[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IRAN: REALITY, OPTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES. PART I--IRANIAN PEOPLE AND
ATTITUDES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 30, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-127
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
TOM LANTOS, California TOM DAVIS, Virginia
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
Columbia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BILL SALI, Idaho
JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM JORDAN, Ohio
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
David Marin, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DAN BURTON, Indiana
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
Dave Turk, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 30, 2007................................. 1
Statement of:
Ballen, Ken, president, Terror Free Tomorrow................. 10
Katzman, Dr. Kenneth, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs,
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional
Research Service........................................... 74
Sadjadpour, Karim, associate, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace........................................ 63
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Ballen, Ken, president, Terror Free Tomorrow, prepared
statement of............................................... 12
Katzman, Dr. Kenneth, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs,
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional
Research Service, prepared statement of.................... 77
Sadjadpour, Karim, associate, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, prepared statement of................. 66
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 4
IRAN: REALITY, OPTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES. PART I--IRANIAN PEOPLE AND
ATTITUDES
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Higgins, Yarmuth,
Braley, McCollum, Van Hollen, Hodes, Welch, Shays, and Platts.
Staff present: Dave Turk, staff director; Andrew Su and
Andy Wright, professional staff members; David Hake, clerk;
Janice Spector and Christopher Bright, minority professional
staff members; Nick Palarino, minority senior investigator and
policy adviser; and Todd Greenwood, minority research
assistant.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs, the hearing entitled,
``Iran: Reality, Options, and Consequences. Part I--Iranian
People and Attitudes'' will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Again, I ask unanimous consent the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee be allowed to submit a written statement for the
record. And without objection, that is also ordered.
Good morning and welcome to everyone here today. I
appreciate our witnesses going through the long lines that I
understand are outside in order to be able to get here. This I
think is an important topic. And this first hearing will set
the tone and give us good, substantial background information
for the hearings to come.
Two weeks ago, the President of the United States made the
following statement, ``If you're interested in avoiding World
War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing
them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear
weapon.''
A few days later, the Vice President followed up this line
with his line in the sand, ``We will not allow Iran to have a
nuclear weapon.'' He then elaborated, ``Our country and the
entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-
supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions.''
Compare this statement to one that Vice-President Cheney
made just 2 months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, ``We will
not permit a brutal dictator with ties to terror and a record
of feckless aggression to dominate the Middle East and to
threaten the United States.''
The administration's rhetoric on Iran is becoming more
strident and inflammatory. The temperature is rapidly rising.
And at the same time, as was the case with the buildup to the
Iraq war, much of the decisionmaking is being made in the
utmost of secrecy.
My hope is this administration has learned lessons over
nearly 7 years in office, lessons about truth, humility, and
the importance of fully leveling with the American people. It
is my hope that any administration, when faced with such an
important foreign policy challenge as Iran, will take a
calculated, well-thought out approach with a clear
understanding of our long-term security and strategic
interests, the varying policy options and their consequences.
We must also be aware of what we don't know and the law of
unintended consequences.
Congress should also have learned some lessons over the
past 7 years, most importantly about the need for vigorous
congressional oversight. Our Constitution requires and demands
that Congress ask the tough questions, questions about whether
all other options have been exhausted, about the consequences
and true costs of war, and whether the President is basing his
decisions on an accurate picture of reality. ``Trust us''
should never be good enough under our constitutional separation
of powers, and it should certainly not be good enough now.
Beginning today, the Subcommittee on National Security and
Foreign Affairs initiates a series of robust, deliberative, and
focused oversight hearings on a topic that has long been
overdue for congressional examination--U.S. policy toward Iran.
Our constitutional responsibility demands nothing less.
As our series hearing entitled, ``Iran: Reality, Options,
and Consequences,'' suggests, we will fully explore the many
options for dealing with Iran and the consequences of those
options. But let's not put the cart before the horse. First,
let's learn something about Iranians, something we know far too
little about.
Fareed Zakaria recently put it this way: ``We are on a path
to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost
nothing about. The U.S. Government has had no diplomats in Iran
for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with
any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact
with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole
to us--just as Iraq had become in 2003.''
The reality is that very few people in Washington
understand Iran and that many generalize and oversimplify a
complex society of 70 million people. We have little to no
understanding of the attitudes and opinions of ordinary
Iranians. We don't know what the word is on the so-called
``Iranian street.'' We don't fully appreciate Iran's rich
history and how it is ingrained in the Iranian psyche, or about
how the Islamic Revolution of 1979 intimately shaped the
behavior and livelihoods of a generation of Iranian youth,
women, and politicians.
The United States has continued to isolate Iran through
unilateral and multilateral economic and trade sanctions.
Outside of a few people-to-people exchanges and limited
opportunities for travel by academics, journalists, and
Iranian-Americans, there has been little direct contact with
Iran.
So before we start speculating about the prospects for
diplomacy or regime change, or the consequences of a U.S.
military attack, all of which will be discussed at later
subsequent hearings of this subcommittee, let's take a step
back and try to understand who the Iranians really are. This
fundamental, common-sense approach, unfortunately, was largely
missing in the public dialog leading up to the Iraq war. It
will not be missing this time.
We need to ask several basic questions. What makes Iranians
tick? What drives and motivates their behavior? Do Iranians
want democracy? Are they resoundingly anti-American, or are
there opportunities for improvements in our relationship? How
can we reintegrate Iran into the global economy and get them to
adhere to international human rights standards? And, given our
lack of connection over the last 30 years, what don't we know?
And where are our blind spots?
By understanding Iranians and building our knowledge of the
intricacies in our fractured relationship, the subcommittee
will be able to conduct our constitutionally mandated
oversight, to find out if the current administration has
thought through all of these issues adequately and thoroughly,
and to ask tough questions that get to the heart of the myriad
of issues involved.
With the support of the subcommittee members on both sides
of the aisle, I am pleased to embark on this series of Iran
hearings.
And I now yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee,
Mr. Shays.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I congratulate you for
embarking on this series of hearings about Iran. These hearings
will further our knowledge about a country that promotes and
supports terrorism. The American public must understand that if
unchecked, Iran poses a national security threat not only to
the United States and our allies, but to the entire world. We
must never forget that Iran supports terrorists, wants to
become a nuclear power, and has threatened other nations with
annihilation.
Given its location, Iran is in a unique position to
influence control over the energy-rich Middle East. As we
listen to the comments of the Bush administration and the
Iranian leadership about what lies ahead for our two nations, I
agree with you, Mr. Chairman, what is of fundamental importance
is understanding the people, the politics, and the culture of
the Iranian people. We have learned some hard lessons from our
experience in Iraq about the absolute importance of
understanding countries and their people, particularly those we
are confronting.
Our relationship with Iran is complex. Besides Cuba, Iran
is the only country in the world with which the United States
has had no sustained direct contact. In fact, we have had no
significant connection with the Government of Iran since 1979,
when Iranian students, with the approval of their government,
strong-armed the embassy in Tehran, taking and holding 52
American diplomats hostage for 444 days.
The United States has designated Iran a state sponsor of
terrorism. Three pressing problems override our relation with
this nation: One, Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon;
two, Iran's ongoing involvement with and support for terrorist
groups throughout the Middle East; and, three, Iran's sustained
and increasing support for militia groups in Iraq.
The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's
connections to numerous terrorist groups threatening the United
States and our allies around the globe. Iran is providing
weapons, funding, and guidance to Hezbollah, which threatens
Lebanon and Israel. Iran also provides significant support for
Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, which threatens lasting peace and security in
that region.
The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's race to
possess a nuclear weapon. A nuclear armed Iran would pose an
incalculable risk to its Arab neighbors, to the countries of
the greater Middle East, and to Europe. This would be
unthinkable for all who value security and peace.
What we must ask ourselves is whether it is better to
isolate Iran or to engage its leaders in discussion. While we
must not have 535 Secretaries of State, Congress should take a
stronger role in pressing the administration for diplomatic
dialog and discourse with Iran.
This administration must understand that even though Iran
is a rogue state, it is still a country with enormous influence
in the Middle East, which we have to deal with one way or the
other. It is time for us to start talking with Iran diplomat to
diplomat, politician to politician, and person to person.
I look forward to today's hearings as a positive step in
this direction, and we welcome all our witnesses today, and
especially welcome Dr. Kenneth Katzman, who agreed to testify
only 4 days ago. And I would like to again thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and say to our witnesses I have to be going before
the Appropriations Committee on a particular bill in my
district, and I will hustle back as soon as I make my testimony
there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Shays. We are going to have a
brief statement from some of the Members who expressed an
interest, despite our earlier comments on that. And Mr.
Higgins, the Chair recognizes you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say I
don't have a written statement, but I think this is
particularly important for a lot of reasons. One is there is
new war talk in the air. When the President begins to reference
World War III with specific reference to Iran, which is flanked
incidentally by Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is troubling. It
is troubling because I think it reeks of irresponsibility, it
is warmongering, and it creates a potentially further
destabilizing influence in a region that is very important to
our strategic interests.
What is even more important is the results of your surveys
about the Iranian people. My understanding is the Iranian
people are relatively young, average age approximately 26.
Seventy percent of the population is under the age of 30. The
government lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the governed.
Corruption is endemic, and employment is chronic. Most of the
Iranian population are very pro-Western.
My concern is with a lot of war talk in the air, perhaps
air strikes on some 18 to 30 nuclear-related facilities that
happen to be interspersed with civilian populations, that we
have to be very, very careful, obviously, before we take any
kind of military action. Strongly engaging diplomatically I
think is important, given the precarious nature of this regime.
I think our interests are profound in that region, profound
in that country, and we have an obligation to explore not only
the face of Iran, which happens to be a President Ahmadinejad,
which his statements are very provocative, his goal I think is
to become the face of extremism in the Middle East, and I think
he has succeeded in that regard, but to understand there is a
population of 70 million people, that is important to our
strategic interests in that area as well.
So I look forward to your testimony, and I thank you for
being here.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Higgins. Ms. McCollum is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Chairman Tierney. Thank you very
much for holding this hearing. I expect to be learning a lot
from our testifiers. With the talk of, as Congressman Higgins
just pointed out, of President Bush talking about World War
III, Vice-President Cheney issuing ultimatums without a robust
discussion in the Congress, I think it makes sense that this
committee, with the charge that we have with government
oversight, show that we are going to take the prudent, measured
look at what is the situation in Iran, but more importantly
understand Iran so that we can engage with the families. Not
necessarily engage always with the extreme talk that we hear
from Iran, but to really understand what is going on with the
typical Iranian family and what they would like to see their
government do.
As I go back home and talk to the families in my district
and listen carefully with what they want this Congress to do,
they clearly want engagement. They clearly want dialog, they
clearly want the heated rhetoric to cease and for engagement
and diplomacy to take effect.
So Mr. Chair, I think this hearing is extremely important.
And as it was just stated, when the number of youth far exceed
the elders in a country, they have a different time reference
as to their engagement with the United States. Many of them do
not remember or probably don't even understand how some
Americans continue to struggle with the kidnapping of our civil
and State Department people in the embassy. They don't
understand why we have even cutoff the way that we have dialog
with Iran.
So Mr. Chairman, I look forward to learning, I look forward
to taking my responsibility to defend and protect the
Constitution and the people here of the United States
seriously. But I want to do it as an informed Member of
Congress, not someone just going off sound bites on the evening
news. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. McCollum. If the witnesses
would please stand. It is our practice here before the
subcommittee to swear all witnesses before they testify. I
would ask you to please raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. The record will reflect that all
witnesses answered in the affirmative. And we are going to have
all of your written statements put in the record by unanimous
consent. So if you could keep your testimony to 5, 10 minutes,
we would appreciate that. It is usually 5, but we think it is a
pretty deep subject so we would have some forbearance on that.
I want to take a moment and introduce each of the witnesses
before they testify rather than all three at the same time. Our
first witness this morning is Ken Ballen, who is the president
of Terror Free Tomorrow. He is here to share the results of the
first nationwide survey of Iranians since 2002, and what
lessons we can learn from that effort.
