2009 Annual Conference Panel I: Assessing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge
Featuring Robin Wright, Hans Blix, Robert Einhorn, Karim Sadjadpour, James Woolsey
These remarks were delivered at the first panel of the 63rd Annual Conference, November 13, 2009 Robin Wright:  Good morning. I’m Robin Wright, I’m a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. I am delighted to be chairing this very timely panel with four exceptional people to discuss the issue of Iran: US policy, nuclear proliferation and what’s next. Each one will speak for about fifteen minutes and then we will open it up to questions. Iran is particularly timely right now for many reasons. First of all, we are in the midst of discussions with Iran, trying to figure out if there is a future in talks and a future in diplomacy. It also comes at an important juncture in terms of its internal political development. The United States faces the challenge not only of trying to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon but also – at a time when we face the most vibrant civil disobedience campaign in Iran’s revolutionary history over the past thirty years – how to ensure that dealing with this particular Iranian government does not in the end do harm to a kind of movement that we actually hope is influential in terms of the ideas it represents. Iran is also one of the two issues that will most shape the Obama administration’s foreign policy (Afghanistan is obviously the second). The last five American presidents have been able to put Iran ultimately on the back burner when they could not make any significant progress. Because of the state of Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration does not have that option. To discuss the various angles in this challenge, we have four very distinguished panelists this morning to address the four most important issues. We will begin with Robert Einhorn, who is a special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control at the State Department. Mr. Einhorn has served in a wide range of positions on issues of arms control and proliferation at the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, including as a member of the US delegation to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union. He joined the State Department Policy Planning staff in 1986 and in 1992 became Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau for Political-Military Affairs. From 1999 to 2001, he served as Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation. He has also served as a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is going to address the issues from the US perspective. Then we will hear from Karim Sadjadpour, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Karim was previously the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, where he was based in Tehran. He is also a leading researcher on the leadership in Iran and is the author of a book I recommend to everyone called Reading Khamenei: The Worldview of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader. He was recently named one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is going to address the issue of Iran from Iran’s perspective. Hans Blix is a name known to everyone. He heads the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, established by the Swedish government in 2003 and designed to reduce the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix has a long history working in the field of weapons proliferation. He was Director General of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, from 1981 until 1997. In 2000 he was appointed Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. He began his career in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in 1978 was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is going to address the issue of the international community and the role of the IAEA. Finally we wrap up with Jim Woolsey, who has served in many distinguished positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past thirty years. He headed the CIA from 1993 to 1995 under the Clinton administration. He served as Ambassador to the negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and was Undersecretary of the Navy. He is currently active in Washington serving on the National Commission on Energy Policy and co-chairing the Commission on Present Danger with former Secretary of State George Shultz. He is also on the board of United Against a Nuclear Iran and is currently a venture partner in Vantage Point Venture Partners. Thank you very much.   Robert Einhorn:  Thank you very much, Robin, and I thank the Middle East Institute for this invitation to appear before you.   The United States and its P5+1 partners are pursuing a dual-track strategy for dealing with the challenges posed by Iran’s nuclear program. The two tracks – engagement and pressure – are mutually reinforcing. Without the prospect of facing international pressure, Iran would not have sufficient incentive to negotiate seriously; and without our willingness to engage constructively with Iran, we would have difficulty persuading key countries to apply pressure when and if necessary. A key to our dual-track strategy is unity. The more we and our other P5+1 governments can present Iran with a united front, the more successful we will be in changing Iran’s calculus of costs and benefits. At their meeting in New York on September 23, the P5+1 foreign ministers showed unity by reaffirming their dual-track policy, urging Iran to comply with IAEA and Security Council resolutions, and stressing the urgency of Iran taking practical steps to resolve the nuclear issue. Two days later at the G20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh, President Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy announced that their three countries had presented detailed evidence to the IAEA demonstrating that Iran had for several years been building a covert enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. Iran’s failure to notify the IAEA at the time it decided to construct the facility was a violation of its safeguards agreement. IAEA Director General ElBaradei said Iran was on the wrong side of the law. The revelation of the clandestine enrichment site surprised and I think deeply disturbed both the Russians and the Chinese and helped bring the P5+1 countries closer together in their assessment of Iran’s intentions. It clearly put Iran on the defensive. On October 1, senior P5+1 officials met the Iranians in Geneva. It was the first meeting of this group with Iran during the Obama administration. At lunchtime, for about forty-five minutes, Undersecretary of State Bill Burns engaged bilaterally with the Iranian delegation. In the course of the day the Iranians agreed to three things: first, to hold a second meeting with the P5+1 before the end of October, with an agenda that would focus on nuclear issues as well as other issues that any party wished to raise; second, to admit IAEA inspectors to the Qom enrichment site within the next couple of weeks; and third and most significant, to send 1,200 kilograms of its own low-enriched uranium out of Iran for further enrichment and fabrication into fuel assemblies for the Tehran research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. From October 19-21, ElBaradei convened in Vienna what was supposed to be a technical meeting to work out the details of the Tehran research reactor deal that had been agreed in principle in Geneva. He invited Iran, Russia, France and the United States. The Iranians claimed no agreement had been reached in Geneva and as a result little progress was made. Finally on the third day, ElBaradei presented his own text. It closely reflected what all parties except Iran thought had been agreed more than two weeks earlier: 1,200 kilos of Iranian 3.5 percent enriched uranium (over 75 percent of Iran’s stockpile) would be shipped to Russia before January 15, 2010. Russia would further enrich the uranium to 19.75 percent, the level required to operate the TTR. Russia would then ship the material to France and perhaps another country to fabricate the specially configured fuel assemblies. Finally the assemblies would be sent to Iran by December 2010, in time to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the reactor. In my view and the view of most observers, this was a win-win arrangement. Iran had requested the IAEA’s assistance in acquiring the fuel because it does not currently have the capability to fabricate TTR fuel on its own. The deal would guarantee fresh fuel for the reactor before current fuel supplies run out at the end of next year. For the other parties the deal would significantly draw down the stock of enriched uranium that could be diverted to a nuclear weapons program if Iran decided to do so. It would therefore reduce the anxiety of countries in the Middle East whom have become increasingly concerned by Iran’s accumulation of enriched uranium. It would not by any means be a solution to the Iran nuclear problem, but because Iran