[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IRAN SANCTIONS: OPTIONS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSEQUENCES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 15, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-43
__________
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
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERRY E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ANH ``JOSPEH'' CAO, Louisiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
JUDY CHU, California
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
PETER WELCH, Vermont LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BILL FOSTER, Illinois PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio JIM JORDAN, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
William Miles, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on December 15, 2009................................ 1
Statement of:
Maloney, Suzanne, senior fellow, the Brookings Institution;
George Lopez, professor of peace studies, University of
Notre Dame; Robin Wright, Jennings Randolph fellow, U.S.
Institute of Peace; and Ambassador James Dobbins, director,
Rand International Security and Defense Policy Center...... 10
Dobbins, Ambassador James................................ 45
Lopez, George............................................ 22
Maloney, Suzanne......................................... 10
Wright, Robin............................................ 32
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Dobbins, Ambassador James, director, Rand International
Security and Defense Policy Center, prepared statement of.. 48
Lopez, George, professor of peace studies, University of
Notre Dame, prepared statement of.......................... 25
Maloney, Suzanne, senior fellow, the Brookings Institution,
prepared statement of...................................... 14
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts:
Letter dated December 11, 2009........................... 8
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Wright, Robin, Jennings Randolph fellow, U.S. Institute of
Peace, prepared statement of............................... 36
IRAN SANCTIONS: OPTIONS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSEQUENCES
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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2009
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 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Quigley, Foster,
Duncan, Flake, Jordan, and Leutkemeyer.
Staff present: Mariana Osorio, Daniel Murphy, Matt Ploszek,
Aaron Wasserman, and Robyn Russell, legislative assistants;
Andy Wright, staff director; Elliot Gillerman, clerk; Talia
Dubovi, counsel; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member
liaison; Tom Alexander, minority senior counsel; Christopher
Bright, minority senior professional staff member; and Brien
Beattie, minority professional staff member.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs' hearing entitled, ``Iran
Sanctions: Options, Opportunities and Consequences,'' 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, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that 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. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Good morning, particularly to our witnesses, who were kind
enough to come here and share their testimony with us today.
We are going to examine an important and timely national
security issue in the options and effectiveness of sanctions
against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
2009 has been a turbulent year in U.S.-Iran relations. Last
January we inaugurated a President ready to pursue diplomatic
engagement, and this past April marked the 30th year of the
Islamic Republic's history. In November we remembered the 30th
anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, and the June 12th
Presidential election and its tumultuous aftermath shook Iran's
government like no other event in the last 30 years. In
September, United States and Iranian officials held direct
bilateral talks at the highest level since Iran's Revolution;
yet Iran and its nuclear program still present significant
challenges to the United States and to the international
community.
Nearly a year after President Obama extended a hand to Iran
in his inaugural address, we have yet to see Iran unclench its
fist. Instead, Iran continues to develop its nuclear program in
the shadows. It claims that its nuclear program is designed for
peaceful civilian purposes; yet, it refuses to cooperate fully
and transparently with the International Atomic Energy Agency
and its inspectors. That raises significant concerns about the
true nature and intent of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Last September, the United States, along with its allies,
disclosed that Iran had long been building a secret nuclear
reactor in Qom. This revelation was followed last month by an
official U.N. resolution condemning Iran's failure to disclose
the site, as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. The resolution was approved with strong international
support by a 25 to 3 vote, with both Russia and China voting in
favor of condemning Iran.
There are many strong options, both within the United
States and around the world, on how best to manage the many
challenges that Iran presents. I think that many of us support
the President's strategy of engagement, but if that fails to
bear fruit, then a lot of us are contemplating what must be the
next step, and that is what brings us together here today. We
have assembled a distinguished panel of experts to share with
us their thoughts on the vital national security question at
hand.
Just on the personal side of this, I just want to make a
couple points. I don't think that anybody condones the fact
that Iran has nuclear weapons or is moving in that direction,
and we think that Iran with nuclear weapons is a major threat
to American interests. It is a threat to Israel, a threat to
peace and stability in the Middle East. Any program to which
they may have a right, as a party to the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, must be peaceful, civilian, open,
transparent, and subject to inspection by the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
Disclosure of previously secret nuclear facilities, as we
have seen, and the threat to replicate that 10 times over, and
a general unwillingness to reasonably engage with the
international community, obviously, all of those behaviors
exhibited by Iran cause concern. The United States and the
international community has made, I think, a considerable
effort to negotiate and engage, which has yet to be
reciprocated. That was a test for Iran's leadership. If it was
serious about its claims that only a civilian nuclear program
was being pursued, there was no reason it should not have
agreed to export to Russia or elsewhere and allow the IAEA
inspections.
