The below transcript is from the Middle East Institute's 66th Annual Conference in Washington, DC, November 14, 2012

 

Panel 3: After the U.S. Elections: What’s at Stake for Iran?
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Middle East Institute
Bernard Haykel, Princeton University
Meir Litvak, Tel Aviv University
Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations
Moderator: Barbara Slavin, Atlantic Council

Kate Seelye:  Good afternoon, welcome to the third panel of the day: “After the Elections, What’s at Stake for Iran?” We’ve had a fabulous program so far this morning. The first panel looked at US policy in the region, the second one at the challenges ahead for Egypt. Now we will examine Iran and, in the late afternoon, the regional implications of the Syria crisis.

I’m delighted to be joined here by our wonderful panelists and a long-time Iran hand in Washington, Iran analyst and journalist Barbara Slavin, who’s a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and a Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor.com. She is the author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. A career journalist, she previously served as Assistant Managing Editor for World and National Security at The Washington Times, as Senior Diplomatic Reporter for USA Today, and as Cairo correspondent for The Economist as well as other publications. Barbara, I’d like to hand the panel over to you.

Barbara Slavin:  Thanks very much. Here we are again: hope springs eternal. We’ve had our elections and it seems there’s a little bit of optimism in the air about the possibility of resolving some of our differences with Iran through diplomacy. So we have assembled a really fantastic panel to look at that and see whether that’s realistic or not.

We’re going to start with Mehrzad Boroujerdi, who is going to give us the view from Tehran. Mehrzad is the founder and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Syracuse University as well as an Associate Professor of Political Science there. He is Editor of the Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East book series and he is Editor for the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Mehrzad is an expert on internal Iranian politics. He’s done some very interesting analyses on the makeup of the parliament and the cabinet. So I’m hoping you will let us know how likely it is that Iran will actually come prepared to negotiate with the United States.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi:  Thank you, Barbara. I want to thank the Middle East Institute for inviting me here to talk about Iran post-presidential elections here in the US.

A few days ago a writer in The New York Times wrote the following line: “There is no more immediate strategic challenge for the reelected president than Iran.” We heard very much the same type of assessment in the first panel of the day too, where one of our colleagues said if we cannot chew and walk at the same time and our administration has to choose one topic, it has to be Iran, Iran, Iran. I fully agree with that assessment. The part however that I respectfully disagree with my colleague was about the prescription, about what to do if there is no agreement, which was to attack.

As was mentioned, I come from the middle of nowhere, called Syracuse. Every time I come to Washington I get the sense that this is a bit of a strange place, in the sense that there is what I see to be a great deal of group-thinking going on. We talk about Iran and yet the Iranian voice is really absent from 99 percent of these conversations. Last time I checked, it took two to tango. I want to remind everyone again about how crucial it is to really be listening to what the Iranians have to say rather than speaking for them.

Let me add as a footnote: I am in no position to be a spokesperson for the Iranian government, considering that I’m regarded as a leading counterrevolutionary by the state and can’t go back. So that’s not my task. However, my task is to try to bring some sober analysis so that we can have a more serious discussion about Iran than some of the things we hear. At a time when I see our government racing for the exit doors in Iraq and Afghanistan, to hear somebody saying “let’s attack them,” let’s have another war – to me it basically says that we have not learned the lesson that Napoleon formulated many years ago, which was that “every empire has died of indigestion.” If Iraq and Afghanistan are giving you heartburn, keep in mind that Iran is a country that is bigger in size (geographical size as well as population) than those two countries combined. So let’s be realistic about what we can do and we cannot do about Iran.

My argument, to get to the bottom line, is the following: there is no military solution to Iran, neither by the Israelis or by the Americans. So let’s take that out of the calculation and discussion because frankly we have been giving Iran so many deadlines and red lines – those deadlines and red lines have come and gone, nothing has happened. If I was in the position of the Iranian leadership, I too would lose any type of respect for deadlines and red lines coming from Tel Aviv and Washington.

So if there is no military solution, that takes us to the other alternative that is hard to talk about and digest but nonetheless I think is the only game in town. At the end of the day, after all the posturing is done, we get to the point that there has to be a diplomatic discussion with Iran. Frankly, as somebody else said this morning, life will continue even after Iran goes nuclear. It’s not the end of the world. Secondly, we have a long way to get to that point.

So at this point in time I’m going to make the argument that a host of domestic, regional and international factors has perhaps created a perfect storm of sorts to convince the Iranians to negotiate seriously. What are those factors?

First, I want to argue that Iran is losing its strategic depth. Everyone who knows anything about foreign policy knows that this is supremely crucial, if you lose your strategic depth. What do I mean there? Let me remind you that Iran, which used to produce 2.5 million barrels of oil only a year ago is now down to 800,000 apparently. Regaining those lost barrels of oil as a quota system within OPEC is going to be a formidable challenge for the Iranian leadership for the foreseeable future. You are less of an economic player than before this crisis started.

Second, Iran is suffering from the fact that its relations with such important neighboring states as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE and Yemen have all deteriorated over the last few years. Let me just give you some examples. Iraq nowadays inspects Iranian planes. Syria, Iran’s ally, gets kicked out of the Organization of Islamic States. Azerbaijan and Israel have wonderful relationships. Saudis ask the US to attack Iran based on Wikileaks stuff. Hamas distances itself from Iran. Libyan revolutionaries hold an Iranian delegation hostage – the same happens in Syria. Turkey installs a NATO defensive shield. Morsi comes to Tehran and gives the cold shoulder to the Iranians. If these are not examples of Iran getting marginalized in the region, I don’t know what is.

Other factors. Iran’s great ally, Syria, is in great turmoil and the future of Mr. Assad is very much in doubt. Turkey is establishing very good relations with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas – again, to the dismay of the Iranians. Look at it from Tehran’s perspective – it is very worrisome when a political party such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which is both popular and Islamic, comes to terms or respects the Camp David Accord with Israel. That basically deprives the Iranians of a major argument that they had, about their anti-Israeli positions.

Second set of factors: prospects for a worsening economic conditions in Iran. As I said, declining oil exports; inflation; the somersaulting decline of the currency – apparently losing 80 percent of its value; the banking system that has been paralyzed; discontent in the bazaar; declining foreign reserves; along with, of course, this amazing unemployment rate that the country suffers from, has created the economic discontent. The joke in Tehran these days is a guy takes his son to the zoo and shows him a chicken. He says, “Look at that creature – when we were rich, we used to eat these things.” Those days might now be past.

Unlike the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian leadership and the Iranian masses are not willing or able to accept a war economy regimen. They could do it back then in the context of the Iran-Iraq war, due to nationalistic sentiments, but it’s hard for the Iranian leadership to make these arguments now based on a nuclear portfolio.

A reelected President Obama is seen as less susceptible to pressure from Israel, now that he does not have to worry about reelection. My thinking is that the Israelis know that and the Israelis are going to perhaps beat the drums of war and threaten that Iran wants – perhaps more so from this point on. But I am definitely quite happy that President Obama has taken leadership of the Iran issue from Israel in many ways.