Mr. Ballen has spent more than 20 years on the front lines
of law enforcement, international relations, intelligence
oversight, and congressional investigations. He has
successfully prosecuted international terrorists. He has also
prosecuted major figures in organized crime, international
narcotics, and one of the first cases in the United States
involving illegal financing for Middle Eastern terrorists. He
has been counsel to the Iran-Contra Committee under Chairman
Lee Hamilton, where he was the lead investigator. He was also
chief counsel for the bipartisan Senate Special Investigative
Committee, with Senator John McCain, and the chief counsel to
the House Steering and Policy Committee for Speaker Foley,
where he directed policy initiatives on crime prevention and
security, intelligence oversight, and select national security
matters to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mr. Ballen, we would be pleased to hear your testimony.
STATEMENT OF KEN BALLEN, PRESIDENT, TERROR FREE TOMORROW
Mr. Ballen. Thank you very much, Chairman Tierney, members
of the subcommittee. I first would like to commend you, Mr.
Chairman, for not only this series--I needed to turn that on--
thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first would like to commend you and
the subcommittee not only for holding the oversight hearings on
Iran, but for starting them in a place and on a topic that most
people would not begin with, which is the people of Iran. That
is absolutely the right place to start.
Mr. Chairman, the Iranian people are speaking. The question
before us now is are we listening? The United States has
imposed new economic sanctions against Iran, but these
sanctions or any other economic sanctions are likely to fail
unless we also begin to address the Iranian people directly.
President Reagan told us during the cold war that the
average Soviet citizen was the best ally of the United States.
President Reagan called that Soviet citizen Citizen Ivan, our
friend. That is no less true with Iran today.
Terror Free Tomorrow, an independent, nonprofit center on
the importance of public opinion, partnered this summer with D3
Systems, one of the most outstanding polling organizations for
polling in closed societies and in troubled situations like
Iraq and Afghanistan. They are here with me today. D3 Systems
conducted a nationwide phone survey of Iran this past summer.
And in an act of what could only be called everyday courage on
the part of ordinary Iranians, over the phone--they didn't know
who was on the other end of the line; could have been the
government, could have been anyone--over the phone they told
our pollsters that they reject the autocratic rule of the
Supreme Leader, that they want normal relations with the
outside world, and nuclear weapons are simply not their
priority.
As the Chair mentioned, this is the first uncensored,
complete poll on these controversial issues since September
2002. What was the result in 2002? Well, the result was the
Iranian government put the pollsters in jail. Our results was
that 79 percent surveyed across Iran said they want free
elections and the opportunity to elect their leaders rather
than have their leaders chosen for them. They want relations
with the outside world, 68 percent with the United States. Only
11 percent of Iranians said they favor their current system of
unelected rule by the Supreme Leader.
These results should not be treated as routine. They are
not routine.
About the same time that we conducted a poll of Iran, we
conducted a similar phone survey of Syria, another closed
society. And while three-quarters of Syrians said they favor
better relations with the West, almost no one in our poll of
Syria was willing to directly or indirectly come up to that
line of criticizing the government or their Supreme Leader,
Bashar Assad. But in Iran they did. Criticizing the Supreme
Leader, as my distinguished colleague to my left here will tell
you in Iran, is a line that one crosses at considerable
personal risk. Yet in our poll the Iranian people are bravely
and collectively crossing that line.
The question before us is are we listening. I can tell you
one party that is listening. It is the Iranian Government
itself. Within a month of our poll they released a poll,
refuting point by point the findings that we came up with.
What accounts for the difference in results? Well, they
didn't release their methodology and questions, so I don't
really know. But I can tell you this, that perhaps when the
government calls you up and says it is the government, you are
going to get a very different answer. Or perhaps they went to
the minority of Iranians, the demographic that do support them,
because we did find that in our poll. We found that a very
strong and committed minority, ranging from 11 percent, as I
mentioned, in terms of keeping the current system of the
unelected religious rule of the Supreme Leader, to almost a
third in terms of certain policies of President Ahmadinejad do
support the government. So you have a majority of people who
don't, but you have a determined and committed minority who do.
So where do we stand? What is the bottom line on all of
this? On the one hand, we have the Iranian people expressing to
us their true voice. On the other hand, we have the Iranian
regime very busy expressing the voice of the people that it
wants the rest of the world to hear. But the rest of the world
is silent. Sanctions are imposed, military threats are made.
The regime is talked to by some, it is shunned by others. And
in all this debate no one is reaching out over the head of the
regime to talk to the people themselves. The United States is
not, nor are the Europeans. No one is.
The irony of this situation that we find ourselves in is
that the regime itself is very busy trying to represent the
people and their will and to speak for them. But as much as
they may try, the regime does not. The rest of the world, if it
spoke to the priorities of the Iranian people, to their
economic desires, to their desires for trade, to their desires
for peaceful coexistence, to their desire for, yes, respect
from other nations, the irony is if the United States did reach
out, as we did during the cold war and delivered messages, a
positive agenda directly to the people, we would find our most
receptive audience to be inside Iran itself.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am happy to answer any
questions as to the details of the polls and our findings,
which I avoided in my opening statements in the interests of
time. And as I said, I am accompanied by D3, which can speak to
methodology as well.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ballen follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Ballen. I am sure we are all
interested in statistics. And some people will want to question
on that. Sometimes statistics, besides being difficult to say,
is difficult to comprehend.
Mr. Ballen. It is difficult to say, I can assure you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. And I am sure we will probably have
plenty of questions on that. I appreciate your opening
statement.
Our next witness is Karim Sadjadpour. He is an associate at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and he is
bringing a wealth of experience from living and studying in
Iran. Mr. Sadjadpour joined the Carnegie Institute after 4
years as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis
Group, based in Tehran and Washington, DC. He is a leading
researcher on Iran. He has conducted dozens of interviews with
senior Iranian officials and hundreds with Iranian
intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries,
businessmen, students, activists, and youth, among others.
Mr. Sadjadpour was named a Young Global Leader by the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And we are pleased to
have your testimony today, sir.
STATEMENT OF KARIM SADJADPOUR, ASSOCIATE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT
FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
Mr. Sadjadpour. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members
of the committee. It is really a privilege to be here, and I do
commend you for expressing an interest in the views of the
Iranian people.
There is three, four points that I would like to make, and
I would preface my talks by saying that anecdotally, my
experiences in Iran very much coincide with a lot of the
results of Mr. Ballen's survey. And I think it is one of the
few surveys that I have seen that I have seen results which
coincide with anecdotal experiences of myself and many others
who have spent time in contemporary Iran.
Discontent in Iran is very deep and very widespread. It is
very difficult, whether you are traveling in Tehran or
throughout the country, to find someone, regardless of age,
gender, socioeconomic class, religiosity, who will say to you
things are going well here, I am happy with the performance of
the government and the clerics are doing a good job. It is
extremely rare to be able to find someone who is able to say
this.
But we have a population which is increasingly politically
disengaged these days. They participated overwhelmingly the
last 8 years, from 1997, the election of the reformist
President Mohammad Khatami, through 2005 in their elections.
They elected Khatami with 80 percent turnout, they reelected
him with 70 percent turn out. They elected a reform-minded
parliament. But what they saw was their votes weren't able to
affect change domestically. And increasingly what we have seen
is the Iranian population as a result is disengaged. And I
think this political disengagement is quite natural. As a
friend of mine in Tehran told me, it is like going to the gym
every day for 6 years and not losing 1 pound. Pretty soon you
are going to stop exercising if you don't see results.
The failure of the U.S. policies in Iraq have also had a
role in the Iranian political participation. I think
increasingly Iranians look next door and they say if the choice
is between what we see in Iraq, democracy and carnage, and what
we have now, which is authoritarianism and security, we will
choose the latter. And this is a population which has
experienced themselves an 8-year war with Iraq and is very
allergic to any prospect of tumult and chaos and insecurity.
Second point I want to make is about Ahmadinejad's
election. We all know that he was elected with a very clear
mandate. It wasn't to wipe Israel off the map or to deny the
Holocaust. It was to improve the economy. He has really failed
miserably in doing so. And I think if we are looking at
Ahmadinejad's election as the glass being half full, we see for
Iranians they see it actually does make a difference to
participate in elections and it does make a difference who is
the president of their country. During the Khatami era, many
people believed that, again, participating in elections in Iran
are an exercise in futility. But I think many people realize
there is a difference between a president like Mohammad Khatami
and President Ahmadinejad. And I think we will see in upcoming
elections, March 2008 parliamentary elections and June 2009
Presidential elections, Iranians going to the polls and
electing more moderate, pragmatic leaders.
The third point I want to make, and this is a very
important point, that we should have no illusions that some
type of abrupt, sudden change or sudden upheaval in Iran will
be a change for the better. I would like to quote the great
U.S. diplomat, retired U.S. diplomat John Limbert, who is a
great scholar on Iran who was taken hostage in 1979 in the
Iranian embassy for 444 days--in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
And when he was reflecting on his experience, on his 1979
experience, he wrote that what I learned from 1979 was that
revolutions are not won by those who can write incisive op-ed
pieces. They are won by those who are willing to go out on the
streets and fight the type of battles and street battles that
need to be waged to win these revolutions.
And likewise in Iran these days I would agree entirely that
we have a young population which is very much in favor of
tolerance and democracy and co-existence. But the only two
groups in Iran which are armed and organized are the
Revolutionary Guards, which number about 125,000, and the
bassij militia, which number about 2 million. So any type of
sudden, abrupt upheaval in Iran unfortunately, I would argue,
is not going to bring to power these liberal democrats, because
by virtue of the fact they are liberal democrats they are not
going to be willing to fight these street battles with these
armed groups, who will be very much willing to fight these
street battles.
So I think we should be looking at transition in Iran as a
longer term prospect or medium term prospect, not some type of
sudden, abrupt upheaval.
Last, I would argue that despite what we know about popular
opinion, that the Iranian street is the most pro-American
street in the Middle East, that there doesn't exist an inherent
enmity toward Israel, that the Iranian street doesn't wake up
in the morning thinking about enriching uranium and producing a
nuclear weapons capability. Despite this fact, Iranian popular
opinion, what we know is that Iranian popular opinion has
little impact on Iranian foreign policy. Again, opinion polls,
anecdotal evidence suggests that the Iranians overwhelmingly
want to have a normalization of relations with the United
States. Despite this, Iranian Government antagonism toward the
United States is as great as it has ever been. Iranian support
for Hezbollah and for Hamas is as great as it has ever been,
and the Iranian defiance on the nuclear issue is as great as it
has ever been, despite the fact that these issues don't
particularly resonate on the Iranian street.
I would close by saying when we think about challenges to
U.S. foreign policy at the moment and over the coming years,
for me five or six things come to mind. First, there is
obviously Iraq. Second is nuclear proliferation. The third
issue is terrorism. The fourth issue is energy security. And
the fifth issue is Middle East peace, Arab-Israeli peace. And
the sixth issue, if we want to be altruistic, is Afghanistan.
And if you look at each of these six issues individually, the
one common point which spans all of them is the fact that Iran
is integral to each of these issues. It is integral to Iraq, to
energy security, Arab-Israeli peace, terrorism, Afghanistan.
And looking at it from that context, ignoring Iran is obviously
not an option. Bombing Iran will exacerbate all of these issues
which I just listed. And we are left with what Churchill called
the least bad option, referring to democracy, and that is
talking to Iran.
So despite the fact that we have this population which is
overwhelmingly in favor of a different type of government, a
different type of relationship with the United States, we don't
have the luxury of waiting for the Iranian people to be our
interlocutors in Tehran. And I think we have to deal with the
regime we have, not the regime we wish we had. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sadjadpour follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. We appreciate your
testimony.
