becomes a question then of what do we do about that? I would argue that the strategies that we have been pursuing in this whole field, which have been a serious of red lines.
Originally, our red line was that they should have no access to nuclear technology at all, which is very difficult to enforce with a country of 70 million people who are very smart and have a lot of money. You can't keep them away from knowing about nuclear physics. We then said that under no circumstances should they have nuclear power plants. And we did everything in our power to keep them from getting that; they finally found someone to sell them a nuclear power plant. And that power plant, although it's been extremely slow also, is supposed to open sometime this year, built by the Soviet - by the Russians.
Then we said, okay, since we failed in both of those cases, our new red line is no enrichment of uranium under any circumstances, and that's where we are today. Of course Iran, as we speak, is enriching uranium. And I don't think we're going to succeed in making them go back and forget how to do that or to lose the technical capability that they have gained. The question is, what do we really want out of this? And I would argue that our main problem is we have been very unclear about our objectives. I think the objective should be very simple: we don't want Iran to get a bomb. And the question is how do we go about doing that?
I think we're going to have to accept some realities, accept that Iran is going to probably be a member of that 40 nation club that has some capability to go for a weapon if they decide to do so. But I think we can surround that with enough inspections, monitoring, and oversight, that it would be one, extremely difficult for Iran to decide to go for a bomb without our knowing it, and secondly if they did go for it, it would give us - they wouldn't be so close that we couldn't react to that and rather quickly respond to it in a policy manner.
In the course of that, there are a couple of things that probably will be reflected in other people's comments here, but how do you do it? The first thing I think you would have to do is you have to be willing to talk to them. You have to be willing to put something on the table and you have to be able to in fact regard the IAEA not as an enemy, but as an ally and use it in some kind of effective way. There are many people who find that very unpalatable and who really are interested in using coercion to stop Iran. Our coercion started in 1975; we've had very strict sanctions on Iran ever since that time, and I would argue that those sanctions have failed. They've had some effect on the Iranian economy, but they have failed to stop Iran from doing what it wanted to do. We're going to have to find other ways to do it. We're going to have to put something on the table, and we're going to have to engage with them in some way, and I'll look forward to hearing from my colleagues here about their ideas on where we are on that process, thank you.
MR. FREEMAN:
Thank you very much, Gary. Trita Parsi's now joined us and when he came in, I misspoke to him about the order of the presentations. Trita, you're next. I hope you're ready. (Chuckles.)
But before I give Trita the floor, I want to just note a couple of things that Gary said that I emphatically agree with and note some of the corollaries to those.
First, Iran has now, by virtue of American empowerment, emerged as the dominant or a dominant force in shaping events in the Middle East. Ironically, the empowerment of Iran, in the many ways by which our policies have been able to expand its influence, has jolted Saudi Arabia out of its traditional diplomatic torpor and made it the other major driver of events in the region, with very active engagement in Lebanon, in Iraq and Syria, with Iran, and of course in the Palestinian territories, where the Saudis have concluded they cannot leave the field to Iran.
Second, and following from this, the focus on Iranian nuclear capability has led to the GCC embracing nuclear power as well, and as usual the principal beneficiary of the American policies that achieved this result are the French, who have just signed their first contracts for reactors in the UAE.
Finally, I think for those of you who haven't heard this, it is worth recounting the remarks of an Iranian professor with whom I spoke in Beirut about 11 months ago. He said: "you know, when you Americans began your drive to democratize the Middle East, we didn't know whether you knew what you were doing, but now we know that you did not know what you were doing because every election that's been held has worked to our advantage rather than yours. And we can therefore understand why you might have decided to abandon this policy of democratization, but on reflection, we think you had an excellent idea and intend to carry forward with it ourselves."
All of this by way of introduction to Trita, who really doesn't, again, need an introduction, the author of an absolutely splendid book, "Treacherous Alliances: the Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel, and the United States," and the president of the National Iranian American Council. Trita is going to speak about Iran and its clients, traditional and new, thanks. If you want to come up here, fine.
TRITA PARSI: : I'll come up here for the mike. Thank you so much, Ambassador, it's a pleasure being here today. I'm terribly, terribly sorry I arrived a little bit late. I'll blame the traffic without going into any detail.
I want to talk to you not only about the different proxies that Iran has, but also about our policy and where it's leading. And I'll be very frank, I think our policy has now reached a stage in which I don't think there's anyone that really has much confidence that this policy of isolation and containment of Iran will be able to be successful. In fact, I think we've gone to great lengths almost showing desperation in our hope of being able to make this policy viable again. And everything indicates that even though a lot of our allies are extremely, extremely worried about Iran and the potential of nuclear Iran, and whatever consequences a nuclear or enrichment capable Iran will have for the balance of power in the region.
At the same time, I think we're seeing strong signs that they have lost faith, if not in our policy, in our competence in fulfilling that policy, and also in the sustainability of that policy. I think we see that right now when the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are not as inclined as one would have expected or as they used to be in pursuing a policy in which they are helping the United States to contain Iran. And I think the reason for it a couple.
On the one hand, compared to about 10 years ago, today the stakes are much higher. A containment policy today risks leading or creating an atmosphere in which a confrontation - a military confrontation between the United States and Iran is much more realistic today than it would have been 10 years ago. And this makes it much more difficult for them to go along with this policy because the repercussions of such military confrontations are very difficult to predict, but the Arab states are pretty certain that it will not be positive of them, mindful of Iran's capabilities and mindful of their own proximity to where the battle would be taking place and the American bases that they host.
On the other hand, they're looking at the United States and I think they're seeing signs that would indicate that the U.S. itself is not confident in pursuing this policy. We're facing a rather unprecedented situation today in which, for the first time that I can remember, in the presidential elections, it's actually negative for many candidates to be conducting Iran-bashing. For the first time in many, many years, Iran bashing has a political cost. And the top three candidates in the Democratic side in Iowa all are on record not only favoring diplomacy, but unconditional diplomacy without the precondition that the Bush administration had put in place. This has never happened before.
And this also exists to a certain extent, not obviously as strong, on the Republican side. And then there is the recognition of the people in the region of seeing that whatever spin, whatever happy face we try to put on the policy, has not produced the results as we anticipated that they would. Iran is still continuing its enrichment program, it is not becoming more isolated, it is now receiving not only Russian fuel, but also Russian presidents. The Chinese are going forward with signing deals with the Iranians in spite of the threat of sanctions, in spite of what's going on in the Security Council, and this further erodes any confidence that this policy would then be able to be sustainable.
And if it's not sustainable, it would be risky for the Arabs to put themselves in a position in which they are pursuing this policy together with the United States when they themselves fear that perhaps the U.S. itself will betray the policy. And then the Arabs may end up looking more American than the Americans. And that would obviously be very negative because they are sitting there right next to what would then be not only a very strong, but perhaps somewhat of a revengeful Iran.
And add to that, we see then how the Arabs themselves have started to put their eggs in more than one basket by sending - inviting Ahmadinejad, this very tough spoken Iranian president, for the first time to speak at the GCC meeting, not to be outdone by the Qataris, the Saudis, then followed by inviting that very same president to do the hajj in Saudi Arabia. The Egyptians are negotiating with Larijani to try to see if they can reestablish diplomatic relations with Iran. I think this is an indication of their trying to put their eggs in several baskets and their lack of confidence that this policy either can be successful or be sustainable.
And add to this then the NIE that has then come out and, in many ways, not only pulled the rug out of the administration's feet, at least those in the administration that may have favored a military confrontation with Iran, and significantly reduced that risk at least on the basis of a nuclear issue, but in many ways also taken away the legitimacy, the justification to pursue further sanctions at the Security Council. I think making sure that Iran does not go nuclear in the sense of having a bomb is a very, very important goal and I completely agree with Gary that this is not something that the United States should backtrack on. But I do believe that we have a situation in which we do have to reassess our strategy and some of our objectives.
Zero enrichment, as Gary said, is no longer viable. But perhaps most importantly, if the objective is to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear bomb, then the zero enrichment objective was really never that useful to begin with because if the Iranians have a covert program, which was the argument that the president presented at the press conference in which he commented on the NIE, then zero enrichment really does nothing to address that issue, because if the program is covert, zero enrichment and them ending their enrichment of their open program does not indicate anything of what may be happening with a potential existing covert program.
In fact, I remember in some discussions and track two meetings with Iranians and Europeans, the Iranians indicated if they truly wanted to go for the bomb, the best thing they could do is to suspend, suspend the open program, reduce the tensions, create a better climate, in which they then more easily would be able to pursue a covert program and go for weaponization. Addressing the problem of a covert program is always going to be problematic, but there seems to be some solutions that are better suited for it than others.
Enrichment doesn't seem to do much, but verification and inspections can help tremendously, particularly if followed by some of the proposals that have been presented by nuclear experts indicating that the best way of preventing a covert program from existing is by making sure that the IAEA and the Security Council have a check on all Iranian scientists. There is a precedent for this in one of the Iraq resolutions; Iran would have to register all of its nuclear scientists. By that, the IAEA would then be able to keep a control on what they are doing in their evenings and on their weekends, and that would be a much more efficient way of making sure that there isn't a covert program than trying to run around in that huge country the size of Texas and trying to find something hidden in the mountains, or by simply relying on satellite pictures.
To get to that point, though, we have to, A, recognize that zero enrichment is not viable. We would have to concede that the precondition for negotiations right now is not helping but it is through those negotiations that we can get a solution in which this type of an instrument for non-proliferation can be pursued. Absent the negotiations, we can rest quite confident that we're not going to be able to achieve this. And if that situation endures, then likely the Iranians would be able to, without much interference, pursue their nuclear program, potentially even reach a much stronger industrial scale of their enrichment.
I know my time is running out. I just want to make one last point that may not be directly related to the issue of enrichment, but it is one issue that I think is extremely important and we are not talking enough about it. The human rights violations in Iran over the last couple of months, over the last couple of years have become absolutely horrific. You are now seeing in some parts of Iran in which the Iranian government is sanctioning not only executions without even a resemblance of due process, but also amputations and extremely barbaric methods of punishment. And this is, to a certain extent, capable of continuing precisely because of the high tensions between the two countries that has enabled the Iranian government to create a securitized environment inside the country in which fewer and fewer are willing to speak out, in which more and more pro-democracy and human rights advocates are finding their room for maneuverability limited.