Sanctions have definitely hit Iran but as economists like to say, like everything else there is an opportunity cost. For those of you who don’t know the concept, you are sitting here in this room and therefore are not outside enjoying the weather. That’s your opportunity cost. Sanctions are hurting the Iranian regime, no question about it, but Washington should not forget the opportunity cost, which is that it is breaking the back of the Iranian middle class that is supposed to be your natural ally. This class is going to be the one that is very much alienated as a result of these processes in the long term. In political science we say that democracy is built on the shoulders of the middle class. What do we gain by the weakening of that middle class? Look at the examples of Iraq and so forth to see what the repercussions of that are going to be in the long term.

On the other hand, there are some other reasons that make me optimistic. It seems like President Obama is willing to negotiate, again perhaps because of a hard-nosed sense of realism about what is possible. Henry Kissinger many years ago posed a rhetorical question: he said Iran needs to decide whether it’s a nation or a cause. The cause of Islamic solidarity and so forth, or whether it’s a nation following its national interests. I think Mr. Kissinger’s question has now been clearly answered: Iran is a nation much more than a cause and the leadership is thinking about national interest.

So I am optimistic about the negotiations but let me introduce some nuances, because I don’t think getting from Point A to Point B is going to be easy, considering the intricate nature of Iranian politics. There are a number of problems coming up.

My sense is that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, will be willing to reach some sort of compromise but considering the upcoming Iranian presidential election next June, any type of discussion will be limited to the nuclear case alone and no such thing as a “grand bargain.” Why? Because the Supreme Leader knows that if he were to do that, the next presidential election in Iran basically becomes a referendum on what the nature of US-Iran ties should be. Considering that we don’t know whether one of his “yes men” is going to become the actual president of Iran next year, it doesn’t make political sense – it is not prudent – for the Iranian leadership to want to put everything on the table and say, “Let’s bargain big-time.”

If I were reading the tea leaves of Iranian politics, I would say the following. The best position for the negotiations is to conduct negotiations on the sidelines of the P-5+1. However, the Iranians are open to also have one-on-one discussions with their counterparts in the US. I will be looking to see who the Iranians perhaps appoint. Their choice of emissary can speak volumes about whether they are serious or not. If it’s Mr. Jalili, the present nuclear negotiator, you can basically pack your bags and go home – nothing is going to happen. If it’s somebody of the stature of former Foreign Minister Velayati or former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani or even the Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, who can of course get a sabbatical from his position and lead the negotiations – then you know the Iranians are sending a signal that we are serious about negotiations.

It is quite possible that they might not have the confidence for comprehensive negotiations right now. One thing I keep repeating in my meetings in this town is the following: please understand, even though the buck stops with the Iranian Supreme Leader, he is not omnipotent. He too has to worry about all those constituencies, all those actors beneath him. People such as the intelligence, security, IRGC types – they have agenda-setting power for the Supreme Leader. These guys are going to say in the ears of the Supreme Leader that you need to negotiate from a position of strength. If these types of gestures are not responded – “let’s go with a crash” – then they can go quite wild if they think that is in their national interest. Leave the NPT – fait accompli. Then deal with that scenario.

So my advice to Washington is the following. Please let’s remember that in 2002 the Iranians made an offer about the nuclear issue and President Bush did not agree to that. That led to the further radicalization of the Iranian position. Let’s not make the same mistake again, once again giving the Iranians the cold shoulder, assuming that because the sanctions have hurt them they are basically going to give up the shop and cry “Uncle Sam.” I think it’s not going to lead us anywhere.

Please understand the nuances that are going to be involved. I had some other issues about the obstacles in the path of negotiations, why it’s going to be difficult, a marathon, etc., but unfortunately I am out of time. Thanks.

Barbara Slavin:  Thanks very much. We can get to some of those obstacles in the Q&A hopefully. We’re going to look now at the American point of view a little bit. I would love to get your thoughts, Ray, on who the United States might name as an emissary if there are back-channel talks with Iran. We’re very lucky to have Ray Takeyh with us. He’s a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. He specializes on Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist movements and parties. Before joining the Council on Foreign Relations, Ray was a Senior Advisor on Iran at the State Department. He’s been a fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy and has taught at the National War College, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of several excellent books on Iran, including Guardians of the Revolution: Iran’s Approach to the World. So Ray, how does it look from Washington and what can we expect in the next few months?

Ray Takeyh:  Thank you very much for inviting me here today. It’s always good to see some old friends.

I would actually start with a discussion about the history of these negotiations, because they have been going on for ten years now. A certain framework for dealing with Iran has come into existence, in terms of its approach to the proliferation issue. That framework was actually not an American-designed framework: it was actually a European framework. The EU-3 began the process of negotiations with Iran and they essentially established kind of three aspects or characteristics of this policy.

First, there is the concept of this policy: that it is possible to segregate the nuclear issue from other areas of US-Iranian contention, and it is possible to negotiate a standalone agreement with a state that has demonstrated – both in terms of its internal practices and approach to the region – let’s just say a limited respect for international conventions if not international law. So, nevertheless, it is possible to negotiate an agreement with that particular state on the nuclear issue and segregate the nuclear issue from other areas of concern. That’s the conceptual foundation of the EU-3 policy that began in 2002. It was embraced by the Bush administration in 2005, affirmed by the Obama administration in 2009, and is in existence today. That’s the conceptual foundation of the policy.

The policy had instrumentalities. The principal instrument of the policy is the notion that economic sanctions and economic penalties, escalated incrementally over time, provide the Western powers with a negotiating leverage over Iran. This is why you hear so often phrases like “cost-benefit analysis” and “leverage.” The leverage gives you effect and power to alter Iran’s cost-benefit analysis. Does this regime respond to economic grievances of its population? Is economics the only reason why a regime makes a decision on proliferation or any other issue? Those questions were largely not responded at all, just a notion of a strict Marxist analysis – economics determines conduct – was embraced.

Finally, modality. This policy has had a modality. It was the Bush administration that had decided that the best way of approaching negotiations with Iran would be in the context of a multilateral forum, the idea being that this would be represented as a dispute not between the United States and Iran but between the United States  and the international community. The basis of that dispute would be Iran’s violation of its proliferation commitments under the NPT.

The one dynamic aspect of this policy has been its modality. It started out with EU-3, it went to 5+1, now there is some consideration that it might go to 1+1. That’s been the only dynamic aspect of it.  If you look at the policy that you’re frustrated with and is stalemated, do you reject the concept? Do you reject the instrumentalities? Or do you mess around with the modality? The last one is the easiest one, because if you reject the concept you have to come up with an alternative one; if you reject your instruments of influence you have to offer alternatives. But to reject the modalities is the easiest one – the “size of the table” arguments that you see very much happening.

I don’t know if the modalities of this policy will change or not. I suspect that one of the benefits of this policy is that it has created international consensus, it has created multilateralization of the economic sanctions policy, and also there is a price to be paid for Iranian mendacity during the negotiations – because it frustrates the Europeans, it angers the Russians, it may even disturb the Chinese. So to take it out of that particular modality would be to some extent to the disadvantage of the 5+1 side. I do understand the limitations of 5+1 as a venue for arriving at a sort of negotiated settlement, but despite its imperfection it has been a useful instrument of coercion. Whether it can be a useful instrument of diplomatic settlement, I think remains to be seen.

