[Senate Hearing 109-672]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-672
IRAN: TEHERAN'S NUCLEAR RECKLESSNESS AND THE U.S. RESPONSE--THE
EXPERTS' PERSPECTIVE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 15, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
_____
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska THOMAS CARPER, Delaware
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Katy French, Staff Director
Sheila Murphy, Minority Staff Director
John Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Liz Scranton, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Coburn............................................... 1
Senator Dayton............................................... 4
Senator Lautenberg........................................... 4
Senator Carper............................................... 5
Senator Akaka................................................ 7
Senator Domenici............................................. 11
Senator Collins.............................................. 21
WITNESSES
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Hon. R. James Woolsey, Former Director, Central Intelligence
Agency......................................................... 9
Hon. Alfonse D'Amato, Former U.S. Senator from the State of New
York........................................................... 12
Hon. Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives 15
Gary S. Samore, Vice President, Program on Global Security and
Sustainability, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.. 29
Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow, Middle East Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations.............................................. 31
Ilan Berman, Vice President for Policy, American Foreign Policy
Council........................................................ 33
Hon. Rick Santorum, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania 43
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Berman, Ilan:
Testimony.................................................... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 99
D'Amato, Hon. Alfonse:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Gingrich, Hon. Newt:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 57
Samore, Gary S.:
Testimony.................................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 88
Santorum, Hon. Rick:
Testimony.................................................... 43
Prepared statement........................................... 43
Takeyh, Ray:
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 93
Woolsey, Hon. R. James:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 49
APPENDIX
Article submitted by Senator Carper entitled ``Iran's Strategic
Weapons Programmes, a net assessment,'' dated September 6, 2005 105
Questions and responses for the Record from Mr. Woolsey.......... 109
IRAN: TEHERAN'S NUCLEAR RECKLESSNESS AND THE U.S. RESPONSE--THE
EXPERTS' PERSPECTIVE
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, and International Security,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., in
room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Coburn,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Coburn, Domenici, Collins, Carper, Akaka,
Dayton, and Lautenberg,
Also Present: Senator Santorum.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. The hearing will come to order. We will
attempt it. There are certain Senatorial habits that tend to
persist even when one leaves the Senate, I believe.
Thank you for joining us today. This hearing will focus on
Iran and examine the relationship between Iran's pursuit of
nuclear weapons and its status as a state-sponsor of terrorism.
Some have argued that we should de-link Iran's global
support for terror from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They
suggest that the two problems are different and need to be
addressed differently. I couldn't disagree more. The facts that
Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and that it is a
terrorist regime are not two different problems--they are the
same problem.
Possession of nuclear capabilities by responsible
governments who use such weapons defensively and as a deterrent
and who have a track record of respecting life and liberty is
one thing. But that's not what we're dealing with here. A
nuclear weapon in the hands of the regime in Teheran could mean
that no one on earth is safe from nuclear attack. Iran has a
history of supporting terror against its own citizens and
against the United States--and that is why the State Department
lists it as a state sponsor of terrorism. Permitting a more
destructive weapon in the hands of those motivated to murder is
worse than reckless, it is immoral.
I am convinced that history will judge those who spent more
time talking and less time acting to prevent such a disaster.
Action is demanded when we move from talking about nuclear
proliferation to talking about just who it is that is
proliferating.
So exactly what are Iran's intentions? If they weren't
clear before, they certainly are now. Just last month, Iran's
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed to the world his
government's desire to ``wipe Israel off the face of the map.''
This statement sent chills around the globe. British Prime
Minister Tony Blair stated, ``I feel a real sense of revulsion
at these remarks. Anyone in Europe, knowing our history, when
we hear such statements made about Israel, it makes us feel
very angry. It's completely wrong.''
White House spokesman Scott McClellan correctly stated,
``Iran's pronounced intention underscores the concerns we have
about Iran's nuclear intentions.''
There should be no doubt that Iran isn't just blustering
here. Iran has a record of carrying out its threats. Iran's
history of supporting murderous terrorist activity speaks for
itself. That's why the United States has, for the ninth
consecutive year in a row, listed Iran as the ``most active''
state sponsor of terrorism.
That is why the State Department said in its Country Report
on Terrorism for Iran: ``During 2004, Iran maintained a high-
profile role in encouraging anti-Israeli terrorist activity,
both rhetorically and operationally. Supreme Leader Khamenei
praised Palestinian terrorist operations, and Iran provided
Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups--notably
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command--with funding, safe haven, training,
and weapons. Iran provided an unmanned aerial vehicle that
Lebanese Hezbollah sent into Israeli airspace on November 7,
2004.''
None of this is new, of course, for Iran's Islamist regime.
Who can forget the harrowing hostage drama 25 years ago that
played out on the world stage for over a year? Or Iran's
complicity in the terrorist murder of 200 innocent Americans at
a U.S. Marine base in Beirut, only a few years later?
Americans, however, have hardly been the only victims of
Iran's Islamist regime. On the contrary, Iran's human rights
record with its own people is well documented. The State
Department's latest human rights report on Iran describes gross
violation against the Iranians themselves. They include
political killings and executions following mock trials. The
regime outlaws dissent and the punishment is death for such
crimes as ``attempts against the security of the state, outrage
against high-ranking officials and insults against the memory
of Imam Khomeini and against the Supreme Leader of the Islamic
Republic.'' A photographer who dared to take pictures of a
Teheran prison was killed in police custody. No one was ever
punished for her murder.
In light of Iran's murderous intentions around the world,
nuclear proliferation by the regime is a serious threat. So let
us talk about where they are in that process.
All experts agree that Iran has been working in secret for
some time to develop a nuclear weapon. In August 2002, an
Iranian dissident group, the National Council for Iranian
Reform, informed the world that Iran had secret uranium-
enrichment facilities and was building a heavy water plant.
Conveniently, shortly thereafter, Iran issued a series of
public claims about its entree into supposedly legitimate
nuclear power projects. These ``projects'' were then used as a
cover to explain why the regime was acquiring facilities needed
to complete a nuclear fuel cycle, including a uranium-
conversion facility, uranium-enrichment facility, a fuel-
fabrication plant, and a facility to produce uranium oxide.
Defense Intelligence Agency officials testified earlier
this year that Iran is likely to develop nuclear weapons
sometime early in the next decade. In August of this year, the
Washington Post, citing U.S. intelligence sources, concurred
that Iran's nuclear program may already be so advanced as to
produce a nuclear weapon within 6 to 10 years. What is next?
Today, we will hear testimony about how the United States
can effectively address the threat of Iran's nuclear program.
More broadly, we will also address the issue of our overall
U.S. policy toward this rogue regime, since the two are
necessarily linked.
Some have argued that containment of Iran's nuclear threat
lies within the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the likelihood
of success at the IAEA process in convincing Iran to dismantle
its nuclear weapons program. I am also eager to hear about
other diplomatic options available to the United States that
could deter Iran's attempt to obtain a nuclear weapon, such as
President Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative.
Unveiled by the President in 2003, supported initially by
16 countries and now an estimated 60 countries, the objectives
of the initiative is to create counter-proliferation measures
and partnerships that work together to hamstring the efforts of
global bad actors to trade in weapons of mass destruction and
missile-related technology.
In addition to trying to thwart trade in weapons and
technology, we need to follow the money. There are a number of
countries that have financial contracts with Iran that may be
helping to support Iran's nuclear ambitions. For example,
Russia has a contract to provide Iran with nuclear reactors. I
am interested in hearing our witnesses' views on how these
financial ties corrupt voting patterns on Iran at the IAEA and
the U.N. Security Council.
But our policy must be much broader than simply trying to
shut down proliferation, both technologically and economically.
We have to get at the root cause of the problem. That means
investing in efforts to undermine the ideology that would
promote the slaughter of innocent civilians by the masses. This
ideology is not only directed at so-called enemies such as U.S.
citizens, but at fellow Muslims, at women and children,
students, small business owners, wedding parties--all just
innocently trying to live their lives.
The people of Iran do not embrace this ideology. The people
of Iran, like all people everywhere, yearn for freedom,
prosperity, and peace.
It is critical that the United States and the international
community build and strengthen democratic efforts within Iran.
Democracies tend not to threaten other democracies. When Iran
is free, when Iran is open, when Iran honors the dignity of
each human person, Iran's neighbors will be able to relax. When
Iran is safe for Iranians--Iran will be safe for the world.
Senator Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON
Senator Dayton. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for
convening this very important hearing and assembling two very
distinguished panels of witnesses.
I just echo your concern. When I was in Israel last spring,
I was taken by the military to one of their defense missile
sites and was told that they have 21 seconds from the time they
see on the radar screen a missile or something coming from Iran
to determine the nature of it.
The development of nuclear weapons by Iran represents one
of the most profound threats to the continued stability and
security of the world. I, again, commend you for holding this
hearing.
Senator Coburn. Senator Lautenberg.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Chairman, thanks for reminding us
about the terrible mistake made by the President of Iran and
alerting us to the fact that we have got to get on----
Senator Coburn. Senator Lautenberg, would you turn on your
microphone, please?
Senator Lautenberg. I thought you were hoping I wouldn't.
[Laughter.]
We are friends. I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for having
noted the ugly remarks made by the President of Iran, so
outrageous a statement in talking to students, by the way, a
group of students. Not only did he say that Israel must be
wiped off the map, he also condemned his neighbors by warning
that anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the
Islamic nations' fury.
I failed to acknowledge our distinguished guests here, my
longtime friend with whom I had many pleasant moments, some the
other way, too, but Senator D'Amato and I are joined at the
river and we have a lot of common interests--the Hudson River,
in our case. And, of course, seeing Newt Gingrich here, a
familiar face, looking fit, and we are happy to see Mr.
Woolsey, as well.
These hateful comments made to 4,000 students, just hours
before a terrorist bomber murdered five people and wounded more
than 30 in a small Israeli town stimulated, of course, by that
kind of outrageous statement. The terrorist murders of Islamic
jihad are supported and trained by Iran.
I joined Senator Gordon Smith in offering a bipartisan
resolution condemning these remarks and the Senate
overwhelmingly passed it, but it is going to take more than
resolutions to stand up to the terrorist regime in Teheran.
We need to stop American companies from being able to
support Iran through lucrative business deals. It just doesn't
make sense. Oil production is Iran's goldmine and American
companies are helping the Iranian regime expand its financial
resources by improving its oil operations. In my view, it is a
treasonous act. It astounds me that any patriotic American
would offer aid or assistance to this evil regime, but I am
sorry to say that some American companies are putting profit
ahead of our Nation's security.
Think about it. Every day that we hear that another
American has died in the conflict in Iraq, and here we are
knowing very well that Iran is helping to supply and to fund
and train these terrorists. These companies that do that
exploit a loophole in our laws by forming subsidiaries based in
foreign countries so they can do business with the Iranians.
I have introduced a measure that would close this loophole.
Unfortunately, the Senate voted against my measure on a largely
party line vote. Instead, the Senate approved a weaker version
that pays lip service to the problems but doesn't really shut
down the loopholes, doesn't really stop these companies from
doing business in Iran, with Iran.
Mr. Chairman, the Teheran regime is using profits from its
oil reserves to fund terrorism and develop nuclear weapons and
getting help from American companies. It is almost
incomprehensible, because we are standing idly by.
Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania was going to be here
today. I know that he has a bill that deals with Iran. But I
have got to say to my colleague from Pennsylvania that I am
disappointed that the bill that he was presenting does not
close that loophole that allows U.S. companies to do business
with Iran. The House counterpart, in contrast, sponsored by
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, does close this loophole.
Mr. Chairman, by ignoring this serious issue, the Senate is
sending the wrong message to American companies, saying it is
OK to do business with Iran. When I think of the woeful news
that comes out of Iraq on a regular basis and knowing that Iran
supports that activity, kill Americans, maim Americans, it is
an unacceptable condition, and I am hoping that Senators on
this panel will change their views about the kind of
legislation that we are going to be talking about. I thank you
very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. We will have
Senator Santorum join us later. He is in another hearing right
now and will join us on the dais.
Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and to each of our
witnesses, welcome. We are delighted to see all of you and
thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and
insights with us on what I believe is a real important subject,
and I know you do, too.
As we gather here today, I understand that the
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General El Baradei
is poised to join Russian negotiators to push for a solution to
Iran's nuclear brinkmanship. As a testament to his being
selected as Nobel Peace Laureate, El Baradei is to push for a
solution despite reports that Iran may have already rejected
this proposal.
If those negotiations fail, I believe another opportunity
to back Iran away from the nuclear weapons precipice will take
place in just over a week, when the International Atomic Energy
Board of Governors meets in Vienna to determine if and when
Iran will be referred to the U.N. Security Council for its
actions.
Sixty years ago today, on November 15, President Harry S
Truman planted the seeds of the nonproliferation regime in a
joint declaration right here in Washington, DC with British
Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Canadian Prime Minister
Mackenzie King.
The proposal was to ensure that atomic energy could be used
for peaceful purposes while ultimately working toward
eliminating nuclear weapons globally. Iran makes it very clear
today that we have yet to reach this important goal, but it is
nonetheless imperative, maybe more imperative, that we do so.
While it would have been helpful to have had the
opportunity to hear today from Under Secretary of State Robert
Joseph, who led the briefings on Iran's nuclear warheads at the
IAEA back in July, I welcome the testimony, I think on our
second panel, of Dr. Gary Samore, who is the architect of the
internationally acclaimed International Institute of Strategic
Studies publication on Iran's weapons capabilities. Hopefully,
he can shed some light on these nuclear warhead plans that
appeared in this weekend's New York Times and how soon Iran
could develop a nuclear weapon and be of danger to the rest of
us.
In addition to understanding Iran's weapons capabilities,
it is also very important that we begin to better understand
Iran, why it is in pursuit of nuclear weapons, and what it
would want and need from the international community to stop
its pursuit permanently.
Iran has, as we all know, a new president who is anti-U.S.,
anti-Israel, anti-west, and if left to his own devices, a great
risk, I think, to international security. He has inexcusably
called for the disruption of Israel, incited violence against
western interests in his own country, and attempted to stack
his government with those who hold the same beliefs.
Yet, instead of totally backing the efforts of the new
president, Iran's Supreme Leader has been running interference.
A meeting with the Supreme Leader led the new president to
change his rhetoric of hatred about wiping Israel off the map
to calling for democratic elections in Palestine. And after a
fiery U.N. speech, another body of government, Iran's
Expediency Council, was given oversight powers over this new
president. And the president has yet to get approval of an oil
minister from the Iranian parliament after having submitted
several persons for the position, despite the parliament being
dominated by hard-liners who would be expected to be
sympathetic to this new president of Iran.
