[Senate Hearing 109-966]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-966
IRAN'S NUCLEAR IMPASSE: NEXT STEPS
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HEARING
before the
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 20, 2006
__________
Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Michael L. Alexander, Minority Staff Director
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, AND INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska THOMAS CARPER, Delaware
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
Katy French, Staff Director
Sheila Murphy, Minority Staff Director
John Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Liz Scranton, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Coburn............................................... 1
Senator Carper............................................... 3
Senator Dayton............................................... 26
WITNESSES
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Amir Abbas Fakhravar, Chairman, Independent Student Movement
(through a translater)......................................... 4
Ilan Berman, Vice President for Policy, American Foreign Policy
Council........................................................ 7
Michael A. Ledeen, Freedom Scholar, American Enterprise Institute 9
Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow, Middle East Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations.............................................. 12
Jim Walsh, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology..................................................... 14
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Berman, Ilan:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 40
Fakhravar, Amir Abbas:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Ledeen, Michael A.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Takeyh, Ray:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 54
Walsh, Jim:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 59
IRAN'S NUCLEAR IMPASSE: NEXT STEPS
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THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, and International Security,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:39 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Coburn,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Coburn, Carper and Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. The Federal Financial Management and
International Security Subcommittee of Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs will come to order. I want to welcome all
of our guests. I have thoroughly read your testimony, even
those that have come somewhat late. I appreciate the efforts
that you have made to inform this Subcommittee of your thoughts
and views.
We live in a dangerous time, a dangerous world. The events
that are unfolding in the Middle East today are not always what
they seem to be, and, in fact, proxies appear to be performing
for others.
There is no question that the largest sponsor of terrorism
in the world is the government of Iran. Without question, that
not only impacts the Middle East but the rest of the world.
There is no question that the sponsor and promoter and payer
for the improvised explosive devices that are multidirectional
and unidirectional in Iraq are prepared and paid for by the
government of Iran.
The purpose of this hearing, however, is to discuss Iran's
nuclear impasse and what is to be done about it and the
evidentiary nature of the statements that have been made by
their own negotiators and that they do not intend to negotiate
straightforward, they intend to buy time, as published widely
and worldwide by the fact that their negotiator said they
stalled the EU so that they could continue developing.
I think it is very important for us--and I want to thank my
co-Chairman Senator Carper for having initiated this second of
our hearings on Iran. But it is important for us to understand
the seriousness of the threat to the entire world, not just the
Middle East.
I also think it is very important for us to recognize the
threat that the government of Iran is to the people of Iran, to
the very people that they supposedly represent because
ultimately what they do, it does them tremendous damage.
I have a complete written statement I will make a part of
the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Coburn follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Within the past few weeks, the regime in Iran illustrated yet again
why it is a threat that the world cannot afford to ignore any longer.
There is no doubt that Iran is behind the two-front war being waged
against our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel, by Hamas and
Hezbollah terrorists. Just like there is no doubt that Iran is behind
the road-side bombs and other terrorist acts killing Allied soldiers
and innocent civilians in Iraq. For decades, the regime in Iran has
been exporting terror all around the world and killing untold numbers
including Americans, Israelis, Iraqis, and even fellow Iranians. Iran
is already a threat to the world without a nuclear capability--nuclear
weapons will only exacerbate that threat.
When the Iran's nuclear weapons program was first revealed by
Iranian dissidents in 2002, the international community could no longer
deny the problem. In 2003, Germany, France, and Britain--the ``E.U.-
3''--responded by offering Iran a generous economic package and a
promise of help developing so called ``peaceful'' sharing of nuclear
technology. The condition was that Iran would have to stop enriching
uranium. After lengthy negotiations, Iran responded by breaking the
I.A.E.A. seals on its centrifuges and rejecting the deal. The following
year, the Europeans tried another round of negotiations, resulting in
even more E.U.-3 concessions. But again, after lengthy negotiations,
Iran responded by breaking I.A.E.A. seals on its uranium conversion
facility and continued to develop nuclear technology.
We now know that Hassan Rowhani, the Iranian representative at the
negotiations, admitted that while he was negotiating with the
Europeans, the regime rushed to complete a major nuclear site. The
Telegraph article, aptly entitled ``How we duped the West, by Iran's
nuclear negotiator,'' quotes Rowhani as saying he created a ``tame
situation'' to buy time for the regime to finish the job.
President Bush has decided to give Iran one more opportunity at
negotiations. The United States has expanded the already generous
economic incentive package and has made Iran one final offer. It is
uncertain whether this new round of negotiations represents an exercise
in truly checking every last box or the Administration is indulging to
the prevailing in truly checking every last box or the Administration
is indulging to the prevailing appeasement ideology in Europe and in
some quarters at the State Department. Let's hope that nobody is
actually counting on good faith from a regime which has shown no sign
of it, and that these many efforts are simply an instrument of pressure
for the international community to demonstrate that everything has
truly been tried.
Amazingly, even after all we know regarding the regime's central
role in terrorism both inside and outside of Iran, some analysts here
in the United States jump at the chance to defend Iran's pursuit of
nuclear weapons. Since the beginning, the Iranian regime has referred
to the United States as ``the Great Satan'' and, even when a so-called
reformer was president, the regime rules Iran with an iron fist--
crushing all who would dare call for democracy and freedom--and
continues to be a state sponsor of terror. Against all rationality, the
apologists believe the regime will somehow have a change of heart if
only the United States offers trade relations, university scholarships,
and relaxed travel visas to the regime.
The regime's stall tactics are well documented, and recent Iranian
calls for more time and talking appear to be more of the same. Assuming
that these will eventually fail to deter an Iranian nuclear program,
the United States has three options left: Sanctions, military action
and aggressive democracy promotion.
Unfortunately, sanctions are not a promising option. First, they
must be agreed upon by everyone. Second, even when they are, they
haven't worked. Third, they won't pass in the U.N. Given the track
record with the U.N. on Burma, Sudan, Iraq, North Korea and any other
dangerous regime, it is highly unlikely we will see the Security
Council enforce an effective sanctions package against Iran. It would
be equally difficult for the United States to form a coalition of
willing nations since many European countries depend on Iran's energy
exports and several Western nations have significant trade relations
with the regime.
So, what about military options? While a full-scale invasion is not
necessarily ``off the table,'' it doesn't appear to have any serious
weight in the current policy track of the Administration. Surgical
strikes, on the other hand, appear to be within the realm of
possibility. Advocates say there are only a limited number of nuclear
sites, and striking them would cripple Iran's program. Opponents say
our intelligence on Iran is limited and unreliable. Regardless, it is
doubtful that President Bush wants to pass on to his successor the same
unresolved problems he inherited--North Korea, Iran, and al-Qaeda.
Surgical air strikes might be a fast and effective way to ensure he
doesn't leave office with Iran having a nuclear arsenal with which to
blackmail and threaten free nations.
Perhaps the greatest hope the world has is the spirit of liberty
among the Iranian people. Seventy percent of the Iranian people are
below the age of 30. These young people want a country of opportunity,
freedom, a chance to live out their dreams--not an oppressive
dictatorship under constant isolation from the free world. As was the
case in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and
many of the other Soviet satellites, the role of democracy
revolutionaries was essential to these countries' transformation.
Iran poses a grave threat to the world but an even graver threat to
Iranians; and therein lays our greatest hope for peace. By aggressively
and intelligently supporting the millions of young Iranians who long
for freedom and opportunity, the free world can loosen the iron grip of
the ayatollahs. That's why I've co-sponsored the Iran Freedom and
Support Act. But just throwing money at so-called democracy promotion
programs isn't enough. If not done right, programs can do more harm
than good. We have a responsibility to Iran's young people to oversee
these programs.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss these policy options
and the next steps for dealing with Iran. I want to thank the witnesses
for being here today, and I look forward to your testimonies.
Senator Coburn. I would like to recognize my Co-Chairman,
Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. To our
witnesses today, welcome. We appreciate your willingness to
stop what you are doing in your lives to be here with us today
and to share your thoughts and to respond to some of our
questions. I want to thank the Chairman for scheduling this
hearing and our staffs for working to prepare us for this day.
Every now and then we have hearings, and I am sure we both
participate in them, and you say, Why is this relevant to what
is going on in the world? Today we do not ask that question. We
know for sure why this is relevant to what is going on in the
world, in our lives and certainly in the lives of a lot of
people in the Middle East.
For nearly 2 weeks, violence in the Middle East has led to
more than 300 deaths, with many of those dying being civilians.
Iran, through its sponsorship of Hezbollah and its willingness
to back Syria, has been publicly linked to these events.
Our country has been placed in a difficult situation, a
situation where we must lead our allies on the one hand to
strategically contain the conflict between Hamas, Hezbollah,
and Israeli forces, and at the same time try to help stop the
Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.
The Administration has entered a decision to engage in
talks with Iran, multilateral talks with Iran regarding its
nuclear program. But, unfortunately, the success of this path
remains today at least in question, especially given the
current situation.
Additionally, the Administration has said that it will send
Secretary Rice to both the U.N. and to the Middle East to
discuss a solution to ending the conflict involving the
Israelis and some of their neighbors.
I cannot more urgently stress the need for these visits to
happen as soon as possible or the need for the United States to
utilize our diplomatic leverage to urge a cease-fire to the
fighting that continues to claim innocent lives.
I am looking forward to hearing the testimony from all of
you, and we look forward to the opportunity to see if that
testimony may shed a little more light on both the situations
that we face and a possible better path forward. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Again, welcome to our panelists. I will
introduce each of you, and then we will recognize you. Your
full statements will be made part of the record. Because Mr.
Fakhravar will have an interpreter, we will give him an
additional amount of time with which to make his statement.
Amir Abbas Fakhravar is Chairman of the Independent Student
Movement, is an Iranian student leader that recently left Iran
and came to the United States in April of this year. While in
Iran, Mr. Fakhravar was imprisoned by the regime for his
writings and activities that promote a free and democratic
Iran.
Next is Dr. Michael Ledeen, who is the Freedom Scholar at
the American Enterprise Institute. His research areas include
state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, and the Middle East.
Ilan Berman is Vice President for Policy at the American
Foreign Policy Council. Mr. Berman's research includes Iran and
the Middle East.
Dr. Ray Takeyh is Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at
the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before this
Committee before. Welcome back. He works on issues related to
Iran and political reform in the Middle East.
Finally, Dr. Jim Walsh is from the Security Studies Program
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He researches
international security policy.
Each of you will be allotted 5 minutes, and we will be
somewhat free with that time, if we can. If you do not have
time to make your point, we will be lenient in that regard. And
I want to welcome you. And to our leader of the Iranian Student
Movement, there is a movie that is well known in America, and a
classic line from it is, ``People don't follow titles. They
follow courage.'' I want to commend your courage and offer you
my admiration for your leadership for what you are doing. You
are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF AMIR ABBAS FAKHRAVAR,\1\ CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT
STUDENT MOVEMENT
Mr. Fakhravar. Thank you very much for giving me the honor
and opportunity to speak at the U.S. Senate, one of the world's
oldest and most distinguished democratic institutions. I assure
you that the very thought of being able to be with you fills me
with joy and awe. You are, as your ancestors promised, a beacon
of light to all nations around the world.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Fakhravar appears in the Appendix
on page 37.