would probably take about a year to replenish its stocks, it would buy time for diplomacy to resolve the more fundamental nuclear issue. In short, it would be a modest but worthwhile humanitarian and confidence-building measure. Director General ElBaradei gave the parties two days to confirm their acceptance of the text. Russia, France and the United States quickly responded that they supported the draft agreement. Iran still has not provided a final formal response, although what we have heard so far has been not very encouraging. News reports suggest that instead of shipping its enriched uranium to Russia right away, Iran may insist on keeping the uranium on its territory until it receives fuel assemblies from abroad. That ,of course, would defeat the confidence-building value of the arrangement and is a non-starter. The TRR deal is an opportunity for Iran to start restoring confidence regarding the nature of its nuclear program and to demonstrate that it is prepared to engage seriously in a diplomatic process. We hope it takes advantage of this opportunity. If it does not, the international community will draw its own conclusions. The TRR issue is likely to be a focus of attention at the IAEA board meeting that will be held Thanksgiving week. The board will also be interested in the Director General’s report on the agency’s visit to the Qom enrichment site in late October. The report will be available at the end of next week and is likely to address the question of whether Iran failed to meet its obligation to notify the IAEA in a timely way of its decision to build the facility. It will also address Iran’s continuing failure to cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation of the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program, including strong evidence that it has done work on a missile warhead for delivering nuclear weapons. The next weeks and months will be a critical test of Iran’s intentions. The P5+1 countries approach this period more unified than they have been in several years while the Iranians approach it more isolated and under greater pressure than they have felt for a long time. We have seen progressive tightening of UN sanctions under Resolutions 1737, 1747 and 1803. Businesses and banks are increasingly reluctant to deal with the Iranian financial and other institutions that have facilitated Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. The European Union has adopted measures to limit the granting of export credits. So for Iran the cost of doing business is going up. We have also been reaching out to our regional partners to demonstrate our support for their security in the face of a growing Iranian threat and to demonstrate that any Iranian attempt to use a nuclear weapons capability to exercise hegemony in the region would be counterproductive. Our engagement policy, including the TRR initiative, has begun to pay dividends in terms of unifying the P5+1 countries and bringing together a broader coalition. Russia and China, especially the former, have played important roles in encouraging Iran to accept the TRR deal and cooperate with the IAEA. In an interview last week in Der Spiegel, President Medvedev said that if there is no forward movement by Iran he would not rule out further sanctions. The exposure of the covert enrichment site at Qom has done further damage to Iran’s credibility even among countries habitually inclined to support a non-aligned colleague. So with the playing field tilting somewhat in our direction, we are ready to engage and test Iran’s intentions. We hope Iran will respond positively and promptly because we are not prepared to participate in an open-ended negotiation in which Iran plays for time as its nuclear program advances. But if Iran is not serious about pursuing the engagement track and addressing the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program, we are better positioned than we have been for quite some time to lead the international community down the other track. The choice is Iran’s to make. Thank you. Karim Sadjadpour:  Thank you very much to the Middle East Institute for inviting me. As Robin mentioned, my job today is to describe the view from Tehran. If my presentation sounds incoherent then I have given you an accurate rendition of Iranian political culture today. I would like to probe two questions. The first is, how did we get where we are now? The second is, where do we go from here? It is probably apropos this week that I start my presentation in 1989, not with the fall of the Berlin Wall but with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution, custodianship of the Islamic Republic was left to two individuals: the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who became the main ideologue of the revolution – he was the individual who was going to remain loyal to the ideals of the 1979 revolution; and the second was Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was the dealer to Khomeini’s ideologue – kind of the more pragmatic, wily politician. The first decade of their tenure together, they were fairly complementary. Khamenei was Supreme Leader, Rafsanjani was President and they were kind of equals in terms of their power status. What we saw the second decade of their tenure together was that the differences between them began to grow more pronounced. We saw in 2005, with the election of Ahmadinejad, that Khamenei dealt a very severe blow to Rafsanjani. Khamenei’s power vis-à-vis Rafsanjani had increased substantially. I think what we saw with the last elections of June 12, 2009, was that any remaining moderates and pragmatists that were part of the Iranian power structure have essentially been purged from the system. I describe the color spectrum of the Iranian government post-June 12 ranging from pitch black to dark grey. I think a good litmus test of this is the current speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani. If you were following the Western media ten years ago, Ali Larijani was described as an arch-hardliner. Today you read about him in The New York Times as a moderate or a pragmatist. So you see how this rightward shift has taken place. I think for the current clique in power – and I would describe them as a cartel, a cartel of hard-line and nouveau riche Revolutionary Guardsmen and hard-line clergymen – one thing that is very central to their identity is enmity toward the United States, particularly for Ayatollah Khamenei. He believes that opposition to the United States was a very important pillar of the 1979 revolution and is inextricably linked to their identity as an Islamic Republic. To give you one example of this, when I was based in Tehran several years ago with the International Crisis Group, I remember in 2005 the United States finally lifted its veto to Iran’s accession to the World Trade Organization. That day I happened to be in the office of a fairly senior Iranian official who had a PhD in economics from the United States. He was very upset that the United States has finally lifted its accession to the World Trade Organization. I said: why are you upset? Isn’t this in Iran’s economic interest? He said: it took us ten years to convince our hardliners in Tehran that it is in our interest to join the WTO, and now that the US has finally lifted their veto they think it’s probably not in our interest, because the United States allows us to join. So for many of these individuals in Tehran, they define Iran’s interest by that which is opposed to the United States. Khamenei rules by consensus, not decree. What has transpired since June is that he has surrounded himself with individuals whose default position is essentially defiance and escalation. The figures that were in the government in prior years – Mohammad Khatami or Hashemi Rafsanjani – are not anymore in these key decision-making structures. There is no one really there to de-escalate – when someone escalates there is no one there to de-escalate. Where do we go from here? What is very interesting now, opposition to this current arrangement which Bob Einhorn was talking about – the deal which was negotiated in Geneva – the internal opposition in Iran is as much opposition to Ahmadinejad making that deal as it is to the deal itself. I think many of the people whom you have seen come out against the deal – whether it is Ali Larijani or even the reformist opposition (Mousavi, Khatami, etc.) – don’t want to see Ahmadinejad make that deal. It is not necessarily that they are opposed to the deal in principle. I spoke to a member of the opposition who said that whatever position Ahmadinejad was going to take on this, they were going to oppose him. That being said, there are reasons for the Iranian government to at least feign an interest in compromise, or have an interest in prolonging these negotiations. First of all, the regime is in an unprecedented crisis. Something truly historic is afoot in Iran. We have seen popular uprisings like we have not seen since 1979. While there is so much internal unrest it may make sense for them at various points, when