Yet, that new president still retains the blessings of the
Supreme Leader, power, and support from many Iranians,
plausibly because he campaigned as a ``man of the people who
would promote the interests of the poor and return Iranian
government to the principles of the Islamic revolution during
the time of the Ayatollah Khomeini.''
With nearly three-quarters of Iran's population under the
age of 30, with unemployment rampant, it is easy to understand
why the Iranian people are looking for change.
What does all of this mean for nuclear negotiations? I am
hoping that our esteemed witness Ray Takeyh, who has great
insights into Iran's inner workings, can tell us what is going
on with Iran's leadership and its impact on nuclear
negotiations.
But I also have a couple of questions. First, are Iranians
supportive of the new president because of his ideology, his
promises of government reform, or both? Second, even if the new
president is successful in pressing for government reforms,
could they alone save Iran's economy, or would investment from
the west still be needed?
Have past and current U.S. policy approaches taken both the
economic concerns of urban Iranian middle class into account
and those of poor Iranians, who seem to believe that ushering
in the past in the form of this new president could serve them
in a way that trade, privatization, and foreign investments
could not?
If this is their belief, there may be a mismatch between
the incentives that the west is currently offering Iran to give
up their nuclear aspirations and what Iranians actually want or
feel that they need. Conversely, if Iranians truly feel it is a
sense of national pride and security to have nuclear weapons
capability, there may be nothing that the west can offer to be
a deterrent.
And if this is, indeed, true, we must be certain that our
diplomatic ducks are in a row so that we can ensure that Iran
is referred to the U.N. Security Council and that success is
guaranteed once they have been sent there.
Too much hangs in the balance for us not to explore all of
our options. Sixty years ago, our country set forth a goal of
removing nuclear weapons from the world, 60 years ago today.
Many of these goals have been enshrined in the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons
capabilities while it is signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and under the watch of the IAEA, it
will send a message that other countries can do the same and
could incite a renewed arms race.
If Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council and we are
unable to get member countries to agree to multilateral
sanctions or other punitive measures, as in the case of North
Korea, it will also signal that being a signatory to the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is actually a means to acquire
weapons technology and that there are no real repercussions for
doing so.
At all costs, this means we must be successful: First, to
preserve our ultimate goal of nuclear weapons eradication.
Second, to preserve the doctrine of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty that we have crafted to help us reach
that goal. Third, to secure our Nation from a potentially
nuclear Iran, those who could pass such technology to, and the
arms race that could ensue. And fourth and most importantly, to
secure our own security and that of our children.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing and to our
panel of witnesses that are arrayed before us and those that
will follow.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Senator Carper. I want to commend you on holding this hearing.
This Subcommittee has a long and valued history of examining
our national security policy as it pertains to weapons of mass
destruction.
It was a major focus of this Subcommittee when I was
Chairman, as well as when I was Ranking Member under Senator
Cochran's leadership. I am pleased, Senator Coburn, that you
are carrying on the great tradition of this Subcommittee.
The issue of Iran's nuclear policy has been in the
headlines for many years with little apparent slowdown in their
efforts to pursue, first covertly and now more overtly, a
nuclear weapons program, including the means to deploy them on
long-range missiles.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony by our former
Congressional colleagues, Representative Gingrich--it is good
to see you again, Newt--and also Senator D'Amato, good to see
you again, and other expert witnesses. I thank you folks for
being here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Senator Akaka.
First of all, welcome. Let me introduce our first
panelists, if I may. R. James Woolsey joined Booz Allen
Hamilton in July 2002 as Vice President and officer in the
firm's Global Resilience Practice located in McLean, Virginia.
Previously, Mr. Woolsey served in the U.S. Government on five
different occasions, where he held Presidential appointments in
two Republican and two Democratic administrations. During his
12 years of government service, Mr. Woolsey was Director of
Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995. He was also previously
a partner at the law firm of Shea and Gardner in Washington,
DC, where he practiced for 22 years in the fields of civil
litigation and alternative dispute resolution. He also hails
from Oklahoma.
Senator Alfonse D'Amato is the Managing Director of Park
Strategies, LLC, and served in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to
1999. Senator D'Amato was first elected to the U.S. Senate on
November 4, 1980. Known for his tenacity and ability to get
results, Senator D'Amato served three distinguished terms in
the Senate, advocating the interests and the people of New York
State. During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, D'Amato served as
Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Housing and Urban
Affairs, overseeing legislation affecting America's financial
institutions, banking, and public and private housing, urban
development, and trade promotion. Senator D'Amato also served
on the Senate Finance Committee. He also served on the Senate
Subcommittee on Health Care, the Subcommittee on International
Trade, and the Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight.
Finally, our third panelist is the former Speaker, Newt
Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
He serves as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute and is also a Visiting Fellow at the Huger
Institution at Stanford University. Speaker Gingrich is a
member of the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign
Relations and the U.S. Commission on National Security, an
Advisory Board member of the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies, a member of the Defense Policy Board. Gingrich
also serves as Co-Chair, along with former Senate Majority
Leader George Mitchell, of the Task Force on U.N. Reform
created by the Congress in December 2004. The task force
delivered its report, entitled ``American Interests in U.N.
Reform,'' to the Congress this past June.
He is also an Editorial Board member of the Johns Hopkins
University Journal of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism and a news
and political analyst on FOX News. He is the author of nine
books and novels, including New York Times best-selling
``Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract With America,''
and most recently, ``Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant, the
Final Victory,'' the third and final novel in his trilogy about
the Civil War, and he is my favorite history professor.
Director Woolsey, if you would, please.
TESTIMONY OF R. JAMES WOOLSEY,\1\ FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mr. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be
invited to be with you today. I will submit my four-page
statement, if I might, and then just speak informally from it
for a few minutes by way of summary. I am testifying solely on
my own behalf today, Mr. Chairman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Woolsey appears in the Appendix
on page 49.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a window of time from the late spring of 1997
until the late spring of 1998 in which, after President
Khatami's election, I think it was reasonable for there to have
been some optimism about the possibility of working with Iran
and seeing an Iranian evolution in terms of its dealings with
the West and its neighbors. But that window ended in the spring
of 1998 as the Iranian government began to assassinate
newspaper editors, kill students, make mass arrests, and the
rest.
And I believe it has not really been the case for those
years since 1998 that we have had an Iran with which we could
reasonably work. With the ascendancy of Mr. Ahmadinejad to the
presidency a few months ago and Iran's rejection, as far as we
now know, last Saturday of the EU3 proposal from Britain,
France, and Germany that its nuclear fuel be enriched by Russia
and not by Iran itself, one would think that even those who are
most committed to the notion that we can work with this Iranian
government would have turned into pessimists.
There is no reason in common sense or economics for Iran to
be involved in fuel enrichment and processing unless it has a
nuclear weapons program. This is admittedly a question of
intent under the current Nonproliferation Treaty. That treaty
is, I believe, fundamentally flawed precisely because it does
not bar the expansion of enrichment and processing. For Iran to
declare that it needs fuel enrichment and processing in order
to have nuclear power for energy purposes is roughly equivalent
to its claiming that it must build a factory that produces both
trucks and tanks in order to be able to buy a few cars.
The Nonproliferation Treaty regime is, unfortunately, one
that derives from the Atoms for Peace Program and thus does not
explicitly bar the expansion or institution of enrichment and
processing. It is a question of intent. I think the Iranian
intent is crystal clear to any objective observer, but the
treaty regime is not one that helps us as much as we might
like.
It is clear that Iran hid its fuel enrichment work until
the IAEA was tipped off in 2003, and then discovered Iranian
preparation for uranium enrichment via the use of some 50,000
potential centrifuges at Natanz. Iran constructed a heavy water
plant and reactor to produce plutonium. Seven covert nuclear
sites have been built. Traces of uranium enriched to the high
levels needed for a bomb, rather than the much lower levels
needed for a reactor generating electric power, have been
found. And Iran bulldozed one site at Lavizan-Shian, before
inspectors were allowed to visit.
Iran has acknowledged acquiring nuclear materials from the
notorious head of the Pakistani program, A.Q. Khan, in recent
material obtained by U.S. intelligence--cited in an article
this past Sunday that many here, I am sure, have read in the
New York Times by Broad and Sanger--indicates that the Iranians
are working on a sphere of conventional explosives designed to
compress radioactive material to begin chain reactions in a
bomb. They are working on positioning a heavy ball inside a
warhead to ensure stability and accuracy during the terminal
phase of a nuclear-armed missile flight. And they are working
on detonation at a 2,000-foot altitude, which is really
appropriate only for nuclear weapons, not for conventional,
chemical, or even bacteriological ones.
How soon might Iran obtain nuclear weapons? The estimates
in years that you see are really driven by how soon
intelligence believes they might be able to enrich enough and
process enough nuclear material to have enough fissionable
material for a bomb. But if they obtain the fissionable
material, particularly highly enriched uranium, elsewhere, for
example from their erstwhile collaborators the North Koreans,
they could have a bomb in very short order.
It should be remembered that although we tested the
plutonium bomb that we dropped on Nagasaki before it was used
in combat, 60 years ago the United States felt that the simple
shotgun HEU weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima was so
reliable, even though it had never been tested in the history
of the world, that we dropped it in combat without ever having
tested it. The designs for simple shotgun HEU weapons are
available on the web. It is really just a question of having
the highly enriched uranium.
So if Iran obtains such highly enriched uranium, even if it
is not able to enrich enough itself domestically, one could
quite reasonably be looking at an Iranian nuclear weapon in
extremely short order.
I wish I thought that referral to the Security Council and
potential severe sanctions were likely to be a useful step. It
may be politically an important thing for us to do
internationally, but the high probability of Russian, French,
and possibly Chinese veto of any substantial steps in the
Security Council and the difficulty of implementing sanctions
against a country which really exports only oil at a time of
$60 a barrel oil is a very severe international political
problem.
The Ahmadinejad regime is not really accurately
characterized by the word that the President has used now twice
to refer to some of the Islamist groups on the Sunni side of
the divide within Islam. He has used the term ``Islamo-
fascist.'' That is not severe enough for Mr. Ahmadinejad
because the Italian fascists, although terrible, were not
genocidal, not explicitly genocidal. Mr. Ahmadinejad and the
Iranian regime are genocidal.
He spoke in his own speech of, ``a world without America
and Zionism. This slogan and this goal are attainable and can
surely be achieved.'' And Mr. Abbassi, the head of his war
preparation plan, has said recently, ``We had a strategy drawn
up, the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization. We must make
use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by
means of our suicide operations or means of our missiles. There
are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and the West. We have
already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to
attack them. Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons, the rest
will run for cover.''
I am afraid, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee,
that with respect to this regime, regime change is really the
only option. I very much hope it would not need to involve the
use of force. That should only be our last resort, but an
option that we, under no circumstances, should take off of the
table.
There are two chains of policy which it would be useful to
follow. Reuel Gerecht has recently pointed out in the Weekly
Standard that if we are successful in moving toward a Shiite
majority democracy operating in Iraq, it will substantially
help undermine Khamenei's and Ahmadinejad's rule in Iran.
And second, Ambassador Mark Palmer has written persuasively
about how we might engage and work with the Iranian people and
various Iranian groups that are struggling for freedom without
enhancing the position of or making concessions to the Iranian
government.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I believe that this situation with
respect to Iran and its sponsorship of terrorism and its
nuclear weapons program is such that it would be prudent for us
to embark upon a major expansion of our own armed forces. This
would entail a substantial increase, in my view, in the defense
budget and tax increases to pay for it. I don't believe we
should balk at this. Earlier generations have sacrificed much
more, even in the absence of shooting wars. In the early 1960s,
the U.S.' defense budget was over 9 percent of GDP. That was
because we changed strategies from massive retaliation to
flexible response and needed more expensive conventional
weapons. Nine percent of GDP in today's nearly $12 trillion
American economy would be a defense budget of well over $1
trillion.
Admittedly, we have changed the way we care for old people
in the last 20, 30, 40 years in the United States with respect
to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That has an
important effect on the Federal budget. But we can't let those
decisions made in the last few generations about how we care
for our elderly undermine our willingness to protect ourselves
and to pay for this protection.
Appeasement, in my view, whatever euphemism is used, of
Iran under the current circumstances will not work any better
than it did with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. I would like to, with unanimous
consent, recognize Senator Domenici for a few moments. He is
going to have to leave. Without objection.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI
Senator Domenici. Thank you. First, I want to thank you for
holding these hearings. I think it is very important. I am very
sorry that I cannot be here very long. I am hoping to come
back. But I also want to thank the witnesses. Their presence
and what I know they have to say is very important.
I hope that, sooner or later, not only America, but others
that think like we do, are going to find a way to see that this
continued build-up stops. We think we know what is going on,
but it seems like we are struggling to find out what to do
about it. Ultimately, it seems to me, we can't do that alone.
We have to do it with others. And yet it is so vitally
important. The more we know and the harder we try to get to the
bottom of it and the more we let their new leader and those
that work with him know what we think about this, I think the
better off we are and the better off our friends are.
So thank you to the witnesses. It is good to see you,
Senator D'Amato. It is a pleasure to have you.
Senator D'Amato. Good to see you.
Senator Domenici. And Mr. Speaker, I remember balancing a
budget with you in the room. I don't know who won, but we got a
balanced budget.
Mr. Gingrich. Right.
Senator Domenici. You got some, I got some, and it was a
good day. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Senator D'Amato.
TESTIMONY OF HON. ALFONSE D'AMATO,\1\ FORMER U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Senator D'Amato. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want
to commend you for these hearings. I think it is probably one
of the most, if not the most, important issue of the day, and
somehow we seem to miss it. I would ask that the full text of
my remarks be submitted in the record as if read in its
entirety.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator D'Amato appears in the
Appendix on page 53.
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Senator Coburn. Without objection, all submitted statements
will be included in the record.
Senator D'Amato. Mr. Chairman, I couldn't help but reflect
on the very challenging remarks made by former Director
Woolsey. He is someone who understands what it is like to deal
with the despots and the dictators and the kinds of regimes and
the one in particular that now represents Iran.
All the wringing of hands in the world isn't going to
change the situation. All of the threats and the bellicose
nature on our part that we sometimes seem to engage in is not
going to change it. Threatening of the new leader--you raised
the question as to what does he want and what does he
represent. He was elected by a landslide with the
fundamentalist and the mullahs supporting him, but he made an
appeal to the poor, to the so-called disenfranchised, to the
young people who are without jobs, and that obviously played a
great part in the size of his victory over a cleric. No one
really expected his victory to be so complete.
And he has all of the things that you mentioned and that my
former colleague from New Jersey talked about in terms of the
destruction of the State of Israel. That is not the kind of
rhetoric that one should take lightly, understand, and Jim
Woolsey understands.