Where to go from here? I don’t think it’s too far to use this phrase – the genius of Ali Khamenei has been he has created an enrichment category called 20 percent, which is supposed to be different, unrelated and completely alien to 5 percent enrichment. To get from 5 to 20 percent is four weeks. So I think much of the focus is going to be on 20 percent. It’s always been my contention that 20 percent is an enrichment category that is designed to be traded away, because to get to a nuclear weapons capability you don’t go 20 percent, 25 percent, 40 percent, 60 percent. To get to a viable nuclear weapons category you need marriage of fissile material, enriched at whatever gradation, and high-power centrifuges which can operate with velocity and efficiency. The marriage of those two determines your pathway to a nuclear bomb, not 20, 30, 50, 60, 80. That’s not the way you get there.

So I suspect in the negotiations that may be forthcoming, I think Iranians would be willing to give up the 20 percent in some format – no further production of 20 percent, something to do with existing stock and so forth – in exchange for acknowledgment of their right to enrich to 5 percent and perhaps even engage in some sort of concessions on transparency (although the IAEA has remained perennially frustrated with Iran’s transparency and accountability in terms of its access to inspectors and so on). But I suspect something can happen on 20 percent – perhaps. Because as always, Iranian negotiators want to give a little and get a lot back, so to what extent they would be asking – the current Iranian position is that they will do something on 20 percent: a suspension of it for a period of time in exchange for complete lifting of all sanctions (multilateral, unilateral, whatever). That position may be absurd but it’s the one they have on the table. There has to be some modification of that. I think their focus is likely to be the European sanctions and some aspects of the financial sanctions that have been implemented, in terms of segregating Iran from the international lending organizations and so forth.

Outside that, it’s going to be very difficult to relieve sanctions, given congressional pressure and so forth. Even if there is a relief of sanctions, it is unlikely that Iran will get – as was suggested – some of its market share back. If sanctions were lifted tomorrow the Europeans mostly are not likely to purchase Iranian oil in measurable quantities. They had actually stopped before the EU-3, the EU banned that particular – well maybe Spain, maybe Italy, the Greeks can’t afford it. (You know you’re in trouble when the Iranians won’t take your currency. “Greeks, no, are you kidding? We want a commercial partner of some reliability.” A new low.)

But I suspect something can happen. That’s when this is probably going to stop. Then you have desultory technical talks and so on. I think everybody involved in this particular melodrama is interested in reducing tensions but, for a variety of reasons, not necessarily transforming the relationship or solving the problem in a fundamental way. But reducing tension. I think that’s true of Iran, I think that’s true of the United States, I think that’s true of Israel. Certainly true of the Europeans and others.

So when there is a convergence of perspective on some sort of tentative agreement, the question is, how do you get there? Getting there may be difficult, because the parties are at various places in terms of what they would want. If you are the Iranian regime, giving up proliferation in a conclusive, decisive manner is probably not what you want, because there are a lot of benefits you get from continued proliferation capability. One of the aspects of this that has been kind of interesting is in the American imagination today, Iran is thought of as a giant Los Alamos that just happens to have 75-80 million people loitering around. That’s not necessarily a bad calculation for Ali Khamenei. Today Iran stands convicted in a court of law for attempting to have engaged in a terrorist attack on the American homeland – the first entity to do so since Al Qaeda. Who’s talking about that? So long as you have a proliferation-centric policy, no one is going to be talking about that. Human rights abuses in Iran are profound and rampant. No one is going to be talking about that so long as you have a proliferation-centric policy.

So as long as the international community is focused on gradations of uranium and spinning of centrifuges, an entire category of Iranian malfeasance goes unnoticed and unaccountable. There is a price to be paid for that. There is an economic price. So far Ali Khamenei has determined – and so far he’s been right – that he can hold a nation and a system together as it undergoes this economic difficulty and economic retraction.

So my suggestion would be that you’re likely to have some kind of an agreement perhaps, but I’m not quite sure if this issue lends itself to transformation beyond that.

Barbara Slavin:  Thanks, Ray. You didn’t answer my question so I’ll ask it again later. Now we’re going to have the view from Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem or however you like. This is Meir Litvak, he’s an Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern History and Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He’s written numerous articles and books on modern Shi’a and Iranian history. He’s the author of Shi’a Scholars of Nineteenth Century Iraq: The Ulema of Najaf and Karbala and co-author of From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust, as well as of a new book to come out: Iran: From a Persian Empire to an Islamic Republic. I’d like to invite you to come up and tell us whether you think Israel will be quiet for a while and stop publicly at least urging the United States to attack Iran.

Meir Litvak:  First of all, I want to thank you for inviting me. I’m deeply honored to be here. Secondly, I will say that I represent myself – I’m not an official spokesman, I’m an academic.

I don’t know what the Israeli government will do. I don’t think anyone knows what will happen tomorrow in Israel or the Middle East. But before discussing Israeli perspectives, and here I emphasize the plural form, on the Iranian issue following the US elections, I want to explain some of the foundations of Israeli visions on the problem.

I think that all Israelis – and here there is a very real consensus in Israel – all Israelis are generally afraid of Iran and particularly a nuclear Iran for several reasons. One is that Iran is the only country in the world whose entire leadership, including reformists and liberals, openly and unequivocally and regularly call for the destruction of the state of Israel. It is not only Ahmadinejad with his colorful personality but also Supreme Leader Khamenei and all the way to reformist former President Khatami. Iran is also the only country in the Middle East today whose leadership and media employ unambiguous anti-Jewish discourse. This rhetoric is not primarily a foreign policy tool intended to rally the support of frustrated Arab masses behind Iran’s regional policies, although it certainly helps Iran, but in my view it constitutes an important component of the Islamic Republic’s official Islamist ideology. It is therefore directed both at domestic audiences and foreign audiences.

To those who dismiss such rhetoric as merely bombastic Iranian rhetoric, which is sometimes what I hear – Iranians don’t really mean what they say – I would answer that first of all, such a claim in my view is racist, saying that Iranians don’t mean what they say. Secondly, if we should not believe what Iranians are saying about Israel, why should we believe their denials about their nuclear aspirations? Third, I think in the 21st century, after Rwanda and after bin Laden, it is a folly not to believe movements or states who declare their aspirations publicly.

Furthermore, it is not only talk. Iran actually acts. Iran provides military, political and financial support for organizations that fight Israel and call for its destruction, such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas until recently, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Therefore Israel is afraid that a nuclear Iran may pose a greater threat to its survival. There are those who fear that Iran may actually use nuclear weapons against Israel should it acquire them. Therefore they view a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to Israel.

Most Israelis who deal with this issue believe that even if Iran would not employ such weapons when it gets them, it will still pose a major threat. I will try to explain why. There is a widespread axiom shared by many – myself included – that the Iranian leadership is rational, that it is not mad or suicidal, and therefore it is unlikely that Iran will attack Israel, because of the high cost.