And as counter-intuitive as it may sound, it is actually the opposite that would help the cause of democracy and the human rights situation in Iran by reducing the tensions, by opening up dialogue, by ensuring that there would be inspections not only on enrichment, but on other matters inside a country as well, with the international community in assistance and cooperation with Iran's own human rights organization, be able to do something to ensure that these types of crimes cease to occur. But as we continue down this path, however, we are unfortunately not going to see much of a change; on the contrary, as usual, the first people who will be the victims of these type of tensions will be the people of that country themselves. Thank you so much.
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, Trita, for a marvelous presentation on the subject, particularly on the nuclear issue. What I heard from the first two speakers was a common theme that certain American objectives, including particularly trying to preclude an Iranian nuclear weapons capability, are reasonable and well founded, but that the manner in which these are being pursued is in many respects counterproductive. And I note that particularly during President Bush's recent tour of the region, the costs of American bellicosity on this issue were registered.
Arabs are notoriously courteous and welcoming to guests even when they don't like those guests. Perhaps Mr. Ahmadinejad's reception in Qatar and in Mecca illustrates this point. And yet, when the American president visited and spoke on the subject of Iran, he drew an editorial in Saudi Arabia's major newspaper, which deplored the fact that, and I quote, "American policy represented not diplomacy in search of peace, but madness in search of war," about as pointed and denigrating a comment as one could think of. In fact, in many respects we have achieved something truly remarkable, in which our president is less popular by a wide margin, more detested than Mr. Ahmadinejad by Arab audiences.
And in fact, this has probably facilitated the clear trend toward Arab accommodation of Iran, which we have seen as recently as a few weeks ago in the apparent reopening of a connection with Egypt, as well as the reactions to the dismissal of American advice to the Arabs on how to deal with Iran. And we turn now to this aspect of Iran's large shadow in the region, when Ray Takeyh will talk about Iran and its neighbors, not just Iraq, but the Gulf Arabs and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as I said earlier, he will do all this in about 10 minutes, which only he could possibly do.
Ray is, our course, a senior fellow of the Middle East at the Council for Foreign Relations, and the author of numerous books, and I think writing another book at the moment on Iran, someone who's emerged as a very important national commentator on these issues and a voice of reason in a sea of madness. Thank you.
RAY TAKEYH: National commentator, but unlike Gary, not a national treasure yet. (Chuckles.)
MR. FREEMAN: Well, you have to get old to be a treasure. (Chuckles.)
RAY TAKEYH: Building up to that magnanimity. I'll deal with Iran's immediate neighborhood in a more of a maybe historical glance. If you look at Iran's policy toward the Middle East, the most important arena has always been the Gulf. The Gulf constitutes Iran's formal strategic priority. It is the most suitable link it has with the international petroleum market, and despite all the pretensions that Iran has about being involved in the Arab east and Central Asia and so forth, the Gulf always defines the core of its national interest.
And if you look at Iran's policy toward the Gulf, you can pretty much see it in sort of three historical stages: the 1980s, the 1990s and today. And the evolution of Iran's policy toward the Arab community and the Gulf reflects the larger evolution of its international relations. The years between 1980 to 1989 have to be viewed as kind of Iran's era of revolutionary tumult. When the revolutionaries came to power, they were essentially concerned not so much about the behavior of these states, but about their internal composition, how the Gulf states ruled themselves. For Amal Khomeini and the founder of Iran's revolution, monarchy was simply an inappropriate means of political organization, and combined with the fact that these countries maintained very close relationship with the United States, they became anathema, based upon their political organization as well as their international orientation.
And of course the policy that Iran pursued was trying to, a combination of violence, terrorism, subversion, attempting to undermine these regimes. The idea was that the way you change their foreign policy is you change their domestic political composition. The country that became particularly in the crosshairs of Iran's foreign policy in the 1980s was Saudi Arabia. To some extent, the competition between the two is natural: they both have - they both to some extent predicate their domestic legitimacy on a larger transnational mission. For Iranians, it was the export of their Islamic template; for the Saudi Arabia, it was the guardian of Islam's shrines. And they both essentially predicated their legitimacy on their own interpretation of Islamic ideology. And the fact, as I said, Saudi Arabia was governed by a monarchy, the fact that Saudi Arabia maintained a close relationship with the United States, made it a particular sort of contention and concern for the Islamic Republic.
And again, the way the Iranians dealt with this issue was terrorism, violence, subversion, and so forth. At the end of the day, the Iranian message was not appealing to the Gulf Arabs beyond a narrow segment of the Shi'a community. And in due course, the Shi'a community in these individual states was not necessarily drawn to Iran's theocratic model, but was mainly using the Iran specter of Iranian danger to negotiate a greater degree of political and economic rights with incumbent regimes. And to some extent, that worked, and once that happened the nature of Iranian appeal to Gulf Shi'a also diminished.
Of course, the byproduct of Iran policy in the 1980s was a region that was united in its support of Iraq during the war. You had the unprecedented arrival of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which was the first time really that the Gulf Arab states came together in a unified opposition to Islamic Republic. They managed to put aside a lot of their difference where there has been historical tension. By any measure, Iran's policy in the 1980s was on of failure. And that failure was most notably recognized by Khomeini's successor in 1989, which ushered in the second phase of Iran's foreign policy toward the Gulf and the larger Middle East between 1989 to 1997.
One of the things you can say about President Rafsanjani was, for a man of his time, he recognized that the Islamic Republic had to renegotiate its legitimacy with its constituents. It was insufficient for it to have this ossified rhetoric of martyrdom and a notion of export of the revolution, that in order for the Islamic Republic to succeed and survive, it had to meet some basic economic demands of its constituents, if not their political demands. And the only way you can actually meet those economic demands is to have a more expansive foreign policy, a foreign policy that tries to mend fences as opposed to aggravate tensions.
I think it's fair to say that in many respects, Rafsanjani presidency was a failure; Iran was ultimately not integrated in the global community of nations, nor was it integrated in the global economy. As a matter of fact, some of the haphazard economic measures caused the country to be drowned in debt and corruption. But nevertheless, you begin to see a very fundamental change in terms of Iran's approach to its neighbors. I think for the Rafsanjani period, what mattered most was the external behavior of the Gulf states and the Arab states as opposed to how they governed themselves. So you began to see the end of Iranian attempt to subvert the local order and essentially try to affect and influence the direction of international orientations of the Gulf emirates.
Iranian goals remain largely the same; they've been consistent throughout. You can go back to the monarchial years, namely Iran has a right by virtue of its size, demography, civilization to become the predominant power in the Gulf and a preeminent power in the Middle East. Those goals remain largely unaltered; it was the way that those goals were expressed, whether it was through revolutionary violence, or in case of shah, through some sort of a negotiated hegemony with the United States, the goal during the Rafsanjani period remained largely the same, except what he was trying to do is essentially try to appeal to the Gulf states, not unlike the shah, to concede to Iranian predominance. And for the Rafsanjani period, Iranian predominance was not necessarily coexisting with a strong, robust American presence in the Gulf.
So in essence they were suggesting that the Gulf security issue be predicated on an indigenous alliance, which means Iran and the Gulf states excluding the Americans. That of course was an infringement of the Gulf states' foreign policy, which had always sought to have a balance between external empires and Iran - and their large and populous neighbors to the north, both Iran and Iraq. And in due course, the failure of that diplomacy provoked violence, terrorism, the most notable case of it was perhaps the Khobar Tower bombings and so forth, where Iran once again began to target American presence through acts of terror.
By far the most important change in Iran's international orientation toward the region came in 1997 during the reformist period, where it was at that time that essentially, the reformists recognized that Iran would have to be part of the global community and have to live in a Gulf whose balance of power is determined by the United States. President Khatami gets a lot of criticism for his failures, but I always thought that in terms of foreign policy, he was very much a transformative figure. He did really change Iranian foreign policy in a very fundamental, significant, and durable manner. It was at that time that you began to see Iran fundamentally normalize relations with the local states, with Saudis, with the other Gulf states, and other regional actors as well.
It was at that time that you began to see Iran abandon, to some extent at least vis-à-vis the Gulf Arab states, terrorism as an instrument of policy and coercion. It was at that time that you began to see that Iranians have a widespread relationship with commerce, economic interactions, and so forth. To some extent, the Khatami period, Khatami policy has survived his presidency. There has not been that much of a change in terms of Iran's policy toward the Gulf during the brief, to be sure, tenure of Ahmadinejad. Iran has not reverted back to the 1980s in terms of unleashing revolutionary violence on these states. It has not sought to do what it did in the 1990s, sort of targeting some degree of violence against the American presence.
To be sure, as Gary and others were saying, the region has changed - that Iran sort of is becoming hegemony on the cheap because some of the mistakes that other powers have made. But that will change in due time. Iran now, by virtue again of some of the successes that it has had - inadvertent successes, to be sure - is the leading power in the Gulf. And that's just the reality; it is possible to regulate the growth of this power and it is possible to essentially even ostracize and even strangulate that power within the Gulf. But to be sure, it has become a leading state.
But if you look at everything that Iran has done since 2005, it's not that different from what they did before. There has not been a fundamental change in Iranian policy toward the Gulf and the larger Middle East since the arrival of President Ahmadinejad to power. You can argue that President Ahmadinejad is the most successful diplomat Iran has had. It was he, after all, that was invited to the GCC country, a privilege not extended to his more moderate predecessors. And ostensibly, it is under his auspices that Iran is likely to normalize its relationship with Egypt; something that has not happened in 1990s. Khatami government tried hard to move the ball forward; but it was not so.
And I think what you begin to see is the Arab governments moving toward integration of Iran as a means of regulation of its power. And that's a different message that the United States is taking to the Middle East at the time when the United States wants to mobilize the regional resources for the containment of Iran. I think the leading Gulf states have come to the recognition, and the leading Arab states, that the best way of disarming the Iranian danger is through integration and negotiations and diplomacy, which essentially lends some degree of success to Iran's diplomacy itself.
At this particular point, Iran's diplomacy in the region is one of mediation diplomacy. Iran offers itself, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia as two leading powers to mediate the civil wars that are gripping the region, whether it's the civil war in Iraq, civil war in Palestinian-Israeli territory, civil war within Palestinian territory, and the civil war in Lebanon. And in essence, what Iran is trying to do is move forward its claims of predominance through diplomacy as opposed to coercion. That's a trend that at least the Arab states are beginning to encourage. I think in that sense there's a divergence of perspective between the Arab states and the United States. How that divergence is going to be settled, I'm not quite sure. But we'll see how that works out in a sense.