The passage of sanctions, and I was proud to be one of
those in the forefront of sponsoring and getting legislation
passed, the Iranian-Libyan Sanction Act, known as ILSA, that
was signed by the President into law on August 4, 1996, and at
the White House ceremony, President Clinton said, ``The
greatest enemy of our generation is terrorism,'' and that the
United States will not shirk its responsibility to lead in the
fight against it. We have. We have.
If I were to suggest to you that the passage of ILSA was
almost impossible were it not for some bombings and events that
took place and the downing of an airliner that shocked the
conscience of the world, we wouldn't have passed that. It was
some of the industrial giants of this Nation who were opposed.
They were more concerned about being able to do business with
Iran and Libya and the loss of income. We had to construct
legislation which gave all kinds of prerogatives and waivers,
and we had to reduce substantially the penalties imposed. It
was incredible.
So it was only a shocking event that made it possible for
us to pass that legislation, and I have to tell you, even
though it was administered over a period of time, and
sometimes, I think, inadequately when various presidents gave
waivers to other countries, like to the French and to TOTAL in
terms of their conducting business there, it did have quite an
impact. As a matter of fact, going back to 2001 when the bill
came up for renewal, the Administration was not happy about it
and tried to limit it to 2 years instead of 5 years.
Indeed, testimony demonstrated that we had probably cut
monies that would have flowed into Iran for investment and
furthering their money-producing industry, which is oil and
gas, that we cut it substantially. They were able to get
investments of only $8 billion of foreign capital, whereas you
take a country like Qatar, very small, not nearly the kind of
resources in terms of energy that Iran had, and they had twice
as much. Indeed, Iran at that time was using 40 percent of its
oil for domestic purposes and their oil industry and gas
industry was fading in terms of their production.
Had we really stuck at it and enforced that embargo and not
turned our head, we might have had a different result. But what
we call the policy of constrictive engagement, by saying to
them, when you undertake the kinds of actions that are
threatening, we will tighten, we will punish you. And when you
don't just speak but act, why, then we will reward you.
And bringing in the world community--you cannot do this
alone. Mr. Woolsey is absolutely right. But I have to tell you,
I think there is--in our approach to this, I feel more
optimistic than he does in one sense. You see, they talk about
the Shahab missile--they can go 1,000 miles--that the Iranians
have developed and that they are looking to be able to put
nuclear capabilities into that missile. I am not concerned
about that. They are not going to use that missile because
mutually assured destruction works, and even the MAD people
understand that.
But what I am concerned about is the terrorist threat that
nuclear capabilities and fissionable materials in their hands
permits, because while we can by way of mutually assured
destruction, which has worked over the years with the Russians
and with others, there is no such threat to terrorists and you
don't have the capability to say with definiteness that these
materials, these suitcase bombs were made available, for
example, by Iran to the shadowy groups. It is the greatest
threat that mankind faces today, and yet we do very little.
In just talking to one of your witnesses who came up here,
there is a great company that works in the United States that
does hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars worth of
work, and yet they are at the centerpiece of helping design and
create an opportunity for Iran to have a bomb. Is that amazing?
That is Siemens, a German company. Amazing. And we do nothing
to stop it.
Now, for the first time, it seems to me, we have an
opportunity to forge a real alliance with countries who have
not traditionally been our allies, the Russians, because if
there is any country that faces a challenge as great, if not
greater, from some of the fundamentalists, it is the Russians.
And so we have the ability, and I think some of our allies,
even those who have not been so supportive of us and our
policies and we have had discord with, for the first time are
beginning to recognize what this extremism and what terrorists
represent as a way of a threat to them and to their people, and
I am talking about the French, and I will mention the Germans.
I think we have, for the first time, an opportunity to build a
coalition and we cannot afford to go it alone.
I am not suggesting that we can allow them to build with
impunity those kinds of devices that we would have to and be
ready to take whatever action necessary to defend ourselves,
very much like Israel did in Osirak in 1981 when they took that
facility out. But I think that by utilizing the kinds of
legislation and putting in a program of restrictive engagement
with Iran, we might be able to tell and demonstrate to them and
to the world that we mean business. That is a way of utilizing
collectively our economic force, but it has to be collectively.
I think it can work.
It is not going to be easy and the Iranians will test us
and we will have to demonstrate that we are willing to meet
that challenge. And we will have to make it clear to our allies
that we need them. But we can't do it in a bellicose way. We
have got to work behind the scenes and work hard to build that
kind of coalition. If we fail to do that and fail to get into
this ring and take on this incredible challenge, I think we
betray everything that we are about.
Again, I am concerned that the economic interests that some
of our own international corporations are more interested in
still have a lot of sway in this country and I would hope at
this critical time that we would be able to look back on
history and see what has taken place when we fail to stand up
and to do what is right. It is a great responsibility you have,
and to be quite candid with you, I don't see that you have
great public support to rally to take on this cause. And yet I
can't think of one that is more imperiling and more challenging
than the one we face today with the spread of nuclear weapons,
particularly in the hands of terrorists that make it almost
impossible to stop if they were to get these devices.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your holding this hearing
today and trying to focus some attention and the spotlight on
this important issue.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Senator D'Amato. Speaker
Gingrich.
TESTIMONY OF HON. NEWT GINGRICH,\1\ FORMER SPEAKER, U.S. HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Gingrich. Let me, first of all, thank you for calling
these hearings and for focusing attention on this very
important topic. I ask that my written testimony be submitted
for the record.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gingrich with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 57.
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Senator Coburn. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Gingrich. I want to start by reemphasizing a little bit
of what my two colleagues have commented on. I think we could
be entering a decade that is extraordinarily dangerous. Let me
give you three futures, and I say this in the context of
everybody who said after September 11, ``oh, gee, why didn't
anybody think of it?''
The first future is simple. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are
wiped out in one morning. President Ahmadinejad said recently,
October 28, that Israel should be ``wiped off the face of the
earth.'' Rafsanjani said in December 2001, when Iran gets
nuclear weapons, ``on that day, this method of global arrogance
would come to an end. This is because the use of a nuclear bomb
in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will
only damage the world of Islam.''
Now, these aren't made-up quotes. My first question for
this Subcommittee and for the Members of the House and Senate
and for the Administration is, why have a Holocaust Museum in
Washington, getting together occasionally to say, never again
is the lesson of the Holocaust, and then when you are told
explicitly that you have somebody who wants to wipe out Israel,
we try to find some way to avoid confronting the reality?
Second, consider a future where Iran develops ship-borne
missiles with nuclear weapons that could threaten the United
States directly. They have already tested in the Caspian Sea a
ship-borne missile. There is every reason to believe that
within a decade, they may acquire such a missile. And one of
the great complexities of the modern world is that we don't
control all the technology in the democracies. The North
Koreans have technology. The Chinese have technology. The
Pakistanis have technology. The Russians have technology. And
the idea that the Iranians at $60 a barrel won't be able to buy
technology strikes me to be a complete misreading of the modern
world.
Third, imagine that by 2010, there is an Iranian-Chinese-
Russian alliance to block U.S. influence in the Persian Gulf.
China is the most rapidly growing purchaser of oil in the
world. The Chinese have a long-term contract with Iran. The
Chinese have a deep interest in the region. The Russians very
badly need hard currency. The Russians would like to prove they
are independent of us. I don't think it is a particularly
difficult act of imagination to believe that by the end of this
decade, we could see those three countries actively blocking us
in the Persian Gulf.
Now, I think these are all practical, real threats, but let
me remind you of some recent quotes, because I want you to
understand how totally real this is. There is a picture that is
also in your packet that shows President Ahmadinejad standing
in front of a huge poster in which the United States has
already fallen to the ground and been shattered and Israel is
in the process of falling to the ground. Now, this by the way,
was all done in English. Unlike Adolf Hitler, who did require
you to either get a translation or to read German, they are
quite cheerful about flaunting in our face the degree to which
they are determined to destroy us.
Let me give you some examples. Ahmadinejad speaking on
October 28 said, ``They say, how could we have a world without
America and Zionism, but you know well that this slogan and
goal can be achieved and can definitely be realized.''
Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guard intelligence advisor
to the president, August 30, 2004, ``We have a strategy drawn
up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization. We must
make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front
by means of our suicide operations and by means of our
missiles.''
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, June 24, 2004, ``The world of Islam
has been mobilized against America for the past 25 years. The
peoples call, `Death to America.' Who used to say, `Death to
America'? Who, besides the Islamic Republican and the Iranian
people used to say this? Today, everyone says this.''
The point I am making is, by any standard of the 1930s, you
have an Iranian dictatorship which is openly, clearly seeking a
method of eliminating Israel, which would be an act of
genocide, and defeating the United States and Great Britain and
says so publicly.
I am submitting for the record, we are not going to ask to
play it today, but there is an 11-minute animated film, a
cartoon, that was shown on Iranian television on October 28,
designed to recruit children to be suicide bombers. We have
given a copy of the DVD to every Senator. I would urge you at
some point to watch it. It is effective, it is chilling, and
this was shown on state television. Basically, it is designed
to recruit young people and to say, committing suicide on
behalf of Allah is a good thing to do and being a suicide
bomber is a reasonable occupation because the other side is so
evil.
The points I would make are, I think, probably more direct
than we normally hear. I think that the measure that the Senate
should establish and the House should establish for dealing
with Iran is very straightforward. Will it be effective?
Let me just say a brief word about sanctions. We have had
sanctions against Fidel Castro since 1960. We had sanctions
against Saddam Hussein for years. If you read carefully the
record of the sanctions against Saddam Hussein, it does three
things. It strengthens the dictatorship, because they are the
only people with money. It leads to massive levels of
corruption. And everything they need gets through.
Now, any person who believes that the second-largest source
of oil and natural gas on the planet, in a time when China and
India are desperately buying everything they can get, can be
significantly crippled by a sanctions regime, if you are
prepared to say you want a naval blockade and nothing goes in,
you can make some case for this. But short of that level of
intervention, which is, again, something you would have to
sustain for a long time, countries don't collapse. This is
historically not how things happen.
We have two choices. We can decide to live with a
genocidal, homicidal regime which is openly explaining it seeks
to destroy us and then we can hold hearings after we lose Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem and maybe lose New York and Atlanta and say,
gee, why didn't we do anything, or we can study seriously the
lesson of Winston Churchill in the 1930s, when, by the way, the
British and French did nothing, the League of Nations was
pathetic.
I would just commend you, read what the Secretary General
said. He read with ``dismay.'' He couldn't bring himself to
condemn. He couldn't bring himself to say it was wrong. But he
topped out at dismay when the President of Iran proposed
eliminating Israel from the face of the earth. Read what the
Security Council did. They couldn't even come to a resolution.
They issued a press release, and the word ``pathetic'' comes to
mind.
Senator Santorum's bill is a useful, small first step. It
should be the policy of the United States of America to replace
this regime. We should communicate to our allies around the
world, we would like to have their help. We should communicate
to international institutions that to the degree they wish to
be effective, we would like to participate. We should not allow
``can't'' to hide behind. We should not allow resolutions that
are meaningless, proposals that have no teeth, or regimes that
will have no effect.
We should indicate clearly that we are the allies of all
the Iranian people who would like to live in a non-homicidal,
non-totalitarian regime, and we should indicate unequivocally
that at some point in the not-distant future, there will be a
new government of Iran and a simple, small first step would be
to move to suspend Iranian membership in the U.N. as long as
the head of the government is claiming the right to eliminate a
fellow state.
Now, if we don't have the nerve to stand up and say, this
is homicidally wrong and we have been warned, there is no
reason to believe that our European friends, whose record of
appeasement is unending, are going to have any nerve, and there
is no reason to believe that any international organization is
going to have any effectiveness.
If, on the other hand, we are determined to win in the
Middle East, we are prepared to do what it takes, and we are
prepared to communicate unequivocally to our friends and allies
that we will do what it takes, I suspect a number of countries
will end up helping us and a number of countries will end up
being actively in favor of replacing the current government. I
think anything short of replacing the current government is
basically irrelevant, and I think you should expect at some
point in your lifetime to see a major war, and probably a
nuclear war, if this government is not replaced.
Thank you for allowing us to be here.
Senator Coburn. Speaker Gingrich, thank you very much.
Next week, on November 24, IAEA is expected to debate the
issue of Iran. This will be a follow-up to their last
discussion this past September. They fell short of passing a
resolution to send to the Security Council to consider
sanctions.
If the IAEA is not able to garner sufficient support to put
pressure on Iran, what is the effectiveness of the IAEA? Does
anybody want to answer that? In light of the testimony that we
have had here today and they can't garner the support to create
a mechanism with which to sanction, just to sanction the
statement that this is wrong, or as Speaker Gingrich
recommended, removal, what is the effectiveness of IAEA?
Mr. Gingrich. I recently co-chaired with former Majority
Leader George Mitchell a task force on United Nations reform. I
am going to speak only for myself, but we spent more than 6
months looking at the entire international system.
I think we have to get away from the notion that there is
moral authority inherent in meetings of people who do nothing
meaningful. That is, the IAEA should see itself as being under
test next week, not the United States. If the IAEA cannot bring
itself to adopt a firm resolution reporting this to the
Security Council, and if the Security Council cannot take
decisive action, then the United States' attitude should be,
these are irrelevant institutions that are not, frankly, very
useful. I think the institutions should be served notice that
they are the ones who are being judged by history, not those of
us who are concerned about the Iranians.
But to allow ourselves to be handicapped, as we have been,
for example, in Sudan, where we wring our hands, virtual
genocide occurs, there is an argument about whether enough
hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfour to count
as true genocide or simply mass murder, and nothing happens
because the Chinese are getting oil and the French are getting
sales, and then we say, well, gee, we can't do anything because
the Security Council can't act. In the case of Sudan, it is a
tragedy for the human race. In the case of Iran, it is a direct
threat to the survival of the United States and we should serve
notice that an impotent IAEA and an ineffective United Nations
simply mean we will pursue our diplomacy elsewhere and not,
frankly, worry much about their ineffectiveness.
Senator Coburn. Mr. Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. I agree with Newt, Mr. Chairman. I would only
add that I alluded in my opening remarks to the ineffectiveness
of the nonproliferation regime because it does not explicitly
bar enrichment and fuel processing. So it gives the hesitant or
the bribed an out. It lets a Russia or a France effectively
say, ``well, we can't say that there is a violation of the
letter of the treaty. It is all a matter of intent. So, let us
talk some more.''
Senator Coburn. Are you suggesting that treaty be opened up
to be revised?