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[Through translator.] My name is Amir Abbas Fakhravar. I am
basically leader of a portion of student movement in Iran. I
have been through jails and tortured. As a result of torture,
you can see the scars on my face. My left wrist was broken. My
knee was broken.
I am here to voice the Iranian operation, bring it to your
attention, and the basic regime change model and the message is
what we are here to pass on to you all.
I have four points to make here.
First is the negotiation part. Is there any real truth and
meaningful reason to have the negotiations with the Islamic
regime?
I have lived all my life under the system, the current
system in Iran, and I know the system very well. There is no
way that there is any place of negotiation with these people.
You can negotiate with people who have logical minds and
humanistic beliefs. The people in charge in Iran do not have
either one. They are brutal and oppressive. The crimes that
they pull on the people of Iran, you can see it based on
examples like stoning, cutting off their hands, eye gouging,
and torture.
I am not saying that the negotiation is not going to be
fruitful--sorry, that the negotiations are going to be futile.
However, it is not just futile. It is dangerous, outright
dangerous, because you will provide them legitimacy. The
Islamic regime has no legitimacy both inside and outside of
Iran.
Through this negotiation, you are giving them the
legitimacy, at least inside of Iran, towards the Iranian people
inside.
Heads of Islamic regime are moving toward this movement to
bring bloody ordeal in the country, in the world. This is one
of the fundamental religious beliefs.
Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, and Mesbaheh Yazdi are all of the
belief that for bringing back the 12th Imam, Shi'ite Imam, the
whole world has to be in a chaotic and bloody way before they
arrive. They will do anything to disrupt the order of the world
and make a mockery of the world so they can reach to their goal
of bringing the 12th Imam back to life.
I am here standing in front of you to tell you that the
youth of Iran, the Iranian students, do have the power to stand
in front of this regime. We did show the might and the power of
the Iranian student movement on the July 9, 1999, protest. At
that time we did not have a full organized group, and we did
not have the full education to combat this regime and uprise.
Through the means of communication, we would like to
broadcast and promote democracy amongst the Iranian young and
other groups such as labor movements, women movements, and
other participants in other movements. We need communication
devices, such as mobile cell phones, printers to print our
magazines and our fliers. We need websites. Most importantly,
we need radio and TV broadcasts. Both Radio Farda and Voice of
America, the Persian version, can help us greatly.
The path that they have taken so far does not seem to be
helping. I do not think that the U.S. taxpayers are happy to
see their monies being used for propaganda against the United
States. The most optimistic ones of the analysts and all do not
even trust the reform within the regime. People of Iran have
not received accurate news for years. They do need to hear
accurate news and accurate analysis. With a so-called balanced
view of these two media, the Voice of America and Radio Farda,
they have really caused nothing but confusion among Iranians.
Every program should be geared toward regime change, and
that is what Iranians inside of Iran wish for. We are planning
through an organization called ``Confederation of Iranian
Students'' to organize all students once again. We can
accomplish this organization, we can organize it. However, the
Iranians inside of Iran do need to know that people of the
world are standing by them.
Through a hard sanction, multilateral sanction, I do
believe that the Iranian people will come to the realization
that the world is not supporting the regime, should not be
worried about this sanction. My younger brothers and sisters
and mother are living inside of Iran. They are going through
very hard economic conditions. This is throughout Iran for
everybody. They are willing to handle a short period of hard
times so they would get rid of this regime once and for all.
Iran is not a poor country. But the income of the country goes
basically into the mullahs' pockets and their children, their
sons.
All Iranians do know that after removal of the regime,
there would be foreign investments. We can use this sanction to
organize and gather up people, bring them together.
And about the military, nobody is after military action,
neither us nor you. All we are doing is to show that we do have
the power and let you know that we can do it from inside. We
would like to replace Islamic regime with a secular democratic
system. And we do our best. The mistakes by Islamic regime is
that they are trying to prolong the time, and if they feel that
there is any danger in the world, nobody is going to ask us how
to deal with them. But I am sure that Iranians' interests will
be considered in this.
There are two points. I know I have taken so much of your
time.
Twenty-six years ago, a few, a handful of Iranian students
climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy. For 444 days, they held
hostage the American sons and daughters and brought shame to
Iranian students. I promised myself once the opportunity is
available on behalf of the Iranian students, as the leader of
the Iranian student movement, to apologize for this insane
crime to the people of the United States and the world.
The second point is we realize that the nuclear issue of
Islamic regime has really tired the whole world. This is a
problem for the world population as well as the Iranian
population. But the main point in Iran is different. This shall
be a big problem for the entire world as well. The sick mind of
the regime's man in charge, they teach the children in school
how to make bombs and how to kill people. Our prisons are
overflowing with political prisoners and breaking human rights
widely. We hope that while you are paying attention to the
nuclear dossier, we want these issues are not forgotten. For
security even here in the United States, you need stability in
the Middle East.
Senator Coburn. You need to summarize for us, if you would,
and complete your testimony.
Mr. Fakhravar. Thirty seconds, sir. A change of regime to a
secular democrat will help stability in the region and the
world. We see what the Islamic regime has done with its support
of Hezbollah in Lebanon and what crime has taken place. Please
help us to remove the Islamic regime, and you can count on it
that Iran will be one of the best friends and ally of the
United States and the world.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Mr. Fakhravar.
[Applause.]
Senator Coburn. Mr. Berman.
TESTIMONY OF ILAN BERMAN,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT FOR POLICY,
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL
Mr. Berman. Thank you, Senator Coburn. That is a very hard
act to follow, but I will try.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Berman appears in the Appendix on
page 40.
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Let me talk a little bit from the American perspective. The
one thing that I think we should emphasize here is that right
now the United States is at a crossroads. We have a situation
where the State Department's negotiating offer over the Iranian
nuclear program, the one that was proffered in late May, has
effectively ground to a halt. Certainly the Iranian regime is
trying to extend the timeline that they have been given, but
for all intents and purposes, this effort has failed.
What we have now is a moment of reckoning when we need to
look again at all of the policy options that are available to
the United States for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program
and the Iranian regime itself.
A little bit of historical perspective is useful here. The
State Department's offer is actually the third such effort over
the last decade. Between 1994 and 1997, there was a process
called ``critical dialogue,'' under which we tried to alter
Iranian behavior through economic and political inducements.
That failed spectacularly. Between 2003 and 2005, you had what
you could charitably term ``critical dialogue redux,'' when the
EU Three--France, Great Britain, and Germany--tried to do the
same, specifically on the nuclear issue. And now you have this
latest abortive offer coming out of the State Department.
All of these offers failed because they fundamentally
misread the political will of the Iranian regime to become a
nuclear power. And future offers that neglect to understand
this are going to meet the same fate. Also, I think it is
useful to note that they also did not account for Iranian
perceptions.
I recently had the opportunity to travel to the Persian
Gulf and have meetings with Iranian officials. I was astounded
by what they told me. They told me that under no circumstances
will the Iranian regime ``do a deal''--their words, not mine--
with the U.S. Government because they do not believe that
American worries over the Iranian nuclear program are
legitimate. Instead, they think that the nuclear issue is a
foil that the Bush Administration is using to promote regime
change within Iran.
As such, they have little to no incentive to actually come
up with some sort of negotiated settlement because, after all,
if the nuclear issue is gone, there are just going to be
others.
The third thing that is useful to note with regard to the
negotiating track is that there is a lot of opportunity costs
that are associated with it. What we have really done by
offering for the first time in 27 years direct negotiations
with the Iranian Government is to send two messages.
The first is to the Iranian leadership, and the message is
as follows: We are so concerned over your nuclear effort, we
are so concerned over your atomic program, that the other
elements of your rogue behavior--your interference in Iraq,
your support of terrorism in the Israeli-Palestinian, now
Israeli-Hezbollah, conflict--all fall by the wayside. This is
not an encouraging or a moderating sort of message to send.
The second message that we have sent is to the Iranian
people themselves, which is that our concern over one aspect of
the Iranian regime's rogue behavior is so great that it has
chilled our support for their desire for change.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, we have the
idea of military action, and I certainly would second Mr.
Fakhravar in saying that this is something that neither the
Iranians nor the American people truly desire, for no other
reason than the fact that it is likely to be profoundly self-
defeating. First of all, we have to account for the fact that
there is likely to be a very grave asymmetric response from the
regime because of how it is positioned in the region and
because of the tools of their terrorist proxies and the tools
that they can marshal to retaliate. But more than anything
else, what you have is a situation where military action will
likely create a ``rally around the flag'' effect that is likely
to be profoundly self-defeating because it will strengthen, not
weaken, the Iranian regime.
So that leaves us with what I would like to call a triple-
track approach, and I think all of these should be pursued
simultaneously.
The first is economic pressure, and there are really three
pressure points that we can bring to bear upon the regime. The
first is foreign direct investment. The Iranian regime is
dependent on foreign direct investment for continued oil
production. They require about $1 billion annually to continue
output at current levels, 2.5 million barrels a day export, and
$1.5 million to increase that capacity. That is not a lot of
money, and I think that should be understood. Iran has signed
contracts worth dozens of billions of dollars with foreign
powers over the last several years. With China alone, they
signed two massive exploration and development deals worth $100
billion over 25 years. A billion dollars is a drop in the
bucket.
But we can, through measures like multilateral sanctions,
complicate their access to foreign direct investment and force
them to dip into their hard currency reserves to continue their
program. So we can slow it somewhat. But we cannot change the
political will of the leadership itself to continue pursuing
this program.
The second is the economic hierarchy. Right now in Iran you
have a situation where the vast majority of government funds
and of government resources rests in the hands of very few
people. And through measures like targeted sanctions, like
travel bans, like asset freezes, we have the ability to take a
large chunk of this money out of commission and really capture
the conscience of the behind-the-scenes decisionmakers. Again,
we cannot change their political will, but we can certainly
telegraph to them that we are serious.
The third and most promising economic point of
vulnerability is commodities. Iran right now requires close to
40 percent of its annual consumption of gasoline to come from
abroad. This is at a cost of about $3 million a year. Moreover,
Iran does not have a strategic gas reserve. Iran only has,
according to authoritative estimates, about 45 days' worth of
gasoline in-country, after which it becomes vulnerable. And
that means that freezes on foreign exports of gasoline to Iran
have the ability very quickly, much quicker than normal
sanctions would, to affect both the ability of the regime to
maintain the vast state subsidies on gasoline which currently
exist, and also potentially these sort of commodity
restrictions could create a situation where you have
substantial social unrest in Iran.
For the sake of brevity, I will not touch upon democracy
promotion because my colleague, Dr. Ledeen, can certainly touch
upon that for me. But what I would like to talk about as a
concluding point is public diplomacy.
Neither the nuclear effort, which right now retains a large
amount of domestic popularity, nor the idea that the United
States stands with the Iranian people in their desire for
change can be telegraphed without an effective public diplomacy
mechanism. And right now we have a situation where the tools of
U.S. public diplomacy towards Iran, the Voice of America's
Persian Service and Radio Farda, are simply not doing the job.
You have a situation where $56.1 million at last count is
heading towards the Broadcasting Board of Governors with no
effective oversight. And the corporate culture that exists in
those mechanisms today, ineffective programming, lack of
strategic clarity, and sometimes even ineffective, mixed, or
downright dangerous messages about American intentions, are
likely to be amplified as a result of those funds if there is
no governmental oversight.