they feel vulnerable, to feign an interest in compromise and stave off that external pressure until they can get their internal house in order. A second reason they may feel compelled at some points to compromise is in search of legitimation. When at home the government is perceived by a large chunk of the population as an illegitimate government, one way that Ahmadinejad may try to redeem himself in the public eye is to show that great powers have legitimized us – we are in negotiations with the United States, they have legitimized us. In terms of where we go from here and what is the view from Tehran, there are a few points – some which are problematic from the US vantage point and others which will make it very difficult to reach some type of modus vivendi. I think first, from the Iranian vantage point, they believe that their indigenous enrichment is now a fait accompli. That is no longer what is being negotiated. This may be enshrined in four UN Security Council resolutions that Iran must cease enrichment but from their vantage point that is no longer what is being negotiated. They believe the Obama administration has come around to accept the idea of enrichment on Iranian soil. Second, I think Iran has backed itself into a very awkward position in that its primary ally right now is Russia, a country which there is tremendous distrust of both at an elite political level in Iran but also at the popular level. There is perhaps no country, if you look at the last century of Iranian history, that from the vantage point of the Iranian people has been less sympathetic to the will of the Iranian people, going back to the 1906 constitutional revolution. If you followed some of the street protests in recent months you notice that one of the chants that has really taken root is “Death to Russia.” Third, another reason that is going to make compromise difficult for Iran or reaching a modus vivendi with Iran difficult is that on one hand Khamenei has surrounded himself with people whose default position is defiance and not compromise – but on the other hand, one thing that has been his modus operandi the last two decades as leader is that you never compromise when you are under pressure. In the face of pressure, whether it is sanctions, military threats, etc., never compromise. If you compromise that is not going to alleviate the pressure, that is going to project weakness and invite even more pressure. So in some ways whether the United States takes an engagement approach, their default position at the moment is non-compromising or defiance. But even if we start to escalate a little bit and increase the pressure, his instincts are to say we can’t compromise under pressure because that is going to increase it. Lastly, what is going to be very problematic for the United States is some of the ways Iran has sought to gain leverage in these negotiations. I’m talking about the charges yesterday against the three hikers for espionage. When I speak to people within Iran’s foreign ministry, they know these charges are farcical. Or the charges against Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, a fifteen-year prison sentence. I think this is going to be very difficult in these negotiations if Iran believes it can somehow gain leverage in these ways on its nuclear file, by essentially exchanging American citizens to enhance its leverage. One last point I would make for the Obama administration: I think Bob Einhorn is absolutely right that the Obama administration’s engagement approach has reaped dividends in a way that the Bush administration’s hard-line approach did not. Whereas the Bush administration’s approach, I would argue, inadvertently united Iran’s competing factions against a common threat, I think the Obama administration’s engagement approach has accentuated the internal divides in Iran, both among political elites and between the regime and the people. But I think we have also made it clear – whether it is our allies in Europe or the Russians and the Chinese – that it is not the United States which is the unreasonable actor in this equation, it is Iran. I think that certainly has been proven. But I think it is going to be very difficult to reach a modus vivendi or a nuclear accommodation with a regime which believes it needs us as an enemy. Second, I think it is going to be a challenge to try to reach that modus vivendi with the government without betraying the will of the many people in Iran who are opposed to the government. I will leave it there. Thank you. Hans Blix:  Thank you very much. It has both advantages and drawbacks to come from far away to this discussion. One is that one is somewhat distant from the inside information. The advantage may be that one can be more detached. Let me start by affirming that in my view it is rational for Iran and other oil-producing countries to build nuclear power plants to generate electricity. It will avoid large emissions of greenhouse gases and enable them to sell the oil they save at prices that can be expected to go up. Accordingly I welcome that the United States and other states negotiating with Iran to abandon enrichment of uranium seem ready, as part of a deal, to support the Iranian program for nuclear power reactors. They thereby demonstrate that they are not seeking to deny Iran the use of high-technology (nuclear energy) but are only concerned about enrichment as a possible path to nuclear weapons. Thirdly, I see it as desirable to persuade countries in areas of tension (such as Iran and the Koreas) to abstain from industrial-scale fuel cycle activities, because suspicions are bound to arise that the aim is to make nuclear weapons or to come close to a bomb-making capacity. Iran’s enrichment program is causing tensions in the Middle East, both in relation to Israel and the Arab states. It could have a domino effect, triggering other countries in the region to move in the same direction as Iran. Whether or not those now in control in Iran – whoever they are – insist on enrichment because they actually aim at making nuclear weapons does not really matter very much for today’s negotiations. After all, even if they were to aim only at self-reliance in nuclear fuel today, they could change their mind anytime. With industrial-scale enrichment they would be closer to weapon capability. It should be recognized that the NPT leaves Iran, like other parties, freedom to develop enrichment and other fuel cycle capabilities for peaceful purposes. Iran denies that the Security Council has any authority to order it to stop enrichment. Rather than seek to enforce the order through drastic measures, the Security Council has been looking – with little success so far – to pressures and persuasion to stop the program. It is hardly surprising however that Iran has ignored all offers of talks that have been conditioned on prior suspension of the enrichment program. If Iran were to take part in talks and bidding, why should it throw away its trump card (possible suspension) before the talks began? While Iran insists that it has an unqualified right under the NPT to enrich uranium, it cannot possibly claim that it has a duty to develop an enrichment program. It is obviously free to abstain from exercising the right that it claims to have. It is free even to formally renounce it for a specific or indefinite period of time, unilaterally or through treaty commitments, if it finds advantage in so doing. I think that Abu Dhabi is one of the countries in the Gulf that has given a commitment not to go for enrichment. Exploring whether there could be any circumstances under which Iran would find advantage in abstaining from enrichment is not easy in a public dialogue. It is better done in private direct talks. It is a pity, in my view, that such talks did not start long ago. Years have been lost during which more centrifuges have been built and pride and prestige may have hardened positions. The current situation is that Iran has declared that it will not discuss its enrichment program while other participants in the direct talks have declared that they will talk about the enrichment program. I take it they will all talk, listen to each other and explore if there can be any meeting of minds, any formula that is found more attractive than no formula. Success is not guaranteed through direct talks. What is certain, in my view, is that a formula cannot be found but for direct talks. Let me now discuss what I imagine may be the demands and offers considered and perhaps advanced from among the P5+1 (although Bob Einhorn could probably give a more accurate description of them). I do not propose to enter into the currently important but somewhat separate question of possible enrichment outside Iran of a defined quantity of uranium to make fuel for a research reactor. Bob touched upon it a fair amount. A successful outcome would improve the atmosphere somewhat but a failure would exacerbate the situation. The P5, we know, wish to see steps to remove the threat of weapons development through the Iranian enrichment program and the heavy water reactor. How