Dr. Kenneth Katzman is the Middle East Specialist with the
Congressional Research Service here in Washington, DC. He
served in government and the private sector as an analyst in
Persian Gulf affairs, with special emphasis on Iran and Iraq.
In his current position, he analyzes U.S. policy and
legislation on the Persian Gulf region for Members of Congress
and their staffs. He has written numerous articles in various
outside publications, including a book entitled, ``The Warriors
of Islam: Iran's Revolutionary Guard.''
Doctor, we are pleased to hear your testimony today.
STATEMENT OF DR. KENNETH KATZMAN, SPECIALIST IN MIDDLE EASTERN
AFFAIRS, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENSE, AND TRADE DIVISION,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Mr. Katzman. Thank you very much. I would like to thank the
committee for asking me to appear today on the issue of Iranian
public opinion and translation into Iranian policy.
I would note that my official responsibilities at CRS
include analyzing Iranian politics, U.S. policy toward Iran,
Iran's strategic capabilities, Iran's economy, social and human
rights situation. I do not have specific expertise in polling
data or methodology of specific polls. My experience has been,
in watching Iran over 20 years, that Iran's political and
social attitudes are extremely opaque and difficult to gauge.
It is important, I think, to try to correlate assessments of
Iranian public opinion with known political events and
outcomes, such as election results, removal or appointment of
cabinet ministers, negotiators, others, demonstrations,
indicators of unrest, or similar events.
The poll that was cited would appear to be consistent, that
the Iranian public is relatively pro-American, would appear to
be consistent with observed events such as the candlelight
vigils held by thousands of Iranians the night of the September
11, 2001 attacks in the United States. The Iranian people, as
Karim mentioned, do not hold the United States responsible for
maintaining the Iranian regime in power because the United
States and Iran have been estranged since the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
The Iranian public attitude toward the United States is
often contrasted with attitudes in such U.S. allies as Egypt,
with which the United States is an ally. Egyptian opponents of
the government view the United States as cooperating in the
official oppression by the Egyptian government, for example.
Other observable events show that the Iranian people are
discontented with their regime and system of government. We
have had repeated series of demonstrations. President
Ahmadinejad in fact has faced student unrest. He has been
shouted down, stickers and posters denouncing him as a
dictator, and various indicators. We have had labor unrest. We
have had the imprisonment of labor leaders.
What is interesting, however, is we cannot really predict
from polls or others when unrest is going to boil over. For
example, there were few objective indicators of public opinion
that showed unrest was about to boil over in July 1999, when we
had the student unrests. Mohammad Khatami, the reformist, was
in power then. And the thinking of most experts was that the
Iranian students and others were relatively contented, because
they had now a reformist leading Iran. Yet the student unrest
boiled over because they saw that the conservatives, the
hardliners in Iran, were trying to undermine Khatami's reforms,
and they conducted a large protest which Khatami was ultimately
forced--at fear of dismissal he was forced to actually condone
the crackdown on the students. And I believe about eight
students were killed, or seven or eight students were killed in
that crackdown.
The same factors that limit public expression in Iran also
cast some doubt, I think, on objective polling results. The
regime is very aggressive in imprisoning, you know, civil
activists. It severely restricts freedom of speech in the
press. Journalists are routinely arrested for stories critical
of the government. And reformist newspapers are regularly
closed.
Polls have also in some sense missed some of the big
election turning points we have had in Iran. For example, the
June 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, very few experts saw
his emergence. The thinking was that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
the senior leader in the regime, would win those elections. He
did not. There was also a shock when Khatami was first elected
in 1997. The thinking was that the conservative candidate was
going to win because the regime was going to fix the election
to ensure he won. He did not. He was overwhelmingly defeated,
and in fact went on television to concede defeat.
From a policy analysis standpoint, I think it is
significant to try to assess the degree to which public opinion
affects Iranian behavior. And what we can say is it really does
not in many ways. Iran's system is very opaque. The Supreme
Leader has under the Constitution vast powers, even to dismiss
the President without even much cause. The Supreme Leader is
sometimes described as being out of touch, yet he does maintain
contacts with his constituencies, the bazaar merchants and all.
In some ways, Ahmadinejad is out of touch. He has
surrounded himself with former Revolutionary Guard officers
that served in the Iran-Iraq war, as he did. They have sort of
an insular opinion. They viewed the Iran-Iraq war as a heroic
struggle, whereas the senior leaders, the Supreme Leader
Rafsanjani and others viewed it as a time of deprivation, where
Iran's economy nearly collapsed. So even though Ahmadinejad is
elected, many would argue in some ways he is more out of touch
than are some of the more seasoned leaders of the regime.
I would also, as Karim mentioned, the Arab-Israeli dispute.
The Iranian public has never really expressed any major
interest in interfering or having their government insert
itself into the Arab-Israeli dispute. Yet Iran, as has been
noted, is described by the State Department as the most active
sponsor of terrorism, mainly groups that are opposing the Arab-
Israeli dispute. The conclusion we might draw is there are few
means for Iranian attitudes to effect policy. The public
appears amenable to suspending the militarily useful aspects of
Iran's nuclear program if doing so would ensure economic
prosperity and avoid further sanctions. But this has not
translated into Iranian Government policy to date. The
implications are that U.S. policy efforts likely need to affect
the thinking of senior regime leaders. If the United States is
to succeed in persuading the government to suspend its
enrichment of uranium, it would likely have to convince the
senior leadership of the regime that an Iranian nuclear weapon
would not ensure Iran's security or that Iran's economic future
is jeopardized by the continuation of that program. Or
alternately, the sanctions imposed on Iran would have to be so
tight and so significant that it creates overt public unrest
that the regime has to respond to.
The Iranian public might not necessarily blame the
international community for imposing sanctions, but might
instead blame Ahmadinejad and the senior leadership for
providing the United States with justification for ratcheting
up the sanctions, because Ahmadinejad is widely perceived as
provoking confrontation with the international community on the
nuclear issue.
The polls suggest nuclear power as electricity generating
is popular, because Iranians want technological achievements,
sophistication, etc. But the polls I believe, indicators of
attitude, do show that the public does not want to push the
nuclear program so far that it ends up with Iran being isolated
and crippled by economic sanctions. If the serious unrest
unfolds, that would likely attract the definite attention of
the Iranian senior leadership. However, as discussed, the
leadership has thus far shown no hesitation to react with
repressive force to suppress rioting and demonstrations, and
would likely do so in the future.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Katzman follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Dr. Katzman. Thanks to
all our witnesses. I am going to prolong this for a second
before we get into questions and answers just because I think
it would be instructive for everyone to hear a little bit about
the actual structure of the government in Iran. And maybe, Dr.
Katzman, we will start with you. If you could just give a brief
primer on the Supreme Leader and how the Supreme Leader gets
authority, about the Assembly of Experts, how they are either
elected or appointed. The same with the Council of Guardians,
the President, the parliament and all that. And then people can
ask questions, and other panelists can add comments if they
care to.
Mr. Katzman. Thank you very much. The Supreme Leader is not
elected, but he is selected. When Ayatollah Khomeini, who was
the founder of the Islamic Revolution died, the Assembly of
Experts, which is elected on a provincial basis, this 83-seat
body, meets and selects a new Supreme Leader. So the Assembly
of Experts chooses a Supreme Leader. It can amend the
Constitution and it can oversee the work of the Supreme Leader.
The President, Ahmadinejad in this case, is directly elected by
the public. The Majles, the parliament, is directly elected.
The Majles can pass legislation; however, that legislation is
reviewed by an unelected body, an appointed body called the
Council of Guardians. The Council of Guardians ensures that any
legislation comports with Islamic law, that it is not un-
Islamic. And half the appointments are by the Supreme Leader,
and the other half are by the judiciary, with the concurrence
of the elected Majles. It is really very much a hybrid system.
This Council of Guardians not only reviews legislation, but it
screens candidates in the elections. So if you want to run for
a seat in the parliament, you need to be vetted, you need to be
approved by the Council of Guardians. If you want to run for
President also, you must also be vetted by the Council of
Guardians. And routinely in Presidential elections 150, 200
people file to run for President, and the Council of Guardians
generally winnows that down to about 8 to 10, sometimes it has
been less candidates for President. And in some cases women.
Because the Constitution is a little bit unclear, some women
have sometimes filed to run for President. But the Council of
Guardians interprets the Constitution as not allowing women to
run. So it routinely has omitted them from the field.
Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I think that is quite helpful. Let
me just begin the questioning briefly. It appears from the
opening statements that sanctions might well have an impact,
but it would be important for the people of Iran to understand
perhaps that the sanctions are a result of the conduct of their
government, something they would assess responsibility for to
them as opposed blame to the countries imposing the sanctions.
And then the government of Iran would then perhaps feel the
heat from their own population and take some reaction to that.
Several of you have mentioned the idea of being able to
communicate over the heads of the Iranian Government to the
people. How do you propose that might be done? And then the
second part of the question would be how do you propose it
might be done without increasing the paranoia of the Iranian
Government, or what borders on paranoia, at least their
insecurity that somebody would be trying to change the regime
as opposed to changing attitudes?
Maybe start with Mr. Ballen and move left to right.
Mr. Ballen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that is a good
question. The problem is there is a battle for public opinion
inside Iran. The regime does care. It may not follow what
people want, but it desperately cares what people think.
As I mentioned, in our poll there was a very committed
minority base that it plays to as well. So that if we persist
in saber rattling and talk of war, we persist in sanctions, and
there is nothing positive on the horizon, there is no future
being articulated about a vision of what the United States
thinks and the international community of a future Iran that is
secure, that can trade, that is a fully respected member of the
community of nations, we leave the playing field open to the
Iranian Government to portray the sanctions and portray the
hostility as just that, hostility, and there is nothing to
counterbalance it.
There are a lot of imaginative ways. President Nixon went
to China. Our greatest emissaries since 9/11 in reaching out to
the Muslim world have been former President Bush and former
President Clinton after the tsunami. If I were the President of
the United States, I would send them to Iran and talk to the
Iranian people, talk to the Iranian Government, and put our
case forward. Because at the end of the day, I think the United
States can have a good, positive case to make. But if we don't
make the case, and it is only about sanctions, only about
military force, I think we will lose the battle of public
opinion, which is important inside Iran.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Sadjadpour.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would argue that this current leadership
in Tehran, especially the hardliners, really thrive in
isolation. And they thrive as a result of sanctions, which have
been in place for three decades now. I described them as kind
of a weed which only grows in the dark. And you know, think
about it. If you were a 75-year-old cleric in Tehran and you
have a senior post in the Iranian Government, do you really
want the country to open up and become more meritocratic? Or if
you are a Revolutionary Guardsman which is privy to million
dollar oil deals, do you really want Iran to open up and join
the WTO and become more meritocratic? So I think actually
sanctions and isolation further entrench the rule of a lot of
these hardliners in office currently.
Now, that being said, I don't advocate removing the
sanctions or offering Iran major economic or political
incentives at the moment. What is problematic about that is
that when Iran had a President, Mohammad Khatami, who was
talking about the dialog of civilizations, Iran got little in
return. Now you have a President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is
calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, denying the
Holocaust.
So I think it is problematic from a Western policy
perspective if we offer an Ahmadinejad administration
incentives which we didn't offer a Khatami administration.
Because the message Iran will learn is that when we take a
moderate approach it projects weakness, but when we take a
belligerent approach it reaps rewards. So I think that
sanctions at the moment and the near term are a necessary means
to make it clear to Iran, again, that a belligerent approach is
not going to reap rewards. And I think we need a way of showing
to, especially the hardliners in Tehran, that again this policy
that they are currently pursuing is going to bring about
isolation. And I think the Iranian people will elect more
likely more pragmatic leadership when it comes to the next
parliamentary and Presidential elections.
But ultimately I would agree with Ken and others who say
that a prerequisite to domestic internal political change in
Iran is a U.S.-Iran diplomatic accommodation. I see very little
hope of the Iranian people, whom we have described today as
being very much in favor of a more progressive, democratic
system, at peace with its neighbors, at peace with the United
States, I see very little hope they will become empowered and
they will be able to achieve these dreams as long as the U.S.-
Iran relationship remains as it is, which is in isolation.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Dr. Katzman.