Certainly I will be less diplomatic than my colleague, but
I do not think it is unfair to say that regime change in U.S.
public diplomacy towards Iran needs to happen. And it needs to
happen because the stakes are so high. All of these efforts are
interdependent. The nuclear issue is the most pressing one. But
over the long term, the only thing that can ensure that an Iran
armed with nuclear weapons is not a threat is by changing the
finger on the trigger, by changing the character of the regime
itself.
Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Dr. Ledeen.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL A. LEDEEN,\1\ FREEDOM SCHOLAR, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Mr. Ledeen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, and
Senator Dayton if he returns.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ledeen appears in the Appendix on
page 46.
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Sadly, recent events, most notably the Iranian-sponsored
war against Israel, have made this discussion more urgent than
ever. But that is what happens when successive administrations
for nearly three decades avoid dealing with a serious problem.
It gets worse. The cost of dealing with it becomes more and
more burdensome. The theocratic tyranny in Tehran is a very
serious problem, and it is becoming graver. It has already cost
a great number of American lives and an even greater number of
innocent Iranians, Iraqis, Israelis, Lebanese, Argentineans,
and others around the world. Now they are literally hell-bent
to become a nuclear power.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with us for 27
years, and we have yet to respond. Fanatical Iranians overran
the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and subjected diplomats
to 444 days of confinement and humiliation. In the mid-1980s,
Iranian-supported terrorists from Hezbollah killed hundreds of
Americans in our Beirut Embassy and 6 months later killed 241
Marines in their barracks there. A couple of years after that,
Hezbollah took other Americans hostage in Lebanon from the CIA
station chief in Beirut to Christian priests to a distinguished
military man who had served as General Colin Powell's military
assistant in the Pentagon. The priests were eventually
ransomed; Mr. Higgins and Mr. Buckley were tortured and
murdered.
They have waged an unholy proxy war against us every since
the revolution. They created Hezbollah and Islamic Hijad. They
support most all the others, from Hamas and al Qaeda to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
Iran's proxies include Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Marxists, all
cannon fodder for the overriding objective to dominate or
destroy us.
It is no accident that the weekend before the two-front
attack on Israel, there was a security summit in Tehran,
involving all of Iraq's neighbors, at which Iran's infamous
President Ahmadinejad issued one of his trademark warnings to
Israel. Perhaps he had a hint of what would soon explode.
There are still those in Foggy Bottom, Langley, and
academics who believe that somehow we can sort out our
differences with the Islamic Republic. I wish they were right.
But it seems to me that the Iranians' behavior proves
otherwise. Religious fanatics of the sort that rule Iran do not
want a deal with the devil. They want us dominated or dead.
There is no escape from their hatred or from the war they have
waged against us. We can either win or lose, but no combination
of diplomatic demarches, economic sanctions, and earnest
negotiations can change that fatal equation. It is not our
fault. It is their choice.
A few months ago, the CIA concluded that Iran could not
produce nuclear weapons in much less than a decade, but given
the history of such predictions, we should be very skeptical of
that timeline. Some Russian experts reportedly think it could
be a matter of months, and they probably have better
information than we do.
Numerous Iranian leaders have said that they intend to use
nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, and contemporary history
suggests that one should take such statements at face value. A
nuclear Iran would be a more influential regional force, and
since its missiles now reach deep into Europe, it would
directly menace the West.
I am the last person to suggest that we should not do
everything possible to prevent the emergence of a nuclear Iran.
But the nuclear question simply adds urgency to the Iranian
threat, which is already enormous, and which should have been
addressed long ago.
The mullahs do not need atomic bombs to kill large numbers
of Americans. They have done it with conventional explosive.
They have long worked on other weapons of mass destruction, and
they have an imposing network of terrorists all over the
Western world. I am afraid that the obsession with the nuclear
question often obscures the central policy issue: That the
Islamic Republic has waged war against us for many years and is
killing Americans every week. They would do that even if they
had no chance of developing atomic bombs, and they will do it
even if by some miracle the feckless and endlessly self-
deluding governments of the West manage to dismantle the secret
atomic facilities and impose an effective inspection program.
The mullahs will do that because that is what they are and it
is what they do.
The nuclear threat is, therefore, inseparable from the
nature of the regime. If there were a freely elected,
democratic government in Tehran, instead of the self-selecting
tyranny of the mullahs, we would in all likelihood be dealing
with a pro-Western country that would be more interested in
good trade and cultural relations than in nuclear warheads.
In other words, it is all about the regime. Change the
regime, and the nuclear question becomes manageable. Leave the
mullahs in place, and the nuclear weapons directly threaten us
and our friends and allies, raising the ante of the terror war
they started 27 years ago.
What should we do?
The first step is to abandon the self-deception that we
will be able to arrive at a negotiated settlement. It cannot be
done. The Iranians view negotiations as merely tactical
enterprises in support of their strategic objectives. As you
mentioned, Mr. Chairman, a few months ago, Hassan Rowhani, the
mullah in charge of nuclear negotiations with the Europeans,
bragged in a public speech that Iran had duped European Union
negotiators into thinking it had halted efforts to make nuclear
fuel while in reality it continued to install equipment to
process yellowcake--a key stage in the nuclear fuel process.
It could hardly be clearer, or so one would think. The
``negotiations'' were merely a tactic.
Nor is there any reason to believe we can count on the
United Nations to impose the rules of civilized behavior on the
mullahs, either on nuclear issues or terrorism. The supreme
leader, Ali Khamanei, has told his associates that Iran now has
a ``strategic relationship'' with Putin's Russia, and that
China is so dependent on Iranian oil that it is highly unlikely
Beijing would vote against Tehran in the Security Council.
That leaves us with three courses of action, none of which
is automatically exclusive of the others: Sanctions, military
strikes, and support for democratic revolution.
I do not know of a single case in which sanctions have
produced a change in behavior by a hostile regime. Moreover,
sanctions aimed against the national economy seem to me
misconceived because they harm the people, who are highly
likely to be our best weapon against the tyrants, while leaving
the oppressive elite largely untouched.
We should want to punish hostile regimes and help the
people. Big-time economic sanctions or embargoes cannot do
that, but very limited sanctions and other economic and
financial actions can, although nothing is as effective in this
case as the Iranian leaders themselves. Iranian debt has just
been downgraded two levels to B-minus, putting Iranian paper
now at the level of junk bonds. But I am very much in favor of
seizing the assets of the Iranian leaders who have stolen
billions from their oppressed and impoverished subjects. That
money properly belongs to the Iranian people, whose misery
grows from day to day. We should hold it for them and return it
to a freely elected government after we have helped them
overthrow their oppressors.
I also support a travel ban on the leaders because it shows
the Iranian people that we consider the mullahs unworthy of
acceptance in the civilized world. Iranians know it better than
we do, but they need to see that we have taken sides, their
side, and the travel ban is one good way to do that.
Military action. Nobody this side of the yellow press is
talking about an invasion of Iran, but there is considerable
speculation about limited strikes against nuclear facilities. I
do not know enough to be able to offer an informed opinion on
this matter. I would only point out that our intelligence about
Iran has been bad since before the revolution of 1979, and you
would have to be very optimistic to base a military plan on our
current intelligence product.
That leaves us with revolution. Iran has had three
revolutions in the 20th Century and boasts a long tradition of
self-government. The demographics certainly favor radical
change: Roughly 70 percent of Iranians are 29 years old or
less. Young Iranians want an end to the Islamic Republic. We
know from the regime's own public opinion surveys that upwards
of 73 percent of the people would like a freer society and a
more democratic government, and they constantly demonstrate
their hatred of the regime in public protests.
Oddly, just as it was generally believed that there was no
hope of a peaceful overthrow of the Soviet Empire, today the
conventional wisdom intones that there is no hope for
democratic revolution in Iran, and even if there were, we would
no longer have enough time for it, as if one could fine-tune a
revolution.
This pessimism strikes me as bizarre as it is discouraging.
We empowered a successful revolution in the Soviet Empire with
the active support of a very small percentage of the
population. In Iran, revolution is the dream of at least 70
percent of the people. The regime is famously vicious, but the
KGB was no less vicious, and tyranny is the most unstable form
of government.
Nobody knows with certainty whether revolution can succeed
in Iran or, if it can, how long it will take. But we do know
one very important thing. In recent years, a surprising number
of revolutions have toppled tyrants all over the world. Most of
them got help from us, which should not surprise Americans. We
got plenty of help against the British. The Iranian people now
await concrete signs of our support. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Dr. Takeyh.
TESTIMONY OF RAY TAKEYH,\1\ SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST STUDIES,
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Takeyh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me back
to the Subcommittee. I will try to confine my remarks to the
allotted 5 minutes so as to not tax your patience.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Takeyh appears in the Appendix on
page 54.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Coburn. I will be very lenient. We have been thus
far, and we will continue to be.
Mr. Takeyh. Thank you. What I will try to do in the time
that is allowed to me is discuss the internal factional
opinions within the regime on the nuclear issue, whether there
are debates, disagreements, and what that implies for the
future, of course, of the nuclear diplomacy that is at hand,
and, finally, what is to be done at this late date. And I would
like to begin with two cautionary notes.
First of all, there is a considerable degree of opacity
over Iran's national security decisionmaking, particularly on
issues as sensitive as nuclear issues, so there is much that we
do not know. And much of what we say is speculative, but
hopefully it is informed speculation.
Second of all is, as we proceed down that track, we have to
be cautious that perhaps Iran's nuclear ambitions may not be
subject to diplomatic mediation. There might not be a deal out
there that is satisfactory to the sort of international
community and the standards that we have set, namely, no
enrichment capability.
But having said that, let me just outline the opinions as I
understand them, given the limits that we have at our disposal.
Today in the Iranian regime, I would suggest that the
debate is between two factions, and you can call them the hard-
liners and real-hard-liners, in the sense that this is a debate
that takes place on the margins of the extreme right. For the
real-hard-liners that are represented by the President of Iran
and individuals in the security services, the Revolutionary
Guards and so forth, I suspect that their approach to the
nuclear issue is conditioned by a mixture of wariness and
nationalism. Their bitter experience of the Iran-Iraq war, at
which many of them were participants at that age, has led to
cries of ``Never again,'' uniting their veterans turned
politicians behind the desire to achieve not just a credible
posture of deterrence, but potentially a convincing retaliatory
capability.
After decades of tension with America, Iran's reactionaries
perceive conflict with the United States as inevitable, and
that the only manner by which America can potentially be
deterred is through the possession of strategic weapons--the
nuclear weapon.
Given their suspicion and their paranoia, the hard-liners
insist that America's objection to Iran's nuclear program does
not stem from the proliferation, and I think some of that was
mentioned by the previous speakers, but it is opposition to the
character of the regime. They argue that should Iran acquiesce
on the nuclear issue, then there will be another issue with
which America try to coerce and punish Iran. Therefore, given
such views, there appears limited incentive to compromise on
such a critical national issue since acquiescence will not
measurably relieve American pressure. So there is a core
suspicion by which they approach the United States and issues
of the nuclear diplomacy.