Mr. Woolsey. In an ideal world, one would have a treaty
regime which had two separate functions. One was to help
countries that needed help develop adequate energy of different
kinds. Sometimes, that might mean a nuclear reactor for
electricity generation. I tend to think mainly it would be
other types of energy. But even if that assistance or
encouragement was provided and even for nuclear power
generation, there would be no reason under this mythical regime
we are just sort of inventing here, to permit fuel processing
or enrichment. There is plenty of that capability in the world
in the five named nuclear powers. There are 30-some countries
in the world that have electricity generation from nuclear
reactors and don't have fuel processing and enrichment.
So I would think, yes, ideally, we would move to a separate
regime that did not permit fuel enrichment or processing to be
newly constructed. But trying to restructure the current regime
of international controls at the time we are facing similar
cheating from North Korea and Iran would be an extraordinary
diplomatic undertaking. It might be worthwhile trying to begin
it in order to show our disdain for, or lack of satisfaction,
for some, but in any case the unsatisfactory nature, of the
current nonproliferation regime. But the chance of actually
getting a completely restructured regime that the world could
go along with over the course of the next few years is tiny. I
think it would be a titanic task.
Senator Coburn. Senator D'Amato, do you want to comment?
Senator D'Amato. Mr. Chairman, we have to find out what the
IAEA will do because they have, for the first time, I think,
seen very clearly what is taking place. They heard the words of
the Iranians. I am much more hopeful that they may act in a
more forward way. It is not going to bring about regime change,
and let me ask you, how do we bring about regime change? Are we
talking about a blockade? Are we talking about an attack? It is
very easy to say, let us bring about regime change.
And what policies do we undertake? Do we take Radio Free
whatever it is, beaming it into Iran? Do you think that is
going to bring about a regime change? And it is one thing to
say that sanctions have never worked, but the fact of the
matter is that they have had an impact, and I talked about
Libya.
Now, if we want to sit around and just wring our hands and
say that they don't work, I respectfully disagree. But it can't
be sanctions alone. It has to be engaging countries who
heretofore have not been willing to back it up and make those
sanctions effective. And if that means an embargo at some point
in time, that is why I said I referred in my speech to
constrictive engagement, to constrict them. If they begin to do
the things they are supposed to do and they demonstrate it,
don't talk about it, then we will reward them. And if they
don't, we squeeze harder and harder.
So if we are going to talk about regime change, I don't
think the American people are willing at this point in time to
say, let us go to war. Let us bomb them. How do you bring that
about?
I am suggesting to you that you don't bring it about
without involving the world community, and that is hard work.
That is not easy. But let me tell you, there is a community of
interest, Mr. Chairman, that we have to explore to become
involved in this battle. What is the biggest threat to the
Russians? The Chechens and the same kind of terrorism that they
face. I am not suggesting that the Russians are all good guys,
but let us use our allies or those people.
There is an old thing that I used to hear the
Administration talk about, I don't necessarily agree with it,
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, consequently, let us
begin to turn that around and if we have an opportunity to
involve the Russians and others in this battle, let us see if
we can't do it. If we have to go it alone, that is another
matter and I say then we should do it.
Senator Coburn. Speaker Gingrich, in your testimony, you
outlined the eight steps for regime change. Would you mind
commenting on those now? I think it is appropriate, since
nobody is talking about armed conflict here, but nobody has
taken that off of the table, but that is not the purpose and
the focus of our hearing today. I would like to hear Speaker
Gingrich comment, if he would, on the eight steps that he
talked about in his testimony in terms of regime change.
Mr. Gingrich. Well, let me say first, I think the first key
step is victory in Iran. I think the rise of a democratic
Shiia, largely Shiia government--60 percent of the population
is Shiia--would have a substantial impact on the Iranian
people. Every indication we have is the younger Iranians
desperately would like to have an open regime, that this is, in
fact, a relatively unpopular regime and that there is a
substantial well of discontent in Iran. I think winning in Iraq
and being decisive in helping the Iraqi people run their own
country is a very important step in the right direction.
Second, I think it is very important for us to say openly
and aggressively what kind of regime this is. The recent
description, for example, of a young girl, 16 years of age,
being strangled to death because she behaved immorally by
walking hand-in-hand with an older man, and so she was publicly
hung without using a hangman's knot and for 11 minutes, she
gradually, slowly choked to death as a symbol. People don't
describe how vicious this regime is, and we are not aggressive
enough in saying publicly, these are bad people who do bad
things and we want to be the allies of the good Iranians, and
frankly, I think, a Radio Free Iran does help.
Ronald Reagan rolled back the Iron Curtain, eliminated the
Soviet Union, and didn't fire a single shot outside of the
Afghan campaign, but if you think about all the rest of the
things that were done in the Soviet Union, they were all
economic, political, and diplomatic.
Third, I think it is very important for us to say that we
favor freedom in Iran and we favor an Iran that doesn't favor
its neighbors. There is very profound testimony by Natan
Sharansky, who was in the Soviet gulag at the time Ronald
Reagan used the term ``evil empire,'' and his vivid emotional
explanation of the power of an American President to really
send signals.
We should send a signal to the Iranian people. Every
Iranian who wants to live in peace with their neighbors, we are
your allies. Every Iranian who wants to live in freedom, we are
your allies. Every Iranian who wants to live in a prosperous,
middle-class society, we are your ally, and make it quite clear
who we are opposed to.
Fourth, there are democracy movements. At a time when the
Iranian dictatorship provides somewhere between $100 and $200
million a year to Hezbollah, the fact that we can't find a way
to provide a couple hundred million dollars a year to those who
want to free Iran is just utterly irrational. I mean, the
ineffectiveness of this Administration and its predecessor to
have any kind of coherent strategy--at one point there was, I
remember, a television satellite program out of Los Angeles by
Iranians who live in Los Angeles. We couldn't even get support
for that. It was just utterly manically stupid.
I think the notion ought to be, let us match them. Every
dollar they spend on Hezbollah, we will match undermining the
current regime, and that would be a reasonable deterrent.
Fifth, we have got to think through a strategy on Russia
and China. Right now, Russia and China have no long-term
incentives to not deal with Iran, and whether that means, for
example, we say to the Chinese there is an American market and
an Iranian market. Choose. The Chinese would not be able to
choose the Iranian market in that setting. But I think it also
means you have got to find ways to deal with the things they do
need, which in the Russian case is hard currency and in the
Chinese case is oil.
Sixth, and we probably do disagree on this, I think the
direct application of sanctions--selective sanctions make a lot
of sense, and selective technology control makes a lot of
sense, and putting a lot of pressure on Germany, France, and
others about selective technology makes sense. Broad sanctions
don't make sense because they will just be porous. All you will
do is punish Americans because you can't get anybody else to do
it.
Seventh, I think it would be helpful to start establishing
special tribunals for members of the Iranian Republican Guard
Corps and those who are human rights violators. It is important
to set a principle, which certainly we are seeing in Iran,
which we should be seeing in Sudan, and by the way, we did call
for this in our bipartisan Task Force on U.N. Reform. We think
there ought to be a principle established that when you are
destroying human beings and you are killing human beings, that
you will be brought to account even if it is not today. We
think that actually does act as an inhibition against this
behavior.
I think two last things are that we have got to look at a
ballistic missile defense and also at a defense against
electromagnetic pulse, which I think is the most serious
technical danger to the U.S. today. But a ballistic missile
defense in the region. We should be able to say to the Gulf
states that want to side with us, we should be able to say to
Kuwait or to Iran as well as Israel that we are prepared to
defend against the Iranian weapons of mass destruction.
And finally, I think there should be a contingency plan, A,
if the regime collapses, or B, if a civil war breaks out. Iran
is not a purely Persian country run by a coherent dictatorship.
In this sense, it actually is not like Nazi Germany. Iran has a
very large population that is non-Iranian. They have a lot of
people who are not happy with the current regime. And under the
right circumstances, you could, in fact, imagine a civil war
breaking out in the country, and we ought to have though
through strategically in advance what we would do in those
circumstances.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. No questions
Senator Coburn. Senator Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Chairman Collins. Senator Carper totally surprised me
there, so I am not as ready as I was going to be.
To follow up on Speaker Gingrich's comments on what we
could do, Mr. Woolsey, in your testimony, you discuss
engagement with the Iranian people and Iranian groups who are
struggling for freedom and you go on to say that such efforts
would probably require more U.S. presence in Iran. Could you
describe in more detail how the United States could engage the
more moderate population to bring about change? How do you get
more U.S. presence in Iran?
Mr. Woolsey. It is my understanding, Senator Collins, that
there is an Iranian interests section in the United States that
has about 50 Iranians in it. Many or most, even perhaps all of
these may have dual nationality. But nonetheless, we have
nothing like that in Iran.
I don't think under the current circumstances it would be
wise to have formal recognition and exchange of ambassadors.
There may have been a time when that would have been
reasonable. In the spring of 1997, right after Khatami was
elected would have probably been a good time. But now, one
doesn't want to look like one is giving any kind of a positive
nod to Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the events of the last few
months. But I think an Iranian interests section, an American
interests section in a friendly embassy, Swiss or some other,
in Iran in which we could have some people on the ground would
probably be a plus.
Whether we do that or not, we ought to be engaging
financially and personally with Iranian dissident groups in
this country, and with Iranian exiles in the region. We ought
to be blanketing that country with broadcasts--not only Radio
Free Europe-type broadcasts in Farsi and Arabic, but we ought
to be ridiculing these mullahs and Ahmadinejad. I would go,
frankly, to the two gentlemen who run and have created South
Park and ask them to come up with some films ridiculing these
people. If you have seen Team America World Police and see what
they have done to Kim Jong Il, it is impossible to look at Kim
Jong Il after seeing that movie and not burst out laughing.
I think we should basically, with all the tools of American
communications, of our civil liberties organizations, our NGOs
working with Iranian exile organizations, with ridicule, as I
have said, turn up what used to be called out at the CIA the
``great Wurlitzer.'' And we don't need to do this covertly, the
way it was done back in the late 1940s and 1950s. This can all
be done--as far as I am concerned, it is better to do it--
overtly and to put a stake in the ground by the way we
undertake these actions.
I would say that two people have looked at this more
thoroughly and carefully than I, my friend Mike Ledeer, who is
at the American Enterprise Institute, and my friend Ambassador
Mark Palmer, who was my Vice Chairman when I was Chairman of
the Board of Freedom House. Mark was also the American
Ambassador in Hungary at the end of the 1980s and beginning of
the 1990s and practiced himself as an ambassador some of the
types of engagement with Hungarian dissident groups and the
like which bore fruit. So I would pull together Mike Ledeen and
Mark Palmer and get some creative ideas from them on some of
these areas, as well.
Chairman Collins. I, of course, did not get any of the
movie references. I just want to go clearly on record on that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Woolsey. One wants to watch out for Team America World
Police. There are some rather gross parts to it. [Laughter.]
Chairman Collins. In August, the Washington Post reported
that the national intelligence estimates reassessment of Iran's
nuclear capability judged that the country was approximately 10
years away from being able to deploy a nuclear bomb. Do you
agree with that assessment?
Mr. Woolsey. That must be because they are assuming that
the Iranians are enriching their own uranium, and processing
their own plutonium or fuel, all domestically. I haven't seen
the estimate and it may well be a reasonable one under that set
of assumptions.
But if they are able to obtain from, say, North Korea, with
whom they have a close working relationship on ballistic
missiles--essentially, the Taepodong and the Shahab are the
same missile. It is a joint North Korean-Iranian missile
program. If they were able to obtain from North Korea a few
kilograms of plutonium or slightly more of highly enriched
uranium, especially with highly enriched uranium, they could
have a bomb much sooner than that. It is, unfortunately, rather
easy to make a highly enriched uranium bomb. They might not
have something they could put on the front end of a Shahab
missile and launch at Israel, but something that could be
detonated on a tramp steamer in New York Harbor, it is entirely
plausible, I am afraid.
Chairman Collins. Speaker Gingrich, do you have any comment
on that?
Mr. Gingrich. My only comment is that several years ago,
the North Korean public television--which is the only
television, I guess, in North Korea--North Korean television
showed an Iranian delegation visiting with the beloved leader,
wandering around looking at missiles in sort of a missile
bazaar. He is there saying, this will be a great one for you to
buy.
So in a world where you can put the amount of material that
Mr. Woolsey is describing in a suitcase, put it on an airliner,
and have it show up, the notion that any planning agency--we
have been through this whole thing with Iraqi WMD, but what
people tend to forget is in 1991, when we actually got a chance
to look at where Iraq was, they were radically closer to having
a nuclear weapon in 1991 than anybody in the Western
intelligence community thought possible.
So anybody who says to you that they can't get a weapon in
the next decade doesn't have a clue what they are talking
about. There is clearly a desire to get a weapon. There is
clearly a world market of knowledge on how to get a weapon. And
I think a prudent country would assume that at some point in
the not-distant future, the Iranian regime is going to have a
nuclear weapon.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to thank all three of
you for your testimony on a very important issue.
[The prepared statement of Senator Collins follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Iran has been seeking to develop both indigenously and through
foreign acquisitions nuclear technology, ostensibly for ``peaceful''
purposes. Repeatedly, the Government of Iran has insisted that, under
the NPT, it has an ``inalienable right to have access to [nuclear]
technology for peaceful purposes.'' But, as virtually every nuclear
expert can attest, a full-blown ``peaceful'' nuclear program, with a
uranium enrichment program in tow, is only a small step from having a
nuclear weapons program itself.
While Iran's explicit intentions may be obscured, some facts are
indisputable. The June presidential elections brought to power a more
hard-line regime in President Ahmadinejad. Moderates and so-called
pragmatists were purged from parliament in the previous year. Not
surprisingly, Freedom House has rated Iran's adherence to fundamental
political and civil rights for its citizens next to last. Then, on
October 28, President Ahmadinejad declared his desire for Israel to be
``wiped off the map.'' And, of course, Iran's support for terrorism has
not abated at all. Combine these facts with the increase revenues from
oil that Iran is receiving and, at least in the short run, we are
facing a very difficult problem.
Yet, one thing I think that is important to keep in mind when it
comes to Iran is that, in most places in the Middle East, some of the
government leaders are friendly to the United States, but their
populations are anti-American; in Iran, it's just the opposite. Iran's
leaders are virulently anti-American but, poll after poll, indicates
that most of Iran's population views the United States in a positive
light. How we might use this singular bit of good news when it comes to
Iran is something I will be anxious to hear form our distinguished
panel of experts.
Senator Coburn. I believe by early bird rules, Senator
Lautenberg was here ahead of Senator Dayton, and so we will
recognize Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately,
the subject is not only complicated, but interesting, as well,
and it would be good if we could have a little freer dialogue
about it.
I want to remind my friend Al D'Amato that he and I were on
the Pan Am 103 investigating committee and it was realized then
that Libya had a hand there and that sanctions worked, Newt, so
they do work in some cases.