Some also by the way raise the rather weak argument that Iran will not attack Israel because such an attack will entail the killing of many Muslim Palestinians. To this argument I would say that apparently Iran is unaware of the killing of Muslims in Syria, because otherwise it would not have helped the Bashar Assad regime for the last eighteen months.

But the “rational” argument contains several problems, at least two. Rational leaders make mistakes. Sometimes rational leaders misread or misinterpret reality and therefore pursue mistaken policies based on what they believe to be rational considerations. This is one problem. Secondly, while Iran has been rational so far, there is no 100 percent guarantee that it will always be rational in the future once it acquires nuclear weapons. Let’s say there is a 5 percent chance that Iran will not be rational; for some Israelis a 1 percent margin is a big enough threat. Also from the rational point of view, let me cite the statement by former President Rafsanjani – a pragmatist, a reformist – who said twice in 2000-2001 that in a nuclear duel in the region, Israel may kill 100 million Muslims but Muslims can sustain such casualties knowing that in exchange there will be no Israel on the map. So this is a rational argument – not a pleasant one, but still a rational argument.

Finally, within the Iranian leadership today there is a small irrational group – a minority group, I know – which is today under constant attack by the mainstream for its ideology. Today this group is in a minority but again, who knows what will happen in the distant future.

Moreover, even if Iran will not use nuclear weapons against Israel, a nuclear Iran will still be a problem for Israel (from the Israeli point of view) because it will mean a nuclear race in the Middle East, with the likelihood that some Arab countries and maybe Turkey will acquire nuclear weapons. Then we will have a much less stable Middle East. Secondly, a nuclear Iran will embolden radical organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in their confrontation with Israel. Hezbollah today has more than 50,000 missiles aimed against Israel. Islamic Jihad has hundreds of such missiles. In a future confrontation, a nuclear Iran can send messages to Israel that you don’t do certain things – otherwise. Any Israeli government will face a major dilemma facing a conventional confrontation with heavily armed Hezbollah and such an Iranian threat.

These perceptions that I mentioned serve as the basis for the ongoing debate inside Israel over the policy of confronting Iran. Unlike the conventional wisdom that is sometimes disseminated by the media, I believe that the preferred solution by most Israelis is the diplomatic solution – including, by the way, Prime Minister Netanyahu – in which Iran will not continue to progress toward military nuclear capability. The predominant Israeli view is that only one thing can convince Iran to accept the diplomatic solution, and that is the Iranian belief that pursuing military capability may endanger the survival of the Iranian regime in the long run. For such an Iranian perception to prevail, from the Israeli point of view, two measures are necessary. One is continued pressure on Iran – sanctions are essential from the Israeli point of view. Second, a credible military threat, as undesirable as it may be. Those who want peace should prepare for war, according to this perception.

Here I would say that again Netanyahu’s policy, despite its acrimonious tone, has been at least partially successful because had it not been for Israeli badgering, the sanctions regime against Iran would not have gone as far as it did. I think fear of an Israeli attack also enabled the buildup of a large worldwide coalition against Iran.

At the same time, many Israelis – apparently among them Netanyahu – do not believe that the sanctions will work. Therefore they believe that eventually Israel may have to attack Iran. They believe that Israel will have no choice, even in defiance of the US. Advocates of this view believe that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel’s survival and therefore all other considerations – such as the deaths of hundreds or maybe a few thousand Israelis following an Iranian response, or even a temporary crisis with the US – is a lesser evil than the evil that a nuclear Iran will pose. Others by the way believe that Iran will respond only in a limited way and therefore somehow Israel can get away with it. There are also those in Israel who believe that Iran would retaliate against Gulf countries and that would eventually bring about the rest of the world community against Iran.

Such views are vehemently opposed by leading members of the Israeli security establishment, most prominently the former chief of staff, former head of Mossad, former head of the security services – and I think there’s an interesting irony here, that the military men in Iran are much more cautious in using military options than politicians. The major argument is that an Israeli attack will have limited effect and it will embroil Israel in a long-term struggle whose costs would be too high.

What are the options following the American elections? I would say several possibilities. One, there is an argument in Israel that Israel should be more proactive, more forthcoming in other fields, such as the Palestinian issue, in order to help both the US and moderate Arab countries. Personally I support such a view although I’m not sure it will solve all the problems.

I agree with what Mehrzad Boroujerdi said on the problems that Iran is facing. I think also Iran needs, as part of such a future negotiation, to be offered a face-saving formula that will enable it to pursue peaceful nuclear energy development.

I think the major Israeli fear here is that an agreement with Iran should not come at the expense of basic Israeli security needs. Here I would say that in Hebrew there are two terms which are very close to each other grammatically – [in Hebrew] – that is, reconciliation and appeasement. I think most Israelis would support US-Iranian reconciliation but not an appeasement of Iran at the expense of basic Israeli security needs – and also at the expense of, let’s say, Iranian hegemony in the Gulf.

I don’t think a nuclear-free Middle East is a viable solution at the present moment. As long as there are countries and organizations that call for the destruction of Israel, no Israeli will accept such a formula. I think it’s a non-starter.

So I believe that the Israeli government, as much as it may not like the situation, will acquiesce or in fact welcome American-Iranian negotiations provided they offer a real solution to the problem. If such negotiations succeed – making predictions in the Middle East has always been a risky business, especially after the past two years, so I have no idea. Thank you.

Barbara Slavin:  Thank you very much. Now for our last speaker we’re going to look at the view from the Gulf Arab states, which perhaps are not always as vociferous as the Israelis are on the Iran issue but certainly get to have a vote in this. We have Bernard Haykel, he’s a Professor of Near Eastern Studies and the Director of the Transregional Institute for the Study of the Middle East and North Africa at Princeton University. He was formerly Associate Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern History at New York University. He focuses largely on Islamic political movements and legal thought, the history and politics of the Arabian Peninsula, and he has published extensively on the Salafi movement. His next book is on the religious politics of Saudi Arabia since the 1950s.

Bernard Haykel:  Thank you very much. Thank you to the Middle East Institute for this kind invitation. I have twelve minutes? Fourteen. Nonetheless I will have to probably be very telegraphic. I’m going to focus principally on the two Arab Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar with respect to Iran and the events of the Arab Spring. I will talk less about the others but I’ll happily entertain any questions in the Q&A session.

The Arab Gulf states, perhaps with the exception of Oman, view Iran as a regional rival and enemy. Their policy is, in short, to contain and roll back Iranian gains and influence in the region and are therefore engaged in a proxy war with Iran in a number of locations in the region, the most important of which are of course Syria today and to a certain extent, at least in the imagination of the Saudis, in Bahrain.