The second faction, which, for lack of a better term, one
can call less ideological and more realist, but certainly is
hard-line, is curiously enough led by one of the more curious
individuals within this regime, the head of the Supreme
National Security Council, Ali Larijani. For Larijani and many
other sort of the hard-line realists, the Islamic Republic has
offered a rare and perhaps a unique opportunity to establish
its sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf. For centuries,
Iran's monarchs and mullahs perceived that given their
country's demography, civilizational achievements, historical
position, they had a right to become the preeminent power in
the Gulf. But due to machinations of the global empires and
certainly other hegemonic powers, those ambitions were unjustly
thwarted. Today, as Iran's hard-liners or politicians look at
the Middle East, they perceive an America, a crestfallen
America eager for an exit strategy out of its Arab predicament,
an Iraq preoccupied with its own simmering sectarian conflicts,
and a Gulf princely class more eager to accommodate rather than
confront Iranian power. Therefore, they suggest a judicious
Iran, a less provocative can achieve its long cherished
aspiration of dominating the critical waterways of the Persian
Gulf.
A careful examination of Ali Larijani's speeches reveals,
strangely enough, his suggestion of India as a potential model
for an aspiring regional power. India's reasonable relationship
with America has allowed it to maintain both its nuclear
arsenal and also dominate its immediate neighborhood. In
contrast, a Russian Federation that is at times at odds with
the United States finds that its aspirations to control its
``near abroad'' are often checked by a skeptical America. So if
you are aspiring for which regional power you want to be like,
maybe India offers a better model. Although the United States
presence in the Middle East is bound to diminish, for Iran's
hard-line realists American power can still present a barrier
to Tehran's resurgence. Although this faction does not seek
normalization of relations with the United States--and I do not
think any faction does--it does sense that a less contentious
relationship with America may ease Washington's distrust,
paving the way for the projection of Iranian influence in the
Gulf.
As such, for the realists, the nuclear program has to be
viewed in the larger context of Iran's international relations
and regional aspirations. Once more, India being the model of a
country that should improve its relations with the United
States, it may obtain American approbation of its nuclear
ambitions. Although they are disinclined to dismantle the
nuclear edifice--and I do not think we can get to ``no
enrichment capability''--they do sense the need for restraint
and the necessity, at least for now, of adhering to Iran's
long-standing NPT obligations. And NPT is a treaty that allows
you to do much within its restrictions.
What is to be done? It is a question that is often asked.
It is almost impossible to answer satisfactorily, and it is not
going to be answered with any degree of satisfaction for me.
In May 2006, Secretary Rice took a step in revising
America's approach to Iran. In a unique step, she proposed
direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The
Administration, in my view, judiciously insisted on suspension
of nuclear enrichment activities as a precondition for those
talks. Despite the fact that this is a bold reconceptualization
of American policy, it tends to miscast the disagreement
between Iran and the United States as a disarmament dispute.
The only manner of resolving this issue is through
comprehensive discussions that deal with the totality of
American and Iranian concerns.
The United States and Iran both need to move one step
further and discuss negotiations that encompass not just Iran's
nuclear ambitions, but Iraq as well as terrorism. To me, it is
impossible at this point to have any degree of negotiations
with the Iranian regime that are segregated and limited to the
nuclear issue, given what has transpired on the Lebanese-
Israeli border.
Iranians have their own concerns--sanctions, suspension,
frozen assets--and those should also be on the table. As both
parties become satisfied with the content of the negotiations,
satisfied that they encompass all their concerns, then perhaps
an agreement can be reached. The diplomatic framework that I
outlined views the nuclear issue as a symptom of a larger U.S.-
Iranian malady and tries to address the root cause of those
animosities. Only through a fundamental transformation of U.S.-
Iran relations can we arrive at a satisfactory solution to
Iran's nuclear imbroglio.
But this is a dynamic issue. As it moves forward, then
Iran's program crosses successive thresholds, and it may be
impossible to reverse. Therefore, we should proceed with
caution, if not alacrity. And I will stop right there. Thank
you.
Senator Coburn. Dr. Walsh.
TESTIMONY OF JIM WALSH,\1\ SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM,
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Walsh. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, it is an honor to
appear before you today. My comments will focus on the nuclear
issue, and let me offer to you, if you have following this
hearing additional questions that you would like me to respond
to in writing, I would be happy to do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Walsh appears in the Appendix on
page 59.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me begin by way of background. I was invited, I think,
to speak here today in part because over the past 2 years I
have been engaged in a series of Track II discussions--
discussions between Americans and Iranians, mostly being held
in Europe and mostly focused on the nuclear issue. I returned
just this past Saturday from Stockholm, where a group of
Americans, mostly former officials, and Iranians were meeting
to discuss the events that confront us.
Between those meetings and my own travel to Iran, I have
spoken to or met with over 100 Iranians. Most of those are from
the conservative and technocratic class, and let me just
briefly summarize that point of view, because it is important,
as the previous speakers have pointed out, to realize that
there are many factions in Iranian politics, and factions with
different agendas and different points of view.
The conservative technocrats that I mostly speak to dislike
U.S. policy and they dislike the policy of President
Ahmadinejad. They hope to avoid what they perceive is a lose-
lose conflict between the United States or the West more
generally and Iran. They see that there will be costs to a
confrontation, but they think costs will be borne by all
parties, and they hope to avoid that.
They believe that escalation of this crisis actually
increases the risk of nuclear weapons development; that as
feelings harden and as the domestic politics of this issue play
to the pro-nuclear side, that it gives more leeway for those
who are advocates of nuclear weapons to be able to pursue that
policy in a more overt manner. And they have deep mistrust and
suspicion of U.S. Government motives. They think that the
United States is about regime change, but they have affection
for the American people, and most of them studied here or have
relatives here.
With that as background, let me speak more specifically to
the nuclear ambitions and nuclear decisionmaking, and I endorse
all the comments of the previous witness.
One of those comments he made is important, and that is
that there are multiple players here with multiple ambitions.
There is the supreme leader, who I think by consensus most
would agree is the most important policy actor. It is not the
president, but the supreme leader who is the final arbiter of
nuclear weapons policy. The most active person on nuclear
weapons--or nuclear policy, I should say, rather than nuclear
weapons policy, is Ali Larijani from the Supreme National
Security Council. He is the person who is working on it day to
day. The president has weighed in and at times appropriates
that issue and speaks publicly on it, I think for his own
domestic political purposes. He is for the most part a domestic
president elected on populism and economic issues, not foreign
policy issues, but he will play to these and the Israel issue
as he sees that it benefits him politically.
He is tied to the Iranian Republican Guard, which is
broadly seen as being more pro-nuclear weapons, but there is
very little data on this. And then, finally, there is the
nuclear bureaucracy itself, the Atomic Energy Organization of
Iran, and if nuclear history tells us anything, the history of
nuclear weapons decisionmaking is that these bureaucracies
often have an important role to play, and I am sure that is the
case here, although the data is limited.
The common policy denominator for all these players with
all these agendas is they want a complete fuel cycle. Now, I
think that they are willing to see restraints on the 164
cascade or some research level of centrifuges. But they want to
have something, and that is their new--well, it is not new, but
that is their bottom line. But I think they are willing to
compromise on the parameters of that and the environment in
which that small cascade functions.
This program, as I see it, is driven primarily by national
pride and bureaucratic and domestic politics, not security. It
is, therefore, closer, historically speaking, to nuclear
programs in France and India, which, again, were driven by
national pride and bureaucratic, less like the programs of
Pakistan or the DPRK, where there is a security component.
Nuclear technology is, unfortunately, a priority for the
regime and for the population now, but it is not their most
important priority. They really seek recognition on the world
stage and economic development, and there are multiple sources
of power in play, from the Grand Ayatollahs to the Majliis, to
Rafsanjani and his residual influence, to public opinion. And
as my written remarks indicate, public opinion is often the
least understood of those power centers.
As to the nuclear negotiations themselves, I think
Secretary Rice's initiative has improved the U.S. position, and
the President deserves credit for it, and polling data suggest
that the American people are happy with this policy, perhaps
happier with this policy than any other foreign policy of the
President. Unfortunately, Iran appears to have missed the
significance of the Rice proposal--that based on discussions
that I have had. They have focused more on suspension as a
precondition and missed the larger statement about the United
States willing to join the talks and some of the other elements
of the proposal. My hope is that those are being communicated
to policy circles in Iran now.
The Iranians want to keep some face-saving level of
enrichment. In their ideal world, they would have a full,
complete fuel cycle, but I think they recognize that they
cannot have their cake and eat it, too. They cannot achieve
their economic and prestige objectives and at the same time
have a provocative nuclear program.
Will the talks succeed? I think it is too early to say. I
do expect an announcement on August 22. The announcement by
Larijani today, as you probably saw in the newspaper, does not
forebode a negative response. The Iranians that I have been
speaking with recently suggest that Iran will respond by either
accepting the proposal, offering a conditional yes, a yes-but,
or a condition no, a no-but. But in any case, the answer is
likely to set the stage for future negotiations.
As for policy options, we all know what they are. We can
try to coerce them or isolate and contain them. That is
basically what we have done through the Clinton and Bush years,
and to, I think, little effect. We can use military force, but
I think that will be extremely costly, for reasons described in
my testimony, and will put in jeopardy the number one U.S.
policy goal today, which is success in Iraq. If we strike Iran,
we will have to put more U.S. soldiers in Iraq for a longer
period of time.
And so that leaves very little in the way of alternatives
other than negotiation. But my hope is that we will improve the
negotiation track by focusing more on the issue of national
pride, by seeking to identify and win over particular
bureaucratic and internal constituencies, and that if we are
going to say that all options are on the table, then all
options need to be on the table, and that includes direct talks
with some distant possibility for normalized relations.
Finally, I think we need to approach this problem, as all
the witnesses agree, not as issue-by-issue but in a broader
strategic context. That is, I think, the only way out of here.
Let me conclude with comments about the role of Congress. I
believe that one of the reasons why I am so happy to be here
with you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Carper, is I think that the
role of Congress will be critical. It will be needed. If there
is a negotiated settlement, Congress will have to act on issues
of sanctions and legislation and funding. If there is not,
Congress will be needed just as much.
As we go forward, I think Congress can, in addition to its
normal duties in terms of information collection and oversight,
which are critical, I would suggest that it can be a policy
innovator as well. And, in particular, two things briefly. One,
smart engagement. Many of the Iranians I spoke with in Iran
want to come to the United States. They tend to be the youngest
and the most conservative who come up to me and complain to me
after I give a speech in Iran, they come up and hector me about
the United States and then sort of classically say, ``Oh, and
by the way, is it possible to come and study in the United
States?'' But people who want to come to the United States, who
want to take advantage of opportunities to come and to study,
and whatever, feel they cannot take advantage of current
programs that are labeled under a category of regime change.
That puts them at personal risk if they do that. So we need
smart engagement that gives people the opportunity to come to
the United States and us to go there in ways that do not taint
them for having taken up that opportunity.
And, finally, I would like to propose to you that you
consider legislative-to-legislative contacts, contacts between
the U.S. Senate and the Majliis. I think now that the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee has explored this in the past, and
Iran has refused to respond to that initiative. I am told that
views are changing on that and that in the near term it may be
possible for members of the Majliis and the Senate to meet
together to talk about what divides us, and also areas for
potential cooperation. And I would encourage you to take that
opportunity if it does develop.
Thank you very much.
Senator Coburn. Thank you.
Mr. Fakhravar, Dr. Takeyh's testimony claims that the
regime of Iran entertains debates across the political
spectrum, from his written testimony, regarding Iran's nuclear
program. What has been your experience with trying to freely
dialogue and debate the Iranian regime's quest for nuclear
weapons or any other political topic?