And otherwise, I look at things--we talk about flexing
muscles, but if you don't have muscles, there is nothing to
flex. Right now, with our situation, we have seen what happens
when our troops are committed to a serious engagement in more
than one place, and they are. We are spread around the world.
We don't have the reserves to send out the naval blockade that
we would like to see and things of that nature.
While I agree we ought to make changes, to me, one of the
worst things that I see happening is what I will call sabotage
from within. It is an incredibly disloyal situation. I wore a
uniform. Everybody in those days was concerned about keeping
secrets, and if there was ever a company who did business with
the enemy, by God, they would be sunk either by a mass uprising
or law promulgated.
And so I ask for Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Gingrich and Senator
D'Amato, there is a loophole in the law that allows U.S.
companies to do business with Iran through its foreign
subsidiaries. I ask you, should that loophole be closed? Mr.
Woolsey.
Mr. Woolsey. I certainly think so. I think any pressure is
good, and I think Newt's point is a good one, that general
sanctions--particularly for a country that has the oil reserves
Iran does and oil being as desired and the market being as
strong for it as it is--are most unlikely to be effective. But
specific sanctions dealing with particular types of
technology----
Senator Lautenberg. Well, I wonder if I could restrict you
to do that, the answer you initially gave and you said yes. I
would ask Mr. Gingrich, because we have time limitations.
Mr. Woolsey. Sure.
Mr. Gingrich. I am for cutting off specific technologies,
but I am not for punishing American companies in settings where
you clearly have replacements from other countries. Having the
Chinese provide something we don't provide doesn't strike me as
helpful.
Senator Lautenberg. But let me understand. We are talking
about not the competitive environment. We are talking about
whether or not American companies ought to be allowed to do
business with an avowed enemy, as we all clearly understand,
through some sham structure by having a headquarters or an
operating facility in Dubai and headquarters in the Grand
Cayman. Should that loophole be closed, or should we just let
it go?
Mr. Gingrich. I think sanctions against a country like Iran
should be very selective and primarily aimed at keeping
technology out of their hands.
You and I just disagree, Senator. I don't think it does any
great advantage to our long-term goal to enable five other
countries to sell precisely the same product rather than the
United States. I don't see how--you haven't affected Iran at
all.
Senator Lautenberg. Should we help them develop revenues,
this enemy of ours, develop revenues by helping them produce
their oil more efficiently to be used to fund Hezbollah and
Hamas and the others? Is that an appropriate thing, in your
mind?
Mr. Gingrich. I am for changing the regime, not annoying
it.
Senator Lautenberg. Well, when do you want to change it
next week or do we do something relatively immediately to
change it?
Mr. Gingrich. Ronald Reagan was very deeply opposed to the
Soviet Union and thought that the wheat cut-off was totally
stupid because the only people it hurt were farmers in the
Midwest, OK?
Senator Lautenberg. Yes----
Mr. Gingrich. Reagan was very selective in the things that
we isolated the Soviet Union from because he had a very
conscious strategy of dismembering the regime and it worked.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you very much. Senator D'Amato,
do you think we ought to close loopholes for companies that----
Senator D'Amato. We should absolutely close the loopholes.
The President would always have the right to make exceptions
where he finds, for food, for medicine, etc. But the loopholes,
in general, should be closed.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you.
Senator D'Amato. This, then, would force whoever was
attempting to do business to come in and make the case. You
wouldn't have, for example, a Siemens--admittedly, it is not an
American company, but it does a heck of a lot of business here,
probably more than any other place--you could then get them to
stop giving the kind of technology that is helping these
rascals build a bomb.
Senator Lautenberg. Absolutely. Separate subject. I agree
with you totally there.
I want to ask, again, our three friends here, foreign
subsidiaries of American companies cannot do business with
Cuba, but under current law, they can do business with Iran. Is
Cuba a bigger threat to America than Iran?
Mr. Woolsey. No, it is not, and I would agree with closing
that gap but using it, essentially, with exceptions, using it
basically the way Newt said.
Senator Lautenberg. Mr. Gingrich.
Mr. Gingrich. No, I think Iran is a much bigger danger to
the United States than Cuba.
Senator D'Amato. I agree with Newt and Mr. Woolsey.
Senator Lautenberg. Let me say this, and I appreciate the
fact that we can differ on things and I respect your ability to
express it. I am dug in deep on this because when I see kids
from New Jersey being buried, whether it is in Arlington
Cemetery or I go with the parents and I stand there and I watch
them weep and I see the little kids that they have left behind
being held, and talking to a fellow at Walter Reed who is
sightless and 28 years old and his wife was sitting there and I
tried to talk to them about Danny Inouye and Bob Dole and war
heroes. I was a soldier. I wasn't a hero. I did my duty. I say
to this man, things are there that can help you get along and
we want to help you and he said, ``I may never see my 28-month-
old child again. I want to hold her in my arms. I want to know
that I am there with her.''
And when I see that and I hear it and I think of companies
who do business with our enemy, people who help pump money into
that terrorist network, and I say, how can we dare to--we ought
to be ashamed of ourselves, and I am going to do whatever I can
to close that loophole. Thank you all very much.
Senator Coburn. Senator Dayton.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Woolsey, I am on the Armed Services Committee and
I agree with you, there are areas where we are certainly
militarily deficient. Your bulls-eye, just on my quick
notations here, involves about a $600 billion a year increase
in our military spending, which you propose--and you deserve
the platinum medal for political courage in Washington to fund
it with a tax increase. I wonder, seriously, what areas you
would look to expand as priorities.
Mr. Woolsey. Senator, I wasn't necessarily saying we should
go to a $1.1 trillion defense budget. I was just saying that
was what the Kennedy Administration had, in GDP terms. I think
one might be able to get by with less of an increase than that,
but I do think----
Senator Dayton. I won't accuse you of calling for a tax
increase----
Mr. Woolsey. Well, I am perfectly happy to call for a tax
increase. I don't have to get an election certificate to have
my job as a consultant, so----
Senator Dayton. That is an advantage you have.
Mr. Woolsey. But I do believe that a substantial increase
in our military forces is necessary. There are some things with
respect to Nation building and the like which one can do with
civilian agencies. But as I think the situation in Iraq has
shown--and I saw this up close when I was over there in
February 2004--it would be better if we had a lot more civil
affairs people directly in our military, the ability
immediately to have construction work begin, to have the
military paying people while they are protecting them. All of
that capability was pulled out of the active forces and put
into the reserves--and it is very thin even there--a few years
ago.
I think our active forces need those kinds of capabilities.
I think we need enough of a Navy and Air Force to be able to
deal with China. I don't like seeing capable vessels in the
fleet being put up in mothballs now because we can't afford to
keep them going. I think we need more divisions in the Army. We
might have to fight in two places at once and we have a one-war
Army now. I would also increase the Marines.
I think something in the order of $100 to $200 billion a
year more in the defense budget is entirely warranted given the
circumstances we are in. That would bring us up to around 4 to
5 percent of GDP, somewhere around half the level of
proportionate sacrifice that was being made in the Kennedy
Administration. If that didn't do the job, I would add another
$100 or $200 billion.
Senator Dayton. Robert Kennedy said that one of the lessons
in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs is that if you want to
diffuse an international crisis, you have got to put yourself
in the other guy's shoes. Given the realities in the Middle
East and the Iranian perception, I assume that Israel has
nuclear weapons. How are we going to get them to forego them if
they believe that Israel possesses them? I will give each of
the three of you a response to that.
Mr. Woolsey. I don't think the reason the Iranians have a
nuclear weapon program is because they believe they need to
deter an attack with nuclear weapons from Israel. I think they
understand that they cannot simultaneously maintain their
fanatical regime and support for terrorism and all the rest
without being able, principally, I think, to deter us from
using conventional forces against them. And that is one reason
that they have--or a major reason they have--their nuclear
weapons program. That and their own regional ambitions in
places like Azerbaijan and the rest. They want to be able to
expand to dominate the region and nuclear weapons help them
very much there. Although they will, for reasons of debate,
international debate, talk about Israel to the nuclear weapons
program, I don't believe that is really what is driving them.
Senator Dayton. Speaker and Senator, I have about 2
minutes, so I will give a minute apiece here.
Mr. Gingrich. I think that we have this politically correct
passion for avoiding the truth about this regime. This is a
regime which believes that it has a mission to extend its view
across the planet. It says so in its constitution. Its
president says so. Its ayatollah says so. Its senior advisors
say so. They fund Hezbollah probably to the tune of better than
$100 million a year. They have engaged in active warfare
against the United States at least since the early 1980s.
I think it is just like saying about Adolf Hitler, why is
he so mad with the Czechs and the Poles? I mean, he was mad
with the Czechs and Poles because they existed. He intended to
eliminate that problem.
I think we are dealing with a regime we don't want to be
honest about. If Israel has had these weapons for a long time,
they clearly have proven they have not attacked anybody with
their nuclear weapons. I think it is impossible for anyone to
have the same sense of security about what would happen with
the current Iranian dictatorship.
Senator Dayton. Senator D'Amato.
Senator D'Amato. I think in that case, the Congressman and
Mr. Woolsey are absolutely correct. Israel does not present the
threat to the Iranians. That is not why they are looking to
build the bomb. It is for all the other reasons that people
have indicated, their hatred of Anglo-Saxons, their hatred of
the state of Israel, their view that they will prevail and have
the jihad. This is what motivates them. This is what drives
them.
So the one is no excuse, does not give them any moral
leverage to say that Israel should be without. You have to look
at the facts as they are. And we simply do not want to, and I
agree with the Congressman, we don't want to really recognize--
I don't think the political climate and the courage is here,
given whole lots of factors, given Iraq, the situation, people
don't even want to hear about it, let alone those who have to
run for political office to say, hey, you better look at this.
You better look at this and North Korea and rogue nations and
come up with a policy of constrictive containment.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Coburn. Thank you.
Senator Dayton. I appreciate our witnesses' candor and the
excellent discussion. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. I want to make sure everybody understands
that--several have addressed the chair in terms of having this
hearing. The real purpose and drive behind this hearing was
Senator Carper, and he deserves the credit for it because it is
an issue and he is a co-partner with me on this Subcommittee
and I want to recognize him and thank him for that.
I will be sending each of you two written questions, one on
what impact would premature withdrawal from Iraq have in terms
of our relationship with Iran? How do we influence Russia in
terms of the player that we need them to be?
Now we will proceed with the next panel of witnesses. I
want to thank you each for coming to testify and appreciate you
being here. I am sorry that we are running over.
Senator Dayton. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to object to
the questions, but the first one on premature withdrawal seems
to me to be a pretty biased question. I would like to ask the
opportunity to present another question that would be included
to them.
Senator Coburn. Absolutely. Any questions that you would
like to ask, we will be more than happy to have them answered.
Senator Dayton. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. First of all, let me welcome each of you
and thank you very much.
Dr. Gary Samore is Vice President for Global Security and
Sustainability of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation. As Vice President, he is responsible for the
foundation's international grantmaking, currently totaling
approximately $75 million annually. The international program
provides grants in the fields of international peace, security,
human rights, international justice, the environment, and
population. Headquartered in Chicago, the foundation has
offices in Mexico, India, Nigeria, Russia, and supports work in
85 countries.
Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at
the Council on Foreign Relations. His areas of specialization
are Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist
movements and parties. He is also contributing editor of the
National Interest. Mr. Takeyh was previously Professor of
National Security Studies at the National War College,
Professor and Director of Studies at the Near East and
Southeast Asia Center, a National Defense University Fellow in
International Security Studies at Yale University, a fellow at
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a fellow at
the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of
California-Berkeley.
Ilan Berman is Vice President for Policy of the Washington-
based American Foreign Policy Council. He is an expert on
security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian
Federation. He has consulted for both U.S. CIA and the U.S.
Department of Defense and provided assistance on foreign policy
and national security issues to a range of governmental
agencies and Congressional offices. Mr. Berman is Adjunct
Professor for International Law and Global Security at the
National Defense University in Washington, DC. He serves as a
member of the reconstituted Committee on the Present Danger and
is editor of the Journal of International Security Affairs. He
is author of ``Tehean Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United
States,'' published in 2005.
I welcome each of you. Dr. Samore.
TESTIMONY OF GARY S. SAMORE,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT, PROGRAM ON
GLOBAL SECURITY AND SUSTAINABILITY, JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T.
MACARTHUR FOUNDATION
Mr. Samore. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for giving
me this opportunity to discuss the challenge of Iran's nuclear
program with the Subcommittee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Samore appears in the Appendix on
page 88.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to very briefly discuss the main technical
conclusions of the study that you discussed that was put out by
the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies
in September and then I will focus most of my remarks on the
diplomatic state of play concerning efforts to try to prevent
Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
First, from a technical standpoint, the study by the
International Institute of Strategic Studies concludes that
Iran still faces a number of technical hurdles before it can
achieve a nuclear weapons capability in terms of its capability
to produce sufficient fissile material for nuclear weapons. So
we conclude that even if Iran tried to go for a nuclear weapon
as quickly as possible by lifting all political constraints, we
estimate that it would still take several years, perhaps a
minimum of 5 years, before Iran could produce enough weapons-
grade uranium for a single bomb. This estimate represents the
time required to complete and then operate a pilot scale
centrifuge plan long enough to produce 20 to 25 kilograms of
weapons-grade uranium, which is enough for a simple implosion
device.
Over a much longer period of time, over a decade, it would
be possible for the Iranians to complete industrial-scale
enrichment facilities or facilities to produce and separate
large quantities of plutonium, which would make it possible for
the Iranians to have a much larger nuclear weapons program.
None of these technical barriers are fatal, but they create
space and time for international efforts to try to deny Iran
from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of diplomatic efforts over
the past 2\1/2\ years, since Iran's secret nuclear program was
first publicly revealed, have been very mixed. On one hand, to
avoid referral to the U.N. Security Council, which the Iranians
fear could lead to political isolation, economic sanctions, and
even military attack, Teheran has been compelled to cooperate
with investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency
into its nuclear secrets and to suspend some key elements of
its enrichment activity since October 2003.
On the other hand, the Iranians have adamantly rejected all
diplomatic efforts to permanently cease its fuel cycle program
in exchange for assistance to its nuclear power program and
other economic and political inducements offered by European
negotiators. In the same way, I think it is very unlikely that
Iran would accept the current Russian proposal for partial
ownership of an enrichment facility on Russian soil in return
for limiting its indigenous fuel cycle program just to
conversion activities. So whether or not Mohammed ElBaradei,
the head of the IAEA, goes to Teheran prior to the next meeting
of the IAEA Board of Governors in November, I think it is very
unlikely we will see a diplomatic solution.