Mr. Katzman. Well, my assessment is that I do see some
signs that the ratcheting up of international sanctions is
indeed starting to produce differences of opinion within the
leadership, and that if this course of action were continued
and perhaps accelerated these divisions could be exacerbated to
the point where Iran might even consider altering its position
on the nuclear issue. I think the change in the nuclear
negotiator last week was reflective of that. I think the
Supreme Leader and Mr. Rafsanjani, who reflect the views of the
bazaar merchants, the trading community who want to deal with
Europe and the outside world, they are becoming very nervous
that these sanctions are going to cutoff Iran from Europe, from
the United States, from the outside world, and they have seen
what the U.S. power can do. They were in the leadership during
the Iran-Iraq war, and they saw what the United States did in a
naval battle in April 1988, and other things. And they are very
much in awe of the U.S. power.
Ahmadinejad less so. Again, he views the Iran-Iraq war as a
heroic struggle. His constituencies do not buy fancy European
luxury goods. They don't care whether they are isolated from
Europe or whatever. And so he seems willing to push the nuclear
issue to the brink. The Supreme Leader and the others I think
are much more sober about the possible effects if these
sanctions are ratcheted up to the point where they really
squeeze Iran's civilian economy, as we see some signs that they
have started to do.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. Mr. Higgins, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just going back to,
as Mr. Ballen said, focus here on the Iranian people and their
attitudes about their lives, their history, and their future.
What seems to be going on in Iran today is a more passive
revolution, perhaps influenced by disappointment, having the
population having had their expectations raised about economic
reform and then not seeing that reform actually implemented and
affecting their individual lives.
Can you give us some examples of how this passive
revolution is manifesting itself in Iranian society?
Mr. Ballen. Thank you, Mr. Higgins, but before I address
that I just want to clearly state my view for the record, which
is that sanctions are important. Increasing sanctions are
important. However, if it is done without anything positive on
the agenda, if it is done without any carrot, if it is just
sticks coming from the United States, to be blunt, those sticks
will fail alone in isolation. And as Karim said, I don't think
there is any doubt that it plays into the hands of the most
hardline and recalcitrant people inside Iran.
So I think you do need sanctions. I think everyone
understands it might be a military action. You don't need to
keep repeating that. I don't think that is helpful. But I think
that accompanied by that, as we did in the cold war, we must
recognize the importance of people because it could be a
countervailing pressure inside Iran. And it also lets people
understand that the sanctions are a result of the government's
policies, and not from American hostility.
Mr. Sadjadpour. About economic reform, what I would do to
build on Ken's points and the chairman's question, in
approaching Iran I would simply present two very distinct paths
to the Iranian Government and present it publicly so it is also
heard by the Iranian people. The first path is A, continue to
take a noncompromising approach, a belligerent approach, and it
is going to bring about isolation, increased economic malaise,
increased political isolation for the government. And again,
this is a population overwhelmingly young, two-thirds under 32.
The aspirations are not to wipe Israel off the map and enrich
uranium. They aspire to be reintegrated into the economic
community and have economic prospects.
But simultaneous to that you do have to present an
alternative approach, which is what President Bush Senior once
said, good will begets good will. That if Iran takes a
compromising approach, it is going to be met with certain
incentives, reintegration into the international community,
security assurances from the United States, and presenting
these two approaches publicly will increase the desire of the
Iranian people, increase the demands of the Iranian people on
their government to take an approach which is less belligerent,
less noncompromising.
But again, if it is just the threat of, quote-unquote, all
options being on the table and saber rattling and sanctions and
no alternative policies, I don't really see any change from
what we have seen the last three decades, which is essentially
Iranian behavior not improving one bit.
Mr. Katzman. Thank you. Just to add a little bit, because
we talked about the military action issue. My own assessment is
that the talk of military action in some ways, although maybe
it is not always presented that well, in some ways it has
helped convince the Europeans how seriously the threat from
Iran is taken in the United States. The Europeans, and I just
was in Europe talking, they have a very different threat
assessment of Iran than the United States does. And very much
when you talk to European diplomats, the view is, well, we are
going to try to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but
if they do, well, we will deal with it.
The U.S. view is much, much different. Much different
threat assessment. The Europeans do not want the use of force.
And the talk of military action has in some sense convinced the
Europeans how seriously this threat is taken in the United
States and has propelled them to offer new proposals for
sanctions, for ways of pressuring Iran without use of force.
So in some sense it has not all been a negative development
in my assessment.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. Mr. Shays was saying he
was going to take his jacket off. I offer that to anybody in
here. It is warm. It has been warm in the room here. We don't
hold formality on that. Mr. Yarmuth, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was struck by the
comments that all of you made in that the foreign policy of the
Iranian Government does not reflect the vast majority of the
citizens. And all I can say is we feel your pain or feel their
pain. I am interested in the idea that our hope for a change in
policy there may rest more with convincing from the bottom up.
This is my interpretation of what was said, the bottom up of
the population affecting the leaders as opposed to actually a
formal change in the regime.
Is that a correct assessment or could you elaborate on
that, that elections or a change in the supreme leadership is
not necessarily going to effect change, but that this
percolating attitude may change? Is that our best hope or
better hope?
Mr. Ballen. I would simply say that is one element. I agree
with what Mr. Katzman said that the regime has its own drivers,
not just the--it is not a regime that respects the Iranian
people. I think we all understand that and because the Iranian
people want one thing doesn't mean the regime is going to do
it.
But on the other hand, it is not a regime that is
completely insensitive to public opinion, either.
And there is an ideological state, part of many inside the
Iranian ruling class being connected to the people and having
popular legitimacy. They wouldn't spend the amounts of money
they spend on presenting public opinion in Iran, which they do,
if they didn't care about it.
So I think that it is important but it is only one element,
but it is an element that we should not ignore.
Mr. Yarmuth. There is an article in Esquire Magazine, in
the November edition, called the Secret History of the
Impending War with Iran that the White House Doesn't Want You
to Know. It is based on interviews with two officials, one
State Department official, and one member who worked on the
National Security Council and dealt with Iran, Flynt Leverett
and Hillary Mann. And there are some pretty stunning reports in
here. One of them from Hillary Mann that in 2003, in April
2003, right after the war began, that a diplomat of Iran, a
high ranking Iranian diplomat, the nephew of the Foreign
Minister, son-in-law to the Supreme Leader, was in discussions
with the Swiss Ambassador who was then conducting diplomacy,
basically, I guess, as a proxy diplomat for us, and the day
that they had offered an agreement that was approved at the
highest levels in Tehran, including decisive action against all
terrorists in Iran, an end to support for Hamas and the Islamic
Jihad, promise to cease its nuclear program and also its
program to recognize Israel. The administration ignored the
proposal and, in fact, reprimanded the Swiss Ambassador for
meddling.
I am curious as to whether this type of information is used
by the Iranian Government, assuming that it is valid, credible,
that this is the type of thing that is used on a PR effort
inside Iran, and what this type of information, if it were
widely disseminated, would mean for our relationships with the
people and the government.
Mr. Sadjadpour. There was a very interesting trial balloon
which the Iranians floated in 2003, and really 2003 was a
different world to 2007. I was based in Tehran at that time,
and I can tell you that the Iranian leadership was quite
nervous about what the U.S. Government was going to do.
If you recall at that time in 2003, oil prices were about
$25 a barrel, Iraq was a still a blank slate. There were
student agitations taking place in Tehran. And again, the
Iranians were nervous that the Hawks in Washington were
thinking about transferring the regime change policy eastward
to Tehran. So this trial balloon was floated.
Now fast forward to 2007. Iran has tremendous leverage, not
only in Iraq but throughout the region, and they don't feel
compelled to make these same type of compromises.
So we do see that when the regime is under duress, it is
prepared to make compromises on issues which they appear very
ideologically rigid on. They can compromise for the sake of the
government.
What I would say in response to your first question is that
we simply don't have the luxury of waiting for more progressive
interlocutors anymore. The urgency of the nuclear issue, the
urgency of the state of Iraq, is such that we have to talk to
the current leadership in power in Tehran.
But elections in Iran, despite the fact that they are not
free and fair, elected institutions can have an effect on the
Iranian policies. We obviously see a difference between the
views and the policies of an Ahmadinejad-led government as
opposed to Khatami-led government.
So whereas I don't see any hope for some type of dramatic
change in which true representatives of the Iranian people will
be in office in the next few years, I do believe we will see a
change that--we will see the prospect of less belligerent, more
pragmatic leaders in Tehran who I think will be more amenable
to certain compromise with the United States on the nuclear
issue and other issues.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Yarmuth. You also gave a tease
on the next series of hearings that we will be having which
will go into depth on some of the negotiating opportunities
since 2001 through today and possibly for the future.
Dr. Katzman, do you want to add something to that?
Mr. Katzman. My conversation with U.S. officials on that
initiative and that idea suggested that it was much more murky,
and we still really haven't gotten to the bottom of how well
vetted that whole issue was in Tehran.
The list of things on that list, I find very hard to
believe that Iran would ever agree to that many things. That
would be like saying the Islamic Revolution never happened.
That would just be a repudiation of everything Khomeini stood
for and the entire basis of the revolution. I find it very
difficult to believe they would ever agree to that package of
offers.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. We are going to have some of those
folks in to talk to us at the next hearing. So that should be
very interesting in that respect.
Ms. McCollum, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We had a little bit of a discussion of how our governments
could engage, and I am hearing clearly that, you know, speaking
to one another, listening to one another changing the tone, it
will be tough on both sides, but changing the tone so it is
more civil in nature.
I would like to talk a little bit about two other ways in
which engagement takes place. One is people to people.
I serve on the Appropriations Committee, and we recently
had a hearing, not specifically so much with Iran, but talking
about Voice of America, the Internet, TV, and radio exchanges.
I am a big supporter of Voice of America and the other ways
in which we can engage, whether it is Internet, TV, and radio,
as a way of sharing information, health care, what is going on
with avian flu, what is going on in the news, current events
around the world. Things like that. Educational cultural
opportunities so that the engagements reinforce family to-
family, person-to-person.
But there are other engagements that go on, and I was a
little taken back by the statement, and I am going to reiterate
the way I heard it so I can be corrected if I heard it wrong,
that Europe is not engaged with Iran. We hear quite different
from this administration at times criticizing the French and
others for their engagement.
So I would like a little more information on that.
China is very engaged. I understand there is an airplane
exchange being talked about because we do not supply even parts
to commercial aircraft in Iran, and they are in desperate need
of having that because of life, health, and safety issue for
the Iranians, as well as other people traveling in and out of
Iran.
And then India. India is engaged. India is a very robust
democracy.
So if you could talk about those type of engagements and
how we can learn from them or not repeat some mistakes that
they might be making.
Mr. Ballen. Let me just first comment on the issue of China
and France and what we found in our poll.
While there was a lot of feeling of opening up to the
United States, Iranians preferred dealing with France and China
by a two-to-one margin over the United States. The only other
country that was less popular inside Iran in our poll than the
United States was Israel.
So while there is pro-American sentiment, we are not
exactly No. 1 on the list. There is a strong undercurrent of
distrust, and I absolutely agree with what you are saying that
the people-to-people, educational exchanges, all of that is
vital. Absolutely vital, not only with Iran but around the
world. The broadcasting of Voice of America and other agencies,
I mean, we live in one world now. People look at the Internet.
For example, our poll was widely spread throughout the
blogosphere inside Iran. We no longer live in isolation.
American words, American policies matter throughout the world.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would like to focus just on one aspect of
your question which is about Voice of America, and Radio Free
Europe and some of these other Persian language television and
radio broadcasts to Iran because there has been a big debate in
Washington, and there has been a lot of criticism, that Voice
of America and Radio Tomorrow have not been sufficiently
sympathetic to the views of the current administration in
Washington and haven't been sufficiently critical of the views
of the Iranian government.