Mr. Fakhravar. There is nobody to negotiate with in the
regime in Iran. That is their tactics, has been, so you don't
know whom you are talking to. You have experienced the
negotiations and nuclear dossier of Iran, and there are several
of them, and none of them have the final say. That is exactly
their tactic.
Senator Coburn. More specifically, when you discuss as a
student activist these issues and you raise the questions, what
is the response from the regime when the students raise the
questions, whether it be about this or any other political
subject? Whether it be about nuclear issues or any other
subject, what is the response of the regime to the students who
raise questions or question the policies?
Mr. Fakhravar. When the students and the people of Iran
learn that there is a possible negotiation between the United
States and the regime, the entire people will consider you as
betraying them.
Let me put it bluntly. If you can play chess with monkeys,
then you can negotiate with the man in charge of Islamic
regime. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. One of our policies--and this is addressed
to anybody on the panel that wants to answer it. In the 1990s,
we followed a negotiation stance with North Korea, and all
during that period of time when we were negotiating and had
agreements, the fact is that those agreements were not being
honored. Progression on nuclear weapons development continued
regardless of what we did.
Can anybody think of a time where negotiations have proved
successful, in terms of hostile regimes, in terms of bringing
about the desired result on nuclear weapons or other results?
Go ahead, Dr. Walsh.
Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me offer first a
direct answer and then maybe a slightly different view of the
DPRK issue, something I have spent some time on. I was in
Pyongyang last summer.
Certainly the Soviets were a hostile empire, and certainly
we can point to any number of arms control agreements with the
Soviets, most notably the treaty preventing ABM, the ABM
Treaty, that the Soviets followed and that enhanced the
security of the United States, in part because it allowed
countries--it allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to
avoid the more dangerous aspects of the arms race and to
provide some predictability and stability to it.
I would argue the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has been
one of the most successful treaties in human history. The rate
of proliferation has declined since the 1960s--not increase but
declined--and the number of states that are interested or
seeking nuclear weapons is smaller since any decade since the
1940s.
Let me conclude by saying on the DPRK my view is that the
Agreed Framework was a success. That Agreed Framework is about
three and a half pages long, and when you read it, you see that
neither side followed through on their original commitments,
but that program was frozen. There were no new nuclear weapons
built under the Agreed Framework. That ended and that has no
longer been true. North Korea did go behind the back of the
agreement to engage in procurement activity related to an HEU
plant, but neither the CIA nor any other U.S. intelligence
agency, none of them have concluded that the DPRK built an
enrichment plant. And during the period of the agreement, that
plutonium reactor was frozen and there were no new nuclear
weapons being built during that period.
Senator Coburn. If I recall my history correctly, it was
Reagan walking away from the negotiations that broke the back
of the Russians' nuclear development. It wasn't negotiating. It
was walking away from the negotiation if you will recall the
history and the criticism that he received.
Dr. Takeyh, you wanted to comment on that?
Mr. Takeyh. First of all, I want to clarify the portion of
my testimony that you alluded to. What I was trying to suggest
in that is, in terms of the nuclear deliberation, all political
tendencies, the reformers and others, are brought to the table,
the leadership of the different factions, even those which are
not necessarily in power today. I was not suggesting that the
Islamic Republic puts its nuclear decisionmaking out for a
referendum or having sort of brought in activism. So there is
more of an elite debate. But, nevertheless, it is elites from
across the political landscape.
In terms of negotiations that are successful, as Mr. Walsh
was suggesting, in the 1970s the United States negotiated
several arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, SALT I
in particular, and also the Reagan Administration negotiated
the INF agreement in 1986, which was the first agreement that
actually did not regulate the size of nuclear arsenals, but
suggested elimination of a certain class of weapons.
But when you are dealing with nuclear negotiations, it is
important to suggest that they cannot be segregated from the
overall relationship between the two adversaries. When U.S.-
Soviet relations were reasonable during the period of detente
in the 1970s, then nuclear negotiations actually expedited and
there was agreement on a variety of issues. When the
relationship was not necessarily, as it was in the early 1980s,
then actually the arms control negotiations always break down.
So you have to situate nuclear negotiations in the larger
context of relations between the two countries. That is why I
do not believe the United States and Iran at this particular
point can easily reach a nuclear accord barring dealing with
other areas of concern that they have--that we have and they
have. So the canvas has to be broadened in order for
negotiations to be successful.
Senator Coburn. Would you comment on the fact in your
testimony related to India, India is not a theocracy.
Mr. Takeyh. Sure.
Senator Coburn. And the fact is India's leaders do not
threaten death to anybody who does not believe the way they
believe, or the so-called U.S. infidels, that we should die. So
the context of nuclear weapons in the hand of somebody whose
axiom is that if you are not with us in terms of your religious
beliefs and your behavior along those religious beliefs, you
obviously should perish according to a theocratic viewpoint.
It is hard--and I guess the further point to my question
is: Can that not be understood in terms of the decisionmakers
among the Iranian elite or the hard-lines and very-hard-liners,
as you described them, can that not be understood as we would
have trouble having a rational basis for--understanding that
there might be a motivational difference between those that
were running the Soviet Union and those that are presently
leading Iran?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes, I think that analogy that the regime uses,
or some of the regime uses, that Iran can potentially follow
the model of India is wrong, for all the reasons that you
suggested. But, nevertheless, it is their rationale that they
embrace. Iran is not India, and I was not suggesting that they
are analogous. India is a democratic regime. It is largely
peaceful in terms of its intentions. And Iran is neither of the
above.
However, when certain members of the regime look at India
and they see the way an aspiring regional power can have
influence in terms of its region, it is to negotiate a
different type of relationship with the United States.
Now, there is a contradiction in that. I do not believe--
there is a huge contradiction in that, in the sense that the
India model applied to Iran fails not only because of the
domestic complexion of the Iranian theocracy, but also because
it is unlikely that any American administration would be
sanguine about the possibility of Iran having that sort of a
nuclear technology at its disposal and edging closer to the
weapons program. So I don't think the India analogy works, but
it is the one that I was suggesting certain members of the
Iranian elite hierarchy tend to embrace.
Senator Coburn. But who are not in ultimate control.
Mr. Takeyh. Well, they can be in control. They are part of
the landscape. But I do not believe Iran is going to follow the
model of India in terms of its domestic politics, in terms of
its democratic processes, no.
Senator Coburn. It is my understanding that Amir Fakhravar
will have to be leaving here shortly. Do you have any questions
for him, Senator Carper?
Senator Carper. I do.
Senator Coburn. OK. Why don't we let you have an
opportunity to do that before he leaves, and I will defer my
further questions.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fakhravar, thank you for your testimony today. The U.S.
Congress has provided almost $100 million for democracy
promotion in Iran over the course of the last 3 years, I
believe with the largest installment of funding coming in the
current year. There have been calls in Congress for this
funding to be provided to democratic organizations within Iran.
However, in the past, some of those groups have actually ended
up on a State Department terrorist list.
There is also the concern that giving the United States
money to authentic groups would lead them perhaps to be
targeted by the current regime in Iran.
Last, it is also being said that Iran is not ripe yet for
change, and so giving this money to groups could simply be a
waste of money.
You have previously stated that you are only one of many
individuals to fight for a more open society in Iran. Based on
this assertion, I have several questions relating to prospects
for change in Iran. And let me just ask these questions, and I
will ask you to respond very briefly, because apparently your
time is limited and because we would like to ask questions of
other witnesses.
The first question is: How do you visualize an ideal Iran?
What would be the structure of its religious, its economic, its
social, and governmental institutions? Is there anyone else in
Iran with economic and political power that holds the same
vision for Iran as you see it? And, again, I would ask that you
just respond briefly.
Mr. Fakhravar. First of all, thank you, and I would like to
close the discussion down here about the negotiations. North
Korea is way off the area of the strategic, both India and
North Korea. Iran is not. And I highly suggest those who
consider negotiations to do consider these facts.
None of these two nations are after wiping Israel off the
face of the map. Allocating funds is something and using it is
another thing. The system that we wish for Iran, future Iran,
is secular democratic. It is not important that it is going to
be a republic system or a constitutional system. It is
important for Iranian population that it would be secular.
Majority of Iranians are Muslim. I, too, am a Muslim. But I am
not a terrorist. People of Iran are not terrorists. But the
Islamic regime, people in charge of the Islamic regime are.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you.
Can you tell us who or what organizations or people are
currently leading the fight against the current regime in Iran?
And can you provide us with an estimate of how many people or
what percentage of the population that might be?
Senator Coburn. I would like to interrupt here. You should
be very cautious--you are in a public hearing--in how you
answer that question because you may put some of your
compatriots at risk.
Senator Carper. I will say the question again. Can you tell
us who or what organizations are currently leading the fight
against the current regime in Iran? And can you provide us with
an estimate of how many people or what percentage of the
population that might be?
Mr. Fakhravar. The first front line is comprised of Iranian
students. That is mostly youth, and we have 70 percent under
the age of 29, 30; 64 percent in the movement, the next group
is women's movement, which is 64 percent. Their rights are
violated and they are abused. We would like to take these two
movements and bring them together, unify them. There are many
groups right now, but what we are planning to do, to bring all
the groups together. For that purpose, we are organizing
Confederation of Iranian Students so they would bring this
together, this unification.
Senator Carper. All right. One last question for this
witness. And, again, we thank you for your testimony and your
response to our questions. You stated that you would like to
see the United States provide a variety of things. I believe
you mentioned laptops, cell phones, workshops for training
resistance support, both outside and within Iran. What would be
the expected outcome of such assistance? And how soon might we
expect to see some change as a result of that assistance?
Mr. Fakhravar. Iranian population are very bright, but they
do not receive accurate news. We need to talk to our people.
Certainly we can make them aware of the news in the world.
Eight to ten a year is what the time limit, I would say, 8
months to a year Eight months to a year. I apologize.
Senator Carper. Do Iranians have access to the Internet?
Mr. Fakhravar. Very limited, in big cities. We need to
expand on that.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you very much.
Senator Coburn. Amir, I want to wish you Godspeed. I know
you are going from here to meet with President Bush. He has
great esteem for you and your courage, and we wish you Godspeed
and good luck.
Mr. Fakhravar. I thank you and the great Nation of the
United States.
Senator Coburn. Would you like to continue on with your
questions, Senator Carper, of the other witnesses?
Senator Carper. If I could, thanks.
Senator Coburn. We will come back, and then you will be
next.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much.
I would just ask very briefly of each of our witnesses,
could you just take a moment and describe your visits to Iran
in the last, say, decade, their frequency, the duration, how
long were you there, the nature of the exchanges, who you met
with, that sort of thing? And, Dr. Walsh, we will start with
you, if you would, please.
Mr. Walsh. Well, Senator, most of the Track II discussions
I have with Iranian officials, academics, and think-tank
personnel occur outside of Iran, usually in Europe--in Italy or
in Sweden. And I participated over the past several years in
four to five of those Track II's.
In February, I was in Iran for 12 days where I met a
variety of people, mostly, as I said in my testimony, people
who fall into the conservative, technocratic class, people who
probably voted for Rafsanjani rather than Ahmadinejad. And I
will be returning to Iran in the fall.