Both Saudi and Qatar have effectively gained at least one battle in this proxy war, which is to have peeled away Hamas from Iran’s orbit. Just to recapitulate a bit of history, the Saudi leadership views Iran as a religious and strategic rival that has benefited greatly from the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Until the Arab Spring Iran had become a dominant force in a geographically strategic arc that stretches from Iraq, Syria, into Lebanon, and with Hamas also the Palestinian card. The Saudi view is also that Iran meddles among the Shi’a populations of Kuwait, the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, and Bahrain – among the Shi’a communities there – and that the aim of the Iranian regime is to radicalize these Shi’is and for them to act as subversive elements. For example, in the case of Bahrain, the toppling of the regime there, which is a Sunni minority regime.

The Saudis hold the view that should Shi’is be given any power in Bahrain, this is a slippery slope that would lead to a new Hezbollah-like territory just off of the strategically important eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. For the Saudis, the question of Bahrain is a red line. It is no accident that the Obama administration has been very careful when discussing Bahrain and effectively has, as far as I can tell, dropped the matter almost altogether, compared to what the Obama administration has been saying about Syria, for example. For the Saudis, there’s no question that the Bahraini royal family is to remain in power and to offer no political concessions to the Shi’a, who are the majority in the island kingdom. As we see, because of this policy of no concessions, we do see a radicalization developing among the Shi’a of Bahrain. There has been violence lately with some bombings. This has in fact only reinforced the Saudi policy. Only yesterday the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s interior ministers met and signed a security agreement which further reinforces the policy that no concessions are to be made in Bahrain.

Shi’ism, especially its highly politicized Iranian form, constitutes a very convenient target for the Saudi leadership. This is where I want to get into the minds of the Saudi leadership for a second. Not only do they view this as a real ideological menace to the Wahhabi version of Islam that the Saudis promote, but the threat that Iran poses is also to the leadership of the Muslim world that the Saudi leaders themselves claim to be, as keepers of the two sacred mosques in Mecca and Medina. Shi’ism though represents an opportunity for the Saudis in that if you focus on it as an enemy ideology and as a group that constitutes an enemy to the Kingdom, you’re able to rally your own Sunni base of support by identifying Iran and Shi’ism as the enemy. In other words, the need for an enemy – and the fact that Iran is an enemy – are mutually reinforcing elements for Saudi policy, both domestically and regionally.

Let me talk about the Muslim Brotherhood for a second. The Saudis do not like the Muslim Brotherhood, and they have good reason not to like the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a history there of Saudi cultivation and patronization of the Muslim Brotherhood and then the Muslim Brotherhood have on repeated occasions – as viewed from the Saudi leadership’s position – have abandoned the Saudis and stabbed them in the back. The most prominent example of this was in 1990-1991, when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait and the Muslim Brotherhood adopted a position of supporting Iraq against both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This is a region where people have long memories. It is not something the Saudis have forgotten.

The Qataris, who also have patronized the Muslim Brotherhood since at least the 1950s, have a slightly different view of the Muslim Brotherhood. They are patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood and they have very strongly supported the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Arab Spring countries where you have had uprisings. I argue that the reason why the Qataris have done this – well, there are several reasons. One is that the Muslim Brotherhood is a force multiplier for the Qataris. It allows the Qataris to plug into a network of activists and political agents throughout the Arab and Muslim world, a network that it itself did not have to build – unlike the Saudis, who have built their own Salafi network going back to the 1930s. The other reason is that the Qataris and the Saudis are also rivals with one another. I don’t have time to get into the reasons why the Saudis and the Qataris don’t like each other, even though they do coordinate on some policies – most notably on Bahrain and also to some extent on Syria – but they don’t like each other. So Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood is another way for the Qataris to needle the Saudis, which is always something they enjoy doing.

Iraq is something I will come back to just towards the end of my comments. Iraq is a real battleground as far as I can see. The Saudis have adopted a position that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is a persona non grata. He has never been received in Saudi Arabia – I don’t think he is ever likely to be received in Saudi Arabia – because they see him as an agent of Iran and as someone who is sort of a mini-Saddam in the making, a new dictator who is likely to reinforce an Iraq that could constitute a mortal threat to the Saudi kingdom. But unlike Saddam, who was a Sunni, now in a Shi’a guise. I think that Iraq is potentially another proxy battleground, not just between Saudi Arabia and Iran but also between the Saudis and directly the Iraqis.

On Egypt, the policy of both Saudi Arabia and Qatar – and here I’m being very telegraphic – has been basically to tell the Egyptians that if they should ever consider reinforcing their ties and links and reopening the Egyptian embassy in Tehran, the price for that would be the Gulf would not send any investments or financial aid to the Egyptians. You see that a number of Egyptians, including Nabil Elaraby, were penalized in fact – by being made head of the Arab League – for having supported earlier on a reinvigorated policy between Egypt and Iran.

There is one issue that I want to mention about the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood does not have, ideologically or in creedal terms, an allergy to Shi’ism. In fact the Supreme Leader in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the little scholarship he is known for, two books of his were actually translations into Persian of Sayyid Qutb’s books, one of the premier ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood. So there is actually grounds for the Saudis to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, inasmuch as the Muslim Brotherhood is not allergic to Shi’ism, or at least has not been. That is one other reason why the Saudis are quite worried about the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the nuclear program, clearly the Saudis are against the development of an Iranian nuclear program. But I don’t think they know what to do about it and certainly have not developed a well-formulated policy in that regard. No doubt the Saudis hope that the US will be able to manage this problem for them and Saudi decision-making in the past has often kicked the proverbial can down the road in the hope that the problem will disappear over time. Many times it has in fact disappeared. So I don’t see a policy there.

There is speculation that the Saudis, should the Iranians ever develop the capacity for a nuclear weapon, could get one off the shelf from Pakistan. It seems the Saudis were involved in the development of that nuclear program, although I don’t personally have proof of that. I do know that the late Prince Sultan was the only foreign dignitary who was ever allowed into the Pakistani nuclear sites.

The Saudis do have oil as a possible weapon in that they can increase its production and lower its price, but the Saudis have been very reticent to use oil as a weapon and it has often backfired in the past. So I don’t see them going down that route in order to punish Iran, by lowering the price.

One has to remember that the Saudis cannot project military force, but one of the other weapons they do have lies in what I call the cultural wars – that is, the wars of religion, by promoting a form of Islam known as Salafism which is very anti-Shi’i (and anti-Sufi for that matter) as a way to contain Iranian influence. But there again, this is very problematic. Salafism is highly fissile in that it can come back to haunt you, as it has done in the past.

Lastly I just want to mention a couple of words about the new leadership that is emerging in Riyadh today. There have been several appointments, most notably the Director of General Intelligence, which is the Saudi equivalent of the CIA, and a new Minister of the Interior, Muhammad bin Nayef, a very competent and highly able individual – both individuals in foreign intelligence and in domestic internal security are younger princes who are very competent, have very good connections with the US intelligence and military establishment. I think they are the most important development as far as Saudi domestic and international policy are concerned.

In conclusion, I think the situation in the Middle East is a highly dynamic one. The former speaker said it’s always good to be pessimistic or cynical – you are almost always right if you adopt such a posture. I will do so myself. I don’t think we’re headed into calm waters at all as far as the region is concerned, and Saudi Arabia as well as Qatar will be playing a very important role in containing Iran. Thank you.