What I would simply say is that if we want these programs
to be relevant, whether it is the VOA television broadcast or
the Radio Farda radio broadcast, they have to be perceived as
objective and professional in the eyes of Iranians.
Iranians right now are faced with two types of media. They
have the official state-run television media, which is
essentially government propaganda, and they have satellite
television channels from Los Angeles, which are essentially
Iranian exiles very much detached from the country and also not
considered a credible source of news.
So I think there is a real vacuum to be filled. And if we
try to fill that vacuum by projecting our own propaganda, I
think we really insult the intelligence of the Iranian people.
But I do think if we tried to take an objective, professional
approach, similar to what the BBC World Service does, I think
there is a real vacuum to be filled, and we will have a real
audience and we will have a real impact in Iran.
Mr. Katzman. Thank you.
Under the Treasury Department regulations that govern the
limited trade that the United States does with Iran, civilian
aircraft parts can be licensed for sale to Iran. And the
Clinton administration did license a sale, and the Bush
administration, about a year or so, agreed to license a sale of
some spare parts, landing gear, for Iran aircraft.
But it has to be licensed on a case-by-case basis. It is
not just automatic. And the work has to be done sort of by
contractor, and it can't be done by Americans. Lufthansa has
done the work.
The countries in Europe, China, India, they have a very
different threat perception of Iran than the United States
does. They are not in the lead in any sense on the Arab-Israel
dispute resolution as the United States is, and the United
States is very sensitive to what Iran is doing to undermine
Israel and the Arab-Israeli resolution of that dispute. China,
India, Europe have far less, I think, a sober assessment of
Iranian policy. Iraq, obviously, they are not involved in Iraq.
Europeans, not all of them.
So I think the threat assessment is different. China
obviously is motivated by oil. Needs a lot of oil. Iran is a
source of oil. India, India sees Iran as a regional player,
doesn't want to come into conflict with Iran. They have some
naval and other exchanges at a fairly low level, but there is a
defense agreement of exchanges at least so that they don't come
into conflict in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, etc.
Europe does a lot of trade with Iran, and as I said, just a
very different threat perception. They do not have the
psychological history that the United States has with Iran.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panelists
for their excellent testimony.
Two areas of questions I would be interested in everyone's
opinions on.
First is your assessment on the current administration's
intention of using military force in Iran. I mean, that is
constantly in the news. It is constantly laid out there as a
potential threat.
I would be interested in actual use of force. I would be
interested in how seriously you believe the administration is
about pursuing military options and what the consequences of
that attack would be.
Mr. Katzman. Thank you very much.
My conversations with people in the--there has been a lot
of, as you know, press articles. I don't get the sense that
there is any decision or any planning or any move toward actual
military force against--what I am understanding where the
administration is, they want the sanctions to succeed. There is
a belief that if the Europeans join us in tighter sanctions we
might have a chance of success. But the administration doesn't
want the negotiations with our partners to just drag on and on
and on without result. There is a view that there needs to show
some progress soon, that Iran needs to show that it might
change its position due to these sanctions at some point fairly
soon.
The view is that, the administration view is that an
Iranian nuclear weapon is unacceptable and must be prevented.
That is--I believe that is U.S. policy, and if the negotiations
on sanctions just go on and on and on without result, then I
would say that these options probably will get more focused at
some point fairly soon.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would agree that the military option is
something that the current administration is not going to take
lightly. President Bush has said that he would like to see this
nuclear issue resolved on his watch. And I don't think the
military option would at all resolve it. It would in fact
exacerbate it.
If I have to quantify the likelihood of a military option,
I would say 20 percent. But I think it is certainly within the
realm of possibilities, and increasingly the pretext being used
for potential military action is not the nuclear issue, it is
Iran's alleged support for militias which are killing U.S.
troops in Iraq.
As for the repercussions, I would repeat what I said
earlier in the hearing, that when I think about U.S. foreign
policy challenges over the next decade or so, there are five or
six things that come to mind: Iran nuclear proliferation,
terrorism, energy security, Arab-Israeli peace and Afghanistan.
Really thinking about bombing Iran, what would it do to
these issues? Iraq, the likelihood of stabilizing Iraq is much,
much less. I think the likelihood that Iran starts to pursue a
nuclear weapons program unequivocally increases if we bomb
them. I think the likelihood that Iran will support terrorism
more increases if we bomb them.
In terms of energy security, oil prices go up at least 20,
30 percent, perhaps. The likelihood that Iran supports
Palestinian rejections groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, increases,
and again the likelihood that Iran will see fit to play a
constructive role in issues of common mutual overlap like
Afghanistan also decreases.
So I really see no redeeming qualities to the military
option, not to mention the fact that this is the last oasis of
good will which we have in the Middle East in terms of the
Iranian population, and I think we likely soil that oasis by
bombing Iran.
Mr. Ballen. Based on my discussion with senior Pentagon
officials, I would concur in the conclusions of my colleagues.
I would point out one finding in our policy. Two-thirds of
the people in Iran support Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite
militia groups. I think that if we had a military attack, that
support would likely increase.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Welch.
Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
I do note there are three votes scheduled on the floor
right now: 15-minute vote on the previous question, for H.R.
3867 followed by a vote on the Internet Tax Freedom Act
Amendment Act of 2007, 5 minutes, followed by a vote on
designation of the month of October 2007 as Country Music
Month, H.J. Res. 58, 5 minutes.
So we will go as far as we can, and we will break for a few
minutes for good consideration and have our witnesses come back
after that.
Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. I want to address the situation on the
possibility of sanctions, and I think the closest example that
we have is the previous limited sanction that we had against
Iraq, the Oil for Food Program. And these sanctions, while I
think it is probably the way to go, the efficacy of these
sanctions is questionable given the fact that the last
sanctions that we had against Saddam Hussein were meant to be
just that, a limited sanction but in effect in retrospect
turned out to be a bonanza. It was a sweepstakes for him
siphoning off billions of dollars.
The efficacy of any sanction program will depend on the
willingness of our international neighbors to support us. Right
now we have 1,700 German companies operating inside Iran.
Iran, if you look at Italy, Italy is Iran's third highest
trading partner. We don't have solidarity for governments in
action.
So what I am afraid of is that even if we do adopt these
sanctions, that they will be less than useful. And so I would
like to hear your thoughts on that, and second, in light of the
votes here, there have been some quiet entreaties from the
Bundestag to try to identify members of our committee and our
Congress and moderate members of the Iranian parliament and
members of the Bundestag to try to sit down and talk about just
the broader implications of this situation. And I, for one, am
loath to undermine the efforts of our own State Department or
to complicate this matter if it is possible, but I would like
to hear what you have in mind--in your minds as to the thoughts
of some person-to-person or citizen-to-citizen or legislator-
to-legislator type of dialog that might get us off of the
position that we currently find ourselves in.
Mr. Sadjadpour. With regards to sanctions, when the Iraq
war was prosecuted, what we saw was the United States pursued
very strong resolutions and strong sanctions and thereby had a
very weak coalition.
I think what is key, if we want to try to attempt to change
Iranian behavior, is initially weak sanctions and weak
resolutions in order to achieve a more robust international
coalition. Because I can tell you if Iranian leaders wake up in
the morning and they say well, there is an intensification of
U.S. sanctions but they have been in place for a few decades,
we can endure it; but if they wake up in the morning and they
say wow, not even China or Russia or India are returning our
phone calls, then I think the world view from Tehran changes a
bit.
But in order to get Russia and China and India on board, we
have to make it clear to them we are not pursuing a military
option, and that we are turning up the heat gradually and
allowing Iran a way out if they choose to take a more
conciliatory approach.
The second issue about interaction. We are at times of
potential war and peace right now. So I think any type of
dialog, especially between our Congress and the Iranian
parliament, would be welcome. I think what is lacking right now
is some type of a dialog, if anything, just to communicate one
another's red line.
One example I like to give is of a deputy foreign minister
in Iran. And when I used to be based in Tehran, he was always
the hardest line interview I would have. Of all of the people I
talked to, he was always very conspiratorial, always unwilling
to divulge information, very suspicious of me personally; and
he came on a fellowship to Harvard University last year, and he
spent 8 months in the United States. And it was amazing based
on his interaction with U.S. academics and U.S. analysts how
much his views had evolved and how much their views had evolved
that you appreciate the other side's concerns, security
concerns and ambitions a bit more.
So my experience has always been that whenever these
interactions happen, it helps to educate the other side, and it
allays these tensions. It doesn't increase these tensions. So I
think, broadly speaking, especially when we are talking about
the level of Iranian and U.S. Congressmen and elected
representatives, I would welcome the initiative.
Mr. Tierney. We have about 5 minutes to vote.
Mr. Lynch, your time has expired. We will be coming back
for the panelists. The votes are probably about 20 minutes to a
half hour, but we will start immediately once the committee
gets back. I thank you for your patience and tell Members we
will start as soon as the last vote is made. And then we will
return. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you for allowing me to jump in here
between other questioners.
Mr. Ballen, I would like to start just to get a little
understanding, I don't think I am going to repeat anything that
was asked earlier, and being in three places at once I am still
working on, so I apologize if I do.
But in the polling that the organization has done, one of
the issues was about the support of the Iranian people for
groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, state, or identified by us as
terrorist organizations.
They weren't identified that way, is my understanding in
the way the questions were posed to the Iranian people; is that
correct?
Mr. Ballen. Yes, sir. That is correct. I mean, we simply
named the groups. We didn't identify them as terrorist
organizations. This would introduce bias in the question, and
what the Iranians said was two-thirds have a favorable opinion
of these groups, roughly two-thirds but I want to put that in
some context. You can ask people in a survey what they think
and you will get one answer, but it is important also to put it
in context priorities.
That was not a priority for their--when we gave them a set
of priorities to pick for the Iranian Government, the top
priority was the economy, better relations with Western nations
came in ahead. These matters, financial assistance to Hamas,
Hezbollah, were not a priority, nor was nuclear weapons.
Mr. Platts. They were identified, as is my understanding,
as Palestinian opposition groups. So they were identified in
some fashion.
Mr. Ballen. You know, I believe that is correct. But I
don't have the exact Farsi version in front of me. But we did
not--we identified them by name and----
Mr. Platts. My reason for asking is whether there is an
ability to determine what the Iranian people, their views of
President Bush, but some of what your polling shows and our
current actions, if those views would be different if they
understood how we see those organizations for their support of
terrorism or engagement of terrorism, if that would impact the
Iranians' view of the economy being one and foreign affairs
being down the list. It would be different if they were
identified in that fashion, but there is nothing in your
polling that would be able to indicate that?
Mr. Ballen. That is correct.
Mr. Platts. Also recently in the Senate, the Kyl-Lieberman
amendment that was passed designating the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard as a terrorist organization based on their efforts
regarding weapons of mass destruction, was that organization--
or was that addressed at all in the polling?
Mr. Ballen. No, it was not.
Mr. Platts. If you were going to ask about it, how would
you address that to the Iranian people in the way we see them
now based on the Senate amendment as a terrorist organization
or, again, just asking them in a generic way about the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard?
Mr. Ballen. If you are asking, from my advice in terms of
how to conduct a survey, and I would defer also to my
colleagues from D3 Systems who conduct these surveys regularly
in that part of the world and are experts in conducting surveys
in Iraq and Afghanistan and closed societies like Iran, Syria.
I think it is important when you ask questions to try to
eliminate as much as possible any of your opinion or your
perspective from the question. Otherwise, it would tend to bias
the answers.
Mr. Platts. And I am going to run out of time here. 5
minutes is always tough.
The final issue, I guess I am going to have time for, is
the discrepancy that appears in the policy. My understanding is
it shows the Iranian people supporting both a Palestinian state
and the State of Israel both co-existing.
Mr. Ballen. I think that is a very good question, sir.