far do these steps by Iran need to go? The Security Council has consistently called for an abandonment of the enrichment program but my colleague on the left felt that maybe that has already been tacitly accepted. I don’t know. This is where the Council stands and I think where the parties formally stand. What incentives can be offered to achieve an abandonment or ceasing of the program? And what disincentives? Let me discuss the disincentives first. The destruction and conflict that would be linked to an Israeli armed action must be an awesome perspective to anyone. At the same time perhaps those who are currently in control in Iran might see such attacks as a chance of gaining national popular support. Another disincentive might be a risk over time that more countries in the region may be triggered to move to enrichment and their weapons option – the domino effect. Tension would increase further and so would the cost of military armaments. Lastly, Iranian intransigence would in all likelihood drive the P5 somewhat closer to one another and lead to Security Council agreement on sharper trade, economic and financial sanctions as well as further isolation of Iran. Looking at the incentives for Iran to make concessions, some are well known. First, Iran would no doubt be given assurances of supply from the outside for the enriched uranium that it needs for its power program. This would be a big gain as indigenous enrichment can hardly be economic. Iran has two nuclear power reactors now. My own country, Sweden, has ten. We find it more economic to import enriched uranium. Iran’s own uranium resources are reported to be limited so they will not be able forever to supply their own power industry. Second, investment, financial and economic transactions might be facilitated if they make an agreement. Perhaps resistance even to some pipelines would disappear. Third, support for Iran to get into the World Trade Organization (mentioned a moment ago) might be promised. Fourth, it would seem not farfetched to think that in an agreement the United States could offer guarantees against US attacks on Iran and against US support for subversion inside Iran. Mr. Burns said a moment ago that the US does not aim at regime change in Iran. If such guarantees are possible in the case of North Korea, as they seem to be, why not also in the case of Iran, where we have not seen them on the table? The threat from Iraq being removed, Iran cannot possibly perceive a need for nuclear weapons to protect itself against any other neighbor nor from Israel, if they were to go for new enrichment. Fifth, perhaps the US might offer diplomatic relations. Such offers seem to be made in the case of North Korea. Would it hurt more to make it in the case of Iran? After the absence of relations since 1979 the offer might carry some weight. It need not of course preclude criticism of the current regime. If these incentives and disincentives prove insufficient to lead to some agreement under which Iran ceases the program and the installations that now seem to pose threats, other possibilities might be considered. Diplomacy, in my view, is not exhausted. One option that has been advanced by highly knowledgeable and respectable experts would be to accept a limited enrichment capability to remain operative in Iran with special arrangements for IAEA inspection and perhaps even for shared ownership and management. Such an option could be expected to give clear warning if Iran were to repudiate agreed limitations and arrangements. However, the warning time would be shorter than if the enrichment program had been abandoned. A broadening of the agenda for discussions with Iran has sometimes been suggested. Such discussions could of course be used for delay by Iran but they might also offer richer possibilities of balancing different interests. Before the recent direct talks Iran was reported to have said that it was ready to discuss the issues of disarmament and proliferation. Perhaps at some point it could be of interest to consider the deep frozen subject of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, adding to it the idea of making the area free also of enrichment of uranium and production of plutonium. All countries in the region, including Israel, have supported this zone concept but for Israel it has always been a very remote scheme. Today with Iran and perhaps more states in the Middle East moving into more advanced nuclear activities, the zone idea might appear in a new light to all concerned. For Iran, abandoning its enrichment program within the framework of a zone could be a contribution to global and regional disarmament and nonproliferation rather than just a concession in a settlement. It would gain respect as a responsible actor and indeed help induce Israel to abandon its nuclear capability. Israel may today look at its nuclear weapon capability as a kind of life insurance against possible future existential threats. However this perception would change drastically if one or more states in the region were to develop nuclear weapons or move closer to weapons capability by programs for the production of enriched uranium and plutonium. To avoid having to face such a situation, perhaps Israel would contemplate a zonal agreement under which all countries in the region, including Israel itself, renounced and eliminated nuclear weapons as well as nuclear fuel cycle installations. It would remove a major point of controversy between Israel and Arab states. Perhaps it could even open a path one day to regional nuclear cooperation. The present Israeli government may not listen on this wavelength at all, but would it foresee continuing the line of action begun by the bombing of the Osirak reactor in 1981 and continuing with the bombing in 2007 of the Syrian installations claimed to be a North Korean-designed research reactor, and the threatened future bombing of Iranian nuclear installations? We saw in the papers the other day that Iraq is now requesting to rebuild the research reactors in Tuwaitha so there may be further objects. I do not underestimate the problems of a zonal agreement between parties that are profoundly distrusting each other. For instance, those of IAEA verification, which would have to go further even than the Additional Protocol. Far-reaching outside assurances of security might be needed. Perhaps Israeli membership in NATO – Albania recently became a member. Guarantees would be necessary for the supply of uranium fuel to a zone that would not itself produce it, at least for a period of time. Let me conclude. There is a chance that in the upcoming years the world may embark on an ambitious agenda for nonproliferation and global nuclear disarmament. The Middle East would seem to be the one region in crying need to be included in a bold approach. James Woolsey:  Thank you. I was honored to be asked to join this distinguished panel and be with you today but to tell you the truth, since I spent twenty-two years as a Washington lawyer and then spent some time out at the CIA in the Clinton administration, I’m actually honored to be invited into any company for any purpose at all. I think we can deal with some aspects of the Iranian nuclear program relatively quickly. In distinction to Hans, I don’t believe there is any plausible reason for the Iranian nuclear program other than their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. This country is in the top three holders of reserves in the world of both oil and gas. As shale gas starts to come into production it is going to be harder and harder to ship gas internationally affordably as LNG, and Iran does not have that many people it can sell its natural gas to by pipeline. It is much more expensive – radically more expensive – to build a nuclear power plant than it is to build natural gas facilities. I think it is reasonably clear to most observers that what Iran has been embarked upon now for a number of years is the development of a nuclear weapons program. Of course one does not have the highly enriched uranium that one needs for a bomb once one has the low-enriched uranium, but you are much further than the 3.5 percent of enrichment would suggest with the LEU. The way the curve works you are quite far along toward having highly enriched uranium. The processes – the cascades and the rest – are very similar. There was no reason whatsoever for Iran’s secret facility at Qom, given its small size, if it had been part of an Iranian LEU program for electricity generation. So although one can make a lawyer-like case that maybe we are not certain beyond any doubt that Iran is embarked on a nuclear weapons program, I would think that the standard of beyond any reasonable doubt is clearly met. Also, I do not believe it is likely that sanctions of any sort along the lines of what have been employed so far are going to have any effect on Iran. They have been so-called containment sanctions focused really on Iran’s nuclear industry and therefore not only subject to being blocked by China and Russia in the Security Council – Russia because of its weapons