But the interesting and important thing is, some of the momentous changes that President Khatami did to Iran's international policy have not actually changed. They've proven durable, which in some cases means Iranian moderation in the region has become institutionalized. I'll stop there.
MR. FREEMAN: TThank you very much. That was splendid and very informative and thoughtful, as the other presentations have been. I'm particularly struck by the observation that Iran has accepted the domestic character of the regimes in its neighbors and is focusing on their external behavior. Normally, that is the mark of evolution towards a status quo power. It is, in any event, something that is very important in evaluating the evolution of revolutions and one's ability to deal with them.
We turn now to the contemporary period, and perhaps Barbara will illustrate the old adage - I can't remember if it was Palmerston or Castlereagh who observed that nations have no permanent friends, but only permanent interests. It has been an unspoken point that at various points, the United States has looked to Iran - under the shah, for example - as the regional gendarme and our main partner in maintaining security and order. And also, as I recall very vividly from the Gulf War, when the United States intervened to liberate Kuwait and reduce Iraq to proportions that could be balanced by Iran, Iran showed an even temper and a reasoned approach, which did not take advantage of the many opportunities that presented themselves for mischief-making at American expense.
And so, the recent pattern, the current pattern, is not necessarily the pattern of the future. I think we're very fortunate to have Barbara Slavin addressing this. She is somebody of extraordinary depth and experience, trained as a Russian specialist at Harvard. I first met her when she and her husband were chief correspondents for a wire service in Beijing where she stood out among the corps of correspondents for her insight and breadth of knowledge. And now, she's turned herself - after quite a bit of experience in the Persian Gulf personally and as a journalist - she's turned into an important commentator on Iran. She was, for quite a while, the principal foreign correspondent for USA Today, which many people thought - before her arrival - was the newspaper for those who find television excessively complicated intellectually - (laughter) - but which was worth reading while she was there. And I think her departure - well, I haven't read it since she left, so I can't say.
(Laughter.)
BARBARA SLAVIN: It's a temporary departure.
MR. FREEMAN: Oh, temporary - well, then, there's hope. (Laughter.) Anyway, Barbara, please.
MS. SLAVIN: I'm only on leave from USA Today, so I'm planning to go back at the end of the summer, and hopefully create some more mischief and give people something to do apart from watching television that won't be maybe a little bit more taxing. As Chaz pointed out, we met 25 years ago in China. I remember parties where we used to boogie across the floor trying to get some relief from the Chinese revolution, which was unraveling at the time. And I think those of us who have studied revolutions like those in the Soviet Union, China, have similar hopes for Iran. They're coming on 30 years, and there's certainly a lot of domestic discontent, which they have to deal with.
Not to be too repetitive with some of the other presentations, but I thought I would not focus on Bush-bashing and on the negative aspects of U.S. policy toward Iran, because as I was thinking about it, and about where we've been under Bush and where we are now and where we may go, I would actually suggest that we've had some very important precedents over the last seven years that could really lay the basis for a real dialogue between the United States and Iran for some sort of comprehensive negotiations that could help solve some of the problems that we're facing in the Middle East.
So I thought I'd mention three precedents that have been shattered and then a fourth factor that I think could help in this area. The first taboo which has been shattered is the taboo over official U.S.-Iran talks. In the past, I've compared Iran and the United States to sort of boys and girls at a junior high school dance. You know, you've got the boys on one side and the girls on the other. And each has been afraid to get up and walk across the floor and ask the other to dance for fear that they'll be rejected; they'll lose face in front of everyone. And so, there's been this great reluctance, this tendency to be out of sync. Whenever Iran seems ready, the U.S. isn't. Whenever the U.S. is ready, Iran seems not ready.
But under the Bush administration, despite its harsh rhetoric, despite putting Iran on the axis of evil, there have been official talks. They took place at a rather senior level in Europe - in Geneva and Paris - between the fall of 2001 and May 2003. They were led on the U.S. side by Ryan Crocker who is now our ambassador in Iraq, and later by Zalmay Khalilzad who was our previous ambassador in Iraq and is now at the United Nations.
These were talks about practical issues involving Afghanistan. Iran had been very helpful in both military and political, diplomatic terms in setting up a new government for Afghanistan after the Taliban were removed. And so, these talks were about Afghanistan, about al Qaeda detainees, al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan through Iran, and also about Iraq and what the United States might expect if it overthrew Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the U.S. administration didn't listen hard. But the Iranians actually predicted a lot of what was happening. And Mohammad Javad Zarif, who went on to become Iran's U.N. ambassador, warned Zalmay Khalilzad. He said, things are going to go very wrong there, and you're going to blame Iran. This was in early 2003 before the U.S. invasion.
As many of you also know - and as Trita and I have both written about extensively in our books - there was also an offer in May 2003 that was passed through the Swiss to the United States that offered comprehensive negotiations on all the issues of concern - nuclear issue, terrorism, Israel, and so forth. Now, the Bush administration didn't reply to that overture, but this agenda for talks is a basis for talks in the future.
The second precedent that got shattered over the last seven years: Iran has gone public with its willingness to talk to the United States. Now, as an Iranian politician, saying that you wanted talks with the United States or you wanted to restore diplomatic relations used to be treason. People were thrown in jail for advocating things like this. But it's ironic - and I guess this follows on what Ray had to say - but this precedent was shattered not under Khatami, but under Ahmadinejad.
Under the Khatami administration, there were talks and there was an offer, but it was secret; it was private. It wasn't something that the Iranians broadcast. Once Ahmadinejad came in, however, this was something that was made plain. I interviewed Ahmadinejad and also Iran's national security advisor, Ali Larijani, in February 2006. And both of them made clear in the interviews that they had no objections to talking to the United States, provided that the United States would approach the talks from a position of mutual respect and would not be arrogant and put demands on Iran up front. Larijani praised our national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, as a, quote, unquote, "logical thinker" in an interview I had with him. And he designated a deputy to prepare for talks.
When the Bush administration did not pick up this overture, did not respond to it, Larijani went public in March 2006, and he accepted a prior U.S. offer for talks with the United States just about Iraq. And Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blessed this. He came out later in March 2006 and said, Iran would be more than happy to sit down and talk to the United States about Iraq. Now, as I point out, this is something that could have gotten you thrown in prison not long before. I remember Ayatollah Khamenei condemning as treason those who called for relations with the United States just a few years earlier.
The third precedent was shattered on both sides when the two had publicly announced meetings - direct meetings. And this has taken place in Baghdad. Now, the United States did not immediately engage with Iran about Iraq, despite the fact this had been a U.S. suggestion. In 2006 when the Iranians accepted it, the Bush administration did not. But a year later, they did. And our ambassador, Ryan Crocker, and the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad have now had two meetings in Baghdad to talk about the situation in Iraq. Iraqis have been present, so they're not one on one. But they were publicly announced meetings. And our foreign ministers have met twice in multilateral settings to talk also about Iraqi security. And there is another meeting that is planned, I think, in a couple of months.
Now, none of these contacts have led to breakthroughs, as has been mentioned. The Bush administration has set a precondition for a really comprehensive dialogue, and that is that Iran has to suspend its uranium enrichment program. And the Iranians haven't seen fit to do so. But there is a fourth reason why I think talks, if not under this administration, then perhaps under the next administration, are more possible, more likely to produce results. And that has been alluded to by all the other speakers here. That is the unintended consequences of the Bush administration's policies. The Bush administration's strategic mistakes could actually have a silver lining.
U.S. policy has, of course, removed Iran's chief adversaries in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has weakened Iranian adversaries in Lebanon and Palestine. Despite what the NIE says, Iran's overt nuclear program has progressed - maybe not hugely quickly; but it has progressed. There are 3,000 centrifuges spinning away. Iran has increased its knowledge of how to enrich uranium.
So as a result, Iran is now more ready to engage, because it feels more confident. And this was something that I sensed during my last trip there in 2006 that Iranians were ready for the first time to sit down with Americans and not feel that they were going to be the weaker partner; that they had real cards to play. President Bush has dealt these cards to Iran, and Iran now has these cards to play.
So if you look where we are now as opposed to back in 2001, Iran's sphere of influence now extends from Kabul to Baghdad, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, in Lebanon and in Gaza. And as has been pointed out, Bush's promotion of democratic elections has benefited Iranian clients throughout the region. We have Shi'a parties in Iraq that are now in control of the central government. And Iran has made very sure that it has good relations with all these groups. Even Muqtada Sadr who began as an Iraqi nationalist, apparently is spending a lot of time in Qom now, studying to be an ayatollah, and is very much under the Iranian thumb, according to what I'm hearing.
So like it or not, Iran cannot be ignored; it cannot be contained in the way that the Bush administration might like, judging from President Bush's rhetoric in the Persian Gulf. And as we see, of course, U.S.-Arab allies have already recognized this shift in Iranian power, and are hedging their bets accordingly. I think it's been clear from the presidential debate that, certainly on the Democratic side, candidates are recognizing the shift in the influence of Iran in the region. And all of them are calling for some form of negotiations. Iran itself has elections coming up - parliamentary elections in March and presidential elections next year. And perhaps this will come up as an issue, although I think the economy will be the main issue there as it is here.
So I'm going to predict rather optimistically that we will get to a phase of negotiations, if not now then perhaps in the next year. They're going to be very tough. Iran's bargaining position is much better. But I think that the United States still has cards to play involving Iran's oil industry in particular, which needs a lot of outside investment. And perhaps after 30 years, we will finally get to a situation not so different from the one that Chas. and I observed in Beijing back in the early 1980s where the United States, however grudgingly, will come to realize that it has to deal with an important and crucial power in a part of the world that we all need desperately. So I'll stop there.
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. I think it's worth noting that one of the presidential candidates, Mr. Obama - Senator Obama - has explicitly called for the sort of open dialogue with Iran that you forecast. And if others in the race have not, it may not mean that they do not intend to do that. So this underscores the possible evolution or next step in the point that Trita made so importantly, and that is that for the first time since the Islamic Revolution, Iran-bashing is a negative in U.S. politics - another casualty of bellicose rhetoric and counterproductive policies.