What we asked was not that question out of context. We
asked in terms of normal relations and better relations with
the United States, would you support a two-state solution. In
that context, the majority of people would.
But we did not ask the question do you support a two-state
solution out of that context. I just want to clarify it for the
record.
Mr. Platts. Was there any followup about their own
President's statements then about the elimination of the State
of Israel from the face of the map?
Mr. Ballen. We did not ask that in the survey as a
question. So I can't give you an answer.
Mr. Platts. And I appreciate my time has expired.
Just how to understand the inconsistencies, their support
for Hamas, Hezbollah, which is certainly doing its best to go
after Israel, yet to some degree supporting a two-state
solution.
Mr. Ballen. I understand. And I am not sure they are
necessarily inconsistent views, in the sense that I certainly
consider that and you do, knowing the platform of these groups.
But Iranians may not perceive it that way. They may perceive
Hamas and Hezbollah standing up for Palestinian rights as
opposed to destroying Israel, and that if Hamas or other groups
reached an accommodation, they would be supportive of that.
I don't know whether, Karim, you have other----
Mr. Platts. If others would like to comment.
Dr. Katzman.
Mr. Katzman. I would just say it also doesn't necessarily
mean they support violence by Hamas or Hezbollah. It just means
they support the political goals of Hamas or Hezbollah.
And, you know, many in the Arab world, Iran is not Arab,
but many in the Arab world view those groups as having
legitimate goals without supporting use of violence in those
groups.
Mr. Ballen. I would concur in those remarks. I mean, it was
a more general question about favorability. So it is hard to
draw a lot of specifics that they support this policy or that
policy from our survey.
Mr. Platts. So your caution then is we shouldn't read into
that the Iranian people support terrorist activities because we
don't have the data to understand that.
Mr. Ballen. Absolutely not. We don't have the data.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would make one point, and this was the
slight inconsistency I saw in my own anecdotal experience as
opposed to Ken's poll was in my experiences in Iran there was
somewhat of a backlash toward the government support for groups
like Hezbollah and Hamas for a couple of reasons.
One, they would say we are supposed to be a very rich
country. We have major, massive natural resources and yet a
quarter of our population is living at the poverty line, there
is rampant inflation and unemployment. Why are we sending all
of this money to Hezbollah and Hamas when we have all of these
domestic problems? Especially among the younger generations of
Iranians I noticed an increasing sense of discontent for the
government support for groups of Hezbollah and Hamas.
So I will just leave it at that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shays, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Shays. I apologize. When you were giving your
testimony, I had to go to another hearing. But I did read your
statements, and I would like your response to a few
observations.
One, about 15 years ago, 10 to 15 years ago, I was in
Iran--I was actually in Jordan talking about Iran to the head
of their security, Jordanian security. And they basically said
that when you shake hands with an Iranian, you need to count
your fingers. And it was said to me in a way that wasn't
intended to be cute, it was intended to say, you know, these
are very clever, very aggressive people, and you feel one way
but then you learn that you just got screwed.
So I would like to know their negotiating style, and I
would like your comment to that.
The other comment I would like you to respond to is that
when you go to Turkey, the Turks say we used to run this place
for 402 years, why don't you pay attention to us?
I go to Egypt, and they will say we have been a country for
4,000 years. We go to Jordan. They say, we are the Hashemite
Kingdom, why don't you pay attention to us? I go to Iraq and
they say, we are the Fertile Crescent. We are where Western
civilization began. Why don't you give us more respect?
And one thing that comes across very loud and clear in the
Middle East is how you treat people and there is a tremendous
amount of pride that just--it is palpable. You could almost cut
it with a knife.
And my last comment, which I would like you to comment on,
is that when I talk to the administration about Syria or Iran,
I get the feeling that they feel like I apply my Western mind
and so I want to treat people a certain way. But the impression
I get from the administration is you don't understand what you
do says something different than what you think it does. I am
talking about the cultural difference. So I could wrap my arm
around an Iranian and say why can't we work this out together,
and they might view that as weakness or whatever. I don't know.
So comments.
Mr. Ballen. I would agree with you, Mr. Shays, that on this
issue of respect and pride, and I think we see that very much--
I will speak to the data in the poll just in Iran and Syria
that we did and other policies around the world. There is a
hunger. There is not an inimical hatred of the United States.
That is just false. There is a hunger for a United States where
people perceive, and the perceptions are important here, that
they are being treated with pride and with respect. And I think
that so much about what has happened since 9/11 has been a
feeling from other countries, particularly in the Muslim world,
that the United States does not value them, that there is not a
dignity and respect that is accorded to them.
I think it is not a correct impression, but it is the
impression that people are getting. So I think that is a very
important part of our policy and that we need to figure out how
we can better convey that we do respect people, that we do
respect their culture, and we respect their pride.
Mr. Shays. How about the other point, the other negative
comments by the Jordanian security chief?
Mr. Ballen. I am going to let my colleague answer that
because I don't know the answer.
Mr. Sadjadpour. Well, it is useful, instructive to kind of
look, do an analogy of the Middle East and Europe. The Iranians
are kind of the French of the region. They kind of have a sense
of chauvinism vis-a-vis the other countries, especially
countries like Jordan, which has a history which spans a half a
century as opposed to Iran's.
There has always been this great sense of chauvinism in
Arab countries, whether it was the Shah's regime or the Islamic
Republic. And I think the smaller Arab countries certainly
resent the same way they say the United States needs to respect
us, they would direct that same message to the Iranians.
A couple points that I would make is that when it comes to
the issue of popular opinion throughout the region, I would
make the argument that Iran is the only country in the Middle
East where if there were to be free and fair elections next
month and let the chips fall where there may, Iran is the only
country in the Middle East where the results would be an
improvement on the status quo and would be favorable to U.S.
policy interests. I don't know if there is any other country in
the region where you could make that argument. And my point is
in Iran people have been under repressive Islamist regimes for
the last three decades, and if they would be able to vote free
and fair, I think they would elect politicians who would be
more sympathetic to having relationships with the United
States.
Whereas in the other countries in the region, many of them
U.S. allies, such as Jordan and Egypt, etc., I think the status
quo autocratic leaders are more progressive than the results of
democratic elections within those countries.
Last, the issue of how we should approach the Iranians, and
I assume you are talking about the Iranian regime, I think
respect, obviously, is a prerequisite. But I do think that it
is problematic to offer this particular administration in
Tehran incentives which we didn't offer the previous
administration in Tehran which took a much more moderate
approach. Because if you pay attention to the domestic debate
within Iran, the hardliners who are currently in power were
very critical. The former President, Mohammad Khatami, they
said this talk of, quote/unquote, dialog of civilizations was
very cute, but all it did was get us into the Axis of Evil and
project a very weak image of the country, and what we need to
do is take a hardline approach, and this is what the U.S.
responds to.
So I do think it is problematic in the short term that we
roll out the red carpet for Ahmadinejad and offer the major
incentives. But I do think that we will start to see a change
of leadership in Tehran, not a change of regime but a change of
leadership. And when there are more pragmatic kind of moderate
officials in positions of influence in Tehran, I think it is
then worthwhile to make it clear to them that if they want to
take a conciliatory approach, it will--they will get a
conciliatory response from the United States.
Mr. Katzman. You mentioned Iran's negotiating style, and I
do think we have not seen the type of investment in Iran's
energy sector that the Iranians expected, not necessarily
because of the Iran Sanctions Act, which provides penalties on
foreign investment, but really Iran's negotiating style.
Any number of oil company personnel have told me that it is
Iran's negotiating style that prevented them from making or
slowed major investments in Iran's energy sector because Iran,
the negotiators, insisted on basically taking all of the profit
out of the deal.
They negotiate and negotiate even after the contract is
signed. The Iranians are still negotiating, renegotiating the
terms, and many of the European oil companies have found it
very, very difficult to negotiate with the Iranians and make a
profit.
I would also say we have had a lot of discussion about
incentives. The administration did offer Iran incentives. The
June 2006 joint offer, the P-5, the Permanent 5 plus Germany.
The offer to Iran was you suspend uranium enrichment and meet
some of the other nuclear demands and you can have X, Y, and Z:
Nuclear medicine, nuclear agriculture nuclear power, WTO, trade
agreements, etc.
So there is a package that has been offered to Iran. It is
not like there have been no incentives offered to the regime.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Just to followup on that point, one of the issues I think
that might be interesting, I don't know how constructive it is
to say we can talk about all of those things that Dr. Katzman
said, provided you first give us everything we want before we
start talking, and I think that has been some of the problem. I
don't know how productive it is going to be.
So say we start negotiating with you as soon as you start
getting us all of the end points that we want in our
negotiations. We have one administration that wants to win the
battle before the clocks start. We have another administration
that is very, very security conscious and all of this paranoia,
paranoid to some extent on that, and I think we have to break
through that.
Can I just ask, there was talk during the conversation
about international coalition sanctions and the idea that they
should be built up slowly, which then goes directly in the face
with what our administration seems to be saying is too slow. By
the time you end up with that buildup of sanctions and any
effect on them, they might have a nuclear weapon in place.
Doctor, do you want to talk a little bit to that?
Mr. Katzman. Thank you very much. The difference between
the United States and, I would say, the Europeans right now is
how quickly to ratchet up the sanctions. The European approach
is that each sanction resolution should adjust a marginal
amount to the previous of new sanctions and thereby place some
psychological pressure on Iran that there is more to follow.
The U.S. view is that the process is simply moving too slow,
Iran's nuclear achievement is moving ahead, and we have not yet
stopped them from enriching uranium and that we need to ratchet
up the sanctions more quickly and add a lot to the previous
resolutions and really get at civilian trade with Iran.
Civilian credits, investment in the energy sector, start
getting at civilian trade to really, in the administration's
view, shake up the leadership, that these sanctions are going
to be quite biting.
Mr. Tierney. Let me ask this. Because of the security
consciousness of the Iranian Government, do you think it would
be constructive if our administration were to make it clear to
them that ultimately the end of negotiations is there would be
some security for Iran, that it would not be any attempt to
change the government other than through an electoral process
in that country and then came to Congress and asked them for a
statement that if things proceeded on that end, Congress would
at least be amenable to start talking about removing some of
the sanctions?
Do you think--any of the witnesses think that would have a
motivating factor in these negotiations?
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would argue that some type of a U.S.
recognition of the Iranian Government, and that would entail
security assurances, is a prerequisite to any type of a broader
diplomatic accommodation. I think at the moment, what is
lacking these days between the United States and Iran--and it
is not just these days, it has been the history over the last
three decades--is trust. There is a very deep-seated mutual
distrust, and this has definitely been exacerbated since the
Bush administration and since the Ahmadinejad administration in
Tehran.
What I would argue for a way forward is not to try to
commence discussions necessarily on the nuclear issue, because
I think it is an issue where there is just no common ground, it
is a zero sum game; but it is to continue the discussions on
Iraq and Baghdad, because that is one issue where there is a
lot of overlapping interests between the United States and
Iran. I would go so far as to argue Iran has more common
interests with the United States in Iraq than any of Iraq's
other neighbors. Iraq is an issue where we can eat away at this
confidence deficit, try to build confidence, and then gradually
expand the discussion to encompass issues like the nuclear
issue and security assurances.
And I think what you suggest is a great idea, but I think
we need a few small interim steps before we can get to that
type of a gesture.
Mr. Katzman. Yes. One idea I think some people are talking
about is to point to Libya, the U.S. agreement with Libya. When
we made that agreement with Libya, they denuclearized, they
agreed to give up all of their equipment, it was flown here to
the United States. And in exchange, the United States laid out
a road map of lifting of sanctions on Libya. And the United
States can point to the fact that those sanctions were indeed
lifted, and Congress did not block it, and the sanctions were
indeed removed.
That model I think could be applied to Iran to say if you
do the Libya thing, you give up, you will get X, Y, and Z. And
it can work out like that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. You know, it seems to me that some
people question the legitimacy of the Iranian Government. That
is their premise just moving out. But would you folks discuss
with me a comparison the legitimacy of the Iranian Government
versus that of Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia?