Q&A

Barbara Slavin:  Thank you very much to all the speakers. That’s a great basis to start the discussion. I’m going to ask one question of each of you and then we’ll open it up to the floor.

Mehrzad, let me start with you and ask you to talk a little bit about what you see as the obstacles that are looming ahead, assuming the US and Iran actually do begin negotiations. Then I’m going to ask Ray to answer the question he didn’t, which is, who do you think would represent the United States if there is a back channel? For Meir, I’m going to ask whether you really believe the Iranians would go all the way to make a nuclear weapon and isn’t there a great concern that an attack on Iran would actually provoke the thing that you fear the most. Finally, I wanted to get a little more from you, if I may, Professor Haykel, on how you would manage and contain Iran, assuming we don’t get a resolution or Iran actually does go all the way and makes nuclear weapons. Do you see a restoration of this kind of military alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States that has been so controversial in the past?

Mehrzad Boroujerdi:  In regard to the obstacles, I think first and foremost let’s remind ourselves that we have thirty-four years of accumulated animosity between the two sides. Therefore both on the Iranian and the American side there are a lot of people who are very much opposed to any type of normalization of relations. We find these people in the intelligence and security apparatus of Iran, we see them in the US Congress and think tanks in this city and many other places. So that’s number one.

Number two is what I call the “damn clock” problem. In the next set of months we have a number of important events that can torpedo this type of negotiations. In January perhaps Hillary Clinton will be out of her job and a new person needs to come and establish his or her team and get things started. In February we are going to have the Israeli elections. In March we are going to have the Iranian New Year holiday which basically means the country is closed for business for a long time. Then of course in June we have the presidential elections in Iran. So these four events looming in the calendar are going to be responsible in this regard.

In terms of other obstacles, one other problem that can bring everything down will be overreach on the part of the US or once again repeating the mistakes of the past – in other words, putting an offer on the table that we know the Iranians are not going to agree to. This can be done for domestic consumption and so forth but I think the end result is that we are not going to move an inch forward. It seems to me that very much we know what the contours of a compromise formula are really all about: enrichment to this type of percentage, inspections by the IAEA, and on the Iranian side lifting of the sanctions and things of that nature.

We need to also keep in mind about how in the past we reached agreements, such as the one that was engineered by the Turks and the Brazilians. That didn’t amount to much. My life philosophy is pessimism of intellect and optimism of will. This is the approach that I adopt with regard to the prospect of any type of negotiations between Iran and the US.

One last point. Among the Iranian expatriate community too there is a lot of resistance to this notion of negotiation between the two sides because of the assumption that any type of negotiations with Iran is basically going to give the regime a new lease on life and ensure their existence. Again, not that this is a major factor – the expat community doesn’t necessarily have much leverage – but I think it is also a factor that can complicate the public diplomacy that will come about, because of Iran’s horrible human rights record and so forth.

Ray Takeyh:  The way this issue has been structured, it tends to be nestled in the office of political directors. That was a decision made in 2005. It didn’t have to be there, that’s where it was, and it has persisted in the office of political directors. I think if there are any negotiations between the United States and Iran they are likely to be taking place in the context of 5+1 and that essentially means that the office of undersecretaries are likely to be responsible for that. I’m not sure if there will be an individual independent of that. If I was an undersecretary, I wouldn’t want that. So I think that’s where it’s likely to rest. It’s rested there for the past ten years.

This is an issue that, despite all the ebbs and flows of hysteria, is marked by continuity. If you’ve been around this issue for a while there’s nothing you haven’t seen before. The years of decision – 2013 is the year of decision. I remember John Hanna telling me 2007 was the year of decision. So it’s like “Groundhog Day” – every day starts with “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. The people who come into this issue sporadically think that’s new. There’s nothing remarkably dynamic about this. But at some point there will be some decisions that have to be made. I’m not sure if they’re there yet. And everybody has an incentive to kind of procrastinate.

Barbara Slavin:  I always like to say with Iran, failure has a thousand fathers and success is an orphan. Would you talk, Meir, a little bit about do you really think Iran would develop a weapon, and isn’t a military strike counterproductive.

Meir Litvak:  First of all, I don’t know. But I can say that Iran may go all the way if it feels that it will be allowed to do so – that is, if there is no price entailed, then why shouldn’t they go all the way? If on the other hand there is a certain price for it, then the Iranians may stop at some point. One of the Israeli security men says that Iran will not cross a red line, Iran will try to push many tiny pink lines – they will try to push the red line all the way. But again, I have no idea whether they will go all the way.

I do agree that an Israeli attack on Iran is most likely to produce a nuclear Iran at some point, because it will be extremely difficult for the Iranians to sustain the humiliation of being attacked by Israel and then not going all the way. On the other hand, if there is an attack by an international coalition, obviously the military effects of such an attack would be much greater and it will be much more difficult for Iran to try to go all the way, if they would decide to do so.

Bernard Haykel:  Basically your question is about the future of the US-Saudi relationship. The latest discussions about the nature of this relationship have to do with this new talk here in the United States of energy independence, and that shale gas and oil will make North America independent and therefore our need for Saudi oil will become less important, and therefore we can afford as Americans to scale back or perhaps even abandon the Saudi regime. I think talk like this is very dangerous and in fact it’s very myopic, because of the nature of the international oil business. America cannot be an autarkic country when it comes to oil. The relationship and the projection of force into the region I don’t think can be scaled back without very serious consequences.

The other point about the military relationship, I think it’s already there in that the United States, according to The New York Times, exported $74 billion worth of weapons last year, $33 billion of which were to Saudi Arabia. So the Saudis are major buyers of US weapons and I can’t imagine that they are not therefore very closely knit to any possible military strategy the United States has in the region. So I would predict that if Iran does go down the nuclear route, the relationship between the Saudis and the Americans will become much stronger still.

Question:  My name is Hassan, I was born in Tehran. I have an NGO called Global Bridges for Humanity. My question is to all the panelists – and please don’t give me a yes or no answer, just give a little bit of explanation. As we’ve discussed here, it seems that Iran is a powerful country and is Muslim as a religion and has a large or great influence in the region, and is capable of protecting our national security interests as a natural ally in that area, unlike the people of Israel. Do you think a divorce between Israel and the US is in progress?

Barbara Slavin:  That’s quite a question. I have to say, I haven’t detected one, but I will defer to our Israeli panelist. Actually let me amplify that a little bit. There has been a lot written about the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu bet on the wrong horse in the American elections. Do you think there’s going to be some weakening of the US-Israeli alliance, a bit of a chill between Obama and Netanyahu, who seems likely to be reelected in your elections in January?

Meir Litvak:  There might be a brewing problem in US-Israeli relations following Netanyahu’s wrong betting in the American elections. There is of course also the possibility that if there is no progress in any other field in the Middle East, it will negatively affect US-Israeli relations. On the other hand, there are other factors that may mitigate such a problem. But again, as an Israeli, I think Israel has to pay greater attention to preserving its position in the US by behaving cautiously and smartly.