So what are our options? Governments and intelligence
agencies and other experts agree, or disagree, I should say, on
how close Iran is to developing a bomb. Also, many of them
agree that any military strike on facilities would likely only
delay development by only 1 or 2 years and cause other
repercussions. There is considerable disagreement and debate on
the value, effect, nature, impact, or usefulness of sanctions.
Arguably, sanctions should be used to support, not replace,
diplomatic efforts. Should Iran delay negotiations, or if the
negotiations should fail, then many feel that strong
multilateral sanctions by the international community would be
in order, if they were targeted and effective in that regard.
Now, with respect to the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions
Act of 2009, which the House will be considering this week,
personally, I have considerable concerns. The hardliners are in
some disarray presently. New sanctions could allow them to
consolidate their hold on power and get bolstered support from
the Iranian people. Sanctions could heighten support from Mr.
Ahmadinejad out of some nationalistic feeling or resentment for
how devastating the effect of sanctions might be on the
civilian population. It is notable that the two main opposition
leaders have spoken against imposition of sanctions,
particularly with regard to refined petroleum products.
The restriction on refined oil products could probably be
assumed to affect the poor and the middle class in Iran, but it
is unlikely that the elites and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, in particular, would be deprived of the use of any
gasoline or other refined products that would come in. And, in
fact, they might control any market that existed in them.
So we have a large question here to answer. I think Jeff
and others may have a different opinion on that, but I could
only support the IRPSA if I was assured that its current
language--which I read to mandate the sanctions, as opposed to
provide the flexibility of the President to implement them--
would either be delayed to a more appropriate time on the
diplomatic pressure process that the administration is
following or if they will be modified, prior to passage, to
provide the President more flexibility. If we get those
assurances, then we may get it through the House so that it can
go to the Senate and be modified in conference there, if
necessary.
Only with more flexibility in exercising sanction authority
might the President secure greater cooperation from our
partners in taking effective action and ultimately facilitate a
change in Iranian policies. Now is a critical stage in the
intense diplomatic process, as we seek to impose significant
international pressure on Iran. I think the legislator ought to
take care not to harm those prospects as they go forward.
So it is with interest that we listen to our experts on the
panel here today. We want to make sure that we move in the
proper way and the most effective way, and we welcome you and
thank you for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. With that, I defer to Mr. Flake for his
opening remarks.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman. I look forward to today's
hearing.
I, myself, am not a fan of economic sanctions, particularly
those imposed unilaterally, so it has to be a pretty high bar,
in my view, to go this direction. I share the chairman's
concern about the refined petroleum sanctions. I note that
there is not a virulently anti-American feeling in Iran among
the population, and I hope we can keep it that way; and I am
concerned about changing that. I think that we can all agree--
and in reading your testimony I think we all agree--that these
sanctions will only be really effective if they are
multilateral, if we convince our international partners to come
with us. My concern is, and my questions will be surrounding,
whether or not moving ahead on a unilateral basis is more
likely to bring our partners along, or if simply giving the
President more flexibility in this regard would be a better
option.
I hear all the time we are simply leading on this, we are
simply expressing our feelings, that this doesn't tie the hands
of the administration. Sometimes you don't start that way, but
within months or the next year you are tying the hands of the
administration, and I would point to Cuba as a perfect example.
When you have the Helms-Burton Act and other legislation, the
President's hands are tied; there are very severe limits on
what the President can do in response to action on the part of
the Cubans or in any other direction. So while this may not
start out as an attempt to tie the President's hands, it may
quickly evolve into something that does, and that concerns me
as well.
So thank you all for being here and I look forward to the
testimony.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the Deputy
Secretary of State's letter to Senator Kerry, the chairman of
the Committee on Foreign Relations in the U.S. Senate, on this
issue. Basically, the letter indicates that he is following up
on a conversation that James Steinberg, the Deputy Secretary of
State, had with Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, regarding Iran and possible
sanctions legislation to be taken up in the Senate; and that
bill, S. 2799, is very close to the IRPSA bill that we are
looking at here.
``The Administration shares Congress's concerns on Iran and
its nuclear program and the need to take decisive action. One
of the top national security priorities for the Obama
Administration is to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability. As
we discussed, we are pursuing this objective through a dual
track strategy of engagement and pressure; and we are engaged
in intensive multilateral efforts to develop pressure track
measures now. It is in the spirit of these shared objectives
that I write to express my concern about the timing and content
of this legislation.''