In other words, Iran has made tactical concessions under
pressure, under threats, to accept limits or some delays in its
nuclear fuel cycle program, but it hasn't been willing to
abandon the program altogether at any price, and I think that
reflects a deeply held and longstanding conviction among all
major elements of Iran's leadership that Iran needs to acquire
a nuclear weapons option, although there may be different views
on the wisdom of actually building nuclear weapons.
So under these circumstances, the immediate diplomatic
objective is to maintain pressure in order to delay the program
by keeping the remaining suspension in place and by putting
pressure on Iran to continue to cooperate with the IAEA.
In this respect, Teheran calculates that the balance of
power is shifting in its direction, which, therefore, reduces
the risk of referral to the Security Council. From the
standpoint of Teheran, the tight oil and gas market affords
protection against the risk of economic sanctions, as the
previous panel discussed, and the U.S. entanglement inside Iraq
provides temporary protection against the risk of U.S. military
attack.
Nonetheless, Teheran has acted very cautiously. In August,
the Iranians resumed operations at the Esfahan uranium
conversion facility to convert yellow cake into US6, feed
material for enrichment, but they have maintained the
suspension on the manufacture, the installation, the operation
of centrifuge machines at their enrichment plant that is under
construction.
Furthermore, the Iranians have continued to dribble out
some enhanced cooperation with the IAEA, most recently allowing
additional access to a military testing facility where it is
thought Iran may have been conducting some weaponization
experiments.
Using these salami tactics, Teheran has successfully
defeated the efforts of the U.S. and European powers at the
IAEA Board of Governors to refer Iran to the U.N. Security
Council, and I suspect that pattern will continue at the next
meeting in 2 weeks.
The near-term danger, it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, is that
Iran will calculate that it has a window of opportunity while
the United States is weak and while the international community
is divided to advance its nuclear program further by lifting
the suspension on some of its enrichment activities while it
continues to cooperate with IAEA inspections. The challenge for
us is to mobilize strong support for enrichment as a red line,
even though we have failed to enforce conversion as a trigger
for referral.
The key here in terms of drawing a new red line is Russia
and China. Certainly, both Moscow and Beijing share our view
that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability,
and as I understand it, they have privately warned Iran through
diplomatic channels not to resume enrichment. But it is less
clear that Moscow and Beijing are prepared to support referral
to the Security Council if Iran resumes its enrichment program
or that they would support any serious international pressure
on Iran in the event that referral takes place.
Basically, Russia and China don't want to be dragged into a
confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, which would
jeopardize their relations with Iran on one hand and their
overall relations with the U.S. and European powers on the
other.
Therefore, it seems to me, in the near term, we need to
convince Moscow and Beijing the best way to avoid a crisis is
to convince Iran not to aggravate the situation by resuming
enrichment activities, and that requires a strong private
warning from Russia and China to Iran not to take that step,
and I certainly hope President Bush makes that point in his
meetings in the next few days with President Putin and
President Hu from China.
If Iran is confronted with such a threat by the big powers,
it may decide that it has no choice but to keep the suspension
in place for the time being, and that could create some
conditions for eventually resuming formal negotiations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to responding to
the Subcommittee's questions and comments.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Mr. Takeyh, thank you very much.
I have read your testimony and your entire testimony will be
made a part of the record.
TESTIMONY OF RAY TAKEYH,\1\ SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST STUDIES,
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Takeyh. Thank you. After, I suppose it is 26 years now,
it is not unusual that the complexion of the Iranian regime is
changing. As was mentioned, a new generation of conservatives
is beginning to come to power with its own distinct views and
ideologies. Ahmadinejad's presidential triumph actually
concludes a cycle of resurgence of the right in Iran that has
now captured all the relevant elected institutions. With this
new generation of hardliners, it is their war with Iraq and not
so much the revolution that is their defining experience. Their
isolation of the United States, their suspicion of the
international community, and their continued attachment to some
basic tenets of the revolution tends to define their ideology.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Takeyh appears in the Appendix on
page 93.
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The new generation of Iranian conservatives are unyielding
in their ideological commitments. They are persistent in their
notion that the government of God has relevance, and they are
rather simplistic in their understanding that all of Iran's
problems could somehow be resolved if only you go back to the
roots of the revolution, whatever that is.
Despite the conservative jubilation, their political
hegemony may prove short-lived. Their conservative government
was elected on a rather daunting mandate of relieving Iran's
economic difficulties. It is unlikely, given their intellectual
poverty, given their corruption, attachment to anachronistic
policies that this government can tackle Iran's significant
political and economic troubles.
There are some signs that the clerical regime is
rebalancing itself and seeking to restrain its new impetuous
president. President Ahmadinejad's inexperience, ideological
stridency has already cost Iran dearly. His uncompromising and
provocative speech in the U.N. September meeting was largely
responsible for crafting an international coalition within the
IAEA for potential referral of Iran to the Security Council.
And, of course, his speech regarding wiping Israel off the map
was also greeted with international condemnation by leading
powers and international institutions.
On the domestic front, Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices, with
their marked incompetence and inexperience, have received a
poor reception even from a friendly hardline parliament that
has refused to confirm a number of his candidates. As we sit
here today, I don't believe Iran still has an oil minister, a
rather critical portfolio for a country that is so energy
dependent.
Given this record of inaccomplishment in a rather brief
tenure, in a rather unprecedented move, the Supreme Leader of
Iran has empowered the Expediency Council and Mr. Rafsanjani to
supervise the workings of the government. How this will evolve
in practice is hard to tell, but it seems to be an attempt, a
rather subtle one, to restrain Mr. Ahmadinejad, check his
excesses, and impose limits on his rather provocative
ideological vision.
Iran today is what it has been, I suspect, for the past 27
years, a Nation in search of an identity. It oscillates between
sort of the promises of democratic modernity and retrogressive
tradition. Iran will change. However, Iran's democratic
transition must come on its own terms and its own pace. The
castigation of Iran, denigration of its political process, only
provides ammunition to hardliners decrying Iran's democrats and
reformers as unwitting agents of Western machination. Contrary
to depictions, the struggle in Iran is not a simple conflict
between the people and the mullahs. Iran's factional politics,
ideological divisions, political rivalries are much more
complex and nuanced. The dissident clerics within the
seminaries, the young functionaries within the state, the
student organizations defying the authorities, and Iranian
women who persistently challenge religious strictures all are
part of a movement seeking to liberalize the parameters of the
state. The stark division between the people and the regime
quickly fades when one considers how decentralized and flexible
Iran's governing order has become in the intervening 30 years.
What is to be done is the question that is often posed,
nearly impossible to answer. At the outset, it must be
appreciated that the notion of a regime change is more of a
slogan than a policy. The United States does have an important
stake in Iran's internal struggles. As I mentioned, Iran will
change. However, this is not a change that can be imposed,
manipulated, accelerated from abroad. The best manner of
impacting Iran's internal struggles is to reconnect the
American and Iranian societies. Cultural exchanges, academic
scholarships, trade, relaxed visa policies can yield a great
degree of interaction between two societies that have been long
estranged from another and effectively erode the foundations of
the theocratic regime.
Beyond that, the United States would be wise to relax its
rhetoric. For too long, we have relied on the hard stick of
coercion. It is perhaps time to consider overwhelming Iran with
America's more compelling soft power. By integrating Iran in
the global economy and the global society, the United States
can generate internal pressures for transparency,
decentralization that will press Iran toward a more responsible
international conduct. Through a multilateral and multifaceted
approach, the United States can best deter Iran's provocative
policies in the short term and cultivate a democratic
transition in the long run. I will stop right there.
Senator Coburn. Thank you very much. Mr. Berman.
TESTIMONY OF ILAN BERMAN,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT FOR POLICY,
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL
Mr. Berman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask
also at the outset, like my colleagues, that my written
testimony be entered into the record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Berman appears in the Appendix on
page 99.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Coburn. All written testimonies will be placed in
the record, without objection.
Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir. And also, I would like to say
that my oral remarks are intended as an elaboration of several
of the points in my written testimony, primarily four points.
First, what we know about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Second,
what the international response has been so far. Third, the
flaws in that response. And fourth, some proposals about what
the United States can do.
First, all of the indications suggest that Iran's nuclear
program is far more than simply an effort to develop civilian
nuclear energy. You have many concealed sites. You have work on
both uranium enrichment and plutonium conversion. You have a
pattern of consistent diplomatic obfuscation vis-a-vis the
International Atomic Energy Agency. And most importantly,
because of the ideological connotations, the nuclear program,
as well as Iran's chemical and biological weapons program and
its strategic arsenal of ballistic missiles, is firmly in the
control of the clerical army, the Pasdaran, which were created
by the Ayatollah Khomeini as the shock troops of the Islamic
revolution.
Also, in the public discourse, there have been a lot of
discussions about reasons why Iran is not simply seeking
civilian nuclear energy. Let me propose one more. Iran is a
major oil exporter. It exports approximately 2.5 million
barrels per day, 60 percent of its total output. But according
to the U.S. Department of Energy, last year, it imported
between two and three billion U.S. dollars' worth of refined
gasoline. If Iran was truly interested in rapidly filling
domestic energy needs, it could easily build new refineries.
After all, they cost much less than nuclear reactors. The fact
that it is not doing so is very telling.
The international response to Iran's nuclear ambitions has
been woefully inadequate thus far. Since mid-2003, our
principal vehicle of engagement has been the EU3 negotiations,
which are aimed at securing a lasting Iranian freeze on uranium
enrichment in exchange for economic and political incentives.
Since February of this year, the Bush Administration has thrown
its weight behind this diplomatic process, despite the fact
that the President has previously reiterated that he ``will not
tolerate a nuclear Iran.''
The flaws with this process are manyfold. First of all, it
is quite clear that the United States and its allies across the
Atlantic have incompatible goals. The Bush Administration has
made clear that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, but some
European officials have endorsed at least a degree of atomic
capability. In fact, a European Union proposal submitted in the
spring of this year actually offers a certain level of nuclear
capability to the Islamic Republic. That offer was rejected,
but the offer was on the table.
Also, it is not at all clear that the United States and our
allies in Europe can actually reach a durable consensus about
exactly which degree of nuclear capability is acceptable for
the Islamic Republic to have. We certainly have a stricter
interpretation of the type of nonproliferation activities that
we should be pursuing towards Iran than France and Germany do,
for example.
Second, we have a problem regarding expectations. We should
have very low expectations for this process. Europe's current
diplomatic approach is not a new effort. During the mid-1990s,
the EU attempted very much the same thing. It attempted to
influence Teheran's stands on weapons of mass destruction, on
terrorism, on human rights, and on the Israeli-Palestinian
confrontation through a series of political and economic
inducements. That process was called ``critical dialogue.''
``Critical dialogue'' fizzled in the middle of 1997, but the
harm had already been done. It had been an economic and
political boon to the Islamic Republic. It had reconnected Iran
with a number of important trading and political partners in
Europe. And the rest, as they say, is history.
There is every reason to suspect that the current round of
negotiations, as we are seeing already, will fail as well, all
of the current indications suggest that the goal of the Islamic
Republic is not to allow an indefinite freeze on its nuclear
progress.
There is also a question regarding timing. Until quite
recently, Washington and Europe were very far apart in their
conceptions about when Iran would actually go nuclear. In this
context, a new national intelligence estimate that Senator
Collins mentioned earlier, which estimated that Iran would have
a nuclear capability in 10 years, can be and should be seen as
a political move by the intelligence community to endorse the
European negotiating track.
Candidly, I would say that this approach is foolish at
best, and it is dangerous, at worst, for the simple reason that
there are many of what Secretary Rumsfeld calls ``unknown
unknowns.'' The national intelligence estimate makes no mention
of Iranian clandestine acquisition efforts on the nuclear black
market that exists in the former Soviet Union. It makes no
mention of its clandestine interaction with cartels, such as
that of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, which still
exists in one form or another. And as a result, the types of
projections that we receive from this national intelligence
estimate are, frankly, a bit detached from reality.
Finally, and I think this is a crucial point, the
diplomatic track has no credible end game. Even if the
International Atomic Energy Agency votes next week to refer the
Iranian nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council, the most
likely result is going to be diplomatic deadlock. It is going
to be diplomatic deadlock because two of the Security Council's
permanent members, Russia and China, have been central to the
development and evolution of the Iranian nuclear program over
the past decade and a half. This track record of cooperation
means that any application of sanctions, let alone anything
more forceful, by the United Nations is highly unlikely and
actually might look every bit as tense diplomatically as the
run up to the Iraq war did.
This has substantial implications for U.S. strategy. The
fundamental problem that we are facing is that Iran's nuclear
clock, the clock that is ticking down to when Iran has some
level of nuclear capability, is ticking much faster than its
regime change clock, the clock that is ticking down until a
fundamental transformation of the regime from within. Altering
that equation, and making the nuclear clock tick slower and the
regime clock tick faster, should be, in my estimation, the
starting point for any serious American strategy.
The United States can do so. It can delay Iran's nuclear
ambitions and mitigate their impact on the Middle East through
a series of measures, including international cooperation,
aggressive counterproliferation, and even Gulf defense. What it
can't do, however, is change Iran's desire for the bomb, and
this is what makes the issue of regime character paramount.
The radical regime in Iran is the world's leading state
sponsor of terrorism. It is also actively proliferating
catastrophic technologies to groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This means that it is foolish to assume that Iran is going to
be a mature nuclear possessor. As a result, the United States
must do more than simply deter and contain Iran. It has to also
focus its energies upon the means by which it can spur a
fundamental transformation of that regime. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Thank you very much.
First of all, Dr. Samore, what would happen if Iran had
fissile material now, in your estimate?
Mr. Samore. You mean if they suddenly were able to acquire
sufficient quantities of fissile material from North Korea or
the black market or something?
Senator Coburn. Yes.
Mr. Samore. Well, that would drastically reduce the amount
of time it would take for the Iranians to be able to build
nuclear weapons. Now, it is very difficult, I think, to give
you an accurate estimate of how much time it would take because
at least in terms of the information that is publicly
available, we really don't know very much about Iran's
weaponization activities, and so as a consequence, I can't tell
you whether it is 6 months or 1 year or 2 years or 3 years. We
just don't know about their weaponization----
Senator Coburn. But it would certainly advance it?
Mr. Samore. It would certainly advance it significantly.
The most important constraint on their ability to build nuclear
weapons right now is that they can't produce adequate amounts
of fissile material. If you suddenly made that available, it
would dramatically really remove that most significant
technical hurdle.
Senator Coburn. Iran has made tactical concessions, but
really no real change in agenda, just a lengthening out in
terms of their plans, actually delay getting caught at what we
actually know, I believe, is going on, in terms of what we have
seen. What should be our approach?
