War with Iran: regional reactions and requirements.
Anthony, John Duke ; Seznec, Jean-Francois ; Ari, Tayyar 等
The following is an edited transcript of the fifty-third in a
series of Capitol Hill conferences convened by the Middle East Policy
Council. The meeting was held on Friday, June 20, 2008, in the Caucus
Room of the Cannon House Office Building with Chas. W. Freeman, Jr.,
presiding.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR.: president, Middle East Policy Council
Much of the concern about a possible Israeli or American strike on
Iran has receded in recent days. Yet, within the last week, Israel
apparently ran a huge military maneuver in the eastern Mediterranean,
exercising its capacity to engage in long-range airstrikes. President
Bush has on several occasions declared that he will not leave office
without dealing with the menace of Iran, as he defines it.
Over the last several years, various rationales for military action
against Iran have been put forward. Initially, the discussion was about
taking out Iranian nuclear facilities. When it appeared that the
Iranians had suspended the weaponization aspect of their nuclear
program, for a while at least, that talk was suddenly succeeded by a
discussion of the need for protection of American forces in Iraq, who
allegedly were being attacked with weapons deliberately provided by
Iran.
Grave concerns have also been expressed, particularly in light of
the March incident in the Gulf of Suez, in which an American naval
vessel fired on an Egyptian gunboat and killed a couple of civilians.
U.S. forces are jittery after the USS Cole incident and operate under
more robust rules of engagement that require small boats to keep a
distance from U.S. naval vessels. There have also been concerns about
the possibility of an incident at sea between the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard and its naval flotilla and the United States.
In a recent issue of Middle East Policy (Vol. XV, No. 3), Antony
Sullivan analyzed the possible regional metastasis that might ensue from
a conflict with Iran, talking about actions in and by Lebanon, in and by
Syria, against Israel and, of course, Hamas in Gaza. I encourage you
all, if you have not read that article, to take a look at it because it
is very sobering.
JOHN DUKE ANTHONY: founding president, chief executive officer,
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations
There is no reason why the idea of attacking Iran militarily ought
to be viewed by anyone in the region as necessary, inevitable or
unavoidable. A related reaction, as reflected among leaders throughout
the Gulf with whom I have met and discussed the matter, is that the Bush
administration has deliberately failed to level with the American people
about this issue. Within this view is a conviction that the
administration has not been forthright about the real reasons that, were
they acknowledged and subjected to vigorous public debate by the
American people, would likely result in their refusing to support, let
alone endorse, such a policy position or action. A third dimension of
reactions already in play is the sheer uncertainty of what could follow.
This can be seen even now, not only in the significantly higher,
fear-induced price of oil. It is also reflected in how rapidly
discussion about the possibility of a war has shifted from riveted
attention to acute apprehension to sheer anxiety about the likely
follow-on implications for the Gulf Arab countries. Here the frames of
reference are their respective strategic, economic, political,
commercial and defense needs, concerns and interests, not to mention
their objectives and relations with each other and outside parties.
As to the requirements side of the equation, in advance of an
attack, one is the obvious need for the Gulf Arab governments to
persuade their citizenries that every possible precaution is being taken
to deter and defend against an attack. Within this requirement is a need
to do whatever is necessary to ensure their inherent fight to
self-preservation no matter what transpires. Another need is to assure
their countries' inhabitants that everything imaginable has been
and is being done to provide for national and local emergency
contingencies. All agree that being able to meet these basic needs is
imperative in the event of a near certainty that an attack against Iran
by the United States or Israel, or some combination of the two, becomes
not a question of whether but when.
Still another requirement is to be prepared to withstand the
probability of a range of retaliatory actions by Iran or its agents
following an attack. Certainly, possibilities for retaliation would not
be lacking. Among them, to name but a few, could be the inflicting of
damage to offshore drilling platforms on the Arab side of the Gulf, to
undersea energy valves, gauges and pipelines, threats to shipping in the
strategic Hormuz Strait, and attacks on power generation and
desalination plants along the coasts.
There would also be obvious need for heightened domestic
surveillance and security measures vis-a-vis the Iranians in these
countries. Some 400,000 Iranians live and work in the UAE emirate of
Dubai alone. Additional thousands of Iranians reside in Bahrain, Kuwait
and Qatar, although nowhere near the same number in Oman or Saudi
Arabia.
There will probably also be a need to be able to deal effectively
with a range of likely, as well as unanticipated political consequences,
driven by the perceived as well as actual nature, extent and overall
effectiveness of what these countries' elite decision makers do or
fail to do to prevent an attack. Regardless of their respective actions
or inactions, if whatever they do is perceived as inadequate or
ineffective, the prospects are considerable that a range of resultant
accusations could represent a rhetorical throwback to an earlier era. A
frame of reference is the 1960s, when many Arab Gulf leaders were
labeled by Arab nationalists as "America's Arabs,"
"Anglo-Arabs," "running dogs" and "lackeys of
imperialism."
If but a fraction of this kind of reaction were to occur, it would
not be difficult to imagine how this would negatively affect the
perceived legitimacy of these leaders, not only domestically but further
afield. Even now, the meaning of the phrase "moderate Arab
leaders" has increasingly been debased. In the eyes of critics, it
has migrated from being synonymous with a commendable attribute to an
epithet applied to any Arab leader seen as inclined to accommodate
America's aims.
Regarding other requirements deemed necessary to try and prevent an
attack, among the most obvious is the need to engage Iran in every
imaginable way. The goal would be to underpin their acknowledged common
interests in regional peace, stability and prosperity, which by
definition renders the idea of launching yet another war in the Gulf
unthinkable. A close cousin to this requirement is the need for insiders
and outsiders alike not to be precipitous in concluding that diplomacy
has been exhausted. Certainly, a consensus within the region is that a
case cannot yet be made that diplomacy has been exhausted. On the
contrary, practically all agree that greater and more effective
diplomacy is needed.
Further, if an attack is to be prevented, a third requirement
applies to the United States and Israel almost equally. If for domestic
political reasons they cannot do so publicly, they need privately not to
fail to focus to the greatest extent possible on the positive aspects of
Iran's behavior over the last quarter of a century, for which a
range of evidence is hardly lacking. If only to quiet the extremist
warmongers among their respective policy makers, each needs not to lose
sight of, and take appropriate measures to commend, empathize with and
strategize in relation to these positive aspects.
There's no need to go overboard in this regard. It should be
sufficient merely to cite various facts in the chronology. For example,
apart from the Iranian complicity in the deadly attack on the Al-Khobar
Towers complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the strengthening of
Iran's occupation of three islands claimed by the UAE in the 1990s,
there has been no Iranian actual or potential military attack on any of
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries for nearly a quarter of a
century. Apart from these two instances, the last serious threat
occurred in June 1984. Then, utilizing a combined configuration of
American-manufactured AWACs and F-15 aircraft, Saudi Arabia effectively
prevented what could easily have been an Iranian armed aerial attack on
the kingdom's Eastern Province oil and gas installations. There has
been no comparable threat posed by Iran against any GCC country since
then. Neither has there been a recurrence of two incidents in Bahrain,
one in December 1981 and another alleged in June 1996 by Iran in which
its agents sought to destabilize Bahrain and perhaps lay the groundwork
for a coup d'etat. Nor has there been anything remotely comparable
to the Iranian-instigated attack on the life of the amir of Kuwait in
1985.
If all else fails and an attack occurs, what would be the aftermath
in terms of requirements? One almost certain requirement would be to
demonstrate an ability to accommodate a set of likely geopolitical,
social and psychological challenges as represented by the extent to
which the governments would be expected to politically survive intact
the after effects of an attack against Iran in the event the attack is
mounted solely by the United States.
One high-ranking official of a GCC country informed me of his
personal view that the GCC members would likely have a 50-50 chance of
being able to weather such an attack were it to be carried out by the
United States alone. However, if the Israelis were alleged or even
perceived to have been part of an attack, whether independently or in
association with the United States, all bets would be off. This official
claimed not to know whether any of the governments could cope
effectively in the event their citizens reacted with uncontrollable rage
and directed their anger at their governments as much as, if not more
than, American or Israeli interests in the region.
A further requirement in the event of an attack has to do with a
range of logistical, operational, economic and financial dynamics.
Aspects of these dynamics are addressed in part by separate Defense
Cooperation Agreements that the United States signed and entered into
with Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar in the aftermath of Iraq's
aggression in Kuwait in addition to a modified Defense Cooperation
Agreement between Washington and the United Arab Emirates, and an Access
to Facilities Agreement between the United States and Oman, dating from
January 1980. It is true that there is no comparable agreement with
Saudi Arabia. Even so, in spite of that, what does exist between Riyadh
and Washington is a far vaster range of undertakings and understandings.
In the realm of defense-cooperation relationships dating over a much
longer period of time and involving far more Arabs and Americans than
anything remotely comparable with the other seven Arab Gulf countries.
AMB. FREEMAN: The United States cannot conduct military operations in the Gulf without support from countries in the Gulf. An effort to
stage military operations without permission, as was the case from Oman
with Desert One--the rescue attempt on hostages in Tehran almost 30
years ago--will result in a suspension of military cooperation, as was
the case with Oman. Second, because logistics require cooperation from
countries in the region, they cannot avoid a measure of complicity with
a U.S. operation against Iran, and the word in the region is that Iran
has already told Qatar, for example, that if there is such an attack,
the Qatari regime is toast. Third, it's not just the use of bases
that is involved. We cannot conduct air operations either in Iraq or
over Iran, or for that matter in Afghanistan, without overflight of
Saudi Arabia, and there is no agreement between the United States and
Saudi Arabia that guarantees our right to such overflight. It is granted
on a case-by-case basis.