We turn now to what's always the most interesting, to me, part of the morning. And this is the comment and question session. Those of you who have been to our events before know that you should signal me and I will make a note of your interest. Whether I know you or not, I will take note of you, and I will try to call on you in the order in which I spotted you. When you do make a comment or speak, I guess we have a microphone over here. So I'll try to signal you if you're next, so that you can get in position. Please do tell us who you are, even if you think everyone here should know who you are, and try to direct your question or comment to a specific person. And everyone here will, of course, reserve the right to jump in and crucify his or her colleagues appropriately.
Gary, do you want to start by crucifying somebody?
MR. SICK: No, I really wouldn't. I think this one's working. I would really like to abuse my position here and pose a question to the other members of the panel. Barbara made, I think, an extraordinarily important statement, which she did it in such a gentle way that I'm not sure people picked up on it. And that is that we may be in fact approaching some kind of a magic moment with regard to Iran. Basically, these two countries, Iran and the United States, are a sort of teeter-totter relationship, When one is up the other is down and vice-versa; we very seldom get a moment when there is an equilibrium of some sort, where you might in fact see some progress.
And in particular, when you think about it, Ahmadinejad is up for election in the spring of 2009, and the United States will have a new president as of January of that same year. This might in fact - the question is not whether we talk to Iran - it seems to me things are moving that way very well - but how much success do we have in talking to Iran? And I just wonder if any of the other members of the panel have a sense of whether we are in fact - this is a potentially magic moment. And if so, if you look at it from a Washington perspective, that could be really quite important.
MR. FREEMAN: Trita, why don't you lead off? And then I think everyone will have a comment.
MR. PARSI: Thank you. I would agree with Barbara. And I think many others have also made this point that we are reaching a climax in the relationship between the United States and Iran, which then creates these opportunities and which both sides will either feel strong enough to be able to enter into those talks, or the dangers of not doing so are so great that they will come to the conclusion that they better enter those talks. But the climax can also go in the other direction in which, unfortunately, rather than pursuing peaceful modes of being able to lock in that equilibrium as you mentioned, there may be a rejection of the equilibrium, and as a result use military methods to go against it.
I personally tend to think that, mindful of the political climate here in the United States, mindful of the comment that Khamenei made just a couple of weeks ago in which he went beyond saying, oh, when we're ready, we'll talk to the United States; he says, when we're ready, we'll have relations with the United States, which is an unprecedented thing for him to say. I think things are tilted in the direction that talks are probably more likely.
But for talks to take place and for talks to be successful are two different things. And I think it's critical at this moment, if we recognize that there is an opportunity that we learn the lessons of the past to make sure that this will not go down in history as yet another one of those missed opportunities; missed opportunity not only in the sense that we didn't even pursue it, but perhaps that we entered it or we approached it the wrong way.
I think there is so little trust between the two countries, so little confidence, that if talks begin that the talks will be of strategic nature and not just tactical in order to be able to get some tactical gains and benefits over the other, that we have to at the outset define where the endpoint of the negotiations are going to be. Where do we want to go? What is the pie in the sky? And then, use the negotiations to find that way, rather than entering those without defining it up front, because that, I think, unfortunately, will fuel suspicion on both sides justifiably, which in and of itself may cause the opportunity to be lost.
MR. FREEMAN: Barbara?
MS. SLAVIN: Yeah, If I may. Is this working?
MR. FREEMAN: If you press the button.
MS. SLAVIN: Yeah, okay. I just wanted to read something that - this was from an Iranian deputy.
MR. FREEMAN: Move it towards you, I think.
MS. SLAVIN: Move it toward me? Awful noise - is that better? No, I've still got a lot of - try again? Maybe I'll come up there? Yeah, because that's annoying.
I just wanted to read something from my book, "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies." This was from a deputy Iranian national security advisor that I interviewed; a very interesting man working with Ali Larijani. Just as a side point - well, I'll read the quote first and then I'll tell you what happened. This is something he said to me, quote, he said, "the United States in the past 27 years has never needed Iran's help until now. Today, a very small group of Sunni Arabs is in conflict with the United States. Today, the government of Iraq is an ally of Iran. And in Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, and Palestine, the United States needs Iran. Iran needs the United States too. We can come to an understanding. But do you think there are eyes to see or ears to listen in Washington?"
This was in 2006, which as I pointed out, was when Iran publicly said it was ready to have talks with the United States. So it's an indication of Iranian self-confidence. The other thing I was thinking about as you all were talking is, maybe what we need is a Shanghai communiqué for the U.S. and Iran. And that's something that Chas. is very familiar with, a statement of principles about what would govern the relationship. And that could be a basis, perhaps, for real negotiations.
MR. FREEMAN: Just on that point - and I think Ray will have a comment - for those of you who are not familiar with the Shanghai communiqué text, it was unusual, and perhaps unprecedented. The first five pages of it consisted of a recitation of sharp differences over issues in the region, in East Asia, followed by the sentence that notwithstanding these differences, it was important for the two countries to carry out strategic cooperation on issues where they had common interests, regardless of the ideological differences between them. And it then went on to lay out some principles for managing the bilateral relationship. So Barbara, who is familiar with that text, is making a quite interesting suggestion. Ray?
MR. TAKEYH: This is working now, it seems to be.
MR. FREEMAN: No, come on up.
MR. TAKEYH: Sorry about that. In terms of domestic politics, I suspect we have entered an era of sort of a conservative dominance of Iranian institutions. Whatever happens to the political fortunes of President Ahmadinejad, we're in for sort of a conservative consolidation of power. So therefore, I think it's possible for the two countries to have some arrangements in dealing - in terms of issues of common concern - and I do suspect there will be some sort of negotiations.
Whatever those common concerns are - stability in the Gulf, mediation of the Iraqi civil war, and what have you - in terms of fundamental transformation of U.S.-Iran relations, I don't actually anticipate that during the time of conservative power in Iran. For the conservatives, one of the things they have always objected to in terms of the United States was they saw the United States and the West at large as a source of cultural contamination, as a source of cultural imperialism.
And therefore, to have a significant American presence, or to have that sort of a intimacy between the United States and Iran that in due course happened in Sino-American relations, I think is still inconceivable to them, because they tend to view Iran's institutions - the supreme leader, the guardian council, and so on - preservation of those institutions is the most important to them, and America's cultural temptations and their seductive cultural influences are still a source of concern. And it's important to say, what Supreme Leader Khamenei said that - it's important to say that he said it is not in the interest of Iran to have relations with the United States at this juncture. I mean, there is a textural reality here. And I think those cultural influences are very significant.
MR. FREEMAN: That's an important point. Some seven years after the Shanghai communiqué, when Deng Xiaoping decided it was time to normalize relations with the United States, he did this stating explicitly to his colleagues in the Politburo that he saw this as a means of transforming Chinese society and, without saying so in as many words, repudiating the legacy of Maoism that had led the country to the sad condition in which it then survived.
I am sure that those who have been waiting patiently to make questions, ask questions, will agree that Gary kicked off a very interesting and useful discussion. Thank you for your patience. Tell us who you are, Jeff.
Q: I'm Jeff Steinberg with EIR Magazine. I'm wondering if the panelists could just shed some light on the decision making process inside Iran, the consensus building. I noted that there was a great deal of confusion after this brush-up in the Straits of Hormuz as to whether this was a local commander's decision reflecting revolutionary guard policy as distinct from the supreme leader or whether this was a top-down decision. And I think it all suggests that there is not a lot of insight generally among at least the U.S. media as to how decisions get made, how solid those decisions are, and how big the internal fight is in the and the impact of that.
MR. FREEMAN: Gary, d'you want to lead off? Turn on the mike there.
MR. SICK: Well, other people on this panel certainly can address that issue. One point I would make in terms of, first of all, the Strait of Hormuz thing was less an Iranian decision than it was an American decision. Basically, we decided to make something of it that in fact things like this have happened in the past. And we also made something of that remark, which, without the remark, the incident would have been nothing. And the remark was, you know, in two minutes, you're going to explode or something like that. It turned out that that wasn't from the Iranian boats, but in fact was coming over an open channel from some unknown source who often does sort of kibitz on things that are going on in the Gulf. And if you had taken away that remark, it would not have been a threat by any stretch of the imagination.
One thing that I think is very important in this process is the generational change. Just as in the case of Deng Xiaoping, a new generation is looking. It may be true that as long as Khamenei and Rafsanjani and others are dominant in their control of the policy mechanism in Iran that it will be very difficult to get out from under the legacy of the revolution and its attack on U.S. relations. That is changing. And we have a whole new generation that is coming in. Unfortunately, the leading example of that is Mr. Ahmadinejad. But he and his cronies are going to come in and in fact shake things up. And I don't think we know what the outcome of that will be.
MR. FREEMAN: Trita, do you have a comment?
MR. PARSI: Just a very, very quick comment. We have discussed here and elsewhere that the risk of war between the United States and Iran seems to have decreased significantly as a result of the NIE. But clearly, it's very difficult to completely exclude small incidents leading to something much, much bigger, sparking a larger war. And a lot of eyes have been on what potentially could happen in the Persian Gulf, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz in which this very narrow waterway is filled with both American and Iranian ships.
And if anything, I think this incident should signal to us the necessity of pursuing some of the ideas that currently are floating around there and put, perhaps, a little bit more support such as creating a hotline between Washington and Tehran in order to ensure that incidents like this do not escalate and lead - out of control. Potentially, also, negotiating an incidents at sea agreements between the United States and Iran in order to increase military-to-military communication and ensure that the Iranian government does have to take responsibility for the actions of the IRGC and simply codify the behavior between the two navies in that narrow waterway in a way that is currently not done.
MR. FREEMAN: But what if the other side wants an incident?
Barbara? You may have to come up here again. Oh, I should say, the gentlemen who are second and third in line, please sit down. I'll call you. There are two more people ahead of you and you'll just get a back problem like me if you stand there.
MS. SLAVIN: Yeah, I don't buy the irrational Iranian behavior argument that one often hears. I think that certainly the major decisions are made by their supreme national security council. In my book, I describe the Iranian system as kind of like an American square dance. And they say that you've got the supreme leader in the middle and you've got maybe 10, 20 people around him in a circle. And they kind of come in and out in a sort of dosey-doe and go back out again. And sometimes, one group is in disfavor and sometimes one group is in favor, but major decisions about issues like a nuclear program, whether they're actually going to provoke a confrontation with the United States would be made through consensus.