Question:  My name is Gabriel, I’m from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, I’m a political science student. How much weight does the backing of the United States have on the decision that Israel will make either to strike or wait, if the negotiations happen or not?

Barbara Slavin:  I guess that’s for you again. And does Israel get to have a say in whether the United States attacks Iran?

Meir Litvak:  No, as far as I know, the US is a sovereign country, so I don’t think Israel will decide what America will do. I think if America acts it will do so based on its own calculations. The Israelis can maybe beg, implore, beseech, urge – I don’t think they will decide what the US will do, especially not in a second-term president. I think it also has a lot to do with what the Iranians will do. This is not only a one-sided show, there are many players here.

Question:  A comment and a question. As a student of Middle East politics – Iranian regime, not Iran. The events of 2009 indicated that that regime does not truly represent Iranian people. Then we have the Iranian nuclear program. The Iranian regime has stood on the platform and consolidated its power based on anti-US, anti-Israeli rhetoric. The Iranian nuclear program is being adopted either, based on their interpretation, for self-defense or for their global and regional agendas. From an international perspective, Iran is not as naïve to wipe Israel off the map and it’s not as naïve to not use nuclear weapons for their regional agendas and for their antagonistic platforms that they have been consolidating power. So the talk is not to use military strategy to deal with the Iranian regime but the talk is the Iranian regime and the Iranian nuclear program – if you want to deal with this, why not deal with this? Is there a feasibility that the international community and regional powers could get rid of this so that this will be solved by itself?

Barbara Slavin:  I guess that’s the regime change question.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi:  I think the events of 2009 demonstrated quite well that the present regime has some serious legitimacy problems in the eyes of many Iranians. Those types of unrest and concerns and grievances have not been put to rest – they are still there, lingering in the background. Who knows, I like to say that Iran is a country that is always pregnant with the possibility of these types of uprisings that no one expects – in 1999 with the student uprising and again in 2009 with post-elections. So I would not necessarily rule out the possibility that tomorrow or two years from now, etc., we might see a repeat of a popular uprising in Iran.

But all things considered, at this point in time I do not see the regime worried or on the brink of being toppled. For a variety of reasons it seems to me that the regime has managed to stabilize itself. It utilizes or manipulates the nuclear issue, it plays on nationalistic sentiments of the Iranians to present the nuclear issue as a certain right of the Iranian public. So this correlation that you wanted to create about we take care of the regime and the nuclear issue will necessarily disappear, I don’t think it’s realistic in this given conjuncture.

Question:  My name is Danielle Rosso and I’m a graduate of American University. My question is for Mr. Takeyh. You talked a lot about how our approach to Iran has largely been proliferation-obsessed and the ways in which this obsession has blinded us from dealing with other issues. My question is, how entrenched are we in that mindset? Is it really possible to table the issue temporarily to deal with other things, without seeming to abandon the issue completely?

Ray Takeyh:  I don’t think so. I think this is a kind of institutionalized entrenchment and I think your alliances in the region – in the Gulf and Israel – as well as the international community kind of press it. It has been viewed as proliferation is dangerous and that danger is imminent. I’m frankly one of those people that don’t believe Iran is the most pressing national security concern the United States has. There are far bigger ones, such as the integration of China [indiscernible] 21st century international system or whatever. If Iran is the biggest threat that we face then we’re a fairly secure country.

Nevertheless, I think that’s been the issue that has dominated all other issues. So long as that’s the case then I don’t see any change. As I said, there’s a concept that has evolved on how to deal with Iran and that concept is predicated on counter-proliferation. That has all kinds of deficiencies. One of the ironies of a counter-proliferation policy is it hasn’t produced proliferation results. Oddly enough, it may not be able to unless you broaden the canvas.

Barbara Slavin:  My understanding is that the United States is willing to broaden the agenda in bilateral talks with Iran. Whether the US is willing to talk about issues like Syria, I don’t know, but perhaps about Afghanistan, where there are some mutual interests as the US withdraws.

Question:  Emily Morris from the State Department. Thank you all for your diverse and very interesting remarks. My question is: if we are going to speak to the Iranians, how do we overcome the issue of the trust gap that has developed over the past several decades and has been increased through the situation in dealing with Afghanistan after the invasion or addressing other issues such as the Mujahidin al-Khalq or security in Iraq. When we have all these diversion issues that we may want to discuss with the Iranians and yet because we have this trust gap – I mean, the Americans don’t have any representation in Iran whatsoever, very few American diplomats have ever actually traveled to Iran. The Iranians who are here don’t interact that much with American society and don’t interact with American officials. How do we even begin to negotiate and overcome the trust gap that prevents us from addressing either if we want to just focus on the nuclear issue or if we want to bring up all these other issues as well? Secondary to that, how does the domestic factor affect our ability to negotiate? From the American side, the domestic push-and-pull between Congress and the White House, and on the Iranian side, the domestic conflict between Khamenei trying to maintain his power while there’s huge unrest in the middle class. Yet there’s still this diehard group of people who do support the Iranian regime and do support what they stand for against the United States and against Israel.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi:  I mentioned that psychological scar tissue for the last thirty-four years being an obstacle. But on the other hand, I have enough respect for the policymaking establishment in this country to know that these guys realize there are certain benefits to be gained from not being to a hostage to the traumas of the past but to address the pressing issues of today. Let me just mention four or five issues as to why I think the United States should negotiate with Iran at this very moment without any type of preconditions.

Number one, if I’m President Obama, I look at my watch for the next four years. During these four years two things can happen, possible scenarios, that either one of them is not going to be my lasting legacy: there is a war with Iran, or Iran will go nuclear. Both will happen on your watch. Both of them can be the defining moment for the Obama presidency. If I’m the president, this is an issue that makes it important for me to look at.

Number two, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium keeps going on. The clock is ticking to their advantage, as was pointed out by some of my colleagues. It’s going to be a fait accompli in a number of months or years and you are going to have to deal with that. Sanctions are not going to bring about regime change, as we have seen in the cases of Cuba, North Korea. Sanctions by the Israelis against Hamas did not bring Hamas down either. So let’s not get carried away with how effective sanctions can be. The price of oil can drop and therefore it can be helpful to the US bottom line in an economic sense.

The looming 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan can be made complicated by Iranian interference in that place and President Obama has to deal with that issue. Concentrating on Syria and the repercussions of the Arab Spring, the deteriorating situation in many of these countries in North Africa, etc. – this is a laundry list of reasons why any hardcore foreign policymaker or strategic thinker within the State Department should think very seriously about why we need to negotiate with Iran at this given point.

Ray Takeyh:  There is always this discussion about the negotiations and the trade-offs. On the one hand there is the school of thought that suggests you have to concentrate on proliferation, it’s the most immediate concern, and to broaden the canvas beyond that allows Iran to divert attention from the issue of concern. There’s another school of thought that suggests by broadening the issue perhaps you can find other areas of commonality that would mitigate the nuclear disagreement. I don’t think we have conclusively resolved that particular dispute.