The U.S. airbase in Qatar, from which the air wars in both Iraq and
Afghanistan are directed, depends entirely on this air bridge.
Therefore, the question of complicity cannot be avoided by countries in
the region. The likelihood of retaliation, which John Duke mentioned,
cannot be avoided. Of course, there would be collateral damage to things
like oil prices in such a scenario.
JEAN-FRANCOIS SEZNEC: visiting associate professor, Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University
I will try to present what I think the Saudi point of view is. My
argument is economic. Having lived in the Gulf for 10 years and being a
banker, I have seen the business angle of things and followed it since
1974 quite extensively.
I find that the GCC, and Saudi Arabia in particular, is caught
between the anvil and the hammer. They really worry about Iran, of
course, for obvious reasons, but they also distrust the United States
just as much, if not more, these days. So the Saudis are very worried
about a potential U.S. strike on Iran; they feel they can handle Iran on
their own. That may sound surprising since their military is not that
strong, but neither is the Iranian military.
On the other hand, there is a new paradigm in Saudi thinking in
terms of defense and security. The Saudis are seeking to gain time. They
want to maximize their economic growth, their wealth and their
importance to the world markets. They assume that at the same time, Iran
is going bankrupt and because of this, will be forced to change
policies. So from their point of view, time is on their side.
A U.S. attack--whether it's U.S. or Israeli, it will be viewed
as U.S.-based--would stop the economic growth of the region. It would
kill the Saudi chance to become the economic hegemon of the region and
one of the hegemons of the world. It would weaken them relative to Iran
and Iraq, which they feel they can dominate.
The major points of conflict, of course, are well known. There are
the islands and the potential conflict between the UAE and Iran, which
has been on the books for a long, long time. The strategic Strait of
Hormuz is very important, but the Saudis are not so worried about that.
If the Iranians blocked Hormuz, they would be committing hara-kiri,
because they could not ship their own oil.
Another issue, which has been alluded to by Ambassador Freeman, is
the fact that the Iranians are very worried about the enormous
development of the Qatar North Dome Field. It's the largest gas
field in the world. The Qataris are developing it like crazy right now,
and the Iranians are upset because they own half of that field and they
feel that the Qataris are stealing their gas. They have not been able to
develop that field for lack of money and lack of technology from
overseas.
The other area of potential conflict is the oil platforms on the
Kuwaiti-Iraq field. There's been a lot of tension among the
Kuwaitis, the Saudis and the Iranians over those platforms. This has
somewhat delayed the development of these fields.
The Iranians are not happy that the Saudis are trying to decrease
the price of oil. Going from $130 to maybe $110 or $100 would make the
Saudis very happy. It would make us happy though it would not change
that much. The Iranians are very happy at $130. That brings a little
more money into Iran. It allows the ayatollahs to steal even more money,
and it hurts our own economy.
The other point of conflict, of course, which is important for the
Saudis, is the Shia communities. In the GCC, in particular, Iran can
claim that the Saudis are oppressing the Shia, which, in all fairness,
they have done over the years. But things are improving, as we will see.
Finally, another point of potential conflict is the Iranian
communities in the Gulf. There are 400,000 Iranians living in Dubai
alone. There are 3,000 Iranian-owned businesses in Dubai, so there is
some potential for disagreement on these issues.
The GCC and the Saudis are not totally defenseless. The Iranians
are totally mismanaging their economy. The Iranians are going bankrupt.
In 2007, they made about $80 billion from their sales of oil at the very
average price of about $80 a barrel. But out of this, there was very
little left for the Iranians, because the ayatollahs are sending about
$15 billion a year into Dubai. They have to import gasoline into the
country, which is a very large producer of oil. That costs them another
$5 billion. They have to pump their oil and that costs money. All costs
of this nature are limiting the ability of the Iranians to have money
for themselves.
One of the reasons for the Iranians not to do too much in the Arab
world is that Dubai is vital to the ayatollahs. That's where they
put their money. And they don't want to push the GCC too much
towards the United States.
The Saudi strategy basically is to wait the Bush administration
out. They want to make sure that there is no direct U.S. attack on Iran.
As I said, it would limit their ability to grow and become a major
economic power. The Saudis are today the fifth-largest producer of
chemicals in the world. By 2015, which is just around the comer, they
will be the largest producer of chemicals--and not just petrochemicals.
The Gulf will be the world's largest producer of aluminum by 2015
or 2018. They feel that creating this major industrial power gives them
tremendous diplomatic strength. They would like to continue, because
then, from an economic standpoint, they will be vastly superior to Iran.
Iran today is ensuring that it remains a third-world power, totally
dependent on the production of one commodity, highly dependent on forces
that have nothing to do with their own enterprise. Saudi Arabia is going
way up in value-added production and industrial capacity. They feel that
if they can be given a chance, they will be able to have a major
advantage over Iran and Iraq, in particular. This means that if we
attack Iran, the money that is being invested by the hundreds of
billions of dollars in the Gulf today will disappear. A lot of this is
private local money that, instead of going to Switzerland as it used to,
now comes to the Gulf, and that would change.
Another issue that I would like to point out is not economic.
There's been a lot of effort by the Saudi leadership to improve the
relationship with Iran. The strategy of Saudi Arabia is to improve
economically and at the same time engage Iran, and to make them wait.
They also want for us to wait, and for the Iranians to wait and to do
nothing stupid.
One of the things they are doing, which is very remarkable,
happened about a week or ten days ago: the conference between Sunnis and
Shia in Mecca. This was done by the king of Saudi Arabia, who brought in
Rafsanjani from Iran to try to unite the Shia and the Sunnis a little
bit. Coming from Saudi Arabia, this is a revolution. And the Saudi
leadership, and the king in particular, has done this against the
Wahhabis. He was advised by the Wahhabis not to do this, but he went
ahead and did it. There is a lot of tension in Saudi Arabia on this
issue, but the king feels that you have to engage Iran. And you can only
engage Iran if you bring them into the fold of Islam. This is having
great success in the region. People trust the Saudis a little more, and
this allows them to defuse some of the tension with Iran.
One other thing the Saudis are likely to do in the future is to
encourage the sale of gas from Iran into the other countries of the
Gulf. Bahrain is very short of gas for its industrialization purposes.
They have signed--and I'm sure they could not have signed it
without the agreement of Saudi Arabia--an agreement to bring gas from
Iran into Bahrain. I'm sure this is not to the taste of our State
Department. An agreement has also been signed to bring gas into Oman.
None of these agreements could be done without Saudi approval. The view
of the Saudis is that it is perfect to buy Iranian gas because it takes
away their primary commodity. They will run out of gas faster, which is
good for the Saudis, and it provides the GCC with the feedstock for its
industrial development.
The strategy of Saudi Arabia is to delay any kind of conflict as
long as possible in order to overcome Iran as rapidly as possible from
an economic standpoint--and therefore from a political standpoint--in
their relationship with the Far East, in particular.
AMB. FREEMAN: One of the most interesting developments in the Gulf
recently has been the emergence of shortages of gas, such that countries
are increasingly talking about importing LNG (liquefied natural gas)
from outside the region in order to fuel the huge chemical industries
that Jean-Francois spoke about. Jean-Francois, you mentioned that there
is widespread distrust of the United States these days in the Gulf, and
I can't help but note that, in many ways, the United States appears
to be becoming the dispensable nation, not the indispensable nation, in
the politics of the region.
Consider that the Lebanese political crisis was mediated by Qatar
and the Arab League without reference to the United States, even though
the United States has been heavily involved in Lebanese internal
affairs; that proximity talks between Israel and Syria, which the United
States opposed, were brokered by Turkey, again without reference to the
United States; that Egypt has now mediated a ceasefire between Israel
and Hamas, contrary to American desires; and that Saudi Arabia, as
Jean-Francois mentioned, even as it received President Bush, also
invited Mr. Rafsanjani to come to Mecca for a pan-Islamic dialogue and
as part of an effort to manage relations with Iran.
This is nothing new. If you look at the Khobar Towers incident, you
will find that the Saudis were very reluctant to share information with
the United States because they feared what we might do. So we have a
problem in terms of leadership in a region that we all agree is of vital
importance to our nation.
WAYNE E. WHITE: former deputy director, Near East and South Asia Office, Intelligence and Research, U.S. State Department
One cannot emphasize enough the complex set of circumstances that
surrounds the Iraqi dimension of practically any U.S. military action in
Iran. I don't want to minimize what is said by the other speakers,
but the Iraqi dimension is quite dicey because of our heavy presence in
Iraq. In fact, the Pentagon apparently also raised some of the
complications I'm going to be talking about, in reportedly pushing
back against an initiative on the part of the vice president last summer
to launch limited attacks across the border against suspected Iranian
Revolutionary Guard (IRG) facilities related to training, gun running,
etc. But in the context of Iraq, there are different scenarios to
address and various factions to be taken into account--first, the issue
of sovereignty, which now looms much larger than it did even a few
months ago.
The intense and heated diplomatic battle over the U.S.-Iraqi Status
of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has made clear that the issue of Iraqi
sovereignty would be of much larger consideration related to U.S.
military action in the future. Intense skirmishing over the SOFA has
exposed what has always been historically a very raw nerve for Iraqis.
The issue goes all the way back to Britain's much-resented
retention of two air bases in the 1930s, following its occupation of
Iraq during the mandate period and its attempt again in the late
'40s to extend that agreement well into the future.
Any use of very convenient and large U.S. bases in Iraq, or even
Iraqi air space, for a military action against Iran could jumpstart a
major crisis between the two governments. There probably is a rather
broad-based and emotional consensus, especially among Arab Iraqis,
against practically anything smacking of occupation or compromising
Iraqi sovereignty. As a result, even Sunni Arab Iraqis, with no love for
the Iranians, to say the least, would nonetheless almost certainly
object strongly to the use of bases in Iraq or Iraqi air space to mount
U.S. military operations against another Middle East state. Many
observers would expect the Shia-dominated government, containing
factions with ties to Iran or large portions of the Iraqi Shia
community, to be unsympathetic, but that would be an overly narrow
definition of the likely adverse impact.