I mean, it's possible to have an accident, but it appears now - I wouldn't say that the incident was nothing. I think Iranian boats were harassing the American ships, but, obviously, they've done this before. And it was a U.S. decision to draw attention to it because President Bush was going to the Gulf and he wanted to use it as an argument against Iran.
MR. FREEMAN: I'd note that the Iranian vessels, these small patrol craft, have been behaving like this for over a decade. But there is an improvement. They used to communicate with the U.S. Navy and sign all their communications with a four-letter word followed by ".… you!" (Laughter.) And it may be politically significant that they no longer do that. (Laughter.)
Sir, you've been very patient. Who are you, sir?
Q: I'm Ian Talbot with - (off mike) - newswires.
MR. FREEMAN: Right.
Q: (Inaudible) - many of you - revealing some ignorance here with - (inaudible) - limitation and so forth.
MR. FREEMAN: That's what we're all about.
Q: Taking a little bit of a contrarian position, and perhaps you'd argue against it, there's been little characterization of some of the non-monolithic internal workings in Iran. And particularly since we're talking about the elections coming up in Iran and the U.S., Ray said that Iran was moving forward its predominance through diplomacy.
Wouldn't public diplomacy legitimize that and then side diplomacy, maybe meeting through the Swiss or talking about Iraq, be practical diplomacy in keeping the flint face of it so you're not legitimizing it until, you know, there is economic problems under Ahmadinejad, some separation between Ahmadinejad and the ayatollah in terms of his rhetoric, perhaps economic problems? So, coming to a point, is there not possibly a benefit to keeping a face of flint until seeing - seeing what happens after the elections and then perhaps instituting slowly more second-undercurrent diplomacy?
MR. FREEMAN: I think - is that working now?
MR. : Seems to be.
MR. FREEMAN: No.
MR. TAKEYH: I actually do anticipate at some point that there will be negotiations between the two parties. I'm not quite sure if you can keep these negotiations secret anymore because it's just too many - it just doesn't work that easily in Europe and the international global media and so on and so forth. So I expect at some point, there will be some sort of a discussion. The range and topic of those discussions I'm not quite sure yet.
There are certain preconditions to U.S.-Iran negotiations, namely suspension of the enrichment activities. To some extent, that has been codified through Security Council resolutions and so forth. So I don't know how you get around that, but I suspect that could happen. But, you know, I'm not quite sure in this particular configuration there's room for secret diplomacy. I think for diplomacy to work, both parties have to be officially, at the highest level, committed to it, publicly.
MR. FREEMAN: I would note that, generally, and I speak as a former diplomat, not talking to people is a form of negotiation, of course, as you suggest. But, generally, not communicating directly your objections to the other side's position is a mistake, since a meeting does not imply endorsement or agreement at all, but an opportunity to express your own views and listen directly to the views of others. Not conducting such meetings is, in diplomacy, the equivalent of unilateral disarmament in military policy. And it's generally not very wise for the same reason that inspired the military adage that says, one should always maintain contact with the enemy. Among other benefits, doing so tends to reduce the possibility of surprise.
That said, I think there's probably zero prospect in the 12 months remaining in the Bush administration, in any event, that a serious broad dialogue with Iraq - Iran would get under way. So this is a question, as your question implied, really for the next administration. And it raises the issue assuming the Bush administration is thinking about the national interest and how to serve it even after it has departed office. How could it leave the next administration with the broadest range of options and the most advantageous bargaining position in negotiations, which will be difficult, prolonged, and not necessarily successful?
I have you, sir. Have you passed? Okay. Yup. Do you want to get up to the microphone? Tell us who you are and we will proceed.
Q: Thank you to the panel. My name is James Johnson (sp) - (inaudible). My question is for the panel and specifically Trita Parsi. It has to do with the tangible suggestions you have about the nuclear scientists. How would we know that that's a comprehensive list that they give us, if they give us one at all, because they haven't had a good history of - (inaudible) - cooperative - (inaudible)?
MR. PARSI: Thank you. The president provided a resolution against Iraq from the Security Council which then Iraq is obligated to follow by international law. Obviously, a lot of Security Council resolutions are not followed however authoritative they may be. Clearly, this is not a perfect solution. The reality is there are no perfect solutions. But some solutions at least manage to move us in a direction in which some of these issues can be addressed and others I don't think do so at all.
If the true concern, as often times has been indicated by both the Bush administrations and Israelis, for instance, have been a covert program, well, then, we should have a solution that at least attempts to address that. Suspension does not do so. But if we can get the intrusive inspections, that would go along with making sure that we get that list. Then, I think we would have a chance. And, at the end of the day, being able to track down who in Iran has been able to get the type of nuclear training necessary to work at these plants is probably not going to be that difficult, mindful of the fact that almost all of them are educated abroad.
MR. FREEMAN: Sir?
Q: My name is - (off mike). And first of all, thank you for the - (off mike) - to have this meeting. And what - (off mike) - because as president of Iranian National - (off mike) - the only thing I could help with this meeting was, how - (inaudible) - one of those activists that I'm working for 15 years to support human rights in the government. I never saw you in any position against the Iranian regime. I never saw you anywhere to lobby for human rights or against what is not human rights in Iran.
And today, you mentioned one thing. You said - (off mike) - in Iran, Iranian people, they don't want to feed any more people. (Off mike.) The reason is because your mentality is not always supporting Iranian people. You are blaming Iranian state for killing Iranian people. And, at this moment, I try to ask you, what you did for the public execution and hanging in public that worldwide - (off mike) - first page of this book, this old book. This is the Iranian people are hanging in public every week in - (off mike). Well, you are not doing anything for them. I believe you are most the voice of the Iranian regime, not the Iranian-American people. (Off mike) - 30 years and I know many Iranians all around the world that they do want to - (off mike) - and they want regime change.
MR. FREEMAN: Sir? I think -
Q: (Off mike) - that we change the government because - (off mike).
MR. FREEMAN: I think we should let Dr. Parsi reply. I don't think it was a question; I think it was a comment, which is perfectly legitimate.
MR. PARSI: Well, thank you for that comment. I appreciate the opportunity to address that. Let me first start off by saying NIAC is not a human-rights organization. That's not our expertise. What we are doing is decided by the membership of our organization and we are the largest Iranian-American grassroots organization in the country. And per the vote of our membership, for instance, the membership of our organization said that they want NIAC to work to be able to prevent a war between the two countries because it would be devastating for both countries.
We do not have a mandate on dealing with human rights to that extent, but that doesn't mean that we don't comment on it. We actually held a conference on Capitol Hill just a couple of months ago about the devastating human rights situation in Iran. But there's another thing that you mentioned that I do want to address. You mentioned that most Iranian-Americans do not want to dialogue or negotiations. Well, there is a poll made by Berkeley's statistical center of the Iranian-American community in California, which is the largest concentration of Iranian Americans in that country. And according to that poll, depending on which city you look at, support for negotiations between the two governments ranges from about 67 percent to 85 percent. You have a very small minority in the community - they are a minority even in L.A., even though that's their stronghold, that support military action between and want to completely see no negotiations take place.
Now, does that mean that this majority or that three other panelists on this panel that also have spoken out in favor of negotiations are in favor of the Iranian government? I absolutely do not think so. On the contrary, I think the Iranian community here in the United States is overwhelmingly opposed to the government in Iran. That's part of the reason why they're in this country. But being opposed to that government does not necessarily mean that you want to give up all rationality and pursue that policy that, for the last 30 years, has produced absolutely nothing in the sense of reducing tensions, advancing democracy, or improving the human rights situation.
So I think it's perfectly all right for us to disagree on what the best approach is. I think, however, it is not very constructive and helpful for advancing your own cause by making accusations and inferences in the way that you have. I think that's not helping bringing debate to a situation in which we can actually have a better policy.
MR. FREEMAN: Sir?
Q: My name is George Hishmeh. I'm with Gulf News - (off mike). I was struck by the fact - and I'm sorry I missed Sick's comments. I too - (off mike).
MR. FREEMAN: Well, you missed some very good remarks.
(Laughter.)
Q: I was struck by the fact that - (off mike) - has not been mentioned by - (off mike), especially now that we're going into this region - (off mike). I'm wondering why - how can you go on bashing Iran about what it's doing, this destructive potential, but you don't say anything about Israel in this case? I - (of mike) - comments on this.
MR. FREEMAN: Yeah, I think that's actually a very useful reminder that nuclear proliferation in the Middle East did not begin with Iran and that there are other forces driving proliferation in the region. I don't know who would like to start on this topic.
MR. SICK: Trita -
MR. FREEMAN: Trita, do you want to start? I think everybody will have something to say.
MR. PARSI: Obviously, this is a very, very important question and clearly, it is, at many times, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, not only Israel's arsenal but Israel as a factor in U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran. It's been a very important factor for the last 15 years, in fact, for the last 30, 40 years, but it has had shifting importance - back in the 1980s because of the common threat that the two countries faced. The Israelis were actually lobbying the United States to trade with Iran, to sell arms to Iran, to talk to Iran, and as well as not pay attention to Iranian rhetoric because they said that the Iranian rhetoric was not reflective of its policy.
That all changed in the early 1990s with changing geopolitical situation in the region. I want to make two quick comments on that that is related to your question. In all of my interviews with Iranian officials about their relationship with Israel, about the nuclear program, I never saw a single one of them either indicate that they viewed Israel as a military threat - this is 2004 - or that the Israeli nuclear program was an impetus for their own pursuit of nuclear energy or whatever gain they wanted to have with that program. And I think that, to a large extent, was true. I think the way Iran has seen its threat perception has not primarily been from Israel.
That does not mean that this double standard of only focusing on the Iranian program and turning a blind eye to the Israeli one is justified, but I think it's an important point. But it is not the Israeli program that seems to have been an impetus for what the Iranians have been doing. The second aspect of that, I think, is that for quite some time, from the Israeli perspective, there has been a fear that if the United States and Iran did negotiate that the United States inevitably would end up with a deal in which Israeli security interests would be sacrificed, particularly if the United States, at the end of the day, would accept an Iranian enrichment program on Iranian soil which, even though it would not necessarily lead to a military program, would still shift the balance of power in the region against Israel's favor.