Mr. Samore. Well, as I suggested, I don't see a diplomatic
deal under current circumstances that would convince the
Iranians to permanently give up their ambition to develop a
nuclear weapons option. Therefore, I think the best you can do
diplomatically is use the threat of referral to the Security
Council in order to stop some of the key elements of the
program. And as I suggested since October 2003, that approach
has had some success in stopping the Iranians from at least
proceeding with their enrichment program.
So as I look at this issue in terms of the art of the
possible, I think you have got to focus on making the threat of
referral to the Security Council as credible as possible in
order to convince the Iranians not to proceed with those
sensitive elements of the program, and as Ray Takeyh has
discussed, I think that the missteps of President Ahmadinejad
has tremendously helped us because it has made Teheran much
more nervous about international political isolation, and as a
consequence, I think our ability to pressure the Iranians to
continue to be cautious has been actually helped quite a bit by
President Ahmadinejad.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Mr. Takeyh, I really had a good
time reading your statement. There were a lot of things brought
up in your statement that I hadn't quite honestly thought
about. A couple of questions that I have for you.
What are the threats that if you were to sit down and teach
me tomorrow in the mind of the Iranians, what are the threats
that they see that they face? I think to understand this, we
have got to understand where they are in their mindset.
Mr. Takeyh. In terms of the strategic threats, since
September 11, the strategic situation of Iran has been sort of
paradoxical. On the one hand, through United States policy, two
of Iran's enemies, in Afghanistan and Iraq, have been removed
from power, so objectively, Iran's security has improved.
Yet at the same time, there has been sort of a massive
projection of American power on all of Iran's periphery and
this projection of power has come with a rather provocative
American doctrine that has suggested preemption as a tool of
disarmament, regime change as an avenue of disarmament, so that
their sense of insecurity has been intensified and that has
made the option of nuclear deterrence even more viable.
The other lessons that Iranians have drawn from Operation
Iraqi Freedom is that mere possession of chemical and
biological weapons do not constitute a necessary deterrent to
possible American intervention. I mean, that was the lesson of
Iraq, namely, even when the United States contemplated that
Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, it was nevertheless
not deterred by that and it went in.
So, therefore, the lesson of the Operation Iraqi Freedom is
the only way the United States can potentially be deterred is
through the possession of the strategic weapon, and that lesson
has been even more dramatically reinforced by developments in
the Korean peninsula, namely that once you do have at least the
perception of nuclear weapons or perception of that capability,
that not only obviates possibility of coercive regime change,
but that invites potential security and economic concessions.
So almost everything that has happened during the past 3 years
has made the nuclear weapons option a more strategic
tantalizing and appealing one.
Senator Coburn. But the threat is us?
Mr. Takeyh. Primarily threat. There are a number of
threats. The primary threat today as far as the Iranians are
concerned most likely is the United States. There are a series
of secondary threats--the stability of Pakistan and potential
collapse of Pakistan to a Sunni radical regime with hostility
to a Shiite Iran, potentially what type of Iraq emerges next
door. Is it going to be a strong, cohesive state, maybe even
behaving as an adjunct of American power in the Gulf, or is it
going to be a weak, decentralized state with the possibility of
civil war seeping over? This is the unpredictable nature of
Iraq. And what type of a security architecture emerges in the
Persian Gulf, which still constitutes Iran's most suitable link
to the international petroleum market, the lifeblood of its
economy.
So there is a series of long-term and short-term threats
that condition Iran's strategic approach and condition its
defense priorities.
Senator Coburn. Thank you very much.
Senator Carper. Gentlemen, thank you all for being with us
today and for your testimony.
Let me just ask of Mr. Takeyh, you and I have talked
before. Do I understand that your family is from Iran?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes.
Senator Carper. Were you born there?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes.
Senator Carper. OK. Do you ever go back for any visits?
Mr. Takeyh. Teheran, spring of 1979.
Senator Carper. Nineteen seventy-nine, that was the last
time you were there? And Dr. Samore?
Mr. Samore. Yes, I was there in March. It was quite an
interesting trip. March of this year.
Senator Carper. Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. No, sir.
Senator Carper. Dr. Samore, talk to us a little bit about
how people responded to you or to other Americans with whom you
were traveling.
Mr. Samore. Well, one of the fascinating things about Iran
is that Americans are very popular. It is very unlike traveling
throughout the Arab world, where, of course, people are
hospitable because that is their custom, but you know that they
are not really very happy with Americans. Because from the
standpoint of many ordinary people in Iran, they see the United
States as standing for democracy and freedom and social
freedom, which is the main grievance, I think, against the
regime. You find when you talk to young people that they feel
that their personal freedom and economic opportunities are not
faring very well. Now, that doesn't mean they are ready for
revolution. It is just that is their complaint against the
mullahs.
Senator Carper. How do you explain, how do we explain a
radical mayor of Teheran taking out in a presidential election
Rafsanjani, who has been there forever?
Mr. Samore. Well, I think that was Rafsanjani's problem. I
mean, he was seen as very much a representative of corrupt
order that had failed to solve these kinds of problems and
Ahmadinejad ran on really a populist ticket that he would deal
with issues of social injustice and economic unfairness. But
Ray might be in a better position to address that.
Senator Carper. Mr. Takeyh.
Mr. Takeyh. I think it was a powerful appeal of the notion
of economic justice, the notion of anti-corruption, the idea of
the powerful and the powerless, and he managed to appeal to
that particular instinct. At the time of economic hardship and
economic difficulty for the average Iranian, he manages to
essentially have a very populist appeal at that time.
I think some of that has evaporated, given the fact that
his economic program is rather discursive, but it was
essentially a very populist campaign where he essentially ran
against the establishment, an establishment that was detached,
that was indifferent, and in many cases corrupt.
Mr. Samore. Just to make one other point, Senator, I think
it is important to recognize that Ahmadinejad is seen as a
minor player in foreign and defense policy. I mean, the key
players on the nuclear issue and on broader foreign and defense
policy is really the Supreme Leader and also the head of the
Expediency Council, Rafsanjani. So I think that even though
Ahmadinejad may say very provocative things, which isolates
Iran, he is not really the one who is making the key decisions
on the nuclear program.
Senator Carper. Who appoints the head of the Expediency
Council?
Mr. Samore. Well, the Supreme Leader.
Senator Carper. All right. So the guy who heads up the
Expediency Council, appointed by the Supreme Leader, was just
defeated in a presidential election by the old mayor of
Teheran.
Mr. Samore. Well, I mean, Ray is the expert, but what I
have learned about looking at Iranian politics is that they are
incredibly complicated and subtle and that you had many
different competing forces and personalities and it is all a
balance that is very difficult, I think, for outsiders to fully
appreciate.
Keep in mind, these people have known each other for years
and years. I mean, after the founder of the revolution died in
1989, the country was ruled by the Supreme Leader Khamenei and
by President Rafsanjani. So they have been partners in sharing
power since 1989.
Senator Carper. In this country, we think of the President
and we think of a strong chief executive, the commander in
chief, the head of the Executive Branch of our government who
holds sway in a lot of ways. But I gather that is not the case
in Iran?
Mr. Takeyh. There is a--it is a peculiar constitutional
structure. In a sense, there are elected institutions, the
parliament and the office of the presidency, but they are
rather subordinate to unelected institutions, which are first
and foremost, of course, the Office of the Supreme Leader,
which tends of oversee all national affairs, the Council of
Guardians that vets legislation and suitability of candidates
for public office, and the Office of Expediency Council, whose
job it is to mediate differences between the presidency and the
parliament should there be a deadlock between them. And the way
policy is made, it is an informal interaction between all these
institutions and all these individuals.
I want to say that Ahmadinejad is not an irrelevant player
in Iran's foreign policy deliberation. He has a seat at the
table. But he is not the predominant player. He certainly has
an influential voice. He has an influential power base within
the Revolution Guard and the judiciary and so forth. But he is
an actor within a larger drama.
Senator Carper. Who makes, or what group of folks over
there make the decision as to whether or not to acquiesce and
to find common ground with the Europeans and us in this
negotiation?
Mr. Takeyh. The nuclear decisions are made within the
context of the Supreme National Security Council, which has all
the relevant members within it. There is a separate committee
that actually deals with this issue on a day-to-day basis and
it has five members in it. It is the Minister of Defense, the
Minister of Intelligence, Ali Larijani, who is the head of the
Supreme Council, head of the National Security Council. It is
the representative of the president and also members of the
military and the Revolutionary Guard. They tend to deal with
this issue on an operational level and make their
recommendations to the larger Supreme National Security
Council, which ultimately comes to a decision on whether Iran
should accept or defer any sort of an arrangement with the
Europeans, IAEA, what have you.
Senator Carper. Going back to my earlier question, it
sounds like this new president was elected, at least in part on
the issues of economic justice and appealing to the electorate.
My sense is that a lot of people who are maybe more the
moderates or the reformers within the country stayed home and
didn't vote because a lot of the folks they would like to have
supported for parliamentary positions were not allowed to run.
I am trying to figure out, and help me with this, I am
trying to figure out what kind of incentives are the real power
brokers in this country likely to respond to, or what kind of
pressures are they likely to respond to?
Mr. Takeyh. Well, as far as Ahmadinejad is concerned, there
is not a whole lot of either incentives or pressures that is
going to have a meaningful impact on him. I mean, he is rather
dubious of international investment and he is indifferent to
threats of coercion and sanctions and so forth and obviously
incredulous to any sort of American military sanction, given
the problems next door.
But as a whole, I mean, this is a system, this is a
government that comes to decision on the nuclear issue, and
before one postulates incentives and so forth, we have to
understand what sort of a nuclear deal one is looking for,
whether it is the dispension of the fuel cycle, a permanent
one, a durable one, what have you. But it is important to look
at Iran within a long history of proliferation.
This is not the first time the international community has
met a challenge of proliferation. In the past, many states--
Argentina, Brazil, South Africa--have toyed with the idea of
having nuclear weapons as a means of dealing with their
security concerns. In all these cases, there was ultimately a
set of factors that led these countries to step back from the
nuclear precipice. First, it was a lesson, external danger. I
mean, in a sense, the strategic environment that they existed
in changed.
Second of all, it was always a combination of inducements,
economic rewards, access to international lending institutions,
preferential trade arrangements, essentially a sort of a
counterbalancing set of incentives that led them to deter from
pursuing nuclear weapons. I understand every country is
different and has to be viewed within the context of its own
national narrative, but I can't think of a country that has
disbanded nuclear weapons capability or has disavowed those
intentions on the threat of economic strangulation or military
reprisal.
Decades of sanctions against Pakistan ultimately did not
deter the Pakistanis from actually detonating the bomb. You can
say similar things about India. And ultimately, what we know
about China in the 1960s, it was its perceptions of danger and
its perception of inevitability of conflict with the United
States that led it to actually develop its own indigenous
nuclear capability.
So the combination of incentives and penalties, big sticks
and big carrots, ultimately is the only diplomatic approach to
dissuading a country from pursuing nuclear weapons, and I
suspect that is true even in the case of Iran.
Mr. Samore. Although I would just want to add that in the
talks so far with the EU3, the Iranians have not suggested that
some set of incentives or inducements would be sufficient to
convince them to give up their efforts to develop a fuel cycle
program. Their position has been that under no conditions, not
at any price, will we agree to permanently give up our
enrichment program.
Now, Mr. Takeyh may be right that at some point, the
Iranian leadership will decide that they will see what they can
get in exchange for trading this program away, especially if it
looks like the risks of proceeding with it are so great that
they don't have any choice. But certainly the record of the
negotiations so far does not suggest that there is a deal out
there: If only we make the carrots look a little bit more
attractive, the Iranians will give up their program.
Unfortunately, this program has a very deep history. It
goes back at least 20 years under the revolution, and in fact,
if you look at the Shah's nuclear program in the 1970s, it
looks amazingly like the program now. So I suspect that this is
something pretty deeply rooted in the Iranian sense of what
their national destiny is and their national needs are.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you very much.
Senator Coburn. Senator Dayton.
Senator Dayton. Briefly, gentlemen, because my time is
limited, would you say that Ahmadinejad won a democratic
election?
Mr. Takeyh. I think there were two elections that took
place. The first one is the election that had all the members
and he came in second in that particular election, I think with
19 percent of the vote, in order to make it to the second
round. The top two candidates made it. He and Rafsanjani made
it. I think in the first election, there were ample
irregularities and he was unlikely to have that position in a
sort of a clear voting and a pristine election.
Then comes the second election, where he is in a run-off
with former President Rafsanjani and he wins by 63 percent of
the vote. I think that was actually legitimate, in the sense
that I don't believe that Mr. Rafsanjani, which has so
intimately involved with Iranian corruption, could have won any
sort of a--he has no electoral----
Senator Dayton. I need you to be brief, I am sorry, because
I am short of time. Mr. Berman, do you want to answer?
Mr. Berman. Senator Dayton, let me just say the following.
I think we tend to view the Iranian elections incorrectly. Dr.
Takeyh just talked about two elections. In fact, there were
actually three selections that took place. There was a
selection that took place earlier in the spring in which the
political vetting authority for the Islamic Republic excluded
more than 1,000 potential presidential candidates. The slate
that was left was a slate of eight and it spanned the political
spectrum. There were reformists, there were conservatives,
there were hardliners, there were people like Mr. Ahmadinejad,
who were former Pasdaran officials.
But the common thread uniting all of them was the fact that
the Supreme Leadership of the Islamic Republic was comfortable
enough with them. They might talk a different talk, but they
walk the same walk. And that, I think, informs the rest of the
political process going forward. It is impossible to talk about
Iran in electoral terms the way we talk about the United
States.
Senator Dayton. It seems that you are, like the first
panel, very pessimistic about the prospects for stopping Iran's
nuclear program short of a regime change or major change of
mind on their part, which you said is the result of big carrots
and big sticks which are hard to formulate. Mr. Berman, you
seem to be of this group the principal advocate for regime
change, which seems to me only to be achievable by direct
military intervention by the United States. Do you have a
strategy or a game plan for regime change, or what does that
entail?
Mr. Berman. I think this is obviously the $64,000 question.
In my book, ``Teheran Rising,'' I propose a two-tier strategy.
The first track is designed to delay the time when Iran gets a
nuclear weapon; in essence, to create a window of opportunity.
You can do that through counterproliferation, through missile
defense, through all sorts of tactical measures. But that is
the easy part.
The hard part becomes what to do with the time that you
have gained. Here, the essential discourse in the United States
has to be about what kind of regime you want ultimately to
wield those weapons. This regime has a checkered past. It is
the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. It will not be
a mature nuclear possessor. Therefore, you have to think about
regime change, and that opens up the door for discussions about
things like Speaker Gingrich talked about.