Many Iraqi Shia would be considerably more sensitive to issues of
sovereignty and military action against Iran because many of them have
very vivid memories of the war with Iran that Iraq fought throughout the
1980s, in which tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia died fighting the
Iranians.
First, Washington would have to confront the Maliki government. Not
only Prime Minister Maliki, but other major government figures, like
President Talabani, a Kurdish leader with some very close ties to the
Iranians, are trying to maintain correct and even friendly relations
with Tehran. So even the lowest option on the scale of military
escalation against Iran, say limited air strikes along the border
against alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) training facilities
or facilities storing arms for movement into Iraq, would bring a rather
negative reaction from the Iraqi government. Should the United States
ask permission for even limited action along those lines, such a request
not only might well be turned down, but might also generate an Iraqi
warning to the Iranians about what was in store for them.
That said, Maliki might find it very hard to resist allowing the
United States to take some very limited military action against Iran
along the border--if there were glaring evidence of IRGC training of
and/or gun running to elements such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and Tehran had turned a deaf ear to strong Iraqi diplomatic protests. So
far, however, the United States has not been able to produce any really
convincing evidence, despite a stream of allegations along those lines.
And there's another potential problem regarding more limited U.S.
military action against the IRGC. The IRGC's main training facility
for Iraqi militiamen, Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, and others
isn't near the border. It's near Tehran, deep inside Iran. We
must bear this in mind because the IRGC may well have kept facilities
along border to the bare minimum in order to avoid giving the United
States easy targets within, say, five, 10 or 15 miles of the border, in
order to take away an option that the administration might be able to
sell in certain circumstances to the Iraqi government. A deep strike
against the facility near Tehran, which is quite large, would naturally
be far more provocative with respect to Iran's reaction, including
a possible Iranian response inside of Iraq. That said, such a facility
could be hit with a salvo of cruise missiles or air strikes from U.S.
fleet elements in the Persian Gulf that would not involve Iraqi air
space or bases in Iraq, at least eliminating potential blowback from the
Iraqi government and population regarding the issue of sovereignty,
Nonetheless, Iran still might opt to step up its aid to anti-U.S.
elements in Iraq like Sadr's Mahdi Army. So Iraq might become
involved in any case.
The consequences in Iraq of what so many of us fear most--robust
U.S. military action against Iran's nuclear infrastructure--could
be very serious. Given the sheer magnitude of the operations plan as it
was briefed to the president in 2006--between 1,500 and 2,000 combat air
strikes, destruction of much of the Iranian military's ability to
retaliate in the Gulf, hitting many of those targets before even moving
on to the nuclear infrastructure--it is almost certain to involve Iraqi
air space in one way or another. The more painful the blow for Iran, the
more pressure on the Iraqi government to express protests to the United
States in the wake of such action. It's hard to say with real
precision what this could mean. It could go in a number of directions
that we could explore in questions.
In fact, before the dust-up over the SOFA between the United States
and Iraq, I was inclined to believe that the Maliki government and other
official denizens of the Green Zone would probably go along with the
SOFA if certain concessions were made. They depend so heavily on the
United States for their very political and security survival. Clearly,
Washington made that same assumption too; it evidently turned out to be
very wrong, and it overreached in the first draft that was sent to the
Iraqis. That said, it's difficult to sort out what the United
States actually proposed because of all the contrary claims and denials
that have been bouncing around over the last several weeks regarding the
SOFA.
In the context of large-scale U.S. military operations against
Iran, the Iraqi government would find itself caught in the middle of a
major popularly perceived issue of sovereignty. It would mean that
despite the dangers involved for the Iraqi government, the SOFA will go
down the drain, possibly forcing a speedier U.S. exit from Iraq. If the
Iraqi government were compelled by U.S. military action against Iran to
take steps rendering it impossible for U.S. troops to remain in great
numbers in Iraq, it could take the first step in more speedily
destabilizing itself. I should point out that the Iraqi government,
still in the early phases of development and very fragile, also would be
ill-prepared to deal with a veritable war on its doorstep, which is
exactly what the worst scenario involving Iran would be. Moreover, there
would be a burst of anti-American demonstrations in various quarters of
Iraq following a robust U.S. attack against Iran.
The thing that worries me most would be the rocketing and mortaring
of the Green Zone and U.S. bases--all manner of this kind of thing--and
public demonstrations. Attacks could come against our Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), U.S. forces, contractors and others from
people who are armed and presumed to be our friends at this point. This
wouldn't be ordered by militia leaders or leaders of the
concerned-local-citizen groups or tribal leaders. They could come in an
occasional and spotty fashion, which is the worst, because it would be
unexpected here and there, by individual fighters or small groups.
Additionally, there is what the Iranians themselves might opt to do
in Iraq in the worst-case scenario. The Iranians would greatly increase
the amount of support they're giving to anybody who would stand up
to the United States, all the way from Moqtada al-Sadr's people to
even Sunni Arab elements. In an absolute worst-case scenario, they might
throw all caution aside and send Revolutionary Guards, hundreds of them,
into Iraq across a porous border and attack U.S. forces directly, not
caring much about their own losses. This, of course, would involve
violating Iraqi sovereignty, turning Iraq into yet another battlefield.
I'm inclined to think they wouldn't do it.
What would be perhaps more dangerous for the entire Gulf and
beyond, as well as Iraq, is that the Iranians might surprise everyone by
not striking back immediately, by biding their time and looking for a
better opportunity. This doesn't limit itself to Iraq or even the
Gulf, but other places, including Lebanon. I haven't talked about
Israel. That will perhaps come up in the Q&A.
AMB. FREEMAN: I should note before we turn to the next and final
panelist that we were honored earlier by the presence of Congressman Jim
Moran (D-Va). I didn't want to call attention to him when he was
here, but I would just say that he is one of the few members of the
House who continues the tradition of hearings that are intended to
educate the public and to explore issues without any partisan focus or
search for advantage. I think the modesty and seriousness of the man are
illustrated by the fact that he came and stayed as long as he could at
this early session. So I would like to recognize and commend that
seriousness.
We turn now to a Turkish perspective. The United States has
troubled relations with Turkey. As a former assistant secretary of
defense, I was very much impressed when I was in that job by the extent
to which American policy depends on the cooperation or acquiescence of
Turkey and the range of issues that are involved. The United States
cannot conduct policies toward Iran, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean,
Greece, Cyprus, the Arab Gulf, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, NATO enlargement, the countries of the Islamic Conference or the Balkans
without the involvement or acquiescence of Turkey. Therefore, it is
particularly striking that Turkey, in cooperation with Israel and Syria,
neighbors with which it has had very troubled relations, has been in the
process of brokering proximity talks.
TAYYAR ARI: professor of Economics and Administrative Sciences,
Uludag University
The problem we are discussing is very important. If a solution
cannot be found, it may cause uncontrollable consequences. I will, first
of all, try to outline Turkish-Iranian and Turkish-American relations and then suggest potential options and scenarios.
Turkey, as a democratic, parliamentarian government, has deep
relations with the West and the United States. During the Cold War
years, Turkey strengthened these relations as a member of organizations
such as NATO, the European Council and the Organization for European
Economic Cooperation (OEEC). In the Cold War era, Turkey became a vital
ally for the United States and supported its policies in the Middle East
against Soviet expansion toward the region. It recognized Israel and
established diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. Ankara became a reliable
ally for Washington and supported Eisenhower and Nixon policies toward
the region to reduce the threat of international communism. At the same
time, during the long-lasting Iraq-Iran war and the war against the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Turkey cooperated with the United States and
the international community.
Turkey and Iran, which were important U.S. allies during the Cold
War, also have good relations. In fact, the two states have never been
at war since the beginning of the seventeenth century. After World War
I, Turkey and Iran took the lead in establishing a regional alliance
called the Sadabat Pact with Afghanistan; during the 1950s, they signed
the Baghdad Pact with Iraq. The basic purpose of these agreements was to
make the region secure. In 1962, they established the Regional
Cooperation for Development, an economic organization that in 1985
evolved into the Economic Cooperation Organization.
But it should be noted that after the collapse of the Iranian
monarchy in 1979, relations between Turkey and Iran became heavily
economic, rather than military or strategic. This process also
influenced the strategic architecture of the region since Iran was
perceived as a new threat to the countries of the region and the United
States. Iran's relationship with the United States ended as a
result of the hostage crisis, which lasted more than a year. Also, as a
result of this threat perception, the Gulf countries, with the exception
of Iraq, established an organization called the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) in 1981. Moreover, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but
particularly after the 9/11 attacks, a new threat perception stemming
from international terrorism and nuclear proliferation replaced the
Communist threat.
In this new security environment Turkey continued its relations
with the United States and the West against these emerging threats.
Having experienced terrorism, Ankara gave full support to Washington and
took part in the Afghanistan operation as a member of NATO and as an
ally of the United States.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War
changed Turkey's security structure. Turkey has good relations with
Russia and the Newly Independent States. Along the way, Turkey has tried
to reduce its security concerns by taking some initiatives to solve
existing problems with Syria and Greece. It has also improved its
relations with the Balkan countries. This has hastened the EU accession
process. In this context, Turkey benefited from the new opportunity to
make its foreign relations multidimensional, in terms of both
geographical and functional levels. In this framework, Turkey has
developed its economic, political, and social relations with other
countries.