trade and other relationships with Iran; China because of its oil deals with Iran – they are not going to be effective because of their very limited nature. Turning up the gain on something that is only targeted really on Iran’s nuclear program is not going to work. There might be an outside chance that full-bore sanctions, even by the United States and several friendly countries – even if not adopted by the United Nations – could have some effect on Iran’s ability to go forward. But they would have to be targeted on Iran’s military programs as a whole, its oil industry, its telecommunications industry – particularly companies such as Siemens and Nokia – that are selling Iran the wherewithal to block the capability of Iranian dissidents to communicate via the internet and otherwise. So I hold no particular hope for Iran not being in pursuit of a nuclear weapon nor of sanctions of the sort that we have seen so far being likely to have any substantial effect. I do believe that there is a perfectly reasonable case to be made for talking with Iran but one has to ask what leverage one has and whether the talks are likely or indeed have any chance of producing any positive result. Ronald Reagan was something of a master of conducting negotiations with the Soviet Union; at the same time he did not flinch from calling them an evil empire and telling Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Reagan’s perhaps unique friendly personality, his relationship with Gorbachev and his staunch anticommunist views combined in such a way to make it quite plausible for him – and I participated in some of these negotiations – to negotiate with the Soviets while being quite candid about the nature of the Soviet state. So I don’t think that negotiations themselves should be outside the pale of what we undertake but we should realize that the Persians invented chess, and what I think we have been seeing here for many years is a pawn on one side of the board headed down to the king’s row to be converted to the most lethal piece, the queen (the Iranian nuclear program) while distractions occur in other parts of the board. As Secretary of Defense Gates said the other day, every administration from Jimmy Carter’s on has in one way or another tried to negotiate with the Iranians. It has not been effective. Neither allowing pistachios in or apologizing for the early 1950s – none of this has worked. At some point I think we have to realize that if we are negotiating with this Iranian government, we need to do so in such a way as to play some chess ourselves rather than only being the deceived party. There is more wrong with this Iranian government than its nuclear weapons program. Of course its strong success with respect to its sponsorship of the Syrian government, Hezbollah and Hamas, and its status as the world’s number one terrorist-sponsoring state, is salient here. We should not take our eyes off of that. There are, I believe, some weaknesses in the Iranian regime. Change of regime has come to be something of a buzzword. Let’s avoid the buzzword and just say very substantial change in behavior of the regime, perhaps including some substitution of some leaders for others, might be a desirable outcome. There are senior and responsible Iranians who have taken a strong stance in the most recent elections and in support of the dissidents after the elections. They have taken a stance in favor of a substantial modulation of the administration – the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad grouping’s behavior. I would call to your attention, for example, a letter in September from Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Mousavi writes in great anguish about the negative impact on Islam and the people’s devotion to Islam that is proceeding from the behavior of the current regime. Montazeri responds to him: “By committing atrocities, a system under the rule of Islam that takes pride in being Shi’ite creates pessimism toward Islam and announces the inability of Islam to bring about justice in a society.” There is not uniform religious groupings’ and religious leaders’ support for this crazy grouping of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. They are in trouble. They may not yet be in terminal trouble but when you look at what happened on Al Quds Day in September, with hundreds of thousands (depending on the estimates) to millions taking the streets and the government being afraid to fire on the demonstrators – they have of course butchered, raped, imprisoned and tortured a number of demonstrators, but when faced with a very substantial demonstration they have not been able to rally their forces at certain times in events following the election. One of the best analogies to their situation was written by George Packer in the current issue of The New Yorker. Packer, reminiscing on the fall of the Berlin Wall, says, “Perhaps the closest contemporary analogy to the fall of communism is the democratic movement that is challenging the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has deep social and intellectual roots, a growing mass following and an enemy state with a hollowed-out ideology. But unlike the East German soldiers and the Stasi agents, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia are ready to kill. Behind President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khamenei there is no restraining figure like Gorbachev. Iranians will have to find their own way to the fulfillment of their democratic desires and yet the fact that the nearest counterparts to the thinkers and activists of ’89 are to be found in a non-Western Muslim country exposes another false lesson of that year: that such things are for Westerners only, that they don’t want what we want.” I think Packer speaks quite persuasively on this point. I would add that as a further demonstration of the weakness of the regime’s authority, note that Supreme Leader Khamenei had declared back in September a Sunday to be the end of Ramadan. Fifteen grand ayatollahs, including Ayatollahs Sistani, Montazeri, Taheri and Sanei, rejected Khamenei’s reading of the moon and said that the feast could not begin until Monday. No one could get away with such an open challenge to the Supreme Leader’s theological authority unless there were considerable consensus that his rule was illegitimate. It is even worse for him – across the country many mosques were closed that Sunday. The faithful were told to go home and fast and come back the next day for prayer. That is more than a straw in the wind, I would submit.   We have a chance if we emulate on this matter Ronald Reagan – smile, be businesslike, show up at discussions, but do not blink at calling an evil empire what it is. Do not blink at telling Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to tear down their many walls. There is no reason for us to shut down the grants that used to be given to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in New Haven. There is no reason for the US government to shut down its funding of the work of Freedom House on these matters. There is no reason for us not to call for the release of political prisoners, for equal rights for women, for freedom of speech, press and assembly. We could instruct the VOA’s Farsi Service to report more vigorously on Iranian actions. We could stop a lot of this repression of the intellectuals and students by not permitting software to be exported to the Iranian government that helps repress them and by instead helping provide them with servers and the internet and the rest to help them in their actions and activities. While we do this we should smile. We should be diplomatic. We should be generous. We should be coherent. We should be cogent. But we should also stand for freedom. Thank you. Robin Wright:  Thank you very much, all four of you. This has clearly stimulated a lot of discussion. We have dozens and dozens of questions, all of which we will not be able to get through. I have one little story. I interviewed the minister of defense in Iran a few years ago and I remember being struck when he said: if only we were as naughty as the North Koreans (meaning, have a bomb) maybe we’d be getting American aid.   