All told, as I indicated in my testimony, I have probably
met or spoken to about 100 Iranian officials, former officials,
academics and think-tank types.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Takeyh. I would suggest mine was similar to Mr. Walsh's
in the sense that they have been a lot of former officials in
Track II settings. In my case, there are some family members
that I have, of course, being of Iranian descent. And I was
supposed to go working on a trip to Iran this August, so we
will see if it comes through or not.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Mr. Ledeen.
Mr. Ledeen. I have never been to Iran. I have met with
senior Ayatollahs from this regime, in the mid-1980s, and with
no end of Iranians since then from all walks of life, some pro-
regime, some anti-regime, most recently in Rome in 2001.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Like Dr. Ledeen, I have never been to Iran, but
I have traveled many times to the Middle East. Most recently I
have traveled to Persian Gulf 3 weeks ago to Oman to attend an
international conference at which I had the opportunity to meet
with Iranian officials.
Senator Carper. Senator Coburn and I were privileged to be
in a discussion earlier today with some of our colleagues and
others, and I had an opportunity to talk about the
Administration's proposal for multilateral talks with the
Iranians. And to the extent that they are willing to give up on
their desire to enrich uranium, we would be willing to enter
into those multilateral discussions. And I understand that when
that offer was presented to the Iranians, it was presented with
a number of incentives and with the understanding that there
would be disincentives or sanctions if the Iranians chose not
to accept it.
Let me just ask you, again, your views. Was that an
appropriate thing for the Administration to do? Was it the
right thing? Or was it a mistake? Dr. Walsh.
Mr. Walsh. I think it was very wise, very prudent, for two
reasons. If you think that negotiations have a shot, the only
way they are going to be successful is if the United States
sits at the bargaining table one way or another. We cannot
outsource our foreign policy to others. Iran is not going to
take as credible promises of incentives unless the United
States is directly part of that process.
One of the problems with critical dialogue that the
Europeans carried on in the past is the United States was not
at the table, and it was clear they were skeptical of the
process. So you need to be able to make credible threats and
credible promises. If you do not make a credible promise, the
other side is not going to play because they figure you are
just playing them for a fool, and a lot of Iranians are deeply
suspicious.
But if you do not think negotiations are going to work,
Secretary Rice's announcement was still a wise move because
diplomatically it put her in a stronger position to get the
Russians, the Chinese, and others on board. So all around, I
think it was an excellent move, and as I said in my comments,
it is a move that has the support of the American people.
Senator Carper. Mr. Takeyh.
Mr. Takeyh. I would agree with that. Actually, however, if
I was to critique the negotiating track, as I mentioned in my
comments, I would suggest that the issues under consideration
should be broader in the sense that the totality of American-
Iranian disagreements exceed the nuclear issue. There are
issues of terrorism; there are issues that they have with us
that are not exclusive to the nuclear issue.
Beyond that, I think where the Administration was in the
spring of 2006 was that they were in a situation which was
untenable in the sense that the negotiations at the U.N. had
stalled and it was unlikely to go further without some sort of
an American measure, and that measure was quite a momentous
measure in the sense that it revised not just Bush
Administration policy but 27 years of American policy. So I
think that aspect of Secretary Rice's rather remarkable
reconceptualization of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran has
often been neglected.
Now, where it goes from here is hard to read because I
think ultimately we are settling into a number of red lines.
Iranians have a red line that calls for them to have some sort
of an enrichment capability. Americans at this point, we have a
red line that they should not have that. Whether that
difference can be bridged in the next several months will
reflect the ultimate success of these negotiations, but it
remains to be seen.
The other criticism I would make is that the offer of
negotiations may have come a little late in the sense that, in
2002, if these negotiations had taken place, there was no
enrichment capability, and perhaps we could have gotten a no-
enrichment deal. But the nuclear program, as Mr. Walsh knows
very well, is a dynamic issue, and as countries develop those
technologies, they in essence become in some cases
irreversible. So earlier would have been better. It is late,
but it may not be too late.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Senator Dayton.
Mr. Ledeen. May I?
Senator Coburn. Yes, I am sorry. Dr. Ledeen.
Mr. Ledeen. Yes, I would like to make two comments on the
question of negotiations. The first is you should not believe
that there have not been negotiations. There have been talks
endlessly. Most of them have been secret, let's call them.
State Department people have talked to counterparts in Iran.
CIA people have talked to counterparts in Iran. At least to my
knowledge, all through the first term of the Bush
Administration talks were going on all over the place because
there were people in the State Department, primarily Richard
Haas, who believed that we were on the verge--we had a historic
opportunity, we could reach a grand bargain with Iran and this
was the moment to do it. And so talks were going on. They have
been going on.
If you read Pollack's book, ``The Persian Puzzle,'' which
was written by a person who spent a long career in diplomacy
and at the CIA, he says there categorically we have tried
everything. We have tried intimidating them. We have tried
threatening them. We have tried cajoling them. We have tried
offering them. And they have rejected it all. And the
conclusion he came to--and this is a person who labored all his
professional life to accomplish some kind of agreement with
Iran--and believe me, broad issues, they talked about
everything. He said, ``They don't want it.''
It is really baffling to me that after 27 years it is
impossible for serious persons to say they have declared war on
us. They declared war on us 27 years ago. They have been waging
war against us for 27 years. They are killing us today, as
often and wherever they can. Those IEDs that blow up our
soldiers in Iraq, they come from Iran. Those intelligence
officers and revolutionary guards, they are Iranians. They are
doing everything in their capacity to do that. So we have had
talks all along, and I do not see where it is going to go.
The real question, if you will permit me, is where is
American policy on it. We yet have no Iran policy. We have a
nuclear issue policy. All the talk is about nuclear this and
that. All the talk is about will we permit the Iranians--are
they going to stop enrichment and so forth. And along those
lines, I believe, the Iranians will never give up their nuclear
program because it is not an enrichment program and it is not
for national prestige. It is a weapons program, and they want
it to be able to defend themselves and to launch aggression
against other countries. They concluded--and we know this--in
1991 that if Saddam had had nuclear weapons, we would never
have dared do to him what we did in the first Gulf War. And
they said, ``We do not want that to happen to us; therefore, we
must have nuclear weapons.'' And the program that started then
was a weapons program. And I believe it is still a weapons
program. And I think even by now El-Baradei knows that it is a
weapons program, and one of his assistants just quit in a rage
and went to the press and said, ``They won't let us into any of
the military facilities that we want to see.'' And it is
obvious that it is a military program.
What we have got is a negotiation on an issue that
distracts our attention from the central issue between the
United States and Iran, which is they are waging war against
us.
Thank you.
Senator Coburn. Thank you. Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Thank you, Chairman Coburn. Just a couple of
points.
I would say the following: Whether or not negotiations are
a good idea or a bad idea depend entirely on who you are
talking to. And what is useful to remember here is that, as Dr.
Ledeen pointed out, there is a demographic bulge. The vast
majority of Iranians are very young. They have lived most or
all of their lives under the Islamic Republic and very well
know that the Islamic Republic is not doing the job, the
economic job, the political job, the civil society job that
they need.
Our negotiations with the Iranian people are a good idea,
but any negotiations which demonstrate to the vast majority of
Iranians that want change, that the United States is so
preoccupied with a tangential issue that we have articulated
limits to our support for their desire for freedom are
dangerous. And I would say this, and I specifically say this to
you, Chairman Coburn, because you are a medical doctor: I think
diplomacy should be pursued from a ``do no harm'' standpoint.
And in this context, the negotiations that were proffered by
the State Department may have had tactical benefits, but over
the long term they were very damaging.
Senator Coburn. Senator Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON
Senator Dayton. Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the Ranking
Member for holding this very important hearing. I regret,
analogous to your other profession, I hold afternoon office
hours with a stream of Minnesotans who want to see me, and I
try my best to honor that. But really it is one of those where
I scheduled all that well in advance of knowing about this
hearing, and I regret not being able to be here. I thank you
for convening it.
I am not going to risk redundancy, either of testimony or
previous questions, but I will review the transcript of the
hearing. I thank all of you for your participation, for your
patience. We do not have many witnesses who speak even longer
than Senators, but that is something we practice here, and it
was very informative. I do not mean it in any way
disrespectfully. But I noticed you all have been very
respectful and patient, so I want to acknowledge that. And
thank you for bringing your expertise to us. I am sorry more of
us--I am supposed to be in three different places
simultaneously right now in addition to here, and I think my
colleagues share that difficulty. And so I apologize on their
behalf and regret that, but thank you again for your expertise.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Coburn. I have several more questions. In Dr.
Walsh's testimony, he testified that it would not be the end of
the world if Iran obtains nuclear weapons despite the fact that
the Iranian regime is saying that it intends to use those
weapons against Israel, and the quote is, ``to wipe Israel off
the map.'' We have good knowledge that Iran is behind the
recent attacks against Israel, and the roadside bombings for
sure, they are killing our soldiers. Should the United States
take Iran's statements seriously or not in regards to their
long-term goals of nuclear weapons or nuclear proliferation,
nuclear development? I have heard what Dr. Ledeen said. I am
interested in your response to that.
Mr. Walsh. Yes, Senator, thank you, and thanks for quoting
my testimony, and I appreciate the care with which----
Senator Coburn. I started reading it at 5 o'clock this
morning because I did not get it until late last night.
Mr. Walsh. Well, I appreciate it nonetheless. And as you
know, in the rest of the testimony it goes on to say that I
have spent all my adult professional career working to try to
prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and I do not welcome----
Senator Coburn. Well, let me make it clear, we are very
happy with the quality of the people that are testifying, and
we doubt none of your motivations. But these are legitimate
questions that the American people are going to ask. When, in
fact, the President of Iran says that he intends to wipe Israel
off the face of the map and is involved in a nuclear
development program that will ultimately end up in nuclear
weapons, it is not a long step at all to conclude that those
weapons are intended for Israel. So those are the facts of what
is being presented. Whether that is the behind-the-scenes
truth, we do not know. I suspect you do not know.
Mr. Walsh. I think that is right, but let me speak to that.
First of all, obviously, as everyone has said so far, it is
not the president that calls the shots on nuclear policy. It is
the supreme leader, and under him, Larijani, that makes nuclear
policy, not the president. The president I assume will be a
one-term wonder and is here as primarily a president elected on
economic populism, not foreign policy.
Moreover, I think the Iranians----
Senator Dayton. Be careful what you say about one-term
wonders. [Laughter.]
Mr. Walsh. Let me also point out that Iran is more than
aware of the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, that the
United States would not allow Israel to be threatened with
nuclear weapons, but Israel has its own nuclear deterrent.
The other thing to keep in mind is, as John Negroponte has
pointed out, the time frame here is not tomorrow, it is not
next month. It is sometime between the middle of the next
decade or the end of the next decade. So this is not an
imminent threat to U.S. national security and it is not an
imminent threat to Israeli national security.
Senator Coburn. Well, could you give me some of your
history? North Korea's development of nuclear weapons proceeded
at a slower pace than what is expected to be from Iran. Is that
correct?
Mr. Walsh. Well, the North Korean program started in the
mid-1980s, and most intelligence estimates that they completed
their first device sometime between 1990 and 1994. That is when
the CIA said they had somewhere between zero and two nuclear
weapons.
Senator Coburn. And the Pakistanis did that in a shorter
period of time.