In this new period, Turkish-Iranian relations have been virtually
problem-flee, particularly in the economic sphere. Turkey has been
importing 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Iran annually;
recently their trade volume increased to $7 billion. Ankara respects
Washington's concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions and is
willing to try to solve this problem by peaceful means. Turkey is
definitely against nuclear proliferation. The U.S. government has been
insisting that the Iranian nuclear program is aimed at producing
weapons, not nuclear energy, since Iran is the second largest energy
center in the world.
However, after this conceptual and historical framework of
relations between Iran and Turkey, and between Iran and the United
States, let's focus on the issue of war with Iran and its regional
implications. There are several options for the United States:
* Inspect the Iranian nuclear program through the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), search for a settlement in cooperation with
Security Council permanent members and NATO allies, and continue the
limited isolation of Iran through multilateral action. As noted before,
Turkey initially would prefer to find a solution under the cooperation
of the international community and international organizations such as
the IAEA and the United Nations. But Turkey is willing to play a
constructive role to persuade Iran not to develop nuclear weapons and
cooperate with the international community. Iran should fully cooperate
to eliminate all suspicions about this subject.
* Implement strict isolation of Iran with the support of permanent
members of the UN Security Council, NATO and the Middle Eastern
countries. Under a comprehensive economic and military embargo, Turkey
as well the Europeans and other countries that have important trade
relations with Iran might be significantly affected. It is also too
difficult to apply under current UN mechanisms. Iran has been an
important gas supplier for Turkey in recent years and their trade
relations are growing. But under international law, if a decision were
adopted by the United Nations, Ankara would perform its
responsibilities, as happened during the first Iraqi operation in 1991
and in succeeding years. But without a UN decision, if the United States
tried to isolate Iran to deter it from its nuclear ambitions, then
Turkey would contribute by reducing its economic and political relations
with Iran.
* Strike lower-value targets in Iran with a limited strike. Iran
might not retaliate if an American strike is conducted toward non-vital
Iranian targets. In such a situation, the United States also needs to be
supported by regional and global allies against possible retaliation by
Iran. But this would be political rather than military support.
* Strike high-value targets recognized by the IAEA and the EU3 to
show the credibility of using a military option and to minimize the
reaction of international public opinion. There is the probability of
escalation as a result of retaliation by Iran against U.S. forces and
U.S. allies in the Middle East. The United States would need to be
supported by Turkey and NATO members. If international society were
convinced that all peaceful means had been exhausted, Turkey's
support might be obtained.
* Strike with a wide range of military capabilities to destroy
Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Escalation would probably occur. In
such a situation, Iran might retaliate and escalate the war. World
public opinion, Middle Eastern countries, Russia and China might respond
to the unilateral action of Washington. In such a situation,
Turkey's support would be limited to the allocation of certain
bases. But if the United States received the support of the UN or NATO
members, Turkey's support would not be a problem, and the operation
might succeed.
Of course, all of these options/scenarios can be reevaluated by
taking into account other factors not included in this analysis. But all
scenarios relating to the use of military power against Iran have a
potential for escalation, because Iran may retaliate against U.S. forces
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran would have the support of all Shia groups
inside or outside Iraq. Iran might attack the U.S. homeland with suicide
bombs by proxy groups. Iran might also attack U.S. naval forces
stationed in the Gulf and temporarily shut off the flow of oil from the
Strait of Hormuz.
In this case, the United States and its allies in the region would
be under threat, and escalation to war could destroy the stability of
the region. Anti-Americanism would increase and militant groups might
attack American targets, as they do in Iraq. Some Iraqi groups have
warned the United States against military strikes on Iran. For example,
Moqtada al-Sadr pledged he would come to the aid of Iran in the case of
a military strike. A military strike against Tehran would increase the
chaos in Iraq and could complicate the U.S. position.
To summarize, it is not desirable for Turkey and other countries in
the region--or the United States--to exercise military options. U.S.
forces are preoccupied, and the lack of security in Iraq would make
difficult a full military attack against Iran. Employing military power
to solve this question might increase potential threats and risks rather
than contribute to regional stability. Even if Iran were occupied, the
control of such a large country would be very difficult and would impose
too many political costs on America. Oil prices would increase and would
not be brought under control, since oil wells and pipelines would be
destroyed during a war. Iraqi politics would suffer the most, and the
American position would be at risk. It must also be remembered that Iran
is very different from Iraq; it is ethnically and religiously not as
divided. Most of the population of Iran is Persian or Azeri, sharing the
same religious beliefs.
AMB. FREEMAN: I was very struck by your statement that, if the
United Nations and NATO were to authorize action against Iran, that
would bring with it Turkish support. It's a reminder that one of
the issues in a putative American or Israeli strike on Iran is the
question of international law and international order, often forgotten
in this capital but of considerable concern to those in the capitals of
other UN Security Council and NATO members.
You also mentioned, which no one had done, the vulnerability of
American forces in Afghanistan to Iranian retaliation and raised the
possibility of a plausibly deniable series of terrorist actions in the
United States by sympathizers of Iran. I note in this connection that
the Antony Sullivan article, which I mentioned at the outset, contains
the rather chilling statement that Hezbollah knows where all the
Americans in Lebanon are and would be prepared to take them into custody
in the event of such a development. Clearly, we're dealing with
something with very wide implications, which have been very nicely
explored by the panel.
Q&A
Q: Dr. Mohammad-Reza Khatami--the brother of the former president,
about the age of Ahmadinejad and the leader of a reform party, the
Participation party--has called repeatedly for dialogue. And on Capitol
Hill, Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a long-overdue bill
called the Iran Diplomatic Accountability Act of 2008, requiring a
special envoy. How would you foresee preventive diplomacy or engagement
with Iran? What should the United States do?
DR. ANTHONY: There would be those on the American side who would
say, we've tried this. We've engaged them in the United
Nations; we've engaged them in London and other places, and nothing
much has come of it. We've been frustrated; we've been set
back. There's a lot of nodding of heads and agreement with the
rationality and logic of our positions, yet we see no real accommodation
in terms of realities on the ground. We have concluded that those with
whom we have been speaking do not have the means, power or influence to
implement what they orally agree to in our meetings.
There's another aspect of this, though, that is less
acknowledged: among those within the Bush administration who seek regime
change in Iran, engaging the regime in diplomatic discourse vitiates
that particular strategic objective. Diplomatic engagement with the
regime that you seek to change is not exactly oxymoronic, but it's
counterintuitive and potentially counterproductive.
AMB. FREEMAN: I think the issue of regime change does figure
heavily in the answer to this question. The opening to China was
premised on abandoning a longstanding effort to produce regime change in
Beijing and on accepting the realities as they were--somewhat
unpalatable realities, to be sure--and on agreeing in the Shanghai
Communique to pursue strategic cooperation, notwithstanding differences
in the ideologies and social systems in the two countries.
I think the notion of preventive diplomacy is a sound one. A great
deal of diplomacy is, of course, invisible and is not credited with
success, because it consists of preventing things from happening, that
you cannot prove would have happened if you had not engaged in
diplomacy. But leaving aside the word preventive, simply rediscovering
diplomacy in the Middle East would not be a bad idea! The failure to
include it in our strategy is what has produced the sidelining of the
United States in the several instances that I mentioned with respect to
Lebanon, Syrian-Israeli dialogue, Hamas and Israel, and a new
arrangement and dispensation within the realm of Islam. All of these are
things we have sidelined ourselves from. So opening a dialogue with Iran
would imply not a narrow agenda limited to developments in Iraq, serious
as those are, but a broader agenda based on the pursuit of common
interests, where we can find them, and reservation of differences for
later resolution, if that can be achieved. We will see whether, after
January 20, such an approach is tried.
Q: Might a private diplomatic initiative of the sort that Jimmy
Carter conducted in Pyongyang, which took us from the brink of war with
North Korea to a different negotiating track, work with Iran?
MR. WHITE: One of the problems would be, what would the Iranians
say to a delegation like that? The Iranians very much want to deal
directly with the United States government. They don't want to
receive a note. They don't really need this sort of delegation. It
would be positively received, but it probably wouldn't produce any
results. The only thing that might produce results, in a situation of
hardened positions on the issue of continued enrichment, would be an
attempt at a "grand bargain" between the United States and
Iran: the United States would essentially give security guarantees to
the Iranians in exchange for the cessation of enrichment. But, at this
late stage in the game, I'm not so sure that Iran would want to
step back from enrichment.
The best-case scenario on the diplomatic side would be the
negotiation of a robust initiative in which the United States took the
lead rather than using the Europeans as their cat's paw--willing to
make meaningful concessions that have not been made since 1979--and
resolve some outstanding issues. Iran would be allowed to enrich, but
under extremely ramped-up, intense IAEA monitoring.
I'll raise something very controversial. If all diplomacy
fails, we seem to be boxing ourselves into a situation in which somebody
then goes to war, either Israel or the United States or a combination of
both. We were joking before the session about Israel's recent
exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. I've seen these sorts of
exercises in government; they're usually done so that a number of
governments will detect them and draw the intended warning. They're
not usually conducted with great secrecy. They're as much a
diplomatic signal as they are an actual military exercise.
Let me suggest another option. Iran remains recalcitrant in the
face of UN Security Council resolutions that will probably never have
enough teeth to force Iran to stand down, particularly at a time when
Iran is selling oil at the incredible price it is now, despite its
struggling and ineptly run economy. There is sometimes a choice in
between war and failed diplomacy: doing nothing. Often, the American
psyche drives one toward solving a problem, doing something. But there
are a number of governments around the world that have learned that
sometimes the best solution is doing nothing about something --in this
case, letting Iran go nuclear, even if there is a risk that Iran might
develop a nuclear device.