A lot of questions. There is one to each panelist but let’s have Bob and Hans weigh in on this one. How long until Iran has a nuclear bomb? Robert Einhorn:  You often get confusing answers to this question because it depends what you’re really interested in – if what you are really interested in is the minimum length of time it would take Iran starting from now – and assuming a decision to get the bomb – actually to go from low-enriched uranium to high-enriched uranium to fabricated device, maybe tested and so forth. My own sense is that Iran is not determined to get to a bomb as soon as possible. I’m convinced that at a very minimum Iran wants to keep open the option to pursue a nuclear bomb, a weaponized nuclear device. I don’t know if they’ve decided when they need to do that. But if you simply look at the minimum length of time it would take, assuming they had already decided they wanted to have a weaponized capability, it could take perhaps a few years. I don’t want to be more specific on that because there are all kind of assumptions that go into the range of estimates. Hans Blix:  I agree with Bob Einhorn. I always thought the more interesting question to focus upon is, can one persuade them to stop enrichment? Once they are there, they are closer to the bomb. We have lost a number of years in rather poor negotiations. It is not accurate to say that the US has been ready to sit down at all times to discuss with Iran. After all, I remember when Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State, she stated that she was ready to come and sit down with them provided that they had suspended enrichment first. That was a hopeless approach and I think much time was lost for negotiations. James Woolsey:  A couple of quick points. If Iran takes the light-enriched uranium it has now and turns it into heavily enriched uranium (90-95 percent enriched) it could do that probably in months, maybe a year or a bit more. Would it then have a bomb? It needs to design a weapon, but a primitive weapon such as we used at Hiroshima (the so-called shotgun design, which is very simple and is on the internet and the rest) – needing to design that would not slow them up much. If all they wanted was something that would go boom, have a mushroom cloud, emit some radioactivity and be a test up in their northern desert, I would suggest that could be done probably within months to a year or two. If one is talking about an implosion warhead of the sort we used at Nagasaki, which was carefully designed to compress the fissile material in such a way as to make possible a lighter warhead, something that could fit on the nosecone of a Shahab, I think in those circumstances one is probably talking about several years. So you need to be precise when you are asking people a question, what kind of nuclear weapon and to do what? If Iran wants to be a nuclear power and set something off, I would suggest it might not be all that long. Robin Wright:  Karim, there are several questions on sanctions and the impact on the domestic situation. If Iran decides to better its ties with the international community, how will that affect the internal opposition? Secondly, could you comment on the proposition that the US should side with history and support the Greens, and does that mean we support their opposition to the IAEA deal? Karim Sadjadpour:  In terms of what sanctions do for the opposition, from my vantage point I think what would be the most devastating blow to the regime is not an amplification of existing sanctions but – if you asked me what is the one thing that could be most painful to them, it would be a precipitous drop in oil prices. A one-dollar drop in oil prices is about $900 million lost annual revenue for Iran. So I think a drop in oil prices – how that happens in the short term, whether we ask Saudi Arabia to increase its output, is unclear – I think that would be far more damaging than sanctions. When you talk to people in the opposition they give you mixed reaction. There are some individuals who believe that sanctions would be hurtful to their cause and I have heard others who believe it would be more helpful to their cause. But I think there is a consensus among them that if there is sanctions, they should be “smarter” sanctions that focus on political leaders in Iran, not blanket sanctions which target the entire population. In terms of the second point, should the United States simply side with the people against the regime, I have to say that I thought Jim Woolsey’s presentation was very compelling. The idea that we need to make it clear that we are on the right side of history is very important. At the same time I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, meaning we can have a dialogue with Iran about these urgent national security matters – not just the nuclear issue but also Afghanistan and Iraq – but we can be very outspoken about our concerns about their inability to adhere to international standards of justice and human rights and civil liberties. What I have seen in the last few months – this was a legitimate concern that I had, that by engaging the regime we could somehow pour cold water on the momentum of the opposition. So far that has not been the case. We saw just last week there were full protests. But I think the Obama administration could be doing a bit more and making it clear to the Iranian people that it recognizes which is the right side of history. Robin Wright:  Great. Bob, another question for you. Should negotiations with Iran break down, do you believe targeted sanctions – either targeting specific institutions like the bonyads (foundations) or expanding banks, insurance, shipping and so forth – could be effective in terms of the time and the clock issue? Robert Einhorn:  I think we have learned quite a bit over the last couple of decades in the application of sanctions. One thing we learned, and we learned this after the first Gulf War with sanctions against Iraq, is that sanctions can be counterproductive if they are applied across the board and they affect the population and cause great humanitarian distress. I think if pressure is ratcheted up it needs to be targeted pressure. To go after elites, to go after the cause and the sources of the problem – the Revolutionary Guard Corps, for example, and its many economic interests would be a valid and important target. We believe targeted sanctions are going to be much more effective than blunt sanctions that will tend to rally the Iranian people behind its leadership. Robin Wright:  Hans, a question for you, after something you said. You said that an Iranian nuclear program could have a domino effect in the region. What countries have the money, resources, technology or scientific expertise to begin to develop a nuclear program? Hans Blix:  Egypt is evidently the country with the greatest nuclear potential. Saudi Arabia is the country that has the most money. It is sometimes speculated that the Saudis might purchase nuclear capability from Pakistan, which has it. The others are not so well advanced. Syria has some research capability but it is not very well advanced. The others are not significant at the present time. But if the pressure goes on, they may move. What we see is that many countries in the region are going for nuclear energy. That will acquire a capability in basic sciences. Going from that to enrichment is a very strong step so it does not mean they are aiming at it, but I think one has to – at the commission I head, on weapons of mass destruction, we discuss proliferation generally. There are many different reasons and rationales why countries move to nuclear weapons. They can be domestic. But there are two that always stand out: one is perceived security (not necessarily actual security, but perceived security) and the other is status, to be taken seriously, to be talked to. For enrichment also the motivation of having an assured supply of enriched uranium for fuel is an important one. Iran has some unfortunate experiences of that, when they had difficulties in getting supply of fuel for the research reactor, which they are now discussing new supply of. When I look at Iran, when we looked at it in our commission, we looked first at security concerns. Is there some way you can meet what you think moves them? Security would be one. Iran started the program, as far as we know, sometime in the 1980s, at a time when we knew that Iraq was moving in that direction – when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor and Iran had a terrible war with Iraq. So what would be more natural than that they then felt yes, we have to move in this direction, without taking a decision? That has fallen away. Iraq is no longer a threat to them. As I said, I don’t see any other country in the neighborhood – Afghanistan or Turkey or any other – being a worry. The US, yes, with some aircraft carriers in the Gulf is a threat and Israel too, but only if they move on enrichment. So I think assurance on the security side is an important factor in getting rational thinking – maybe there is no rational thinking, but we have to assume that. Status is also very important. You have not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979. They have been ostracized. I think generally the West underestimates the importance of people’s pride. Humiliation is a very serious thing. I do not believe it is a great thing to say they are a member of the axis of evil – it may be good domestic politics, yes, but I don’t think it’s very good to move the other side. So I would still opt for looking at the rationales that could satisfy what they perceive as reasons for going forward. James Woolsey:  I would just suggest to Hans, the next time he is with Natan Sharansky, that he ask him what happened in the gulag when Reagan said evil empire. I think he’ll find that it buoyed the morale of virtually everyone who was in prison and in the gulag in the Soviet Union. These things