Mr. Walsh. Well, the Pakistani program began in roughly
1972, and they did not test until 1998. And most of my
colleagues think they had nuclear weapons in the late 1980s.
But let me speak directly to the point of Iran. The puzzle
about Iran, given the neighborhood that it lives in, given the
fact that there is nuclear Pakistan on its border, nuclear
Russia, all these states, Israel, the surprise is that they
have not done more in the nuclear area. They started their
program, whatever that program may be, by most accounts
sometime in the mid-1980s. It is now 2005, and they have 164
centrifuge cascade.
Senator Coburn. That we know about.
Mr. Walsh. Well, that the IAEA believes is the case.
Senator Coburn. But the IAEA talks about them violating the
no-reporting obligations for 18 years, and the testimony we
have just had is we do not know.
Mr. Walsh. Well, I agree with you. My view is that we
should follow what the IAEA says, and on this I think they are
pretty clear that their centrifuge capacity is perhaps--they
have parts for a thousand. Whether they have all the parts for
a thousand more centrifuges is unclear. But no one thinks that
they are going to have a bomb tomorrow or anytime soon, even if
they made a command decision to do so, and that, of course, is
the judgment of the top-ranking intelligence officer in the
United States.
Mr. Takeyh. If I can say a few things about this, Senator?
Senator Coburn. Sure.
Mr. Takeyh. I do not think we can be sanguine or complacent
about Iran's nuclear motivations or ambitions. I think Iran's
nuclear danger is acute and growing. I think should Iran cross
the nuclear threshold in violation of its NPT obligation, that
essentially ends the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which in
my opinion has been a very beneficial treaty in terms of
preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and dangerous nuclear
technologies. I think it will have a destabilizing impact on
the region, namely, it could spark an arms race. And a region
that should devote its economic resources to its people, to
benefits of the health care and public schooling, is likely to
divert it to further build-up of conventional arms, at least,
and quite possibly divert scarce resources to building up
nuclear programs.
So this is not something that we can look for with any
degree of ease. This is why I do believe that diplomacy has to
be energetic, comprehensive, and imaginative. I think sitting
around wishing the Iranian nuclear program away, talking about
how more radio broadcasts is going to make it go away is not
the way to go. Radio broadcast is not a judicious counter-
proliferation strategy. I cannot think of any time that radio
broadcasts have worked in terms of effectively disarming a
country. We have to have a very effective diplomacy. I think
Secretary Rice took a first step in that direction, and it has
to go many more steps. Otherwise, we cannot potentially get to
a position where we have not only a hegemonic Iran in the
Persian Gulf, where there is nothing particularly stopping
them. Iraq is a broken country. The Gulf States are not going
to do anything about it, and we are leaving the Gulf. We are
leaving Iraq. That is just the reality of the situation. I
think we all know that. And they know that. So we can have a
hegemonic Iran with a mature nuclear capability. That is not
something that is desirable, and that is why I do believe that
the diplomatic solution to this issue is urgent and quite
imminent.
Senator Coburn. Would you agree with Dr. Ledeen that we
need a total Iran policy instead of focus at the issues that
come up?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes. Oh, yes, as I mentioned, I think we have
to have a comprehensive discussion with Iranians that tends to
deal with issues of the nature of their support for terrorist
organizations.
Senator Coburn. I would tell you, I am somewhat encouraged
in terms of students because I look at Poland and I look at
Ukraine and nobody in the State Department saw Ukraine coming.
Nobody saw it coming, the fact that brave leaders stood up and
challenged authoritarianism and made a difference. And so, my
caution is that we certainly nurture in any way possible the
voice of a secular government in Iran, and if that is through
student organizations and women's organizations and union
organizations, that certainly should be part of a total policy.
Would you disagree with that?
Mr. Takeyh. No. I do think we have to have a broad policy
to deal with issues of proliferation, terrorism, human rights,
and Iranians will have their own grievances to bring to the
table, whether it is our sanction policy, whether it is frozen
assets. I mean, everything has to be on the table, but not
necessarily--the progress of any one issue should not be linked
to the other, namely, I would not prevent negotiations or a
deal on the nuclear issue if we have not reached an accord on
the issue of the nature of the Iranian relationship with
various Palestinian rejectionist groups. But I do think the
negotiations have to be broad and comprehensive, although not
necessarily the progress of any one issue linked to the other
one.
Senator Coburn. Dr. Ledeen or Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Thank you. Let me just say a couple words,
because Dr. Takeyh said something very controversial. He said
that public broadcasting has never forced a regime to give up
its arms, which technically is true. But it is useful to
remember, as I said in my testimony and Dr. Ledeen said in his
testimony, the issue is not nuclear weapons. The issue is the
character of the regime that will ultimately wield them. And
public broadcasting and public diplomacy were responsible, at
least in part, for the single largest totalitarian collapse in
modern history. So let's not underestimate the effectiveness of
these tools.
On the issue of the question that you asked Dr. Walsh, let
me just chime in here for a second, because I think what we are
really talking about is: At the end of the day, if Iran does go
nuclear, can we have some sort of modus vivendi with them? I
would argue very differently than Dr. Takeyh and Dr. Walsh,
because it seems to me that it may have been true a year ago to
say that the Iranian presidency is an empty office and the
supreme leader calls the shots. It is far less clear that is
the case today.
What we have seen over the last year is the rise of what
Dr. Takeyh has called in other publications a ``war
generation,'' embodied by Mr. Ahmadinejad, and also his
systematic consolidation of power, to the extent that the
president has now emerged, at least in part, as an independent
foreign policy in his own right. And that is very important
because a year ago, 5 years ago, we could have said the supreme
leader holds all the cards. The supreme leader can escalate or
de-escalate the nuclear issue at his will.
I am not sure we can say that anymore. I think it is true
that the supreme leader can escalate the nuclear issue, but I
am not at all sure that the new power centers that are emerging
in the Islamic Republic will allow him to de-escalate if in
this game of nuclear chicken he all of a sudden decides to
blink.
Senator Coburn. And I would also note that the supreme
leader, in his belief in the 12th Imam, might benefit from the
utilization of nuclear weapons as well.
Dr. Ledeen.
Mr. Ledeen. Well, the question of who is Ahmadinejad and
what does he represent reminds me a lot about the good old days
of the Soviet Union when people used to say, Molotov is such a
good fellow to work with, it is a pity that Stalin is always in
the way.
I think that the only person who matters on any serious
question facing Iran is the supreme leader. That is why he has
that name. That is what it means. He is the supreme leader. He
determines policy. And I do not think--to mildly disagree with
Ilan, I do not think that Ahmadinejad is any more an
independent actor or any more representative of a new class and
a new force or independent political movement inside Iran than
was the opposite of Ahmadinejad, who was Khatami for 9 years
before Ahmadinejad. Then people ran around and said Iran is in
the grips of a reform movement and is moving toward reform.
Well, in 9 years there were no reforms.
Now everybody is saying Iran is in the grips of a super-
fanatic religious nut case named Ahmadinejad. But his
statements are canonical. In regimes of this sort, I do not
believe that the president would be permitted to go around
saying things that are not approved by the supreme leader. And
I think that we can take what he says as an expression of what
the supreme leader and his henchmen want us to hear and want us
to believe. And as for what they--that does not necessarily
mean it is what they really believe. I mean, it is a whole
culture based on deception, after all, and illusion. We should
not forget this.
The one thing that is a reliable basis for analysis in
terms of what Iran might do when and if it gets nuclear weapons
is their religious convictions and is the doctrine of the 12th
Imam and the End of Days and where the world is seen heading,
and the world as they see it--and from time to time, I have
been fortunate enough to get what I think are very accurate
minutes from high-level meetings in Iran, and I have published
them. And their view of the world is that what they are doing
is working, that we are bending to their will, that we are
ready to be driven out of the Middle East and elsewhere, and
that in relatively short order they are going to dominate and
they will then use their nuclear weapons.
On the question of what they have and what they do not
have, I will only say again what I said at greater length in my
prepared testimony, and that is that we have always been wrong
on estimating how long it takes country A or B or C to develop
nuclear weapons. We have always been surprised. We were
surprised when the Soviets did it. We were surprised when the
Chinese did it. We were surprised when the French did it. We
are always surprised. We were surprised when India and Pakistan
tested nuclear weapons during----
Senator Coburn. We were surprised when they told us they
were not, and then the students revealed they were.
Mr. Ledeen. Yes. Well, I mean intelligence is imperfect,
and CIA excels at imperfection. What can we say.
Senator Coburn. I would also put forward that Natan
Sharansky said that the linkage of human rights to military and
economic issues is the very thing that did break the USSR, and
that is somebody that was on the inside the whole period of
time that was going on.
Dr. Takeyh, in your testimony you started out by saying the
current generation of pro-regime Iranians are not preoccupied
with the United States but are looking eastward. But it seems
you contradict this by saying that the same people are paranoid
about the United States, that the drive for nuclear weapons is
deterring for what you call ``superpower bullying.'' Which is
it? Are they looking to the East, or are they looking to the
West?
Mr. Takeyh. I think in terms of economic opportunities,
increasingly there are many within the Iranian regime that
suggest they should look eastward to China, Japan, India,
Russia, and essentially reorient Iran's trade toward those
countries, which are not as concerned about Iran's
proliferation tendencies or for that matter human rights
abuses. So essentially trade packages that do not come with
conditions about internal practices.
Senator Coburn. No strings.
Mr. Takeyh. That is right. And this has to do not just with
energy deals but also technology transfers. In terms of the
second portion of my testimony that you alluded to, I am not
quite sure. If you can give me the context, maybe I can give
you a more informed assessment.
Senator Coburn. Well, the reference was to ``superpower
bullying.''
Mr. Takeyh. Oh, yes. I think I know. There are those within
the Iranian regime that suggest that the United States is not
particularly concerned about Iran's proliferation tendencies,
but is concerned about the character of the regime. They do not
have to make concessions on this because they are being picked
on, not because of their treaty violations or treaty
provocations, but because of superpower bullying. So
essentially there is a suggestion that U.N. processes and U.N.
resolutions and IAEA resolutions that have come about are
politically contorted as a result of----
Senator Coburn. How do we change that? That is obviously a
misperception, You would agree with that?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes.
Senator Coburn. And we all in this room understand it is a
misperception. So how do we change that perception? Or is that
a convenient misperception on their part?
Mr. Takeyh. Well, it is a misperception that we have
already changed in the sense that much of the international
community agrees with the United States----
Senator Coburn. I am not talking about the international
community. I am talking about the leaders of Iran.
Mr. Takeyh. I understand that. Much of the international
community agrees that Iran stands in violation of NPT
obligations and, therefore, there should be multilateral
pressures on it if it does not cease its objections and its
objectionable activities.
However, it is the same international community that
suggests the United States should go the extra mile in terms of
the negotiations before they sign off to any level of
multilateral pressures enacted through the United Nations, and
I think ultimately that is the type of pressure that can work,
multilateral measures through the United Nations adhered to by
the international community over a persistent period of time.
That may temper the regime's ambitions in that particular
realm. But I do not think this is something the United States
can achieve unilaterally, whether it is unilateral economic
concessions, unilateral economic coercion, or any sort of
military program.
Senator Coburn. All right. One other thing. We had some
comments in terms of regime change and support for the
students, in terms of the Voice of America and--is it Radio
Farsi?