Why would I say that? Because of the absolute insanity that would
be behind a nuclear strike against Israel, which is really the fear
that's driving all of this. Iran could, in no way, knock out
Israel's massive nuclear capabilities, estimated at between 150 and
300 deliverable weapons, in a first strike. Iran would
absolutely--certain Israelis assure me--suffer a return strike that
would demolish most of the country, leaving perhaps tens of millions
dead. There is no way that I can conceive an Iranian government doing
this.
In our own discourse, we focus too intensely on Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. He's the president of Iran, not the president of the
United States. His finger won't be on the trigger. He has very
little power compared to the presidents of the United States and some
other countries we're familiar with. The finger on the button is
going to be that of the Supreme Leader and the clerical elite around
him. These are people who have grown very comfortable ruling a country
in which they're making vast amounts of money, have huge economic
empires and are quite happy with the way things are going right now. For
them to throw it all away in some quixotic attack against Israel with a
nuclear weapon is down there with that 1 percent probability.
I understand how Israelis feel. It's easy for me to sit here
in Washington and say there's only a 1 percent possibility that
Israel would suffer a nuclear attack in the next 10, 15 or 20 years. But
that's how low the probability is. So, I offer that as an option.
If all else fails, leave them alone, because there is a 99 percent
chance that they want a nuclear weapon as the ultimate deterrent. They
want to be able to wag that in the face of the United States and say,
"We've got it, leave us alone."
Yes, you're hearing somebody who actually believes that Iran
might well have a nuclear weapons program embedded in its overall
nuclear program telling you to do nothing about it. Try to forestall it;
try to intensify diplomacy to the level where it can work, perhaps. But
if you fail, that doesn't mean war is the only option.
AMB. FREEMAN: There is a strong resonance here with the American
experience during the Cold War, which consisted of a nuclear standoff in
which, 17 minutes after someone turned a key in Moscow, between 60 and
80 million Americans would have died. We lived with that, and we managed
it, and it was not fatal. My second observation on Wayne's comment
is that, in my experience, people who attribute irrationality to foreign
leaders and countries do so as an excuse for not taking the time to
figure out what motivates them or how they think. It's too easy to
say so-and-so is irrational; the only language they understand is the
language of death. Generally, that's not true. I would argue that,
in fact, Iran has behaved with consummate rationality on quite a range
of issues, even if its reasoning processes and its premises are not ones
we share.
DR. ANTHONY: What comes immediately to mind is the frame of
reference of the child's question, "Daddy, where were you
during the war?" In this particular case, inactivity is not an
option. Diplomacy, to be sure, is not limited solely to those
incumbents--the foreign-affairs practitioners, foreign-service officers,
envoys, intermediaries--and the traditional exercise of "good
offices" within the U.S. government. By definition, the concepts of
citizen and private diplomacy, if not also public diplomacy, encompass
the kind of initiative that you mention. Those in government have no
patent on the process, no trademark on the technique, no monopoly on the
method, no copyright on the concept. An effort such as the one you
suggest would at least show concern on the part of an important segment
of the American people. It would show courage, conviction and commitment
as to the seriousness of this problem. To the extent it would be covered
by the media, such a mission would have the potential to italicize,
"neonize" and capitalize on the dangers and possibly slow if
not complicate the rush to war. It would contribute to a more robust and
wide-ranging discussion and debate. It would enhance people's
knowledge and understanding. I support it.
DR. SEZNEC: I think it would be great to have private diplomacy. It
would complicate the rush to war. I think the purpose is to actively do
nothing and to actively gain time. It's very important. I think the
countries in the region feel that if we actively do nothing, Iran will
collapse sooner or later. So why create an enormous amount of trouble in
the meantime for ourselves and for them? They view their own interests
first. But I think in this case, their interest goes along with ours.
AMB. FREEMAN: It's not always better to talk than not to talk.
It's not better to talk if you don't know what you're
saying or what you want to accomplish. There is no consensus in the
United States about how to deal with Iran so the issue of private
diplomacy is, therefore, inherently exploratory, rather than definitive,
at this stage.
Second, we have a tendency to treat Iran as a nuclear problem
rather than as a country, and here, I think Wayne said something very
important. He raised the issue of security guarantees for Iran. Why is
it that Iran seeks nuclear weapons? There are probably quite a number of
reasons, but one of them might be to gain the ability to retaliate
against the sorts of scenarios that have been outlined.
MR. WHITE: I was the Iraq analyst during the time when Iraq's
Osiraq reactor was bombed. At the time, there was absolutely no
evidence--good evidence came out later--that Iraq had a nuclear program.
The Osiraq project was smothered with IAEA observation, and there were
French and Italian contractors on site who had considerable access to
what Iraq was doing, the diversion of materials and what have you. The
Iranian program isn't that confined; far from it. The Iranians
learned the lesson from Iraq's Osiraq disaster, when the Israelis
on June 7, 1981, took it out. It was all in one place. Iran's
nuclear infrastructure is dispersed throughout the country. So, when you
go into Iran after that nuclear infrastructure, you are not making a
surgical strike against the capability of that country. You're
going to war with Iran.
But Iraq's nuclear program did not start until after Osiraq
was bombed. Using nuclear materials that it could acquire and that it
had on hand from the bombing of the reactor, it is estimated that they
got frightfully close to at least the explosion of a nuclear device
around the time they were attacked during the Gulf War. In fact, a crash
program was started in order to try to forestall Desert Storm. The IAEA
inspectors were astounded at what a country could do, even when deprived
of the bulk of its only major nuclear site.
It's the same with Iran. There are a number of technical
people, nuclear engineers who have followed proliferation, who say that
Iran, even if many of its key targets were taken out, could embark on a
crash nuclear-weapons program. In other words, the very thing intended
to deter them could propel them forward. You'd be surprised what
one can do, once one has achieved the expertise and the world assumes
that you're not capable anymore of going for a weapon. It could be
that the Iranians would move more rapidly toward a weapon if they were
hit than if they were left alone.
AMB. FREEMAN: There is a key point here. Science and technology are
in the mind, not in the equipment and the buildings that contain it.
Bombing, as we saw after World War II, does not destroy modern
societies. They can resurrect themselves very quickly.
Under the heading of Iranian rationality, let me suggest that it is
intelligent and rational for the Iranians to have suspended their
weapons-development program while they concentrate on the far more
expensive and difficult task of building a comprehensive nuclear fuel
cycle. So the fact that they suspended their weapons program does not
mean that they don't have the intention of developing a weapon.
They certainly have ample reason to develop a weapon, especially in
light of the threats which are constantly issued against them.
In this connection, however, we need to recall an unlearned lesson
from the Iraq experience: we should be very distrustful of the assertion
that a country or its leadership is an imminent threat to others in the
region when those in the region do not agree. Iran is not primarily a
nuclear problem from the perspective of most countries in the region,
with the exception of Israel--an important exception. It is a threat in
terms of influence, political power and prestige. Many of its inroads in
the region have actually been facilitated, if not actually brokered, by
American policy.
This brings me to another observation: The effort to isolate Iran
is probably, as it has been in the cases of the Cuban regime and the
North Koreans and now Comrade Bob Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the greatest
guarantee against regime change due to internal causes. It rallies
Iranian nationalism behind the current leadership. It concentrates
patronage power in that leadership, and it provides a ready excuse for
everything that's going wrong. It can be blamed on foreigners who
are attempting to destroy the regime or oppose the country.
All of this does argue that diplomacy of some sort, perhaps with
some exploration by private emissaries, might be a better idea than the
five options that Professor Ari outlined. In this connection, I note
that there has been a very constructive proposal made regionally to deal
with the problem of the Iranian nuclear issue, and that is to
regionalize the nuclear fuel cycle and ensure that bits and pieces of
that process are scattered through the various countries of the Gulf and
not concentrated in any one country, meaning Iran.
This proposal, which was made first by the Saudis and has been
echoed by some American thinkers, has passed unattended by our
government and not much noticed by the think-tank community. Yet, it is
an obvious means to diplomatic resolution of a serious issue and likely
to be much less unacceptable to Iranians than the earlier effort to
bring in the Russians, their traditional enemies, as the guarantors of
their nuclear security. So I think a bit of diplomacy might not be a bad
thing. Whether it's begun on a private level or is thought of as
preventive is really secondary. We need to explore alternatives before
we decide either to bomb or do nothing.
Q: What happens if we do nothing, while Israel, afraid that
they're going to lose hegemony in the region, attacks, and we agree
to provide air-refueling support, which they don't have? We still
have a problem, but the problem is not Iran anymore. It's Israel.
So if we are to pursue discussions with Iran, what do we talk about?
What is their hidden agenda that we haven't hit yet?
AMB. FREEMAN: This raises the question of whether there is a
possibility of regional diplomacy of the sort that has been going on in
the various instances I mentioned. I would like to ask Professor Ari to
comment.
DR. ARI: It is a problem that stems from Iranian activities and the
perceptions of Israel. Because Iran is an oil hegemon and a military
power, it is perceived as an important threat to Israel. So this, in the
case of Israel, is why it is against Iranian nuclear ambitions. But, as
my friends have also said, this problem cannot be solved only by
military options. Maybe there are other options that should be taken
into account in this process. Economic isolation should be continued,
with the support of regional countries and the world--NATO allies and
the United Nations. This is as important as military options. Let's
talk to them, to prevent a process that escalates into a war and worsens
the situation in the region.
DR. SEZNEC: By doing nothing, I think we automatically put
diplomacy on the region. I think it is already happening, actually.
There are a tremendous number of contacts between the Saudis, in
particular, and the Iranians. I'm sure there are contacts between
the Turks and the Iranians as well, to see how they can, if not mediate
with the United States, at least make Iran feel comfortable in the
region. They're trying to open up not only the diplomacy, but also
the economy, so that they can help Iran have problems faster in many
ways. But the region is becoming much more active in all manner of
diplomacy, as Ambassador Freeman mentioned, with Qatar being involved
not too long ago in Lebanon and then Turkey being involved in the
Israeli-Syrian negotiations. They're dying to become more involved,
if we could see that there is any success in it.