matter. Hans Blix:  I haven’t said that we should refrain from criticism. I am exactly on your point there. I think that one can have negotiations, avoiding humiliation and at the same time voicing criticism. I think that is being done. Robin Wright:  Thank you. Jim, a question for you that is reflected in several of these cards. Are you concerned about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction program as well as Iran’s? Secondly, what are the odds of an Israeli military attack against Iran in the next couple of years? James Woolsey:  I think the odds of an Israeli military attack on Iran – not one using nuclear weapons but just an attack – are going to be substantially affected by whether we are willing and able to bring pressure on the government of Iran to substantially change its behavior and even within its current Islamic Republic end up with some of the people who really won the election but had it stolen from them in power. If Israel sees an Islamic Republic but one headed by rational people, I think the chances of their feeling an existential risk lessen. But with Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and their cult of the hojjatieh and all of that – no. There is probably a very substantial majority of the Iranian ruling elite who are very cynical about their ideology, somewhat the way the Soviets became after the mid-1950s. By the late 1950s there were more true-believing Marxist-Leninists in the bookstores of the Upper West Side of Manhattan than there were in the Kremlin. The same may be true of a fair chunk of the Iranian leadership. They don’t want to die, they want to keep their nice country homes. But there is at least an important subset that are, to put it in my delicate fashion, theocratic, totalitarian, genocidal maniacs. Should some of those, perhaps including Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, decide that it is their role in life to hasten the return of the Mahdi by getting a lot of people killed, one cannot completely discount that possibility. One certainly cannot completely discount that possibility if one is an Israeli decision-maker. Karim Sadjadpour:  I would just add that for me, what the last four months have proven is that this regime is incredibly odious but it ruthlessly wants to stay in power. It is odious but it is not suicidal. The conclusion I have reached is that the underlying problem we have with Iran has far more to do with the character of the regime than its nuclear ambitions. A military strike on Iran, whether it is an Israeli or US military strike, would heal the enormous political rifts that exist at the moment and it would kill the opposition. It would either pour cold water on the momentum of the opposition or dramatically [indiscernible]. So I would say to Israeli officials that if the problem is the character of the regime, by bombing Iran we are only going to prolong and further entrench the worst elements of this regime for many years to come. Robin Wright:  Thank you. One for Bob Einhorn. Can you explain what you meant when you said there is strong evidence Iran has done work on a missile warhead for delivering nuclear weapons? Robert Einhorn:  A number of governments, including the US government, have provided to the IAEA pretty substantial information, some of it acquired on a laptop computer, regarding work done in the past on a design for what all experts seem to agree is a nuclear warhead. That information has been passed to the IAEA. The IAEA has been doing its analysis and we would encourage the IAEA to come to some conclusions about that analysis and make the analysis public. But there are many governments who are aware of that information and would like to see that information made public. Robin Wright:  When you say in the past, are you talking before 2003 or something more recently? Robert Einhorn:  No, before 2003. That is not to say categorically that no such activity has taken place since then but what I have been talking about, the design of this warhead, took place prior to 2003. Hans Blix:  I always thought it was desirable to have cooperation between the IAEA and intelligence organizations. They get their information from different sources. The IAEA is on the ground and they have inspectors that can go into the facilities whereas intelligence operates satellites and they have their spy systems, they listen on telephones, etc. The IAEA can have great use of tips from the intelligence organizations and go in and say we’d like to take a look at this or that. But one has to be very cautious in handling this. It has to be mainly one-way traffic because if the intelligence agencies think that the IAEA will simply work as a prolonged arm then the IAEA will have no confidence in the countries where they are and will have no cooperation whatever. So while I think it is desirable that the US and others have given the IAEA information in this case, I think the IAEA has to be careful also not to authorize or sanction and say yes, this is authentic. I remember well when we were in New York and we had information about anthrax in Iraq. It seemed very likely with the information from Washington in particular that yes, there was a big supply of anthrax. Yet there was some of that evidence coming that we could not get the sources of it and we held back a little, and it turned out that there was no anthrax in Iraq. In this case I think the IAEA has been given information and I think it is desirable that the information be on the table. But if there are hidden sources, I can also see the hesitation of the IAEA side to simply say yes, we are convinced by what you are saying. So there are two sides to this story. James Woolsey:  The amount of anthrax that Colin Powell mentioned in his speech before the United Nations, the famous one, would in liquid form have filled up a little more than one tractor-trailer. If reduced to powder, such as the anthrax that was used in late 2001/early 2002 here in the United States, it would have filled up essentially four large suitcases. Mr. Blix may know everything about every square inch of Iraq but I would submit that Iraq is about the size of California and the federal government and the state government do a pretty good job of controlling California – in a sense, I guess, insofar as anybody can. You might want to ask yourselves how many suitcases of cocaine there are in California – hell, in Mendocino County alone – that the authorities don’t know about. Just a footnote. Hans Blix:  The problem is that it is very hard to prove the negative. That was why we never said there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We said we had carried out 700 inspections in 500 different sites and we knew the place perhaps not as well as you know California, but we knew Iraq fairly well. We carried out these 700 inspections and we had not found any trace of it. We were very suspicious about the anthrax but the anthrax did not exist. That was why we did not find it. We did not say it did not exist because you cannot do that in any country. Robin Wright:  A question I would like to ask both Bob and Karim. If China and possibly Russia will not support harsher sanctions, what can the United States and Europe do that will further pressure Iran? Robert Einhorn:  I think even without Russia and China there is much that can be done with a pretty broad coalition of likeminded countries. There are many countries in Europe, the Gulf region and East Asia which are concerned with Iranian behavior. I think they would be prepared to pitch in in a variety of ways. We have explored with them some possibilities for exerting pressure on Iran. Obviously it is best to have Russia and China on board and to have restrictions put in the form of UN Security Council resolutions, because it has a kind of magnifier effect. It legitimizes countries’ taking action unilaterally or in groups of countries. But even if we did not have support by Russia and China, a lot can be done. I think what we have seen, as I mentioned earlier, in recent months is a willingness of Russia and China to pull together with the other P5+1 partners. I think we have increased the likelihood of being able to extend and expand what the Security Council has already done. Karim Sadjadpour: When you talk to people, both energy analysts and technocrats within the Iranian system, they will tell you that it is very difficult for Russia and China to single-handedly fill the enormous void left behind by European countries who do business in Iran. From the vantage point of energy analysts, they say there has been a whole lot of MOUs (memoranda of understanding) signed between China and Iran but very few of them have been carried out, so there is not a whole lot of activity. From the vantage point of the technocrats, whether within the Iranian oil ministry or other ministries, they say they much prefer working with European and certain American companies than they do Russian and Chinese companies. As Bob mentioned, ideally you would have them on board but if not there are other ways of concentrating Iranian minds. I