And, as a result, Israelis have for quite some time argued against any U.S.-Iran dialogue, sometimes even help create political obstacles to make sure that those don't happen. But I think we're entering into a new era in which, again, just like the Arab states are now less eager towards a confrontation or a containment policy with Iran because the stakes are too high, that is also starting to sink in on some people in Israel, that such a confrontation at the end of the day would also be very, very negative for Israel. The problem that the Israelis have, obviously, is that the political cost of telling the Israeli public that plan A has failed, that we cannot stop that program and we have to go for a plan B is very, very high, very difficult for any Israeli politician to pull off, particularly mindful of the fact that very few of them have popularity ratings above 20 percent right now.
MR. FREEMAN: Barbara, do you want to come up here and -
MS. SLAVIN: I just wanted to add to what Trita said something that's interesting. When I was talking to Iranian officials about the nuclear program, they didn't mention Israel, but they did mention India. And Iranians are very, very sensitive to the idea of, first of all, their own cultural heritage, that they see themselves as a great civilization. And so, the comparison was more with India, which is also a great and ancient civilization. And there was a sense that, well, if India could have it, why can't we?
And it particularly irritated them that the United States was changing the rules of the game to accommodate India, which never signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and not agreeing to work with Iran. So I just wanted to read a quotation. This is from Ali Larijani (ph). He said, quote, "If Americans are really over-concerned about the NPT, why are they working with India, which has already manufactured the weapons?" He said, "All of these organizational rules and regulations go back to alliance with the United States. If a country wants to be a superpower, it must respect others and not expect others to be its servants."
And, you know, Iran sees the nuclear program as something that shows its advancements, its scientific advancement, it's a part of its prestige. If India can have it, if Pakistan can have it, those are the comparisons that the Iranians make, not so much with the Israelis. I think I agree with Trita that they don't really see the Israelis as a threat because I don't think the Iranians would ever attack Israel, despite Ahmadinejad's horrible rhetoric. They realize that that would be a suicidal thing to do.
MR. FREEMAN: Right.
MR. TAKEYH: I'll just say something brief about this. I mean, I think it's right that, in terms of Iran's nuclear calculus, Israel doesn't play a whole role in it or a large role. I think Iran has more nuclear weapons for both purposes of deterrence and power projection. Now, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. If Iran has a certain advanced nuclear capability then it is immune from certain potentially American retaliation. And once it perceives such immunities, then it ostensibly could be more aggressive in pursuit of this region-wide mission. So there's a clear nexus between deterrence and power projection. And there are other aspects of it, too, attributes of a great state, sort of an indication of scientific modernization and so on.
I would say, today in the Middle East, the one power that would most press about a potential negotiations between United States and Iran on this issue is actually Israel, because if somehow this issue could be resolved, mediated, mitigated through diplomacy, that's just fine with them. For them - and there's a asymmetry here because although Iran may not perceive Israel's nuclear arsenal as a threat, the Israelis do perceive it as - [97:00], and for sound, legitimate reasons. I mean, the rhetoric that comes out of Iran - and as Israelis always say, the combination of rhetoric and capability, and given Israel's own complicated history, you can see why they arrive at their conclusions as they do.
So if somehow this issue can be resolved through some sort of a diplomatic formula, I think Israelis would be most welcome to it. I'm not quite sure if there are other states in the region that are - that want have a U.S.-Iranian breakthrough. And I'll put some of the Gulf states in that category. I think Gulf states neither want any Iranian-American confrontation nor do they want an Iranian-American normalization, which is a contradiction in their policy, to be sure, because this is becoming a highly explosive issue. But, you know, Israelis I think would welcome a negotiation that addresses the fundamentals of Iran's nuclear program.
MR. FREEMAN: And, yes, Trita, before you comment, however, I wanted to just follow up very briefly on something that Ray said which I think is important. And that is, just as perhaps the primary Iranian motivation is related to prestige and the projection of influence in the region, that is the primary concern among the Arabs on the other side of the Persian Gulf, not the military threat that nuclear weapons in Iranian hands would pose, but the prestige and the boost that it would give to Iranian political penetration of the region. Trita and then you, sir.
MR. PARSI: At the expense of perhaps beginning a small debate here, I'm not so sure, Ray, because I think that the importance lies there in the definition and the idea that the Israelis would support diplomacy under these circumstances. You said that they would if they thought that it would be successful, but the definition of success is very, very different between what the Israelis are saying and between what the NIE said, for instance. From the Israeli perspective, I think, zero enrichment is still very much an uncompromisable goal. It's very, very difficult for them to move away from that, much more difficult than it is for the United States. So as long as that is the case, I think they will remain quite suspicious of what diplomacy can achieve and, in fact, often times fear that what will be talked about as a success is a deal in which the Iranians would have a limited program, perhaps less than 3,000 centrifuges, which, from the Israeli perspective, is still extremely, extremely negative for its security in the region and the balance of power there.
So as long as there is that differentiation between what is the definition of success, and we've seen that with NIE and how the Israelis have reacted to that, I'm not so confident that Israel would be more in favor of diplomacy than some of the other countries in the region.
MR. FREEMAN: Then come up to the mike, please.
MR. TAKEYH: I think zero enrichment should be our objective. There's no particular reason why we forfeit that objective before negotiations begin. Of course we should strive for zero enrichment. Enrichment capability in hands of a country that gives it an essential nuclear weapons capability, going into any negotiations should not forfeit their objectives. We should certainly go into any negotiations demanding zero enrichment. You might not get there at the end and it's your position that evolves, but I wouldn't preemptively forfeit zero enrichment.
MR. FREEMAN: I suppose it's worth pointing out that given the diplomacy-free foreign policy we currently conduct, there's very little danger that negotiations will occur in the near future and, therefore, we can defer this for 12 months.
Sir.
Q: Bill Jones, EIR magazine - just one question here to Trita or to Ray regarding how the Iranian administration sees itself as a defender of Shi'a interest more generally in the region. Obviously, this has played an important role in some of the operations, support of Hezbollah and the like, and it came to the fore, of course, thanks to the United States, the U.S. intervention to Iraq. But they have, on the one hand, the Iranians have their own national interest; they want to enhance the role that they're playing in the equation. Do they also have an element in which they see themselves as the defenders of the Shi'a interest, which would also enter into or perhaps even complicate relations that they're trying to set up with the Gulf states and others? How would that play out - (off mike)?
MR. FREEMAN: I'm going to ask Ray to lead off.
MR. TAKEYH: Actually, if you look at the history of the Islamic republic, it always sought to escape the Shi'a ghetto, if you would. It always saw its message and its model of government applicable to all Muslims. So it never saw itself as a sectarian entity. It was the Saudis and others that were saying it is a Shi'a power in order to limit this influence to a specific sector of the larger Muslim public. And I think, if you look at the goals as explicit now, in terms of one of the first speeches that Ahmadinejad gave was that the priorities of Iranian foreign policy would be the Gulf, would be the Middle East, and the larger Muslim community beyond the Middle East, which, you know, that's where he spent so much time in Indonesia and so forth talking to those audiences.
Now, however, Iran wanted to transcend the sectarian cleavage, the reality of the Middle East that, increasingly, his politics are being defined along sectarian lines, particularly as the Iraq civil war takes that sectarian coloration, as the politics of Lebanon once again lapse into their confessional stage and so forth. So Iran may be pressed in the direction of becoming the defender of Shi'as and have its influence most predominant among the Shi'a population. Should that actually happen, that is, in some way, a defeat of Iranian foreign policy since 1979 that always sought to present itself as transcending both ethnic and sectarian limitations of the state.
MR. FREEMAN: Trita, anything to add to that?
MR. PARSI: No - (off mike).
Q: I'm John - (off mike) - I wanted to ask a question since I know - (off mike) - Iraq about Iranian policy towards Iraq and the fact that we've had an official dialogue - (off mike). And I want to know why - (off mike) - Iraq - (off mike). What exactly is Iran wanting to achieve with Iraq with its policy? Our military commanders in Iraq routinely talk about activities that were harming and providing weapons to various militia groups. And so, where is the Iranian vision going and is there a possibility, can there be any possibility of success in the kind of activities that our military commanders ought to have - (off mike)?
MR. FREEMAN: Gary, do you want to lead off? But I think, Ray, this is your topic. And then, we'll have everybody speak on it.
MR. SICK: Okay, I, well, if you want to start, Ray, go ahead.
MR. TAKEYH: No, no, go ahead.
MR. SICK: I think there are - the United States and Iran in Iraq actually share a number of values. First of all, I think the Iranians would like to see that their economy - they would leave Iraq maintained. That's not common, that's not conventional wisdom necessarily, but I really think it's true. They are very much in favor of the one man, one vote democratic election system for the very good reason that they're sure the Shi'a will win that election and so be the dominant factor in Iranian and Iraqi politics. I think they are quite interested in seeing the United States conduct an orderly withdrawal from Iraq rather than a catastrophic withdrawal in the sense that they will have - they live next to these people and it is a shared interest, I think, that they do not want to see utter chaos which then leaves them with the only possible option of actually going in and taking over the situation itself.
Why have they been doing what they've been doing? I think it's pretty clearly that they've been hedging their bets, making sure that they stay in good graces with just about every organization not knowing how things are going to change, how things are going to turn out. And they want to have maximum influence. And that means that money and arms are the, you know, the standard currency for how you gain influence with these various factional groups. And I think they've been hedging their bets by supporting many of those groups, even groups that they don't particularly agree with on the grounds that they want to make sure they've got some foot in that door if and when the situation arises.
The fact that they, according to the U.S. military now, are certainly reducing if not stopping the kind of inflow of IEDs and other technology that they were provided before, if that's true, I think it actually speaks to the fact that we've got another discussion coming up between Iraq, between the Iranians and the Americans in Baghdad. And this, if you look at it in terms of positive preparation, the United States has made some rather positive moves in Iraq with the Iranians have made some positive moves and maybe, instead of just being a shouting match, this next meeting could conceivably be more substantive.
MR. FREEMAN: Ray?
MR. TAKEYH: I think Gary's correct, in terms of there's some overlapping Iranian-American interests in Iraq. I mean, we maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, having the democratic process decide the future of Iraq because that obviously benefits the Shi'a community, given these demographics. A Shi'a empowerment of Iraq, that's because of the perception that the Sunni dominance of Iraq led to its pan-Arabic (?) aggression, and you get all those, of course, with an electoral process. Now, the question is why hasn't this overlapping set of common interests now led to operational cooperation because the other aspect of Iran's policy, if you look at it, it tends to mirror their policy toward Lebanon in early 1980s, namely mobilization of the Shi'a community, both politically, economically and militarily, for sort of a possibility on an ongoing civil war.