Mr. Ballen. Mr. Chairman, I think a lot of those
governments have the same kind of issues with their people that
the Iranian Government has with their people. They are not
elected, representative governments. They do not necessarily--
although sometimes they can reflect popular support.
I would just add that the issue of sanctions and other
actions by the United States shouldn't be seen as an either/or
proposition. Dr. Katzman just said laying out a positive agenda
of where the future is going to be if Iran does change its
course. I think we have done it as a matter of policy, but not
as a matter of public policy in terms of articulating it
clearly and forcefully.
Mr. Tierney. Anybody else want to comment on that?
Mr. Katzman. Just the legitimacy question. I mean some
would argue actually that the Iranian system is more legitimate
because it is based upon a Constitution that was adopted in a
public referendum on the Islamic Republican Constitution after
the revolution. So one could almost make a case that of those
you mentioned, Iran has significant legitimacy to its political
system.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Sadjadpour.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would just argue that we should take Max
Weber's definition of ``legitimacy,'' which is monopoly over
coercion. So even if we don't like the Iranian Government, it
does very cruel things to its people, it has a monopoly over
coercion. There is no other game in town. There is no other
alternative government waiting in diaspora. There is very
little organized opposition at home. And essentially this is
the government we have to deal with.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Yarmuth and Mr. Shays, you have any further questions?
Mr. Yarmuth. I just have one.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Yarmuth.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Would you address
whether there is any difference in the relevance of religion
among the people to their political mindset, difference between
that situation in Iran and what we have come to see in Iraq and
some other Muslim countries? And if there is a difference, what
relevance that has or what implications it has for U.S. foreign
policy toward Iran?
Mr. Sadjadpour. Well, there was an adage which people used
to use during communist times, and they would say the best
antidote for communism was to have people live in a Communist
regime. You know, disabuse themselves of any fantasies of
living in a Communist government.
And I think this adage applies to Islamism as well, to an
extent. The best antidote is to have people endure and live
under an Islamic system. And what we see in Iran is people have
lived under this system for three decades. And even those who
are quite pious and quite religious within Iran are very
discontent with the status quo, because they say they soiled
the name of our religion by combining it with politics.
So we shouldn't have the perception that discontent is only
among those who are secularly minded in Iran. In fact, among
the religious classes, there is an equal amount of discontent.
And I think what is taking place in the Arab world is that
they romanticize about this Islamist society because they
haven't really experienced it. And this is why I argue that if
we were to have free and fair democratic elections in the
region, the one country with which we could be truly confident
that the results would reflect U.S. interests is probably Iran,
just because the other countries in the region haven't
experienced what Iran has.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Van Hollen, you rejoined us. I didn't see
you. I am sorry. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let
me thank you very much for holding these--is that on now?
Mr. Tierney. Yes.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. And thank you for holding these
hearings. I think, as you and others have pointed out, we
haven't had any other diplomats or other personnel on the
ground in Iran for a very long time. And it is very important
that we get a much better understanding of what is going on
inside Iran as we try and decide how to approach Iran and what
our policy should be.
And based on all accounts and the testimony you gentlemen
have provided today, it is pretty clear that President
Ahmadinejad is quite unpopular at home based on his domestic
record. The economy, of course, is the No. 1 issue on the minds
of the Iranian people, and he hasn't delivered, clearly, on
that. And I think that comes through on the surveys that were
taken.
So my question is this: Isn't it counterproductive for us
to focus on the military option the way this administration has
been doing in recent weeks? President Bush and Vice President
Cheney beating the war drums, doesn't that have the effect of
rallying people in Iran in support of Ahmadinejad and
strengthen Ahmadinejad among the population at a time when
otherwise he is very unpopular? And so in that sense, even
though we all know the military option is always something that
America has in its arsenal, that by elevating the rhetoric on
that issue we have the effect of actually bolstering
Ahmadinejad at home and having a counterproductive result?
Mr. Katzman. Thank you, Congressman. I think in my talks
what I am seeing is the administration may be talking about the
military option, but it is really directed at our European
partners and Russia and China. It is a way of signaling to them
the pot is boiling here in the United States. We really find an
Iranian nuclear weapon absolutely unacceptable, and we need you
to step up and tighten the sanctions on Iran. I think that is
really what the administration is trying to get at with that
talk.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I might agree with Ken that is the case,
but I would argue, having just returned from Moscow recently,
that increasingly Russia and China are actually far more
worried about the U.S. bombing Iran than Iran getting the bomb.
So the approach hasn't been constructive in that respect.
When it comes to the military option domestically within
Iran, I would just say that the one thing and the only thing I
could see that could potentially rehabilitate Ahmadinejad's
Presidency is a U.S. military attack. Because on his own, right
now the economy is floundering, he hasn't delivered on any of
his economic promises, but I think U.S. bombs in Iran may
change that dynamic. And interestingly enough, it could
actually improve the Iranian economy, because 80 percent of
their export revenue is from oil, and if you bomb Iran and oil
prices go up $20 a barrel you could actually improve the
Iranian economy and help them out even more.
Mr. Van Hollen. But does raising the rhetoric and focusing
so much more on the military option, does it have the effect--
does it give him a card to play at home that he wouldn't
otherwise have? Does it elevate his status and provide more
support for him than he would otherwise have?
Mr. Sadjadpour. Yes. First of all, I would say for him I
think he views the military option as more a carrot than a
stick. And I think in the eyes of the Supreme Leader--I mean
really the focus should be on the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei. We haven't mentioned him today, but he is really the
individual who is signing off on these key decisions, not
President Ahmadinejad. And if we tried to get inside the head
of Supreme Leader Khamenei, he really believes what the United
States wants is not the change of behavior in Iran, but a
change of regime.
And the nuclear issue; Iran's support for Hezbollah, Hamas,
are just pretexts. And so with that belief, he believes if Iran
compromises as a result of pressure, whether it is sanctions or
military threat, compromising as a result of pressure is not
going to allay the pressure, it is actually going to encourage
even more pressure because it is going to signal to the hawks
in Washington that you see, this pressure is working, so let's
turn up the heat even more.
So this is kind of a dangerous paradigm in which we are
operating that people have described it as a game of chess, but
it is really a game of chicken. You have two cars moving at
each other, and neither side believes it behooves them to slow
down, because if you slow down it is going to signal weakness
to the other side.
So to answer your question, I do think that the military
option doesn't hurt Ahmadinejad domestically with the Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Mr. Van Hollen. If I could, Mr. Chairman, and I think you
raised an important point, we obviously focus a lot on
Ahmadinejad in this country, forgetting to recognize that the
Supreme Leader obviously makes the final decisions. And that
has become sort of the way the press and the discussion in this
country has unfolded.
If I could just ask you a question with respect to the
North Korean model, because for many years in this
administration you had people saying we wouldn't talk to
anybody in North Korea, we weren't going to negotiate, we
weren't going to do carrots along with sticks, we were only
going to do sticks. And during that period of time, the North
Korean regime in fact developed a number of nuclear weapons,
which it has to this day.
Recently, the administration took a different tact, and
obviously was willing, even after the Six-Party Talks, to then
engage in more bilateral discussions with the North Koreans and
was willing to offer carrots as well as sticks. Do you think
that represents a good model for now moving forward with
respect to Iran, or not?
Mr. Sadjadpour. Theoretically, absolutely. Offering it as
two distinct paths, offering the path of carrots and offering
the path of sticks. But I think one of the difficulties in
devising an effective approach toward Iran is the fact that I
don't believe there exists a consensus in Tehran. I think if we
were to assemble this room with the top 10 most powerful
Iranian officials and ask them, OK, write for us, please, on a
sheet of paper what you are hoping to achieve in your nuclear
negotiations and in your negotiations with the United States, I
think we would get 10 different sheets of paper.
I think President Ahmadinejad's vision for Iran is
fundamentally different than the former President Rafsanjani.
As I said, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, I would
describe him as being paralyzed with mistrust. If the United
States says to Iran, OK, we want to dialog with you, he will
receive it as a pretext for a regime change approach. And if
the United States tries to isolate and sanction you, he will
also perceive it as a pretext for regime change. So somehow we
have to send the signal to Khamenei that the goal of the U.S.
Government is not regime change, it is behavior change. And
this is very difficult to do after three decades of not having
relations and not having dialog.
And despite the fact that Secretary Rice may announce this
publicly, that this is about behavior change, not regime
change, when we have two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian
Gulf, and 75 million set aside for democracy promotion, and
hundreds of thousands of troops surrounding Iran, it is easy to
see why they get conflicting signals.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. If I can interject one, you just mentioned
democracy promotion. And I think that leads to an interesting
part of your submitted testimony where you talked about Iran's
most respected dissidents and democratic agitators have asked
the U.S. Government to cease such democracy promotion efforts.
Can you tell us why it is they asked for that? I am sure when
Congress passed that they thought they were doing a good thing.
Mr. Sadjadpour, if you could.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I really defer to Iranian democratic
activists when it comes to this issue. And I was very curious
to see in particular the views of this gentleman Akbar Ganji,
who is really Iran's most respected dissident leader. He was in
solitary confinement for 5 years, and he wasn't able to
comment, obviously, during those 5 years, and when he came out
I was very curious to see what his recommendations for U.S.
policy would be. And his assessment, and that has been the
prevailing assessment in Tehran, is that this public fanfare
about promoting democracy in Iran and setting aside of millions
of dollars simply gives the Iranian regime a further pretext to
clamp down on these democratic agitators and civil society
activists on the pretext of protecting national security.
Now, I am not exonerating the Iranian regime's cruelty and
blaming it on the Bush administration. This regime was abusing
their population far before the neocons came to power in
Washington. So I am not saying this is necessarily primarily as
a result of Bush administration policy, but the United States--
$75 million is like $1.25 per Iranian. The notion that we are
going to change this government with $75 million, I think, has
been seen to be ineffective and ultimately counterproductive.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I am just going to take a moment to
read the quote that you had in your report from Akbar Ganji,
who is the prominent dissident, you thought.
He said: Iranians are viewed as discredited when they
receive money from foreign governments. The Bush administration
may be striving to help Iranian democrats, but any Iranian who
seeks American dollars will not be recognized as a democrat by
his or his fellow citizens. Of course, Iran's democratic
movement and civil institutions need funding, but this must
come from independent Iranian sources. Iranians themselves must
support the transition to democracy. It cannot be presented
like a gift. So here is our request to Congress, the request of
dissidents I take it, to do away with any misunderstanding. We
hope lawmakers will provide a bill that bans payment to
individuals or groups opposing the Iranian Government. Iran's
democratic movement does not need foreign handouts. It needs
the moral support of the international community and the
condemnation of the Iranian regime for its systemic violation
of human rights.
Would the three of you recommend that Congress pass a bill
banning payment to individuals or groups opposing the Iranian
Government? Anybody?
Mr. Sadjadpour. I don't know if I would go so far as to
pass a bill banning payment. And as I said earlier, I think
that actually the bulk of this $75 million was not for civil
society activists and democratic agitators. The bulk of this
money was intended for Persian language media and the Voice of
America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Farda.
But I would just emphasize my earlier point that this
Persian language media is far more objective and receives a
much larger audience in Iran if it is perceived as objective
news media rather than U.S. propaganda. And again, I think if
you have Iran's leading dissidents simply saying that we don't
want the money, it is counterproductive, it is not helpful, I
don't see the logic in insisting on saying, no, you actually do
need the money. We know what is better for you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. I agree sometimes with my colleague from
Maryland, but I don't like the analogy of Korea. Because the
fact was, this administration continually is blamed for acting
unilaterally. In North Korea they acted multilaterally because
they wanted China and South Korea and Japan at the table,
particularly China, to get them to respond. And they stuck to
their guns on it. But they were always offering carrots. They
were saying ``but meet with us collectively.'' And they did.