Broadcasting is one approach. Today, this fiscal year, the
entire U.S. Government broadcasting effort into Iran is $16.4
million. That is roughly 21.5 cents per Iranian per year for a
country of 70 million. You can argue about how much that should
be increased, but it is quite clear that if our message is not
getting through, it might be through lack of bandwidth, through
lack of resources.
I actually agree with Dr. Takeyh on the idea of cultural
exchanges. During the Cold War, we had the opportunity through
third country contacts to cultivate a cadre of leaders like
Vaclev Havel, like Lech Walesa, that would go back and take the
American message back to their home countries. We haven't done
that. We have really abdicated the tools of political warfare
that we used during the Cold War.
Senator Dayton. Do either of you care to comment? It seems
to me that if we want to assure that we are deadly serious
about stopping proliferation, that it is unlikely that we are
going to get them to stop proliferation as long as they are
increasingly fearful that we are going to propose regime
change. As you said, Mr. Takeyh, where they are concerned, the
primary concern is about our intervention, which I assume means
to them a military intervention to bring about regime change.
Then at the same time, we are talking about better
interorganizational and personal exchanges. It doesn't seem
like a consistent or coherent policy.
Mr. Samore. Well, I think the best you can do with
diplomacy now is buy time, and I think the most effective tool
to buy time is the threat of referral to the Security Council.
And since October 2003, that has been an effective instrument
which has forced the Iranians to limit their nuclear program.
So my argument is that, in a tactical sense, what we have
to do is try to strengthen the credibility of that threat in
order to buy time. What happens in the long term, whether it is
possible for the United States to change Iran through either
soft or hard means or some combination of the two, I don't
think anybody can be confident of that. But clearly, we want to
buy time, and the best way to do that----
Senator Dayton. So if you were going to recommend or
structure a Senate resolution that was going to have some real
effect to it, some reality-based teeth to it, would you
recommend then something along the lines of that kind of urging
that kind of referral?
Mr. Samore. Frankly, I think what is much more important
than what the United States does is what Russia and China does,
because the Iranians already know that the United States and
the major European powers are prepared to send them to the
Security Council if they break the enrichment red line. But
there is uncertainty or ambiguity about where Moscow and
Beijing is. So I think this is really much more an
international issue than anything the United States does,
either Congress or the Executive Branch.
Senator Dayton. My time has expired, but it has been an
excellent panel. I thank all three of you. It has been very
enlightening. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Senator Santorum, thank you very much for
being here. Your statement will be made a part of the record.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RICK SANTORUM, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF PENNSYLVANIA
Senator Santorum. I appreciate that. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here to talk to these folks and I appreciate
your willingness to let a non-member sit on the panel.
[The prepared statement of Senator Santorum follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SANTORUM
For many years, the Department of State has consistently declared
the Islamic Republic of Iran the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.
The Iranian regime created Hezbollah, arguably the most dangerous
terrorist organization, and it actively supports Hamas and Islamic
Jihad. The leader of the terrorist insurgency in Iraq, Abu Musab al
Zarqawi, lived in Teheran while he created a terrorist network that
ranged from Afghanistan to the capitals of Europe, including Italy and
Germany.
In recent weeks, the British Government has blamed Iranian
terrorists for the killing of several British soldiers in southern
Iraq. Our own government has repeatedly declared that Iran is deeply
involved in supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists against
American and other coalition soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just last Friday, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, in a public
statement in New Delhi, proclaimed Iran ``a terrorist state.''
And as we all know, it is a terrorist state intent on acquiring
nuclear weapons. That thought alone should put Iran at the top of our
national agenda.
In short, there is no doubt about Iran's leading role in the terror
war directed against us and our friends and allies, or about the
importance of dealing effectively with the Islamic Republic. yet, more
than four years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, this
administration still has not defined an Iran policy.
This is both lamentable and dangerous. Lamentable, because it
bespeaks a lack of will and coherence on the part of the Executive
Branch. Dangerous, because we can expect the Iranians and their
terrorist allies to do everything in their power to kill Americans.
We must have an Iran policy, and that policy must directly pressure
the Teheran regime. To that end. I and others in this body have
introduced legislation. S. 333, the Iran Freedom and Support Act, that
would put the United States firmly and actively on the side of the vast
majority of Iranians, those who oppose the repressive terrorist regime
under which they suffer, and which they desperately want to replace
with a free and democratically elected government. Additionally, I have
introduced S. 1737, the Iranian Nuclear Trade Prohibition Act of 2005,
to prevent U.S. entities from purchasing nuclear fuel assemblies from
entities that provide these items to Iran.
It is regrettable that we have not rallied to the side of the
democratic opposition in Iran. To date, despite numerous fine
statements from the President and the secretaries of state and defense,
no real support has been given to the pro-democracy forces in Iran.
Indeed these fine words, combined with inaction, are a betrayal of the
Iranian people, because the words lead them to expect that we will act,
and encourage them to expose themselves to a harsh regime that
ruthlessly arrests, tortures and murders them.
I would have preferred to follow the lead of the Executive Branch
on this matter, but we clearly have an obligation to insist on an
effective Iran policy. The events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and
Syria have shown that the peoples of the Middle East want freedom and
are prepared to take great risks, and pay a great and terrible price,
in order to achieve it. The Iranians have often taken to the streets to
demonstrate their desire for freedom, and I believe it both wise and
morally right for us to support them.
In fact, it would be the right policy for us, even if Iran were not
the leading supporter of terrorism, and were not actively encouraging
and enabling the killing of our men and women in Iraq, even as I speak.
A generation ago, this body gave full support to democratic dissidents
in the Soviet Empire, from Jewish refuseniks to Polish workers in the
then largely unknown city of Gdansk. The Jackson-Vanik Act and the
other measures enacted by the Senate gave hope to men and women who, in
remarkably short order--and contrary to the confident predictions of
scores of self-proclaimed experts--brought down a tyrannical regime
that many believed would rule indefinitely.
We can, and we must, do the same for the Iranian people. We must do
it because it is right, because it will strike a devastating blow
against the terrorists with whom we are at war, and because it will
save the lives of fine people, including our own children.
Senator Santorum. It is interesting, just to pick up where
Senator Dayton left off and summarize what you are saying, is
that your sense is that additional sanctions may not be all
that helpful from the United States. Putting additional
sanctions on Iran will not be the stick that will be helpful.
Mr. Berman, you suggested that we need to send better
messages into Iran as a way to begin to change the regime. As
you know, I have introduced a piece of legislation that tries
to provide help to opposition forces, opposition groups. Can
you give me a sense of what you would do? First off, does that
make sense to you, and what sort of help can we provide to
these nascent groups in Iran that are, as Mr. Samore said, are
pro-American and pro-democracy? What can we do to take this
rather disorganized group of people, from every report, and
begin to gel a real opposition movement?
Mr. Berman. I think better messages should be just the
beginning. A little over a month ago, I was on the West Coast.
I had the opportunity to interact very extensively with the
Iranian-American community there and I learned an interesting
fact which I didn't know before. There are 22 radio and
television broadcast outlets that beam into Iran via satellite
or medium-wave, long-wave radio that operate, if not 24 hours a
day, for the majority of the day. Now, certainly some of them
are not good contenders for U.S. support. But I am sure some
are, and frankly, we are not supporting them.
The consequences of that were clear a couple of years ago.
In the summer of 2003, there were protests on a smaller scale
resembling those that took place in Teheran in 1999 that began
to take place on university campuses in Teheran and then
radiated outward to other cities, like Isfahan. As those
gathered strength, a lot of people in Washington, myself
included, were watching this very closely. All of a sudden,
over the course of 3 to 4 days, those protests petered out. It
was rather hard to determine why until I spoke with a number of
people who were involved with U.S. public diplomacy.
The answer was that the Iranian regime could not block
broadcasts, because they were beaming off of a satellite from
NITV (National Iranian Television) in Los Angeles. The students
were using this television outlet to coordinate where the next
protest would be, where the next activities would be. So the
Iranian regime asked the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba to jam
those satellite broadcasts, and they did so. Over the course of
2 to 3 days, the Iranian protests lost steam precisely because
they had no coordinating mechanism.
And by not responding to this in any way, the United States
sent a very dangerous message. The message was: There is a
limit to our support for Iran's urge for democracy. That is the
wrong message to send.
Mr. Takeyh. What you see in Iran today is a considerable
degree of opposition sentiment, but there is no opposition
movement as such. It doesn't have strong labor union
traditions, as you saw in Eastern Europe. There is no
equivalent of Solidarity. There is no charismatic figure, like
Iran's own 1979 revolution, that could bring all these forces
together. There is a lot of division and fragmentation within
the Iranian opposition. They tend to be all over the spectrum.
I am not quite sure if that could be created abroad by any
external power, no matter how powerful. Ultimately, it has to
do with the Iranian people themselves. The Iranian youth has
been particularly imaginative, but they have been imaginative
not in terms of challenging the regime, but circumventing it in
the sense that they have their own private social life, their
own, essentially, activities that they try to conceal from the
regime.
And so long as there is no active Iranian leadership coming
from the domestic scene, internal in Iran coming to the surface
and organizing this opposition sentiment around a cohesive
movement, I am not quite sure there is much the international
community can do.
Mr. Samore. I can only give you the views of the tourist.
It didn't seem to me like this was a sort of pre-revolutionary
situation, where you are going to have people prepared to risk
their lives to try to overthrow the government. They are very
unhappy. Most of them would like to come to the United States
so they could have personal freedom. But I didn't get the sense
that this is a situation where we are likely to be able to
bring about hard regime change.
Both of the other panelists have talked about the value of
soft regime change, that is to say through cultural and other
exchanges, but those kinds of things take a very long time, and
unfortunately, during that time, we have got to try to slow
down the nuclear clock.
Senator Santorum. One other question, and my time is
running out. Just give me your insights as to what you think
Iran is doing to provide assistance to some of the terrorist
elements within Iraq and whether they seem to be functioning
and what the impact of a democratic Iraq is on their world
view.
Mr. Berman. I think this is a central question. There has
been a lot of discussion lately, certainly in the media, about
Iran's role in Iraq in sponsoring the insurgency. I would say
that Iran, in my estimation, has a much more complex role that
it is playing in Iraq than is usually noted. They are not just
sponsoring the insurgency, although there is credible evidence
to suggest that elements of Iran's clerical army, the Pasdaran,
are providing bomb-making assistance, as well as training and
tactics assistance to elements of the Iraqi insurgency.
They are also attempting to shift the terms of the
political debate in Iraq through their sponsorship of certain
groups, such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in
Iraq, SCIRI, and their subsidiary support for armed militias
associated with those groups. SCIRI has a militia named the
Badr organization, which is very active.
The strategy there is multifaceted, I think the goal,
though, is very clear. Last year, the commander of Iran's
clerical army gave a speech in which he said, ``that if
American strategy encounters difficulties in Iraq, it will
stop. Otherwise, it will undoubtedly stretch to other
countries, to neighboring countries.''
This is the clearest indication that I can find in the open
source that Iran has declared opposition to democratization as
a key element of regime strategy, and I think this is something
that should be of very much concern to all of you here in
Washington.
Mr. Takeyh. I would say if you look at Iran's strategy,
which has changed and evolved over time, increasingly, the core
Iranian strategic objective in Iraq is empowerment of the Shiia
community and particularly the organized aspect of the Shiia
community, which happens to be the Supreme Council of Islamic
Revolution, also the Davo party, which the current Prime
Minister of Iraq is a member of, are the most organized ones.
The empowerment of those particular groups is an important
objective in Iran, and somehow you see what they are doing in
Iraq today reminiscent of what they did in Lebanon, namely
organization of the Shiia community, winning their hearts and
minds through economic assistance, but also at the same time
offering assistance to the militia groups that are associated
with those Shiia political parties, such as the Badr brigade.
It is important to recognize the Badr brigade is not an
illegal militia. Iraq's constitution recognizes that political
parties can have armed militias, as was the case with the
Kurdish population, as well.
Increasingly, I begin to think that Iran's strategy in Iraq
is namely the realization of this strategy is contingent on
actually the democratic process. The more Shiites are elected
and the more they are empowered and the more Iraq's promises
become stronger and the central government becomes weaker. As
such, the stability and success of Iraqi democracy is
incongruously in Iran's own interest.
Also, when Iraq is a stable democratic system, that is the
time when the American forces will leave. As the President has
said, we will stand down when they stand up. Well, that is the
day that Iranians are looking forward to.
So I am not quite sure if the Iranian strategy at this
point is to subvert the democratic process.
Mr. Berman. Could I just interject one point here? I think
that is a perfectly valid scenario. There is also another
scenario that I think needs to be taken into account, however.
If it is credible that Iran is attempting to monopolize the
democratic process, there can be an equally credible case made
that Iran is attempting to subvert the democratic process to
foment some sort of civil strife in which Shiite communities
will look to the Islamic Republic for protection and allow Iran
to expand its influence in Iraq that way.
Mr. Samore. Just to answer very briefly, what the Iranians
will say to you is that they have benefitted tremendously from
the U.S. invasion of Iraq. First, the mess in the country and
the insurgency ties down U.S. forces and therefore provides
some protection to Iran and also gives the Iranians leverage
against the United States, because if they want to retaliate if
we do something they don't like, they can step up their support
for the insurgency. So they like the mess next door. That helps
them.
At the same time, what the Iranians will say is that they
think that eventually, when a government emerges in Baghdad, it
is very likely to be dominated by Shiias and therefore very
likely to be much more friendly to them than Saddam Hussein
was.
Some of this may be bravado, but what you hear from
Iranians is the sense that things are going pretty well for
them in terms of the Iraqi situation.
Senator Santorum. Thank you.
Senator Dayton. Senator Coburn, I would like to thank you
for what I think is one of the very best hearings I have had my
entire time in the Senate. It was really excellent. I thank all
of you.
I would like to suggest the possibility of a hearing at
some point to look at what have been the successful strategies
the United States--and Libya comes to mind--with deterring
other nations from going through with this procurement or
development of nuclear weapons. Conversely, what has failed? I
mean, this seems to me the crux of the problem here.
Again, I commend you for this. It has really been very
insightful. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. We will take that under
advisement with Senator Carper.
First of all, let me thank each of you for your time and
your testimony. There are several questions that we will be
submitting that we would like for you to answer, if you would,
on a timely basis. I plan on contacting each of you. I want to
learn more about your thoughts.
Mr. Takeyh, you have a great insight because not only are
you an American, you are an Iranian and that gives us an
insight into feelings, emotions, and connectivity with the
Islamic Republic of Iran that we might not have otherwise, and
so I look forward to visiting with each of you on this very
difficult subject for us. Thank you very much for being here.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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