So there is a military technology transfer component to Iran's policy, and now most of those munitions come into Iraq. Whether Iranians are operationally involved in directing that violence against American forces, which seems to be some of the claims made, I don't know. But that's where things get complicated because once those arms and munitions come into Iraq they become used for all sorts of purposes. There's obviously been a lessening of that, but that has much to do with the fact that there was a Shi'a government in Iraq that actually was pressing Iranians not to continue inflaming that situation because they felt as the Shi'a violence escalates and spikes, it brings Americans and Sunnis closer together, which is why you have a different sort of operational aspect of Iran's policy.
MR. FREEMAN: Barbara?
MS. SLAVIN: Yeah, I think Iran's behavior in Iraq has a couple of motivations. Obviously, they want to have good relations with the Shi'a government to have a compliant little brother in Iraq that will not threaten them. And the other aspect, of course, has been their reading of U.S. intentions. And it's interesting to see that the level has gone down, as apparently the Iranian calculation is that Bush will not attack Iran in his last year in office. Clearly, if the United States were to mount a military attack on Iranian nuclear installations, Iran would try to use its agents and its proxies in Iraq against the United States. We would have over 100,000 American military hostages there, and I think the Iranians know that we know that; you know, in the same way that Hezbollah was certainly used against American interests and Western interests in Lebanon in the 1980s. So we do have that parallel, but if Iran sees that things are going its way, that the U.S. is beginning an orderly withdrawal, that its Shi'a clients are becoming entrenched, then it has no interest in fomenting more violence.
And it's also interesting that both Iran and the United States prefer the same Shi'a group, which is now called ISCI - used to be called SCIRI, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq was its old name. And this is a group that was nurtured by Iran, like Hezbollah was actually created in Iran, and has a sort of structure, middle-class support that both regimes actually like.
MR. FREEMAN: Sir, in the back, with the elaborate hairdo sitting in the - yes, good.
Q: Thanks for the great presentations. I wanted to pursue this question on Iraq, if I could, specifically to Ray. Could you speak to Gulf interests in Iraq? What would be a suitable outcome for them? And that's - (off mike) - with Iran. And to Barbara, who left off with an interesting point about U.S.-Iranian intersection, interests in support of the - (off mike) - if I understood correctly, which - (off mike) - favors a regionalization strong, so does that mean that Iran's intentions in Iraq are to solidify power in a southern portion?
MR. TAKEYH: If the sort of Gulf states or the larger region come to terms with the probable demarcations of the new Iraq, which are likely to have a Shi'a majority but perhaps some sort of a negotiator role for Sunni minority, if they come to terms - so far, so long as the leading pan-Arabist papers continue to depict the March 2003 American invasion as an Iranian and an American plot to disenfranchise the Sunnis, and so long as the fact that they still don't recognize the fact that Sunnis aren't in a majority in Iraq, they have to come to those realization.
MR. FREEMAN: The Shi'a are a majority. Sorry.
MR. TAKEYH: That's right. I mean, they have to come to a realization that there's a new Iraq that is taking place. If they do so, I think there is a possibility of some sort of mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia to try to bring the civil wars down. I mean, certainly this persistent message of Iranian emissaries that go to Saudi Arabia, that perhaps as two regional states we can deal with this, one representative of Sunnis the other one more representative of the Shi'as. There are two governments that have been against that.
And that same deal, by the way, is proffered over Lebanon. The two governments that have been against that, in the case of Iraq, they have been lukewarm about it, have been Saudi Arabia and to some extent the United States. And the governments that have been lukewarm about that in the case of Lebanon were not necessarily Saudi Arabia or Iran, which were willing to broker some sort of a deal on Lebanon. The governments that were approached there were Syria, for obvious reasons, and the United States because it was felt there was inordinate projection of Iranian influence. But the larger region has to act and come to terms - the Sunni region has to come to terms with the fact that there's a new Iraq whose trajectory may be irreversible.
MR. FREEMAN: Barbara, do you want to comment? And then Gary.
MS. SLAVIN: Just briefly, I'm hopefully going to Iran in about a month or so, so I'll get a better sense of what the Iranians really want to happen in Iraq. The last time I was there, they were just ecstatic that at least they had Shi'a in control of the central government.
Now, the SCIRI-ISCI has been pushing the idea of a large Shiastan in the south, and of course they have a lot of Iranian support, so one could assume that Iran is in favor of this. I think the Iranians want to consolidate their gains in Iraq, and make sure that the Shi'a have a secure power-base. At the same time, Iran does not want the country to fall apart; they do want still some central government, which would be dominated by the Shi'a, and they don't want to set an example of ethnic breakup that might be used by their own ethnic minorities, which are extensive; as you know, Persians are barely half the population of Iran, so they have to worry about that.
MR. FREEMAN: It's fair to speculate that a Shi'a-dominated Iraq, at least in terms of its theological influence, might overshadow Iran rather than the other way around, which is something that I believe the power elite in Tehran thinks about.
MR. SICK: I just would comment too, that it's - I think when we look at these things, this idea of sort of Persian empire expanding to include Baghdad, I think, is hugely overstated. Basically, my reading of what Iran is doing in Iraq is that they're trying to maintain a foothold there because they don't know how things are going to turn out. They have influence; they do not have control. And I think actually if you had a Shi'a government in some kind of coalition with the Sunnis in Baghdad, and the Kurds, and you had Iran basically trying to maintain its influence there, the old enmities are actually going to rise up and are going to stand between these two. I do not see Baghdad ever becoming a satrapy of Tehran. I just don't see that happening, and I think we're really stretching to raise that as a possibility.
It is very interesting, however, in terms of U.S. policy because one side of U.S. policy, as we've just seen with President Bush's trip to the Middle East, is he's pushing very much this idea that we need a Sunni-Israeli-American coalition against Iran as the common enemy. That is the theme of everything that runs through, and yet, here we are in Baghdad pursuing a situation in which we are operating in conjunction with the Shi'a government, and we're also talking directly to Iran about the effects of what's going on in the country. So American policy is bifurcated there, and also when you think about the Arab reaction, the Arabs are enormously suspicious about all of this.
I think Ray was correct in suggesting that the only thing that the Arabs think is worse than the idea of an American attack against Iran is an American deal with Iran because they see themselves losing either way that goes. And it's a very, very tricky moment, and I think in fact that they're ambivalence helps to explain a lot about the way they are courting Iran today, keeping various options open because they don't really know which way things are going to go.
MR. FREEMAN: It might be interesting to speculate also that there may some ambivalence in Tehran about American withdrawal, since the default position in Iraqi politics is skepticism, not to say antagonism, towards Persians. But as long as the United States is there, there is a more immediate enemy on whom to focus. An American withdrawal probably would restore a somewhat more troubled relationship between Baghdad and Tehran than that at present.
Sir?
Q: My name is - (off mike) - my question is for Dr. Farsi. Dr. Farsi, your organization claims to be a independent organization that has no ties to any government. I would like to - (off mike) - in Cyprus in 1999 had a conference for - (off mike). And I think it's wrong to say - (off mike). Also, I think the broad view - (off mike) - and to say that it's the West's pressure that has caused this, but in fact that pressure is actually reiterated - (off mike).
MR. FREEMAN: Trita, I think you should probably respond to that comment.
I would just note that one of the difficulties we have in this country in conducting discussion of foreign policy issues is that there are people from those countries with very passionate views who insist on registering those views, and that's fine but I hope we can keep this session directed at U.S. interests and avoid ad hominem attacks.
DR. PARSI: Absolutely. But Chas., I have to say the vast majority of Iranian Americans are some of the most productive and constructive members of the American society. They have lived the American dream; they have had fantastic achievements. And although I know occasionally people show up at conferences and try to cause mayhem, they are by no means representative of the Iranian-American community.
As to some of the things that you are saying, sir, I'll be delighted to address but first of all, the first thing you said is absolutely false. NAIC was founded in 2002. What you're relying on is some propaganda spread by an Iranian terrorist organization by the name of Mujahadin Ahal (ph), who is targeting different people in the United States - I know I have been targeting extensively and I think Ray has been a couple times, Gary as well, -who have been arguing that we need to have a different policy on Iran, and they're basically trying to intimidate that voice by coming out with defamation and slander.
As to the question of whether the pressure is causing the tremendous atrocities that are taking place in Iran, and I don't think anyone would like to whitewash them, what I was saying earlier on I am sticking with. It is not so that the United States, in any way, shape or form, is the cause of this; that would be ridiculous to suggest. However, as the tensions between the two countries has increased, that has made it so much more difficult for pro-democracy elements to be able to operate.
Now, the increased tensions are seen as very valuable by people in this country who want to be Chalabis, basically, who want to be able to write back to Iran on an American airplane with a couple of bombs. But for those who are on the forefront of the pro-democracy movement inside of that country, they're not asking for any bombs to be dropped and they're not asking for that type of pressure. I'm not saying that sanctions and other things is not something they would favor, but the type of pressure, the type of tensions we've seen in the past, has basically created an atmosphere that has made it much more easy for the Iranian government to use national security pretexts to clamp down on human rights organizations, clamp down on NGOs, and we are seeing tremendous atrocities taking place right now. Does it make it the United States' fault? Of course not, but there are things that we can do on our end to help the pro-democracy movement inside of Iran, and the type of saber-rattling, the type of talk about war, is not helping that in any way, shape or form.
MR. FREEMAN: Gary?
MR. SICK: Just to add - actually, to take this on a slightly less personal direction. Many of the arguments that get raised about Iran, and also the ideological perspectives that people have of sort of extremes on one side or the other, are really based on this keyword - I mean, the phrase of regime change. And, you know, people who say they're for regime change, actually when you stop and think about it, can cover a lot of territory.
And I would say to people who are arguing that the answer to everything is regime change should beware of what they ask for because that can take a lot of different forms. The monarchists in Los Angeles, when they say regime change they mean we should actually bring the young shah back and install him on a throne, even if it's a, you know, democratic throne, a Swedish model. The people on the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, who argue for regime change, it's to bring them into power there. And in fact I can think of nothing - I think if the rule by Miriam Rajavi in Iran is the only thing I can think of that is worse than rule by the mullahs. I think this is really asking for extreme outcomes that are going to be not only helpful but actually very, very destructive.