``As I testified before the Congress in October, it is our
hope that any legislative initiative would preserve and
maximize the President's flexibility, secure greater
cooperation from our partners in taking effective action, and
ultimately facilitate a change in Iranian policies. However, we
are entering a critical period of intense diplomacy to impose
significant international pressure on Iran. This requires that
we keep the focus on Iran.''
``At this juncture, I am concerned that this legislation,
in its current form, might weaken rather than strengthen
international unity and support for our efforts. In addition to
the timing, we have serious substantive concerns, including the
lack of flexibility, inefficient monetary thresholds and
penalty levels, and blacklisting that could cause unintended
foreign policy consequences.''
``I have asked the Department staff to prepare for and
discuss with your staff revisions that could address these
concerns on timing and content. I am hopeful that we can work
together to achieve our common goals.''
``I hope the consideration of this bill could be delayed to
the new year so as not to undermine the Administration's
diplomacy at this critical juncture. I look forward to working
together to achieve our common goals, and I will stay in close
contact with you as our diplomatic efforts proceed,'' by James
Steinberg, the Deputy Secretary of State.''
I ask that it be entered into the record with unanimous
consent. So ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Now we will receive our testimony from the
panel before us today. I will just give a brief introduction of
our witnesses as they appear on the panel.
Dr. Suzanne Maloney is a senior fellow with the Brookings
Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Her work
there focuses primarily on Iran and also on other Persian Gulf
security and energy issues. From 2005 to 2007, Dr. Maloney
served on the staff of the State Department's Office of Policy
Planning. She has previously held positions with the Council on
Foreign Relations and the Exxon Mobil Corp. Dr. Maloney holds a
Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University.
Dr. George Lopez currently serves as a senior fellow at the
U.S. Institute of Peace, where he focuses on international
sanctions and post-sanctions economies. He is also professor
and chair at the Kroc International Institute for International
Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he has
taught since 1986. Dr. Lopez has published several books on the
implementation of international sanctions, arms embargoes, and
other non-military means of countering terrorism. Dr. Lopez
holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
Ms. Robin Wright also currently serves as a senior fellow
at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she focuses on Iran, the
Middle East, and the broader Islamic world. Ms. Wright has
reported from more than 140 countries on six continents for a
wide range of publications, including, most recently, the
Washington Post. She is also a regular contributor to Time
Magazine on the topic of Iran. Ms. Wright is the author of
several books on Iran and the Middle East, including, most
recently, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East.
She holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Michigan.
Ambassador James Dobbins is the director of International
Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp. He has
held a number of positions in government, including U.S.
representative to the December 2001 Bonn Conference, where he
worked directly with Iran in helping to reestablish a
government in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.
Ambassador Dobbins also formerly served as Assistant Secretary
of State for Europe and as Special Assistant to the President.
He holds a B.S. from Georgetown University.
So thank you, to all our distinguished witnesses, for
making yourselves available today. I know at least Dr. Maloney
and Ambassador Dobbins have testified before this subcommittee
before, so we welcome you back.
It is the policy of this committee to swear in all
witnesses before we begin our testimony, so I ask that all of
you please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. The record will please reflect that all of the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
I tell you what I think you already know, that all of your
written statements will be entered in the record by unanimous
consent. We try to limit the testimony to about 5 minutes, if
possible, so that we will have time for questions and answers
after that.
Dr. Maloney, if you would be kind enough to start with your
testimony.
STATEMENTS OF SUZANNE MALONEY, SENIOR FELLOW, THE BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION; GEORGE LOPEZ, PROFESSOR OF PEACE STUDIES,
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME; ROBIN WRIGHT, JENNINGS RANDOLPH
FELLOW, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE; AND AMBASSADOR JAMES DOBBINS,
DIRECTOR, RAND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE MALONEY
Dr. Maloney. Thank you very much, Chairman Tierney,
Congressman Flake, and members of the committee for this
opportunity to discuss the prospects and implications of using
sanctions to influence the behavior of the Islamic Republic of
Iran. I will summarize my testimony, which has been submitted
in longer written form.
I find it predictably ironic that, less than a year after
the Obama administration began its efforts to engage the
Iranians in a comprehensive diplomatic dialog, the discourse in
Washington and around the world has already shifted toward an
enthusiastic embrace of punitive measures. The search for
alternative mechanisms for influencing Iran is completely
understandable given the current context both in terms of the
increasing crackdown within Iran, as well as Iran's repeated
rebuffs of the offers of the Obama administration and the rest
of the international community to engage in a serious dialog.