DR. ANTHONY: As to whether one or more of the ways in which this
confrontation might unfold could become an Israeli problem more than an
Iranian problem, the answer is potentially yes, for the following
reasons. One is rooted in the fact that this is 2008, the sixtieth
anniversary of Israel's founding as a Jewish state. Look at the
arithmetic. In exactly half of those 60 years, at many different levels,
they were closely intertwined. Strategically, it was seen that, at both
ends of the spectrum, the relationship was mutually beneficial,
reciprocally rewarding. There are many Israelis who long to return to a
similar situation.
Two, there are Israelis like a former longtime Israeli intelligence
official and foreign ministry director-general who was asked by an
interviewer on a BBC television program that I once watched, "Are
there no people on the earth that you trust?" The former official
answered, "Yes, one." The interviewer followed up with,
"Who?" The former official replied matter-of-factly, "The
Persians," the allusion being to the Persian slave Esther and her
vital role in the liberation of the Jewish people from Babylon.
Three, during the middle of the Iran-Iraq war, there was what is
known in the United States as Contragate and in the region as the
Iran-Israel Contragate scandal. The episode was one in which the U.S.
government pressured all the GCC Arab countries and many other nations
to do whatever they could to ensure that all flows of weapons into Iran
were stopped. However, to the astonishment and dismay of virtually
everyone in the GCC region, the United States and Israel were caught
red-handed providing American-manufactured arms to Iran.
Four, in the eastern part of the Middle East, Iran remains home to
the largest number of Jews who have not yet immigrated to Israel.
Five, there is the question of domestic politics in the United
States. This is the so-called "silly season." Between now and
November, the entire House of Representatives is standing for election,
together with a third of the membership in the Senate. In addition, by
the end of January 2009, the president, by law, and the vice president
will step down. How the topic of today's discussion on war with
Iran will play out with the pro-Israeli element in American domestic
politics remains to be seen.
Six, there is also the element of the Bahai faith. Among its
believers in the United States and those among its remaining adherents
in Iran, where the faith began, the Temple Mount in Karmel, Israel,
constitutes a link between the peoples of the two countries of which
many are unaware.
Seven, Shaul Mofaz, one of Israel's deputy prime ministers,
who is the country's former minister of defense and was born in
Iran, is widely known for being one of Israel's most hawkish
advocates for attacking Iran militarily. His goal, one that he shares
with many Israelis and numerous Americans, would be to prevent the
Islamic Republic from continuing its nuclear program along the lines it
has been pursuing.
Eight, there are Israelis and their American and other supporters
who view regime change in Iran as holding out the prospect of replacing
it with a government more amenable to Israel, more moderate in its
approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, less supportive of Hezbollah and
less likely to continue supporting Hamas.
Lastly, numerous Israeli strategists acknowledge the possible
strategic and geopolitical benefits that could follow any shift in
attention from the eastern Mediterranean, away from the
Israeli-Palestinian and/or Syrian peace process and pressure to withdraw
from the settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories. Certainly, if
the Tehran regime were to remain in place, Israel would find it far more
difficult to accomplish many of these envisioned objectives.
MR. WHITE: We have Iraqi elections coming up, which is one reason
why the Iraqis are going to be extremely sensitive on the issues of
sovereignty that I referred to. The Iranians have elections coming up.
In Israel, we have probably the weakest prime minister in a long time.
And so we are seeing diplomacy struggling in the worst possible
conditions.
As John Duke Anthony said, the silly season is upon us, and this is
very dangerous. We are in the last six months of the presidency most
likely to carry out robust military action against Iran, and the
election campaign will actually make the population more inclined toward
that option, which is an extremely dangerous thing. They feed into each
other.
Somebody asked, which is more of a problem, Israel or Iran? I think
they're both a problem. The Israelis are painting themselves into a
comer, demanding that certain things be done or else. The Iranians have
been painted into a corner by their very vocal president, making the
worse threats, existential threats, that Iran has ever made. This makes
diplomacy extremely hard work.
But I would like to clear up one thing. There has been some
criticism of the "doing nothing" option. I need to clarify
something; "doing nothing" wasn't my recommendation pure
and simple. But if we reach the end of the road, all creative diplomacy
has played out, and various parties have painted us into a corner in
believing war is the only option, THEN we should do nothing.
AMB. FREEMAN: I think, in fairness, Wayne, you're not really
posing the option of doing nothing. What you're saying is, if you
can't solve the problem, manage it, which is not the same as doing
nothing.
MR. WHITE: Precisely.
Q: In 2003, there was nothing that Saddam Hussein could have done
to stop the U.S. attack, short of an unconditional surrender. The war
party in the United States that dominated the Bush administration had
determined, probably 10 years before, that war with Iraq was necessary.
It seems to be the same with Iran, and Iran is even less likely to
surrender unconditionally than Saddam Hussein was. I suggest raising the
cost to the war party in the United States of going to war with Iran, so
that they decide for their own self-interest that they can't do it.
AMB. FREEMAN: We haven't discussed this, and I think it's
an interesting point. In the case of the invasion of Iraq, there was a
remarkable lack of enthusiasm across the board among professionals in
the intelligence community, the military and the diplomatic
establishment in Washington. This was done entirely by people who had
come in as a result of an election and, arguably, a Supreme Court
decision connected with that election, not by the professional
bureaucracy. We seem to have a very similar situation now regarding war
with Iran. One detects a lot of antipathy among the uniformed military
for the prospect of what, as Wayne has pointed out, would be an
open-ended conflict with no obvious point of termination.
DR. SEZNEC: How do we deter the war party? How about oil at $300 a
barrel? That's what would happen, and that means people would start
paying very substantially at the pump, like $10 a gallon. We should
probably make clear that's what would happen. If we start cutting
the exports from Iran--that's 2.8 million barrels a day--and if
there are any problems in the Strait of Hormuz, there would be a total
net loss to the world market of 16 million barrels a day. That would
mean a major world recession. We would probably suffer less than most
other countries, because we import maybe two million barrels a day from
the Gulf. But the price would go through the roof, and we would end up
paying very dearly.
AMB. FREEMAN: The global oil market is like a reservoir into which
supplies discharge, and from which we draw what we need. Regardless of
whether we are dependant directly on bilateral supplies of oil from the
Middle East, we are affected. Everyone is affected by the withdrawal of
supply that would be entailed in a conflict.
DR. ANTHONY: Unmentioned thus far is another strategic gambit. It
is one that was in play in the lead-up to the American military attack
against Iraq. The exact same gambit applies to Iran, only more so. In
the period prior to the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, I
and others sat in countless meetings where specialists argued that the
United States should be invading Iran first, Iraq second, Syria third,
and either Egypt or Saudi Arabia fourth or fifth. This school of
thought, which favors regime change in Iran, has the following
objectives in mind. One is associated with remarks that Vice President
Cheney made more than once when he was out of office in the mid-1990s
until 2000. During those years, he frequently made reference to what he
implied was an American self-inflicted wound. In essence, he would say,
it is one thing to be patriotic, another to be idiotic, with regard to
keeping ourselves out of Iraq and Iran's economies and energy
industries through the sanctions we imposed on Iran unilaterally.
Secondly, associated with the idea of regime change is a variant of
what Israeli advocates of attacking Iran envision, namely gratitude for
whatever the United States might be able to do in support of a new
government coming to power and being recognized by Washington and as
many other important countries as possible.
There's also the strategic setback that could be dealt Russia
and China. Here the frame of reference is the Defense Policy Guidance of
1992, which Paul Wolfowitz had a major role in drafting when he was
still in the Department of Defense in the administration of President
George Herbert Walker Bush. When the draft was being processed, and I
was invited to the National War College to brief a group of armed forces
officers, I was provided an oral summary of the draft and asked to
comment. The purpose of the exercise was to ask what would the United
States have to have in place by 2020 to remain the world's sole
superpower? The answer was continued economic, financial, technological,
military and industrial supremacy. One of the most essential
requirements to retain supremacy in these five categories of power was
held to be adequate amounts of low-cost energy. It was further agreed
that key to meeting that objective was ongoing access to the prodigious
and relatively inexpensive energy resources of the Arabian Peninsula and
the Persian Gulf.
In these regards, Iran is the last remaining piece on a chess board
that relates to all five of the categories of potential power noted. Of
the eight countries in the Gulf, it is a matter of no small geostrategic moment that seven are effectively under U.S. influence with regard to
regional stability and defense issues. Unlike Iraq, which has only 48
miles of coast on the Gulf and is, therefore, barely a card-carrying
Gulf country, Iran has 550 miles of territory on the Gulf coast. Also,
Iran potentially has as many as 20 ports that could be developed to
expand the level of its imports and exports; in contrast, Iraq has only
three ports, two of which are in shallower water that tends to silt up.
In addition, Iraq could not be further away in the Gulf from the Hormuz
Strait, whereas Iran is directly across from it.
These dimensions make Iran potentially the greater strategic prize
than Iraq, if only in part because it is the only country on the planet
that lies adjacent to two of the world's last remaining vast energy
reservoirs: the Caspian Sea and the Gulf. Iraq has only half that kind
of access.
AMB. FREEMAN: I might just note that the American position of
preeminence in seven of the eight oil producers has done wonders for the
price of gas at the pump.