think the financial sanctions which have been pursued have been painful for Iran. I think the idea of further divestment campaigns, divesting from companies that do a lot of business with Iran, will be painful. One might argue that this will also be felt by the Iranian people and it will be painful for the Iranian people. I would actually disagree with that. The major contracts which are being signed these days in Iran are being signed by Revolutionary Guard-led companies. These deals are not really trickling down to the average person. I would reemphasize something I said earlier: the focus is so much on sanctions but again, a one-dollar drop in oil prices is $900 million lost annual revenue for Iran. So I think if we focus more on energy and bringing down oil prices, that would be far more debilitating for the regime. Robin Wright:  Hans, a couple of related questions to you. The Iranian spokesman said recently that Iran does not trust France with reprocessing. Is there any substitute that would be more appealing to Tehran? Hans Blix:  I think the Iranians had their experiences with an investment in nuclear facilities in France at one time. Then they were moved out of that, I don’t remember whether they got some compensation for it or not, but they certainly based a distrust of France on that occasion. I think they also felt that the attempt they made long ago to get refueling from the United States for the Triga reactor, which is the research reactor in Tehran – that was called off. They had paid for it, they didn’t get the fuel, I don’t think they got the money back either. So that was another example where they lost their trust for the West. I think the current deal, which Bob Einhorn dealt with so well, is an intriguing one because if the West were to say no, we are not willing to help you get the fuel you need for the Triga reactor, then they would thereby confirm the Iranian contention that “see, we have to enrich ourselves because we can’t buy it abroad. We have to go up to 20 percent ourselves, whereas we have said before that it’s only for power reactors and we can stay at 4 percent.” For the Iranians on the other hand, if they don’t want to escalate the conflict that they have now, then actually going above 4 percent would be exacerbating the situation. So there is a deep-rooted distrust and there are some good reasons for it as well. Robert Einhorn:  I mentioned before that the deal is that the Iranians ship their low-enriched uranium to Russia. The Iranians have said, we can’t trust these partners – we want to keep that low-enriched uranium on our territory until the fuel assemblies start coming to this reactor. Who aren’t they trusting there? The Russians may well be taking that personally. I think that is another reason why Iranian behavior is bringing the P5+1 countries closer together. Robin Wright:  A question for Jim. What do you think the United States should do about Iran’s meddling, intervention, influence, in Iraq and Afghanistan? James Woolsey:  I think going back to the early days, shortly after we went into Afghanistan in 2001 right after 9/11, Iran has been deeply involved – more than meddling – in terrorism, in supplying weapons (including particularly IEDs) to Iraqi rebels and terrorists, in spending a great deal of time and effort and resources trying to keep there from being a Shi’ite-majority democracy in Iraq and trying to keep Afghanistan unstable. My own view is that although it is hard to shift gears now, it was a very bad decision not to respond immediately and forcefully to them, including with cross-border operations, when they started doing this and we started detecting. Richard Clarke, the military commanders, all sorts of people have made quite clear how extensive the Iranian involvement has been in parts of Afghanistan and certainly in Iraq. Under the present circumstances one has to find some way to work with the Iraqi government which, in spite of all, looks like it has put together a decent election law and is proceeding to have elections with open lists for its parties so it is more transparent than the last election and so on. They have every interest in the world, although fellow Shi’ites in a sense – most of them have every interest in the world in keeping there from being Iranian domination of Iraq. People like Moqtada al-Sadr and the others who were on the Iranian payroll have lost a great deal of power and influence in Iraq over the course of the last six months to a year, particularly as the Anbar Awakening and the surge have manifested themselves. I tend to think that one does not want to rock the Iraqi boat. They key thing here is to work with the new government of Iraq, supplying whatever intelligence and whatever help we can to them for them to keep their Iranian neighbors in line. With respect to Afghanistan, the ball may be a bit more in our court. That’s a tough call. Robin Wright:  I’m told one more question and so I’d like to ask a provocative one. Several of you have outlined various scenarios of “what would happen if,” so I’ll give you the most provocative itself. It’s April 2010. The West has concluded after a frustrating year of sanctions that the path is confrontation and then Iran once again says it still wants favorable talks. What do we do then? Robert Einhorn:  Our patience is limited. The president has made clear that by the end of this year we believe we will be in a position to assess the seriousness of Iran in pursuing a peaceful diplomatic track. April 2010 is too late. Karim Sadjadpour:  The question is, April 2010, what happens if we are where we are right now? Robin Wright:  We have decided they are not going to comply, confrontation may be looming, and then they come back to us and say, we want favorable talks. What do we do then? And can we trust them? Karim Sadjadpour:  I think at a very broad level we should – whatever happens – continue to maintain the dignity and poise of a superpower. We don’t need to reciprocate Iran’s “Death to America” culture. But again, the conclusion I have reached is that the more fundamental problem we have with Iran has to do with the character of the regime than its nuclear ambitions. I’m concerned whether it is April 2010 or three or five years from now, how we are going to look back at this moment. Are we going to say that we were steadfast despite Iran’s dithering and we were able to reach a nuclear accommodation? Or are we going to look back and say there was a real moment internally in Iran to foment or expedite the prospect of some type of political reform but instead of taking that seriously we focused all of our efforts on the nuclear issue and that moment passed us by? Hans Blix:  I have no doubt that in April 2010 we will continue the excellent advice that we are giving today. More seriously, I think we are now discussing the tremendous difficulties of getting anywhere with negotiations and whether we have stiff sanctions or weak sanctions, etc. We are not really discussing very much what would happen if you were to go for bombing, Israeli, American or whatever. What are the consequences of that? Where do we go then? I think you would need a much more intense analysis of that before you get a yes to that question. James Woolsey:  In a smiling, statesman-like and diplomatic way, we should undertake all of the actions and support of the dissidents that I described earlier, if we hadn’t done it yet. We should implement as complete a secondary boycott of every company of any kind or bank doing any kind of business with Iran, that would be permitted under the WTO. They may need to be targeted sanctions on specific companies doing business with the Revolutionary Guard, etc., but as broad a set of sanctions as we can do and not to wait on the Chinese and Russians, implement them ourselves if need be, along with other likeminded countries. Finally I should say that I think the president has done a fine job of speaking out in support of the Iranian dissidents and freedom of elections and freedom of speech in Iran. Unfortunately so far it has been the French president rather than the American one. So I would like to see President Obama follow President Sarkozy’s lead. Robin Wright:  Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking four exceptional, informative and occasionally entertaining presentations.
About this Transcript: Assertions and opinions in this Transcript are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.  Speaker Details Robin Wright is a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and an award-winning journalist, foreign affairs analyst, and author. Robert Einhorn is the Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the US State Department. Karim Sadjadpour is the former chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group and is currently an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hans Blix is the former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General and the Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. James Woolsey is the former Director of the CIA under President Clinton.