At the same time, I think it is unfortunate that the track
record for sanctioning Iran is really not an auspicious one,
and the key prerequisites for a successful sanctions-oriented
approach--protracted duration and broad adherence--are almost
certainly unattainable today with respect to Iran. There are
some more promising indications of a more conducive context,
but that is no guarantee of success.
In my testimony, I will speak briefly about that track
record, but I will conclude by laying out a series of
principles that should guide our consideration of any new
coercive measures.
We have had 30 years of U.S. unilateral sanctions on Iran,
and there should be no illusions that the likelihood of a more
rigorous and more broadly-implemented sanctions regime will
produce a reversal of Iran's nuclear calculus quickly or
easily. Thirty years of sanctions have not accomplished their
primary objective, which is the moderation of Iran's security
and foreign policy. This has largely been a function of the
lack of international consensus.
Moving forward today, despite tough talk from various
European leaders, and the new cooperation between Washington
and Moscow on Iran, the prospect for expanding the playing
field on sanctions will still prove daunting, largely because
of our divergent perspectives. In Washington, we tend to see a
direct relationship between economic pressure and eventual
moderation of the target leadership. Many of our allies have
exactly the opposite perspective: they fear that, once isolated
from the international community, Tehran will be further
radicalized and may retaliate either by a direct action against
governments that have supported sanctions, or by accelerating
their nuclear efforts or withdrawing from the NPT.
The irony is that neither the American nor the European
perspective on sanctions is actually borne out by Iranian
history. Iran's response to the repeated use of sanctions by
Washington has neither involved capitulation to demands or
radicalization. Instead, the regime typically seeks refuge in
denial, while expanding a great deal of effort on trying to
mitigate the impacts of sanctions through smuggling, through
promotion of substitute industries, and through economic
diplomacy. Specifically with respect to IRPSA, Iran has been
preparing for a possible embargo on imports of gasoline and
other refined petroleum products through a variety of official
schemes to minimize gasoline consumption and to establish
strategic stockpiles of gasoline.
More broadly, Iran's post-Revolutionary experience
contradicts the underlying American argument in support of
sanctions. The Islamic Republic has experienced a number of
episodes of severe economic pressure, but none has generated
the kind of foreign policy moderation that the sponsors of
IRPSA or the other manifold punitive measures against Tehran
tend to forecast. Instead, in the past, when Iran has been
under economic pressure, this has facilitated the coalescence
of the regime and the consolidation of public support. Economic
constraints have enhanced cooperation among Iran's factions.
Tight purse strings have in fact forced some moderation of its
economic policies, but not of its foreign policy, and I think
that is particularly important to remember today as we move
forward with new pressure.
Obviously, sanctions have to be a component of our overall
integrated diplomatic strategy toward Iran and one that has
both a short-term and a long-term perspective. It is one of the
few tools that remains at our disposal and, therefore, I set
forth the following five principles that should be uppermost in
our minds in assessing new sanctions:
The objectives need to be clear, limited, and achievable,
particularly sanctions that have potential for influencing
important constituencies that have some say in Iran's nuclear
policies, measures that target the economic interests of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps and other critical elements of Iran's
hardline power structure. This is a particular uncertainty, I
think, with respect to IRPSA. I am not sure what the scenario
that the sponsors of IRPSA have in mind--that the Iranian
public, under great economic constraint, begins to go to the
streets and voice its anger and frustration with its regime,
and the regime, somehow capitulates or moderates its policy
toward the international community? It is really a scenario
that doesn't bear any resemblance to the likely behavior of the
Iranian leadership.
It is also suggested we need to be careful about our
rhetoric when we talk about crippling sanctions that will break
the back of the regime. Again, we need to be clear about the
intended objective of our sanctions. We are not trying to bring
down the regime; that is not within the capacity of the United
States of America. What we are trying to do is reverse their
position on the nuclear issue, and that means persuading them
that their security is better served through another approach
to the world.
Second, we need to integrate sanctions within the continuum
of U.S. diplomacy. I am glad that the Obama administration has
dropped the sort of talk about carrots and sticks, but, still,
the rhetoric of dual track seems to suggest that sanctions are
an alternative to diplomacy. That is not, in fact, the case.
Sanctions need to be a part of an integrated approach that
actually uses sanctions to persuade Iran to come to the
negotiating table, because that is simply the only way we are
going to get the Iranians to understand that their security
interests are better served by cooperation rather than
confrontation.
Third, we need to have that kind of broad international
consensus and implementation that has been lacking for most of
the past 30 years. Getting and keeping our allies on board with
a sustained sanctions approach is important because so long as
there are outliers--so long as there are hesitators like Russia
and China--historically, that make it easier for others to sit
on the fence and to avoid full implementation of the sanctions.