Q: I came back a few days ago from a trip to the Middle East that
included Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon
organized by the Council for the National Interest Foundation. We asked
about Iran, and the answers that we got from senior officials in the
Arab countries that we visited, as well as former officials and others,
indicated a certain ambivalence about the Iranian role in the region. On
the one hand, they see a positive impact, in the sense that Iran is
supporting Hamas, which is considered support for the Palestinian cause,
and Hezbollah, which they see as support for Lebanese territorial
integrity. On the other hand, they are nervous about this new influence,
but they essentially blame the United States because of our policies in
Iraq and also because of a certain absence in the region. I just throw
this out to perhaps tie in some of the ideas that have been put together
about the efficacy of public diplomacy and Iran's role in the
region. It's rather ironic that when we have international
conferences on solving the problems of the Middle East, Iran is not
included in them.
AMB. FREEMAN: Old habits die hard, and there is a propensity among
Arab governments and elites in the region to look to the United States
to manage problems, as we once did. There is a great deal of distress
that we now seem to be the problem in many cases. So I think the
ambivalence that you detected toward Iran reflects this factor, as well
as others.
DR. ARI: Yes, that is an interesting approach--to find a solution
to the problem by an international conference. But the basic problem, I
think, stems from the situation caused by the enrichment activities of
Iran and how these are perceived from the outside. Some countries, led
especially by the United States, think that such a process would create
another nuclear power, making a nuclear power of Iran, and that
Iran's nuclear program is aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons and
not for peaceful purposes.
In the end, finally, Iran will try to produce nuclear arms. So the
United States insists that Iran should relinquish this program and not
continue to do nuclear enrichment programs. But many states think that
peaceful nuclear programs can be accepted. In terms of the 1968 Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), to have a nuclear program for peaceful
purposes is acceptable. For this reason, an international conference
cannot solve the problem, but should be taken into account.
DR. ANTHONY: Those with whom I have spoken in the region from
Kuwait to Oman, and everybody in between, couldn't agree more on
this. In this regard, two dynamics are in play. Without such serious,
effective and measurable diplomatic and related engagement of Iran by
the United States, the intraregional atmosphere for foreign and domestic
investment will remain less than optimally receptive. At the moment,
conditions are less than propitious for the ability of the region's
economic managers to maximize their respective preparations and plans as
well as their abilities to anticipate and make wiser investment
decisions and become more efficient.
Capital tends to be a coward. It does not like to enter places that
are seemingly insecure or a different kind of oil--turmoil--appears
likely to occur. So a manner and extent of engagement that's
serious and not pro forma is what is desired from one end of the region
to the other.
Another aspect of the need for bold and decisive diplomatic
movement by the United States has to do with the American community,
which is growing and robust in these countries. Whereas within the GCC
region there were 500 U.S. companies as recently as three years ago,
there are now 750 companies. When the United States is seen to be doing
the right thing in the right way at the right time for the right reasons
with the right people, it is much easier for Americans living and
working in these countries to be trusted. When the opposite is the case,
a consequence is often one of dire implications for American assets and
interests in the region.
Q: I think there is a lot of wisdom in Mr. White's earlier
remarks about what he called the do-nothing option. I don't think
there is a realistic military option for the elimination of Iran's
nuclear program. You can destroy facilities that you know about, but the
know-how is in the minds of people, and that program would almost
certainly be rebuilt underground and would lead to a nuclear weapon, if
we were to attack. So really nothing short of the occupation of Iran
could accomplish an elimination of the program, and that's
certainly beyond Israel's capability, and even beyond ours. I think
you're right that an Iranian nuclear attack could be deterred, and
that those risks could be managed, but I also think it probably would
not end the spread of nuclear weapons in the region. And an Iranian
nuclear program would raise the risk that other countries would pursue
their own nuclear programs. It would raise the risks of accidents and of
the transfer of technology and perhaps the loss of control of materials
or weapons in Iran.
Second, the situation highlights that the only existential threat
to Israel is nuclear weapons in the hands of a hostile country. So
I'm wondering why it doesn't occur to Israel to put its own
nuclear program as a bargaining chip on the table? Certainly, it's
thinking mostly about its nuclear weapons as a deterrent against attack,
but there's obviously the possibility that deterrence can fail.
MR. WHITE: One of the major problems associated with allowing Iran
to become armed with nuclear weapons is nuclear proliferation. Anyone
would oppose proliferation anywhere and try to stop that. In fact, my
personal fear, and the fear of a number of my colleagues in the Bureau
of Intelligence and Research as far back as the late '90s, was
that, if Iran acquired nuclear capability, Saudi Arabia would be next.
People would say, how could that happen? The Saudis don't have a
nuclear program. They'd have to start it from the ground up;
they'd be vulnerable to Israeli bombing; they're much closer
and an easier target. No, they would buy them. They would buy them from
Pakistan, and buy enough Pakistani nuclear personnel in order to
maintain them and instruct the Saudis in their use and maintenance, and
then to construct large billboards in various parts of the kingdom in
Farsi saying, "We've got it, leave us alone."
So, there is a very serious risk that there could be proliferation.
But one of the problems we have is that Iran has gone in this direction,
and some people would say, "Nothing is proven." Well, if you
accept the most recent, November 2007, National Intelligence Estimate
claiming that Iran stopped its program in 2003, that means it had a
program to stop. I know there's some frustration among the drafters
that people who have said that this was a deliberate attack on the
administration haven't read the small print. The head of the
National Intelligence Council, Tom Fingar, along with the Energy
Department, which also dissented in the 2002 WMD estimate, take a
footnote in the text and say, "Whoa, wait a minute. We have less
confidence than the rest of the drafters that that program has been
stopped in its entirety, because of certain gaps in the
intelligence."
So, they had a program, and to some degree, that program itself was
a product of regional proliferation. Tehran viewed Israel as a dangerous
enemy that could menace and attack Iran, along with its ally the United
States. Pakistan, next door, had a bomb. The Iranians knew they were in
a very dangerous neighborhood. In fact, the Israelis and other parties
in the region--even before this arose as a major issue--were just as
concerned about Iran's development of long-range ballistic
missiles. There's a lot of concern now because they could be
married to a nuclear weapon. In fact, one of the allegations against the
Iranians is that they were engaging in nose-cone design for a re-entry
vehicle for one of those Shahab-series missiles.
But the origin of the Shahab program was not nuclear fear. It was
the pounding that Iran took from Iraq's more advanced
ballistic-missile capabilities during the Iran-Iraq War and the
determination that no one would ever again outgun Iran in the missile
department. There is a proliferation domino effect that we have to be
concerned about in the region.
On the Israeli program, the Israelis will not put their program on
the table. I think they've made it apparent that it is
non-negotiable. They would, in fact, prefer that most people think it
doesn't exist. This seems absurd, of course, because it does, but
they keep it as shadowy as possible. They have no intention, from what
I've heard, of ever putting that on the table, for example, in the
context of the Egyptian proposal that's been on the table for 20
years: to declare a nuclear-free region. This would, of course, make the
most sense all around. But the main obstacle has been Israel, which,
with its small size, views a nuclear counterstrike as its ace in the
hole. One thing has been unfortunate, however. Relying on a military
solution to its problems has sucked Israel into two recent asymmetric
wars, with the Palestinians and the Lebanese, to which nuclear weapons
are not a solution at all.
An unfortunate aspect of American policy in the region is the
increasingly militarized U.S. approach to problems. The second exercise
of U.S. military might in the region after the first Gulf War in
'91--the 2003 war--involved the United States in a major asymmetric
challenge that its regular military was ill-equipped to handle for the
better part of four or five years.
AMB. FREEMAN: Technology diffuses, regardless of efforts to halt
it. The Chinese invented export controls in 400 B.C., and since then,
various countries have tried to inhibit the export and diffusion of
technology. Always, they have failed. There have been efforts since the
twelfth century at arms control on a multilateral basis. They have
inhibited the diffusion of dangerous technology, but not ultimately
succeeded in halting it.
The Israelis may, in fact, have it right. They may have invented
something that might be called "preventive proliferation."
They anticipated eventual proliferation and therefore, jumped the gun
and began it, and seem to be prepared to live with this logic.
Ultimately, they have to be prepared to manage the consequences of their
own nuclear program: proliferation elsewhere in the region. There is no
prospect that one country can retain a nuclear monopoly in its region
when it is engaged in conflicts with all of the other countries of the
region. This brings me to the final point. In the end, guns don't
kill people; people kill people. I hate that phrase, but it is correct.
Security issues and the concerns that they drive are what create
weapons-development programs and drive defense procurement--unless, of
course, you develop a military-industrial complex with an insatiable
appetite for funding and a marvelous imagination about the weapons
systems that that funding might purchase. That might be an exception.
But this problem, like so many others, is going to have to be managed.
I don't agree that the only existential threat to Israel, by
the way, is nuclear attack. I think the greatest existential threat to
Israel is Israel's own inability to use anything but military means
to manage its security problems. These ultimately can't be solved
by military means, and they threaten the very existence of Israel.
Israel's "success" in its settlements policy, it seems to
me, has made a two-state solution essentially impossible, and raises
existential questions about the compatibility of a Jewish state with the
other values that Israel aspires to embody.
Q: Since Iran is not doing well economically, and if the U.S.
decides to change its foreign policy and engage with Iran, would trade
be an option to gain leverage over their nuclear-weapons program? And if
that is an option, what could we trade with Iran?
DR. SEZNEC: One of the key items on the table is that Iran is
trying to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). And for Iran to have
successful development in industry, as the Saudis have today, they need
to be members of the WTO. Otherwise, their products, assuming they could
produce them and sell them to China, would be at the mercy of all the
WTO requirements. They would not be able to compete with major WTO
members. This would be a major bargaining chip. And it would make a big
difference. I'm not sure it would sway the likes of Ahmadinejad and
his ilk, but there is a whole community in Tehran that would really like
to see trade come back. They would be willing to sacrifice a lot for
that.
If I may mention another thought on the nuclear issue, we cannot
really stop it. But we can slow it down, making it much more expensive.