As I said, I think there’s the possibility of some tactical interim agreements but beyond that I’m not quite sure if either country is in a position or inclination to do so. Afghanistan is a place that everybody always talks about. The United States and Iran have had common interests in Afghanistan since the 1980s and somehow that has never culminated in a different kind of relationship in other issues of concern, so I’m not sure if it will in this case either. But that’s the conceptual divide about how to conduct negotiations.

I suspect, given the way this issue has been articulated and constructed, it is likely to be more proliferation-centric. If proliferation issues aren’t mitigated you will begin to see it worsen. I can see the next four years being pretty much like the last four years except at a higher level. There will be more sanctions, there will be a greater degree of Iranian nuclear resources.

There is a price to be paid for this and the price is actually being paid by the Iranian people. Nobody wants to talk about this clearly: there is a sort of ethical dilemma to economic sanctions. We are getting into a sort of implosion of Iraq in the 1990s and the costs that the sanctions imposed on that country in terms of malnutrition and so on. There are people who are not participants in this confrontation but nevertheless they are victimized by it.

Barbara Slavin:  I was in Iran at the end of August and a very worrisome development is that Iranians are starting to blame the United States and the West for the economic pain as well as their own government, whereas in the past they mostly complained about their own government. So the question is, if you’re looking at Iran as a long-term strategic issues – which it is – are you going to focus narrowly on this nuclear question or are you going to try to build or maintain a long-term relationship with the Iranian people, looking toward the day when they do have a different form of government? I hope that’s something people in the State Department are thinking about, even if they don’t seem to be thinking about it on Capitol Hill.

Question:  [indiscernible], communications consultant. You just addressed one of my questions, which was about the sanctions. My other question is, at the risk of sounding naïve, and I’m doing so deliberately, could you all please address how you would tell the American people why they should consider Iran an enemy? Because in the popular media, that is what we get. Why should we care so much about nuclear proliferation when we don’t discuss Israel’s nuclear capability? North Korea has nuclear capability, Pakistan and India have nuclear capability. The only country to have ever used it has been us.

Bernard Haykel:  As far as viewing Iran as an enemy, I think you have to make a distinction between the Iranian people and the regime. The regime is clearly antagonistic to the United States – has made it sort of its calling card that we are the Great Satan – and has pursued policies in a number of countries that have been antithetical to our interests. That’s not always been the case. In Afghanistan after 9/11 the Iranians helped us target positions inside Afghanistan because they had intelligence on the ground whereas we didn’t. So there is a possibility of developing a relationship based on common interests but in a number of cases our interests have been very dramatically opposed to one another: on oil, on Syria, on Hezbollah in Lebanon and so on. In some areas though we could have mutual interests. For instance, in Bahrain, I think the fact that the majority Shi’is are being disenfranchised is not something that’s good for us or for the Iranians. So perhaps there we could coordinate.

So I think there are causes where we could join forces but on the whole this is not a regime that’s been supportive or friendly to the United States.

Question:  Morgan Bach from Rebuilding Alliance. I just got back from the West Bank – I lived for eight months in a village under demolition order. It’s one of 12,000 demolition orders standing in the West Bank, which is about half of the West Bank. As we speak right now Israel is launching an aerial and sea offensive on Gaza right now. My question is, we haven’t heard anything from the panel that suggests that the reasons behind Iran’s threat toward Israel are even a topic worth discussing. Can we recognize Israeli policy and US aid to Israel as a destabilizing factor in the region, given Israel’s violations of international law and open sabotage of the Palestinian state?

Question:  Ben Chase. This is a question for Professor Haykel. I had a question as to whether there was a way to calm the Iranian-Gulf tension. And, since you briefly mentioned the Sultan of Oman, what sort of role Oman would have to play as a diplomatic partner of both Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Bernard Haykel:  Oman is a very interesting country in that it maintains very good relations with both the United States and the Arab Gulf countries as well as with Iran. It can play a positive role, although I think there are issues from the Saudi perspective certainly where – they just feel that Iran has no role to play in any domestic or Arab cause. In other words, Iran should not meddle in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, has nothing to say about the Palestinian question. That’s a tall order. I don’t see how the Iranians would be willing to even concede on any of these fronts, no matter what Oman does or does not do.

Barbara Slavin:  If you could talk a little bit about the Palestinian issue and how it affects Israel’s attitude toward Iran and Iran’s attitude toward Israel.

Meir Litvak:  I think it would be very naïve to believe that the Iranian hostility toward Israel is because of Israel policies in the West Bank. Iran is opposed to the existence of Israel in any part of this region. I can give you dozens of declarations and documents on this issue. If you argue that Israel should not exist and therefore the Middle East would be much more stable, then there’s not much to talk about.

Iran employs anti-Jewish rhetoric going back to the most vicious anti-Semitic arguments used by Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is not relevant to what is going on in the West Bank. This is something much deeper to the basic ideology and self-perception of this regime. It would be very naïve to believe that once, let’s say, there’s an improvement in the West Bank, that will eliminate the Iran problem. It will not.

Would a different Israeli policy on the West Bank and Gaza help? In some ways it would help but not in the sense that it will eliminate the Iranian problem. I want progress on the Palestinian issue from a selfish Israeli point of view. I think it would be better for Israeli relations with Arab countries, although again I’m not very optimistic about the prospects of peace in the Middle East. I personally believe that things can be worse or can be better if you don’t reach perfect solutions. But progress on this issue is helpful for many things – it will not solve the Iranian problem. It’s very naïve or basically you have ulterior motives to make this point and link it to Iran.

Ray Takeyh:  I tend to agree with the notion that even in absence of Israel there would be areas of disagreement between the United States and Iran. It’s a complicated legacy between the two states, going back to the hostage crisis and the conflicts that the two have. And those conflicts have persisted – Iranian interference in Iraq against the American occupation forces and so forth. There is a level of animosity that’s built into this relationship. The question is, with a different diplomatic framework, can you address these animosities in a more measured way as opposed to the way it is today? You can dispute that. But I’m not quite sure if Israel is the only basis of disagreement between these two countries.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi:  I agree too. I started my talk by saying I wished somebody from the Iranian government was here to present their position too. Let’s see the world from their vantage point. It’s not just Israel. Iran wants to be considered as a regional hegemon, yet when it looks around in the neighborhood it sees itself sandwiched between seven nuclear powers: Israel, Russia, China, Pakistan, India, US nuclear submarines, etc. How can any state pretend that it wants to play with the big boys and not have the big toys that the big boys have? That’s the vantage point from Iran.

So it’s way beyond just an Israeli issue. I don’t think the Iranians, contrary to what is being said, I don’t think the Iranians are obsessed with Israel. Iranians have a very hard, calculating foreign policy about how can we remain the regional power we used to be. We want to say that the revolution really didn’t change much in that type of mindset. That’s the vantage point from which they look at the world.

Barbara Slavin:  There are still about 20,000 Jews who live in Iran, from a very old community. In my experience in Iran, I found that Iranians are anti-Semitic – they don’t like Arabs very much. We’ll leave it there. Thank you very much to our speakers, who were all terrific.

.