In this respect, reset of the U.S.-Russian relationship has
been a necessary condition for improving the prospects for
sanctions, but it is not going to be sufficient. To generate
sufficient international support for sustaining meaningful
economic pressure, we are going to have to make a credible case
to our allies that our measures can actually impact in a
positive fashion the nuclear calculus.
Fourth, we need to focus on those measures that have the
best prospects for direct and immediate cost. This is, of
course, the secret of the recent Treasury measures to restrict
Iran's access to the financial system. They have actually hurt
existing business, business that tends to be pursued by regime
elites that have some influence over its behavior. Any sorts of
sanctions that hit at prospective projects, at pipeline
projects that are many years away from being implemented, are
likely not to have much impact on Iran's behavior, largely
because its regime retains a certain degree of denial about its
economic prospects.
Finally, we have to think very carefully about the
prospects of any sanctions to influence Iran's emerging
opposition movement. There have been varying calls within that
opposition. Certainly, the political leadership of the
opposition has suggested that sanctions would not help its
position. There are others who have suggested, in fact, that
new economic pressure might galvanize Iranians against the
regime. I think both of these arguments have a certain degree
of validity, but we have to recognize that measures that target
the burgeoning economic role of the regime's repressive
capacity that are specifically identified with its human rights
abuses can serve a double purpose in pressing the regime, both
in moderating its nuclear course, and in improving its
treatment of its people at home. And here we should be
leveraging the interest in Europe.
But we have to be careful in assuming that somehow,
Iranians, if the price of gasoline goes up, if they can't
access home heating oil in the middle of a cold winter, are
likely to vent their anger against the regime rather than at
the United States. The regime is quite skilled at deflecting
the impact of sanctions and clearly its rationing programs and
its access to smuggling networks will permit the regime to
implement its core constituencies from the impact of reduced
supplies. The notions that Iranians would welcome American
efforts to cutoff supplies of heating oil and gasoline to me
sounds like the same kind of logic that suggested that Iraqis
would greet us as liberators after we violently removed their
regime.
The reality is that the Iranian domestic climate is
complicated and uncertain. There are no simple solutions. And,
frankly, the cost of failure when it comes to applying
sanctions is real and significant. If we move forward with a
sanctions approach that does not work, the alternatives,
specifically military options, are far worse in terms of
advancing U.S. diplomatic interests in the region, and for that
reason we need to use sanctions, but use them within a larger
diplomatic framework.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Maloney follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Lopez.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE LOPEZ
Dr. Lopez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored and
grateful to have the opportunity to share with the committee
this morning some of the findings that I think have emerged
from over a decade of research that my colleagues and I have
done and submitted in much more detail and written testimony
about the probability of success of sanctions under these
conditions.
I think the Congress and the committee face a kind of
bitter irony. The sanctions you have before you will no doubt,
if implemented, take a big economic bite out of Iran. The
dilemma, of course, is they will not produce the political gain
in concessions that are important for the interests of the
United States. In fact, I would suggest that there are four or
five basic principles we have learned from the history of
implementation of sanctions that lead us to be quite cautious
about the legislation that lies before us.
First and foremost, generally, sanctions only have about a
one-third track record. If you are a baseball player, this is a
good batting average. If you are making economic policy or
political policy at the foreign policy level, you would like a
great deal higher percentage. The smart sanctions that we
developed over the last decade have a strong success rate. We
have been able to use them astutely under certain kinds of
conditions, particularly Libya being one of the best examples.
On the other hand, trade sanctions, of which a major component
this package is, really have a worse ratio over time, and I see
nothing in the sponsored legislation that increases the
possible success rates as applied to Iran under these
conditions.
Second, if sanctions are to be imposed for the kind of
multiple violations that we know Iran is engaged in--whether it
is uranium enrichment, human rights issues, or support for
terrorist groups--those have been most successful under
conditions of multilateral imposition, particularly with regard
to the U.N. framework. So Congressman Flake's observations
before, I think, are important to note. We have a group of
partners who have been very successfully committed to what we
will do in terms of nuclear regulation over the last 3 years,
in 2006, 2007, and 2008, with strong regulations and
resolutions out of the Security Council. I am not necessarily
sure we should jeopardize that by unilateral action that is
likely to have less and less success.