If at the same time that we had a policy of making these acquisitions
very expensive, while decreasing the price of oil very substantially,
that would hurt Iran. They wouldn't have the means and would have
to really sacrifice a great deal in order to continue their nuclear
program.
But how do we reduce the price of oil without taking the brunt of
it? We would have to increase interest rates to bring the dollar up
without taking our economy into recession. That would bring the price of
oil down, but I don't think we are ready to do that either. In any
event, I think that would be a possibility: keep the nuclear cost very
high, but cut Iran's income substantially. But the cutting of their
income is on our shoulders, and I'm not sure we're willing to
do that.
AMB. FREEMAN: I think you have to consider the nature of economic
power when you talk about leverage. Economic power attracts; it builds
relationships. It's like a string; it can pull others with it but
you can't push on it. If you have an economic relationship, you can
threaten to cut it, or you can actually cut it and then drive the two
parties at the ends of the string apart. But you lose your leverage as
you cut it, because you create a new situation that people adjust to.
This, of course, is one of the problems with our tendency to base our
policy on sanctions. In the case of Iran, we don't have much of an
economic relationship to leverage. We have excluded ourselves from that
market. I think what Jean-Francois says is absolutely correct: Iran
would like to be reintegrated into the global economy and join the WTO.
This is as much for acceptance as anything else, but it also is related
to their own economic health at home, which they value, and which we
have hurt by our financial sanctions and the other punitive measures. If
you give up your relationship, you give up your influence.
MR. WHITE: At a time when there are a lot of countries that
aren't really that interested in American trade, Iran happens to be
an exception. Iran is very interested in certain things that the United
States has to offer. Chas. is absolutely right; the United States has
done little more than take itself out of the Iranian picture. The
Iranians very much want us in. In fact, the collapse of the Conoco deal,
which came so close to fruition in the 1990s at a time when it could
have been a breakthrough--and people did not want to see that
breakthrough and made it a huge target to short-circuit--shows the
extent to which the Iranians want the United States in its oil industry.
The Iranians believe that the United States can find oil and natural gas
and develop it the best. It has tremendous reserves, as was pointed out,
from the Caspian Sea all the way down through the Gulf. These are
unexplored and undeveloped, in part, because the United States
won't do it itself and will do everything it can to interfere with
others doing it.
Developing Iran's energy potential also will allow Iran to get
into the European market more than she has. Of course, we have been
ignored. This is what you read a lot about: this country or that country
has ignored American sanctions and is now doing business with Iran. The
fact is a lot of countries have not ignored them, and feel uncomfortable
dealing with the Iranians and what that might mean for relations with
Washington.
Iran has suffered considerably because of the lack of trade with
the United States. There is a huge opportunity there, if the Iranians
really thought we were going to come through with the goods. This is
why, even though I do not want to deemphasize public discussion with
Iran, I think that's terrific. But it's ok. It often leads the
way to what I'm interested in. Nonetheless, the Iranians want to
see the goods, and that means U.S. government engagement. Too many
times, when the United States has promised rapprochement with a power
and then gotten what it wants, it has forgotten its original
obligations. The most recent case is Libya. Although Libya agreed to
give up its WMD, it still is under the impression that it got
short-changed.
AMB. FREEMAN: In fact, Libya got virtually nothing, and it is
wriggling very hard, as we speak, toward getting off the hook, out of
disgruntlement with the absence of benefit from the deals that it made.
DR. ANTHONY: Wayne White was quite correct to recall the Conoco
deal in 1995, roughly $2.3 billion in value, to develop oil and gas in
the South Pars field offshore from Iran. The Israeli lobby was adamantly
opposed to the deal and put enormous pressure on the Clinton White
House. As a result, in March 1995, Clinton used executive privilege to
cancel the concession. Two months later, in May, he issued another
executive order, in which he inserted a territoriality clause in the
sanctions against Iran. This was aimed at preventing other
countries--among them China, India, Japan, and South Korea--from
investing more than $40 million in Iran's energy industries lest
they risk incurring opposition from the United States.
In contrast, the sanctions against Iraq were universally agreed to
and applied through the UN Security Council. The additional sanctions
against Iran were imposed exclusively by the United States. It's
only been since 2006 that the UN Security Council has joined in on
various sanctions against Iran. When that happened, there was widespread
sentiment within the American energy industry that this policy must not
be allowed to stand.
Not least among the reasons noted at the time, and continuously so
until the present, is that the United States is the world's single
largest consumer, importer and waster of energy, as well as the loudest
crybaby with regard to America's terms of trade with the oil it
imports. The view among many since then has long been that Iraq and Iran
are two of the largest pools of remaining hydrocarbon deposits on the
planet. This was in keeping with the views of Dick Cheney in the 1990s,
remarking on the fact that we not only kept ourselves out of both
markets in the course of shooting ourselves in the foot, but
demonstrated a remarkable propensity to reload faster than anybody else.
In essence, from an overall economic and energy perspective, there
is a pronounced disconnect between official U.S. government policy and
support of sanctions and the American private sector. It's not just
the energy companies that are against the sanctions. They and many
others see Iran potentially as a vast marketplace. Little wonder why. It
has more than three times the population of Iraq, the world's
second-largest gas reserves, and its third-largest oil reserves.
In addition, many in the financial services industry would love to
underwrite the reconstruction, modernization and development of
Iran's economy and the reintroduction into it of American expertise
in terms of design, engineering, procurement and construction. So
we're dealing with the implications of what we did in 1995 in the
course of unilaterally imposing the economic sanctions. We're
paying the price big-time, certainly in our private sector, for having
done so.
Q: There's been lots of talk about the eventual economic
collapse of the Iranian regime. What will that actually look like? A
collapsing Iranian regime probably wouldn't be content to simply
fade into obscurity and let the country crumble around it. Do you see it
lashing out to grab resources when it's pushed into a comer?
What's the long-term strategic benefit to the United States to
either reach out with an economic relationship or to contain an economic
collapse?
AMB. FREEMAN: Nobody's talking, by the way, about the collapse
of Persia, which has been around for quite a long while and is likely to
continue to be around for a very long time. What we're talking
about is the existing regime decaying from within.
DR. ARI: Yes, it's a good option to find a solution, but there
are some problems, because the oil price is increasing. Before
Ahmadinejad came to power, the Iranian economy was very weak and the
petrol price was half what it is today, around $50 or $60 a barrel. Now
it's twice that, so it has strengthened the Iranian economy, and
now internal responses or reactions against the regime have been
reduced. These are very important dilemmas which we should solve. Yes,
there should be economic isolation of Iran with the assistance of
neighboring countries, as well as China, Russia and the Western
countries that have important trade relations with Iran. As other
panelists have said, the United States itself doesn't have any
economic relations to use as economic leverage against this country.
DR. SEZNEC: I don't think the Iranian regime will collapse
immediately. It takes a long, long time. I don't think Iran would
become North Korea and let people starve to death. But there could be
massive riots and widespread disagreement with the regime. That would
put the regime under a lot of pressure and stop it from doing things
like giving money to Hezbollah and people of this nature. An economic
collapse would imply that the goals of the present regime would be very
much impeded. That could bring a change, but I think it would probably
bring a hardening of the regime, marginalizing it even further.
DR. ANTHONY: Yes, and using the word and the concept of collapsed
regime, this is a close cousin to induced, provocative, externally
stimulated regime change. The two would go hand-in-hand by being
domestically induced, because of the shambles of the economy and the
plummeting material well-being and standard of living of the Iranian
people, saying enough is enough, et cetera. That would still fit with
the end game desired by those in the U.S. administration who want to see
this collapse. And it would dovetail nicely with the Defense Policy
Guidance of 1992, which envisioned America's serious competitors
between then and 2020 primarily as Russia and China. Both of them are
involved in Iran's economy big-time, and likely to be even bigger
time in their involvement in Iran. So this is a ticking clock that
weighs negatively on American strategic war hawks if the regime
doesn't collapse or is ongoing. They need to find a way for the
United States to continue being the world's sole superpower.
There is a consensus among many strategic analysts that this is
China's century, but that's a consensus of the mind. It's
in the realm of ideas and objectives. It can be avoided, not by accident
or by coincidence, but if you work hard to preclude it from happening,
and one way to preclude it from happening, certainly or sooner, would be
to deny the gains that China and Russia currently have, and America does
not have, in Iran.
MR. WHITE: The irony is that the more emphasis the United States,
in particular, places on effecting regime change in Iran from the
outside, the more it enhances the longevity of the very regime it seeks
to overthrow, remove or reduce in power.
AMB. FREEMAN: This may or may not be China's century. I think
rather that Fareed Zakaria in his new book on the post-American world
probably gets it right: It's not the decline of the United States
that's occurring as much as it's the rise of the rest. In that
connection, the United States is having to adjust to a difficult change
of circumstances in which we can no longer control and dictate the
course of events at the regional level because of developments within
regions and because there are now other extra-regional actors. China,
for example, is building a huge automotive industry in Iran, which is an
unexpected development. And Russia remains heavily involved,
increasingly, in the region and with Iran. The EU has its own ideas, as
do India and Japan, with respect to Iran.
We can't always set regional agendas anymore. We've cited
some examples today. The United States is no longer driving regional
events and, indeed, is excluded from the processes that drive those
events. All of this leads to great frustration and the natural instinct,
when one is frustrated, is to lash out. I'm very surprised nobody
advocated military strikes on Iran today. I suppose they didn't
because it's fairly obvious that such strikes wouldn't solve
the problem, would create additional problems, would lead to a wider
threat against American and other interests, and would lead to a war
with no obvious end. Aside from that, a military strike on Iran is a
splendid idea. There is a chance in the next six months that we will
find out just how splendid it is. For my part, I hope not.