But everybody has their own interests at stake and in fact, the real regime change that's going to take place is going to come from inside Iran due to its own dynamic, and that dynamic is at work right now, and we're seeing it. It may be, as I suggested earlier, that the regime change that we'll see is a shift to a new generation that was brought up after the revolution but bloodied themselves in the Iran-Iraq War, and they have a very spatial view of where Iran stands and what it should do, and it might actually make dealing with the mullahs look easy by comparison, if they come in and take over.
MR. FREEMAN: Young lady.
Q: Yes, my name is Stephanie Cook - (off mike). And I have a book coming out on the history of area - (off mike).
And my question is the effect the Iranian program is having on the Middle East nuclear scene, and in particular I'm thinking of the Saudi - (off mike) - but also, just what you think the effect would be on the whole Middle East nuclear scene in Egypt, and in Syria and you know, in Abu Dhabi, finding adaptors there, what you think the game plan is there and what the outcome would be.
MR. FREEMAN: Ray, do you want to start on this? Let me give you this mike, which will enable you to sit down.
MR. TAKEYH: I'm not quite sure if there is going to be a sort of a cascade of proliferation in the region as a result of what Iranians are doing. I think some of the things that have been talked about by the Saudis, by the Egyptians and others, are not necessarily aimed - are not necessarily declarational to their objectives. They're aimed at us, to try to get us to be more proactive in terms of dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.
And if it comes to the fact that Iran has some sort of a nuclear capability, I think the United States would have to work very hard to prevent similar nuclear programs they can place elsewhere. One of the things that has always been said is that the United States should acquiesce to nuclearization of other states as a means of rebuffing the Iranian program. I would actually suspect that's wrong; it's one of the things that was said in case of North Korea, that we should let Japan cross the nuclear faction. Well, I don't think you should object to the United States to assist proliferation.
There are other things that can be done. I mean, if there is an Iranian nuclear program of advanced capability, you can do the Germany model and maybe introduce American nuclear deterrents onto Saudi soil but operationally under American control, the way American nuclear weapons were under American control but placed on German soil. You don't even have to do that; you can send nuclear ships into the Gulf, and so forth. There are means of deterrence that the United States would have to be more actively providing, but it had to work very hard in terms of preventing other states from following the Iranian model as opposed to having sort of a cascade proliferation. And in that sense the Israelis would be concerned about that as well, so that's another goal that potentially is to power-share.
MR. FREEMAN: Gary?
MR. SICK: I do think this fact that Mr. Al-Baradei mentioned in his discussions some time ago, and continues to refer to, that there are 40 countries in the world who have the capability of going for a bomb if they should choose to do so. I mean, some people have joked - I guess it's not such a joke actually, that if Japan decided to go for a nuclear weapon it would take a long weekend for them to produce it, basically. They're very, very close to having that. Other countries: Sweden isn't that far way, you've got other countries like Brazil, Taiwan, who have capability but it would be varying amount of time that would be required.
I think we're going to have to live with the fact that Iran - but perhaps other countries in the region have enough of an infrastructure that, if they chose to go for a bomb, they might be able to do it in X amount of time. At the moment, we're talking about three to seven years if Iran started today. To really put all of its effort into building a bomb, it would take three to seven years, according to the NIE. That is - we've been hearing the same thing, three to five years, for the last 15 years. I mean, that's a standard, rolling estimate that Iran could have a bomb in that much time.
I also note that there are like 50 countries in the world that have stockpiles of high-enriched uranium that actually are bomb capable in terms of the fissile fuel. And I'm told by people who know more about this than I do that there is enough HEU in existence right now throughout the world for, if you wanted about 300,000 nuclear weapons. Now, we live with all of that stuff every day. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing to do. I would be the last person in the world to encourage the countries in the Middle East to go that route, but I think we shouldn't kid ourselves about where the world is right now and, to my way of thinking, there's no way we can sort of stop reality, that that is sort of where things are.
Our objective should be to keep - if countries do move toward greater nuclear infrastructure, we should do everything in our power to ensure that they are as far away from the bomb as possible and that we have as much early warning as we can possibly build into the system. That means a different kind of approach than the one we've been using up until now. And it seems to me, we're wasting a lot of time, in many cases, talking about, you know, we'll talk to you if you do everything we want you to do before we start talking. I mean, that is not - it really - it never works and it's not going to work in this case.
I think we ought to get serious about trying to keep Iran from getting involved, recognizing that they're probably going to have some capabilities, the way other allies of ours do, and we would try to persuade them not to exercise that capability. That, it seems to me, is the end objective of negotiations.
MR. FREEMAN: On the subject of a cascade effect from the alleged Iranian nuclear-weapons program, I think it's fair to point out that it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate the effects of the rise in global energy prices and their impact on nuclear energy from the impact of security problems in producing proliferation. With oil and gas prices at very high levels, nuclear energy is now an extremely attractive option and is going to be widely pursued throughout the world, not least because it does not pump carbon into the air and does not produce an immediate pollution problem, although the disposal of the waste remains a long-term issue.
And, therefore, we are projecting that - that is to say, those who are in the business of making nuclear power plants - are projecting not just dozens, but many dozens of new plants being built, including in the Middle East from Egypt to the Gulf to Iran as well as in places like China and India. These reactors will supply electric power in parallel with other alternative energy sources that are more beloved of the elves and tree-huggers in the forests of northwestern America, like wind, solar, biomass, and tidal power.
But we're going to see a great proliferation of nuclear power technology and with it the dangers to which Gary referred will multiply. I agree with him; we need to find a new approach which recognizes this, in this regard, to revert to the original question. The Saudi proposal for regional management of enrichment really deserves a good deal more attention than it has had, not perhaps just in the context of the Middle East, but through similar arrangements elsewhere where the security difficulties of enrichment can be minimized by multilateralism.
Trita.
MR. PARSI: Quick comment to add to what Gary was saying - Ray mentioned earlier on that having zero enrichment as the objective is still what should be, and it's a good objective. I think a lot of people would agree with that. It is a good objective, but then we also have to see, it is a viable objective? Is it something that's actually going to work? And then I would agree with Gary; it doesn't seem like that's likely. However, as Gary also put it, just because that objective is not achieved does not mean that we don't have tremendous opportunities and leverage to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear-weapons state and, as in the Cold War, making sure that we would be able to convince them not to do so.
And I would argue that there are several factors that will actually make that easier for us, one being that, at the end of the day, what the Iranians are trying to do is not terribly different from what the shah was doing, though they were expressing it in a very different manner, which is, they want to be the preeminent power in the region; many people here have mentioned it. But what that also entails is that they need to get the acceptance of the other states in the region. And if they project too much power that would mean that they would project a threat and that would undermine their ability to get that acceptance from the neighbors.
And in the case of Iran, I would argue that a nuclear weapon would be a huge, huge strategic mistake for the Iranians to get precisely because of the threat that it would project towards its neighbors. And then the question is: what would cause the Iranians, who recognize this by the way, to go for the bomb in spite of the very negative strategic implications that would be? And right now, again, the hostile relationship between the two countries is actually - the United States is actually one of the few countries that they feel that they don't have an effective deterrence against. They feel they have a deterrence against Iraq. They feel that they have it against Israel because of what happened last year. And usually the terrorists would not be helpful towards destabilize Pakistan anyways, so then it's a non-issue. But against the United States, they don't.
So if we can work with that variable, we may be able to use one of these forces that exist on the Iranian side to our own advantage, meaning that we would be able to help convince them not to go for the weaponization which, at the end of the day, should be the ultimate goal and zero enrichment should be an intermediary goal if it is viable to achieve.
MR. FREEMAN: The last question or comment, but I know you don't make comments.
Q: Jim Loeb - (off mike) - I think you'll need it for - (off mike).
MR. FREEMAN: Right.
Q: What I want to get a sense of is: how are you planning to get back - (off mike)? Is that editorial - (off mike) - Saudis - (off mike) - in general and how likely was that communicated in a very direct sort of way and how - (off mike) - Bush? And what's your general assessment of how closely Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together on another regional - (off mike)? How much has the relationship developed over the last couple of years?
MR. FREEMAN: Three very topical questions - the editorial in question was, as Mr. Lob said, notable both for its breach of standard Arab etiquette, very negative in terms of its treatment of a guest, quite biting in its tone, and quite devastating in its last sentence, which is the one to which I referred, speaking of U.S. foreign policy not as the use of reason in pursuit of peace, but of madness in pursuit of war. As to how widespread this view is, I think the polls - and there's a lot of polling data from Saudi Arabia - demonstrate that, with respect to Mr. Bush, to whom editorial was directed, they are very widespread.
The ruling group in Saudi Arabia -- the royal family -- perhaps temper their distaste for American policy, which has been extremely negative in its impact on Saudi interests throughout the region, with lingering hope that the United States and Saudi Arabia might yet restore some measure of the special relationship we once enjoyed. And certainly the king himself has put a great deal of effort into rekindling some warmth in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, as demonstrated in the effort to persuade parents to send their children to school in the United States, which many regard as a hostile environment to Muslims and Arabs these days.
But I'm afraid that the attitudes shown in the editorial are indeed endemic now in the region. Mr. Bush has a level of popularity in Saudi Arabia of 12 percent, which is higher than Mr. Olmert has achieved on occasion in Israel to be sure, but is not much to boast about. Favorable attitudes toward the United States have apparently risen recently to about 40 percent, which is pretty impressive given how rare they were earlier. But these things are transitory.
As to the question of how seriously Saudi Arabia and Iran are dealing with each other, I think the Saudis recognize, as they have said, that they live next to Iran. They may not accept Iran's pretensions to imperial grandeur and they certainly do not accept its aspirations for hegemony in the region, but they recognize Iran as the home of a great culture and a great people with considerable influence, even in normal times, and even more influence when, as has happened, the United States has facilitated the spread of that influence. And, therefore, they are behaving as classic realists will in dealing directly with Tehran in a courteous but wary fashion. And I think the limits of their accommodation with Iran have not yet been reached. As several of the panelists noted, Ray in particular, they are in the process of accommodating the new realities of the region which we have brought about.
So that is the best answer that I can give to your question. I don't know whether others wish to comment or take issue with me. If there are no comments or rebuttals, which appears to be the case, we have come to the end of the session. I would like to say that I think this has been an extraordinarily enlightening and useful discussion by the panelists. I hope that my occasional chaotic resorts to rhetorical excess have not detracted from it.
(Laughter.)
I'd like to thank all of the panelists.
(Applause.)
(END)