Third, pure and simple, we cannot punish the Iranians into
a nuclear deal. No state, even the United States, has ever been
able to do that before, and I don't see the conditions for
success here. Only an astute mix of continued engagement,
narrowly-conceived sanctions applied at the appropriate time,
and versatile incentives will prompt the Iranians, hopefully,
to change their nuclear posture. This is not the time for
adding sanctions to the mix of that engagement diplomacy. If
imposed now, as Suzanne has mentioned, Iran will react with
particularly negative consequences for the prospects of future
engagement with the IAEA or with the five critical partners
with which they are engaged. The ultimate leverage we have,
over time, is the continued coalition of support that we have
built in the United States with the P-5 states and with states
in Europe who believe that continued diplomatic engagement, at
least for a while, is the way to proceed.
Fourth, in nations with the kind of internal disarray that
we see currently in Iran, we have seen a rally round-the-flag
effect that creates very, very difficult conditions. In fact,
at its worst, sanctions would play into the Ahmadinejad
government's insecurity and passion for repression of its own
political groups. Why we would cast to them this kind of
``apres vous'' is strange to me. We need to build and sustain
coalitions in Iran that will see the United States as its
friend, and we must listen very adeptly to the kinds of
reactions we have gotten from Iranians about the sanctions.
Remember, we were able to sustain and have successful sanctions
in South Africa over time because the opposition groups were
saying that this was the appropriate strategy, and I think that
is important for imposing sanctions.
Now, with a sanctions expert being so negative on the
possibility of imposing sanctions through this legislation,
what do I offer you? I think there are some ways forward in
which the United States can continue the engagement with the
Iranians, but I state very clearly a number of particular
postulates. The first is that the American people and the
Iranian people can be brought together around the notion that
no nation in the future should or could seek its security
through nuclear weapons. We should state to the Iranians that
they should see the relationship we are building with Russia
and the treaty we are about to submit to the Senate sometime in
the next year, which will lead to massive reductions in our
nuclear arsenals. We are trying to lead the way through a
particular kind of leadership by example, and we encourage
states that are thinking about the nuclear threshold to pay
attention to this.
Aggressive diplomacy of the first order--in which we
invite, embarrass, cajole, and incentivize the Iranians to
think about the Geneva deal that they have left on the table as
being at least a model for the way forward--is the way to
astutely use our leadership, rather than future sanctions. It
seems to me that we can go to the Security Council in the near
term with a package of tightly-conceived, smart and targeted
sanctions which look at the entities and individuals that have
violated prior Security Council resolutions. Then we can call
upon our P-5 partners and the rest of the Security Council to
add another resolution to the strong mix of the three we have,
and continue the multilateral framework that will penalize the
Iranians for IAEA dismissal of regulations and an unwillingness
to come forth transparently with the progress of their program.
Are there incentives we can offer the Iranians? Yes. I
think we should move forward with a picture of what life may be
like in a post-sanctions environment for them. The first and
most important might be a recharacterization of the existing
sanctions from 2006, that would guarantee a right of the
Iranians to enrich uranium up to a particular level and
reaffirm their independence as a particularly strong state
dependent on nuclear energy and medical technologies derived
from nuclear technologies. This cannot be so in an environment
that is not fully transparent and open to international
inspection.
We should hold open to them the prospect for membership in
trade and other organizations, which current sanctions now
prohibit. The best incentive one can offer a sanctioned country
is the removal of those sanctions. But we haven't specified
exactly how that will look in a step-by-step reciprocation of
Iranian actions.
I have contributed more in my testimony, but my time has
come to an end. I do believe that the administration's approach
to engagement has to be understood as 1 year in a 30-year
framework with the Iranians, in which the turnaround in
correspondence we seek from them may not have yet gone far
enough down the road; but we have the strength, versatility,
and energy as a diplomatic community to continue to exert that
pressure in a positive way, and hold sanctions as keeping the
powder dry for at least another 6 to 9 months in case the
dilemma continues to manifest that we will need them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lopez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Doctor.
Ms. Wright, I understand that you are going to give us a
PowerPoint presentation, and I understand that it is a good
PowerPoint presentation. I had some reservations I was sharing
with my staff that we went to Afghanistan, and how the military
just loves to do PowerPoint presentations. I asked General
McKiernan to not do that, that we wanted a dialog on that, and
he answered back what if he just had one slide? So we relented
and we thought that was a good compromise, only to find out
that he had put everything that he possibly could for 50 slides
onto 1 slide, so we had our show anyway. But please proceed.
STATEMENT OF ROBIN WRIGHT
Ms. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mine is all pictures.
Mr. Tierney. Then we will all be able to understand; that
is good.
Ms. Wright. That is right.