Mr. Takeyh. Farda.
Senator Coburn. Farda. Any comments about the effectiveness
of the tools that the United States is using today in terms of
trying to accomplish that goal? I am not talking about whether
you believe that is an effective tool, but given the fact that
we are using the tool, are we doing it effectively?
Mr. Takeyh. Well, there is in my view an analytical
challenge here, because the notion that has been presented is
that Iran is an information-starved society. I do not know how
that is possible in the global village that we live in, in an
era of globalization. There are 24-hour Persian broadcasts into
Iran every day. It is called BBC Persian Service. It is 24
hours a day. It is on radio. There is talk of a BBC television
station. And if you want to reach the Iranian people, radio,
transistor radio, particularly in provinces and so forth. So
there is 24-hour radio broadcasts from the British Broadcasting
Company every day.
As a consumer of VOA----
Senator Carper. Excuse me. Are those broadcasts
intercepted?
Mr. Takeyh. You can listen to it every day in Iran. They
are not intercepted, blocked, or anything. As a matter of fact,
one of the ironies is many who advocate greater radio
broadcasts by the United States, they say we need politically
neutral broadcasts like BBC Persian Service, except they
neglect to say there is something called the BBC Persian
Service. I think there is Internet use in Iran which is
significant. All Iranian papers are on the Internet. As a
consumer of those, someone who listens to Iranian radio
broadcasts every day--I listen to it at 3:30 in the afternoon,
which is a midnight broadcast over there. They recapitulate the
news. It is politically constrained, but certainly broadcast
happens.
Why is the Iranian public not more politicized? Why is it
not more passive? The fallout question is----
Senator Carper. Excuse me. Why is it not more passive?
Mr. Takeyh. Why is the Iranian population passive in light
of----
Senator Carper. OK.
Mr. Takeyh. Well, they do not lack information. The
analytical challenge is why are they passive despite the level
of information that is available to them. Why are they
depoliticized despite the level of information that is
available to them? There is information available.
Senator Coburn. What is the obvious conclusion you would
have when you have such a theocratic rule there? What is the
obvious conclusion you would draw to that? Are there
consequences to being active?
Mr. Takeyh. Yes, there certainly are.
Senator Coburn. We had somebody that has been imprisoned,
their arm broken, their knee broken. We have pictures of the
union truck drivers where they have, in fact, been beaten and
tortured. There is a cost to being active in Iran.
Mr. Takeyh. I do not see how a regime's coercive practices
are going to be relieved by radio broadcasts. So if you are
concerned about the fact that the security services are
effective, radio broadcasts are not going to do much about
that. Certainly it is a regime that is capable of, therefore,
controlling its public space. It is a regime that is capable of
controlling its population. That does not mean it can control
its population forever. But if what you are saying is correct,
then there is a certain degree of coercive stability.
Now, I do not know necessarily that this situation is going
to be tenable if the country gets into serious economic
difficulties where it is no longer capable of patronage
politics. At this particular point, I would say the Iranian
regime has roughly between 10 to 15 percent support. But it is
a support that they can mobilize. It is arms support. And it
has very elaborate intelligence purposes. And one thing we have
to appreciate is that the Iranian regime has been very
effective at separating state from society in the sense that
they have effectively, at least for now, managed to
depoliticize the population.
Iran exists on two separate planes. There is the state,
with all its deliberations, with all its considerations. And
there is the population that does what it wants. And at this
particular point, one of the clever things that the Iranian
regime has done is not to have a cultural clampdown. Iranian
youth--many of my cousins and so forth--have sort of a vast
subterranean activity. They go to parties. They do things. And
the regime has not disturbed that because it recognizes that is
a politically explosive thing to do. It is a regime that is
very adept at survival. That does not mean it will survive
forever. You can never look at an unrepresentative government
and say this government will survive forever.
Senator Coburn. Would you care to comment on the
broadcasts?
Mr. Berman. I would, actually. I think there are two issues
at play here. In my testimony, I talked about the policy
options that are available to the United States. The key
commonality in all of those, whether it is military action, if
it ever comes to that as a last resort, or economic sanctions
or what have you, is for us to accurately telegraph what we are
going to do and what we are not going to do to the Iranian
people. They are the key allies in all of this. But so far we
have not been able to do that.
I will give you a concrete example. Before February of this
year, when Secretary Rice announced the request for $75 million
for democracy promotion, the annual allocation for 2005 for
public diplomacy, public broadcasting into Iran was $16.4
million. Iran is a country of 70 million people, so that is
roughly 21.5 cents per Iranian per year. You can argue about
whether or not we should do more, but that is clearly
insufficient. It is doubly insufficient when we think about the
last time we really needed a robust public diplomacy effort,
which was the Cold War. During the Cold War, we did more than a
third of that per Soviet per year as early as 1983.
My argument here is that we are simply not being serious in
terms of public broadcasting. We do not have the scope that we
want, and we also have a corporate culture that discourages
articulating the message that the Administration has at least
implicitly said, which is that the U.S. Government stands with
the Iranian people in their desire for change. Not too long
ago, the director of Voice of America said publicly at a
conference that the U.S. Government is not in the business of
helping the Iranian people overthrow their government. That
seems slightly at odds with what the President had said in
several pronouncements.
So it seems to me that while the President has a message
and has articulated a message, that message could be more
forcefully applied to the bureaucracy.
Senator Coburn. Somebody please address my question, which
was: Whatever the level, is the level at what we are doing, the
content effective in accomplishing the purpose? Dr. Ledeen.
Mr. Ledeen. The short answer is it cannot be effective
because there is no content to communicate because we do not
have an Iran policy. Until and unless we have an Iran policy,
the greatest broadcasters in the world would not accomplish
something we do not know what it is in the first place.
I would like to comment, if I may, on the question of why
are they so passive, and the question of information. As
someone who has been systematically slandered by the BBC for
most of his professional life, I rise to defend the view that
the BBC, whatever service it may be, is not communicating
information at all. I do not speak Farsi, so I have not
listened to it. But if it is anything like the BBC English
language service, I would have no trouble understanding why the
Iranian regime would have no problem with it and would not jam
it and so forth.
But the serious question is: Why are they so passive? And
that is a serious question. It almost never happens in history
that a revolution was foreseen. Before the revolution broke
out, everyone always said, Boy, these people are really
passive.
When I went to the Reagan Administration in 1981 and we
started saying, well, we are going to try to bring down the
Soviet empire, everybody thought we were mad. They said, well,
look at the way the people behave. Nobody will take a chance.
No one will challenge them. You have these obscure dissidents,
one or two of them, and they get locked up and are never heard
from again. And then there was this tiny trade union movement
in Poland in the Gdansk shipyards.
Well, 9 years later it came down, vast popular support for
the overthrow of that regime. It turned out it was there. We
did not see it.
If you compare the level of protest and the level of
political complaint against the regime in the Soviet Union
circa 1981, 1982, with the level of ongoing political
demonstration against the Iranian regime, week after week and
month after month and year after year, big numbers of people,
tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, up to a million
people 3, 4 years ago in the streets of Tehran, there is no
question that the people have a very sharp political awareness
of the evils of the regime, and they do not like it.
And when Dr. Takeyh says, quite rightly, that the regime
probably has 10, 15 percent support, I think that is probably
just about right. And the other 85 or 90 percent are not
mobilized to do it, and no one is smart enough to know why
exactly. But we do know one thing, that is, Iranian culture,
the Iranian people believe that nothing can happen, nothing of
this magnitude can happen without the support of the United
States. And they do not have that. They have not seen it. They
have heard various statements from various people. I believe
that a few years ago, somewhere--what was it, 3 years ago, in
2003? I could be wrong. I have reached an age where active
memory is failing rapidly. But they were gearing up for big-
scale demonstrations all over the country when the Secretary of
State, then Secretary Powell, was asked were we going to
support this imminent nationwide uprising, and he said, ``We do
not wish to get involved in an Iranian family squabble.'' And
you could hear the great sucking sound as the air came out of
the balloon, and nothing happened. Demonstrations were
canceled, the movement was canceled, and so forth.
When the United States moves, the world changes, and this
kind of static analysis, as the economists would call it, of a
country in which you do not see revolutionary activity in the
Washington Post, but then the Washington Post has never
reported on the huge demonstrations that take place all the
time all over Iran. So we will not read about that anyway. We
do not hear about tens of thousands of people demonstrating in
Baluchistan. We do not hear about the general strike in the oil
fields in Khuzestan, but it is there. So to say why are they so
passive, for me the real question is, compared to other modern
and contemporary examples of successful democratic revolutions,
the Iranians are super-active, they are super-politicized. They
are the opposite of passive. Look at all those people--and the
amazing thing is that they have lost their fear of the terrible
tortures to which they are subjected when they get rounded up.
There is a video of this poor man's tongue being cut out. It is
not just a matter of burns on his back. And they have, for the
most part, overcome that as well.
So, we need a policy. We do not have one. And I think it
should be a policy of support for democratic revolution. Just a
final point. And I would advocate that. Even if Iran were not
the world's biggest supporter of terrorism, and even if Iran
did not have a nuclear weapons policy at all, because it is the
right thing to do, it is what we should stand for. It is what
America is supposed to be all about.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Dr. Ledeen.
Senator Carper is going to have to go, so I am going to
turn to him.
Senator Carper. We are having a debate over on the Senate
floor about whether or not to extend, reauthorize the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, and my time slot is in about 7 minutes so I
have to run.
Before I do that, I just want to say to Dr. Walsh, Dr.
Takeyh, Dr. Ledeen, and Dr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. I am a lawyer so I am not technically a doctor,
so ``Mister'' is fine.
Senator Carper. I just want to say this has been an
interesting, it has been an enjoyable, it has been a
provocative discussion, and we thank each of you for helping to
make it that. Some of you have been before us previously, and
we are delighted that you would come back. Some of you have
come from afar, and we are delighted that you could be with us
today.
Thomas Jefferson used to say, I believe, and I will
paraphrase him: When people know the truth, they will not make
a mistake. And I think in Iran, to the extent that the people
there actually understand what is at stake for them--we have
had--Dr. Coburn and I have heard even today that the Achilles
heel in the regime in Iran is their economy. And to the extent
that the people there actually know what is at stake, to the
extent that we are able to find a combination of common ground
on the issues that we want to discuss at these multilateral
talks, then there is a great economic benefit for the people of
Iran. And to the extent that those talks are not productive
or--do not begin or are not productive, that is something that
is quite different. And I think part of the challenge for us
and those who would like to see a better outcome is to figure
out how best to make sure that people know the truth and are in
a better position to put pressure on their regime and their
leaders to not make a mistake.
Again, our thanks to each of you, and with that having been
said, Mr. Chairman, I am going to head out. Thanks again for
letting us have this hearing. I think it has been great.
Senator Coburn. I want to thank each of you. Dr. Takeyh, I
can tell--you can see it in your face--the pain you feel on
your mother country. And it is important that your voice is
heard, and I appreciate you coming and testifying before us.
I want to make a statement. I am going to be a Senator for
at least 4 more years, and I am going to do everything I can to
see that the people of Iran--not the government of Iran--have
every opportunity to express themselves through a secular
government rather than through a theocracy. And that is at
every angle, at every appropriation bill, at every chance I
get, to support their right for freedom.
Thank you all for being here.
[Whereupon, at 3:42 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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