What confuses me about Iran is you are asking--first of
all, I think as a general rule you should have an Embassy in
every country in the world: Cuba, North Korea, Iran. And it is
not a reward. It is just you have a vehicle to do business. And
I wish we would get out of the thought that somehow we reward
someone by having an Embassy. If we had had an Embassy in Iraq,
we would have known that their infrastructure was pathetic
times 10 just being there. And half of our Embassy, by the way,
does not include State employee officials.
But what I wrestle with is if the Supreme Leader Khamenei
is paranoid, he is going to be paranoid if we are aggressive,
he is going to be paranoid if we are not aggressive. You can't
deal with someone who is paranoid very easily in the short run.
So I don't quite know what we win either way with this so-
called Supreme Leader.
What I wrestle with is Europe sends its troops to
Afghanistan, but only allows four of their countries to be
involved in battle. You know, the tip of the spear. I have so
little respect for Europe. Tell me why I need to respect them.
They are dependent in large measure on Iran, and so I am stuck
with the fact they are going to be under the thumb of Iran. And
it seems to me the way you avoid war is you have sanctions that
work. And these guys don't want the sanctions to work. If they
did, they would support it universally. And then Iran would
have Russia and China as their only two folks to do business
with. That is kind of how I see it. So disagree or not, but
comment.
Mr. Katzman. I believe there are more than four European
countries fighting in southern Afghanistan.
Mr. Shays. That is not what I said. They are there, but
they will not allow their troops to be involved in battle.
Mr. Katzman. I think, again, they have a very different
threat--I don't think they don't want the sanctions to work. I
think they have a different threat assessment and a different
philosophy that if we move these sanctions up more slowly and
conduct dialog, at the same time we can get Iran to shift its
position more effectively than if we go right to the ultimate
full trade ban, cutoff of all credits, official credit
guarantees, etc. If we do that, in the European view, we have
sort of spent all our ammunition and we have nothing to
followup with. They want to be able to say to Iran, we are
going to keep ratcheting up. And maybe Iran will change.
Mr. Shays. Just to quickly respond to that, then they have
no place to do business.
Mr. Katzman. Well, I agree with that, but I think they just
also have a different threat--I don't think the business is
necessarily driving. I think it is more the philosophy of how
you get Iran to change its position rather than not wanting the
sanctions.
Mr. Shays. I hear you.
Mr. Ballen. Mr. Shays, I would just comment that a missing
actor or link in American policy has been putting forth, as I
mentioned or testified earlier, the human rights agenda and
talking about human rights in the positive agenda. I think if
we more forcefully as a country talked about what was
happening, as we did with the former Soviet Union, we engaged
them, but we put front and center their human rights
violations. This is a country in Iran where there are
significant human rights violations, yet it is not part of the
debate. It is not--it even hasn't been mentioned until right
now, when I am bringing up the issue.
So I think it is very, very important. Not only Dr. Katzman
mentioned, well, we are talking about military options so we
can impress the Europeans; I think we could impress the
Europeans if we started talking about human rights inside Iran,
too.
Mr. Shays. I am going to emphasize that point. I think the
reason the President has talked about military is he is trying
to get China and Russia to wake up. In other words, if you
don't want military operations, then make sanctions work. So I
don't really think he is speaking to Iran. I think he is
speaking to our allies.
Mr. Ballen. Right. And what I would respectfully suggest is
that if we also talked about, A, the positive vision of the
future where Iran could be, and also the human rights
violations inside Iran today, we can also speak to our allies,
too.
Mr. Sadjadpour. I would just argue somewhat in defense of
the Europeans, that they have actually had a far more positive
effect at improving the human rights situation in Iran than the
U.S. Government has. I can tell you numerous occasions of
friends of mine, or prominent intellectuals and dissidents who
have been imprisoned in Tehran. Myself, I was not imprisoned,
but my passport was taken away from me. I would have loved to
have been able to go to the U.S. Embassy and consult with the
U.S. Ambassador, but there is no U.S. Embassy there.
And so Europeans have actually been quite effective on a
lot of these human rights issues within Iran. So when it comes
to the saber rattling intended for Russia and China, I agree it
may be intended for Russia and China, but as I said, having
just come back from Moscow, my concern is that this has been
counterproductive. Because what the Russian officials and
Chinese officials these days are obsessing about is not that
Iran is going to get a nuclear bomb, it is that the United
States is going to bomb Iran.
Mr. Shays. Right. And that is my whole point.
Mr. Sadjadpour. But this point is not impressed upon them.
Mr. Shays. No, I want to state the point, because you are
the one who triggered it. The whole point is they aren't
obsessed by it; they don't seem to care. But they do seem to
care if we would be involved militarily. And so that is a stark
choice for the Russians and Chinese to deal with. I want to go
on record, the last thing I want to see is us to be involved in
a military engagement in Iran. I think it would be foolish, a
huge mistake. But the way you avoid it is to have sanctions
that work. I just wanted to trigger this.
You triggered this. All of a sudden some are talking about
how nuclear got morphed into human rights. Isn't there a danger
that the Iranians say to the Europeans, we gave in to you on
human rights, back off the nuclear. In other words, you got
something from us, now back off. So I mean I think human rights
is important, but I would put the nuclear threat above the
human rights, frankly. Wouldn't you?
Mr. Ballen. Well, in terms of U.S. national security, I
think that is correct. But I think it is also very important
for dealing with not only the regime, but the people in Iran
and our allies around the world. That is one of the ways we
successfully dealt with the Soviet Union during the cold war,
and I think it was a successful model. We live in a world now
where people do matter and their opinions do matter. And that
has changed since the cold war. But that was one of the ways we
were successful. We shouldn't neglect that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. I just want to respond briefly
to my friend from Connecticut with my use of the North Korean
analogy as a model. Because what I am suggesting is that the
way we ended up dealing with North Korea at the end, while the
jury is still out, clearly has been more productive than the
way we were dealing with them at the beginning. I think there
can be no dispute that in this administration there was a major
difference of opinion as to how to approach North Korea. And
John Bolton, who continues to criticize the administration to
this day, and others in the administration were strongly
arguing that we should not provide any sticks to North Korea
because essentially----
Mr. Shays. Any carrots.
Mr. Van Hollen. Excuse me, thank you; any carrots to North
Korea because essentially their intent was regime change in
North Korea, at the end of the day. And the administration's
position evolved over many years. I am not being critical of
the fact they took the Six Party approach. What I am suggesting
in fact is that model of engaging may be useful in Iran, where
they have now taken the position that they refuse to talk to
Iran about the big issues. We have had some efforts with
respect to Iraq and conversations, but looking at what at least
has tentatively been successful in North Korea at the end of
the day may provide a useful model.
And I do think it is important, because while Secretary
Rice seems to have won the day in the end with respect to North
Korea, clearly the much more hardline position within the
administration with respect to any kind of conversation or
dialog with Iran has continued to dominate and win out.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I am going to take the prerogative
of the Chair and make a comment, ask a question, and close with
some comments. I appreciate everybody's participation.
First comment is that, you know, I think we all respect our
European allies, and hopefully are taking into consideration
their thoughts and concerns as we move forward, as well as
their recommendations. For all of this saber rattling, I have
not seen Russia or China actually take any positive steps
toward sanctions. I am not sure that has worked very well. So
while we intend to get their attention, they may be moving in
the opposite direction. They may be becoming more obstinate and
having an adverse reaction to it.
The question I have is how much of the difference between
the threat assessment that the Europeans and Russia and China
may have and that of the United States is dependent on
somebody's perception of what the threat of Iran is to Israel?
Am I making myself clear on that? Does anybody care to answer
that or respond? Doctor.
Mr. Katzman. I think it is crucial. I think it is very
important. You know, none of those countries are front and
center trying to broker an Arab-Israeli peace. None of them are
close allies of Israel, as we are. And I think it is vitally
important; that accounts for a lot of the difference.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Sadjadpour, you mentioned something I
thought. What is the history with Iran originally? During the
Shah regime, didn't they have normal relations? And how did we
get to the point where we listen to Ahmadinejad make these
outrageous statements? And what support is there for his
outrageous statements?
Mr. Sadjadpour. During the Shah's time there was
essentially a lot of ties between Iran and Israel. There was a
de facto--I call it a de facto Israeli Embassy in Tehran. It
was known as kind of an Israeli consulate, but it was
essentially operating like an Embassy. And part of the
resentment that this current crop of leadership have in Tehran,
apart from their ideological opposition to Israel as a usurper
of Muslim lands, but part of the enmity which they have toward
Israel, I would argue, is this--their experiences during the
time of the Shah. Many of them, the current leadership,
including the Supreme Leader and former President Hashemi
Rafsanjani, were in prison during the time of the Shah and
claim to have been tortured by the Shah's secret police, Savak,
which was allegedly trained by Israeli intelligence, Mossad. So
I think that is one of the roots of their enmity.
But I think it is also quite ideological. Many of them cut
their teeth as revolutionaries on the Palestinian cause dating
back to the 1960's.
Now, getting back to Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and the
Holocaust and denying Israel, etc., this doesn't make much
sense in the domestic Iranian context, because Iranians are not
Arabs. The Palestinian issue doesn't resonate among Iran as it
does among Arabs. There is not land or border disputes with
Israel. There is a long history of tolerance vis-a-vis the
Jewish people in Iran. There are still 25,000 Jews living in
Iran, the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside
of Israel.
Why Ahmadinejad is taking this approach I think is much
more for the broader Arab and Muslim street; and what has been,
since the inception of the 1979 revolution, Iran has always
aspired to be the vanguard of the Arab and Muslim world. And
this type of rhetoric sits very well in Arab and Muslim
streets. And this is why we see a lot of the Arab street right
now supporting Iran's positions, because they are quite
sympathetic to the fact that the Iranian Government stands up
to Israel and stands up to the United States.
Mr. Tierney. If there was a preemptive bombing in Iran, or
significant preemptive bombings in Iran by Israel or the United
States, or some perception they were working in unison for that
to happen, how would that change the attitudes of Iranians?
Mr. Sadjadpour. Well, even the word ``preemptive'' I think
is somewhat misleading because it implies that Iran is set to
bomb the United States, and therefore we have to take
preemptive action. But I think----
Mr. Tierney. I guess by this administration's theory they
are preempting the nuclear outflow all the way back to
knowledge.
Mr. Sadjadpour. In my mind, there is a lot of time for
diplomacy. When it comes to Iran, we are dealing in shades of
gray, and it is a very complex issue. But when it comes to the
prospect of bombing Iran, I think unequivocally it is a bad
idea. I don't think of any potential redeeming qualities. And
not only within Iran internally, but also on these broader
range of issues which I mentioned: the future of Iraq, nuclear
proliferation, energy security, Afghanistan, Arab-Israeli peace
and terrorism; it is going to exacerbate all these issues by
bombing Iran.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I want to thank all of the
witnesses here today, as well as my colleagues here for what I
think was a very informing conversation. It is important we
understand the Iranian public's opinion and attitudes for our
own long-term national interests in the region.
We have many economic and security issues. I think Mr.
Sadjadpour just summed them up: Israel, Afghanistan, energy
needs, nonproliferation, terrorism. All of those, it is
important that we, in my opinion at least, start engaging with
the Iranians. And hopefully, that engagement is going to be
important, going forward much longer than any lasting arguments
between the Bush administration and Ahmadinejad. And I think we
have to reach out and do that.
You helped us understand the complicated situation.
Hopefully, our further hearings on this matter will give us
more depth on that. So thank you very, very much for your
testimony and your time here this morning.
Mr. Shays I think would also like to add his appreciation.
Mr. Shays. First, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having
this hearing on Iran. I think it is very important. I am
looking forward to the others. And I frankly learn more from
the outside experts sometimes than I do from our own government
officials, because you all spend a heck of a long time thinking
about this issue, but you also have I think a sense of freedom
that sometimes others may not have. So a very, very interesting
session, and thank you. And thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]