The uprising launched after a disputed Presidential
election in June has evolved into the most vibrant and
imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the 57 nations of
the Islamic world, and maybe the world generally. For all the
physical force used against the Green Movement, it has, so far,
remained nonviolent in response. The Green Movement is a very
broad coalition that includes former presidents and clerics, as
well as people who have never voted at all; and millions of
students in one of the youngest populations in the world; and
women in one of the most politically active female populations
in the Islamic world, both young and old.
But these diverse sectors of society also see the core
issues through very different prisms. The new Green Movement
has managed to mobilize Iranians for public protests every few
weeks since the election 6 months ago. It exploits
anniversaries, commemorations, and holidays, when the public is
normally urged to demonstrate for government causes. They
communicate in messages like this one, on the Internet,
Facebook, and Twitter, or even in graffiti spraypainted on
public walls, to turn government events into protests against
the regime.
The public demonstrations are when we hear their messages.
At the November 4th commemoration of the U.S. embassy takeover,
Iranians normally are urged to shout ``Death to America'' and
``Death to Israel.'' This time many shouted ``Death to No
One.'' More pointed, others shouted ``Obama, you are either
with us or with them.'' This is a message now heard often.
The demonstration last week on National Students Day was
the largest since the summer. It erupted on several campuses,
and additional protests are expected later this month to mark
the religious holiday of Ashura, and again during the first 2
months of next year on various anniversaries of the
Revolution--the same period when the United States and its
allies will be debating new international sanctions.
In policy debates on Iran, there is a lot of talk about
clocks: Iran's clock on its suspected nuclear program; the slow
clock of diplomacy and U.N. sanctions; and Israel's impatient
clock. To that should be added a new one: the opposition clock.
What the opposition does is more important than anything
this august body will ever consider. After 6 months, the Green
Movement has proven that it has reached critical mass and has
proven its durability. Since June, the Green Movement has
shifted its agenda from disputes over the election of President
Ahmadinejad to the role and powers of Iran's Supreme Leader and
the very definition of an Islamic state. ``Death to the
Dictator'' is now a common chant, with mounting anger over the
militarization of the regime and the growing role of the
Revolutionary Guards. This cartoon recently made the rounds,
calling for the Supreme Leader to be booted from office.
Yet, the Green Movement does not speak with one voice; it
is united in opposition only. Its many different factions take
different positions and have very different goals. Dozens of
factions under the Green banner can be sorted into at least
three general categories. Each represents a different side of a
sometimes unlikely alliance.
The first layer is the public campaign of civil
disobedience, which extends well beyond the demonstrations.
Iran's currency has become a medium for the message. Some stamp
pictures and slogans on the Riyal, this one of Ahmadinejad,
along with the slogan, ``People's Enemy.'' Most lash out
angrily at the regime. Others reproduce pictures like this one
with the famous picture of the female student, Neda Sultan, who
was shot at a street protest in June. This picture is from the
cell phone video that captured her dying.
The graffiti is usually in green. Some slogans merely
appeal to others who might get that note to write slogans on
other bank notes. The bank notes even carry protests against
the regime's foreign policy, this one against Iran's ties with
Venezuela's Chavez, and here, against Russia. The regime
reportedly tried to take the graffiti money out of circulation,
but found there was too much to destroy.
Another civil disobedience campaign calls on the opposition
to boycott all goods, from food to cell phones, advertised on
state-controlled television. Civil disobedience includes
individual, uncoordinated acts. Mahmoud Vahidnia is a math
student who was invited to a meeting between Iran's Supreme
Leader and the academic elite. He went to the mic and, instead
of asking a question, warned the Supreme Leader in a 20 minute
tirade that he lived in a bubble and didn't understand what was
happening in Iran. Iranian television, which was broadcasting
the program lived, turned it off, but not before it was taped
by the BBC and others and is now a very popular item on You
Tube.
The growing signs of dissent show in many ways: on public
buses and on building walls, public spaces used to give notice
about protests when the regime closes down cell phones or slows
the Internet. Posters often appear overnight issuing new
demands; many call for the release of political prisoners who
are now part of show trials reminiscent of the Soviet show
trials of the 1930's and the Chinese cultural revolution of the
1960's. The slogans are often in Farsi and English because they
want to get their message to the outside world.
Even sports teams have become involved. Iran's national
team wore green during a match abroad in June. Inside the
country, some opposition have dared to attend games wearing
green, which has reportedly led the government to broadcast the
games in black and white.
The Green Movement has generated some lively new art. This
is the famous cell phone video of Neda Sultan, the young woman,
again, shot in June. That gruesome photo has become a popular
posture in the technique used for the Obama campaign. The same
image has been blended into the artwork of the Iranian flag so
her face takes the place of the religious symbol in the middle.
The blood pattern has also been imposed on the Supreme Leader's
face, an implicit message that he is responsible for her death.
The reaction by the first category, or layer, is the most
important sector when it comes to sanctions. Two key points:
Many in the opposition support sanctions against the
Revolutionary Guards or specific members of the regime, but
adamantly oppose sanctions that will hurt the people at a time
of serious economic problems and a time when many in the
opposition already face losing their jobs, students face losing
their places in universities and, as a result, their future.
Second, Persian nationalism is among the strongest forces in
the world. If you know a Texan, add 5,000 years and you have
Persian nationalism.
The Revolution was in trouble in the 1980's, when Saddam
Hussein invaded, but millions of people who didn't like, trust,
or support the Revolution rallied to the regime in the name of
Persian nationalism.
Public sentiment on sanctions is complicated by the nuclear
issue, and, again Persian nationalism plays a role. Reliable
polls indicate that Iranians, almost universally, support
nuclear energy as the key to modern development. Shirin Ebadi,
the Iranian Nobel laureate human rights lawyer, said of the
program, ``Aside from being economically justified, it has
become a cause of national pride for an old nation with a
glorious history. No Iranian government, regardless of its
ideology or democratic credentials, would dare to stop the
program.''
The second layer is the traditional political elite, which
has struggled to develop a viable strategy. There are, as yet,
no Mandelas, Havels, or Walesas in Iran. The opposition has
been a body looking for a head since the beginning. The reform
movement latched on to former President Khatami in 1997 because
he talked about opening up the system. But they also abandoned
him when he failed to do so. This time, the opposition rallied
around Mousavi not because they liked him the best, but because
they thought he was the only one who could stand up to the
Supreme Leader, as he had in the 1980's when they were in
different jobs. But Mousavi is an accidental leader. He
occasionally issues statements and visits families of political
detainees, but he has failed to create a plan of action or even
to appear much in public.
Mehdi Karroubi, the former speaker of parliament and
another Presidential candidate in June, is more of a maverick.
He first publicized claims of rape and torture of dissidents in
jail and has tried often to join the protests. The traditional
political elites in the opposition would also like to see the
regime punished under sanctions, but, again, no sanctions that
might further hurt the people and undermine the opposition.
Mousavi has complicated the situation for both the regime
and the outside world by rejecting the recent Tehran reactor
deal. It is widely believed that this is merely internal
politics, objecting to any initiative that might strengthen
Ahmadinejad's claim to legitimacy. Iran's nuclear program has
basically become a political football at home, with its own
internal dynamics that could deeply complicate diplomacy.
The third layer, very briefly, is the debate among the
clerics, which is least visible, but quite intriguing and very
important to understand. Ayatollah Montazeri is the most
outspoken and credible opposition cleric, but there are many,
many, many others. Montazeri was originally selected as
Ayatollah Khomeini's heir, but was stripped of the title when
he began to criticize the regime for its injustices. Since
June, he has been scathing toward the government, at one point
warning Iran's security forces not to take actions that they
would someday have to justify before God.
Montazeri issued a fatwa in October against nuclear weapons
on grounds that they are against God's will and will inevitably
kill civilians, as well as the military. He urged Muslims
worldwide to take the lead in campaigning against nuclear arms.
Among themselves, the clerics are now intensely debating
what constitutes good governance, what an Islamic state should
do and be, and even whether an Islamic state is good long-term
for Islam. The clergy I have spoken with over the years--and I
have been going to Iran almost every year since 1973--actually
care about the nuclear energy issue, but, like the public, they
feel the regime has pushed the nuclear issue too far, at great
cost to the nation's standing, its future potential, and with
millions of Iranians paying the price.
As a result of the debate, Iran's Supreme Leader is
increasingly standing alone among his own. Many clerics have
long been wary of theocratic rule for fear that the human
shortcomings of a modern Islamic state would taint Islam. As
they hear vast numbers of protestors challenging Khamenei or
see opposition messages on Iran's national currency, the debate
among them has intensified.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. That was quite good. I appreciate
that.
Ambassador Dobbins.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR JAMES DOBBINS
Mr. Dobbins. Well, that is going to be hard to top. I am
afraid, after the multimedia excursion, we are back to boring
Washington long-talk.
I think all the witnesses, including myself, agree that
further international sanctions will probably not compel a
change in Iran's nuclear policies. Nevertheless, I think there
are good reasons to pursue additional sanctions. There are, in
fact, at least five distinct rationales for further sanctions.
The obvious one is to influence Iranian policy. A second would
be to promote positive change in the nature of the Iranian
regime. A third objective is to degrade Iranian military and
power projection capabilities. A fourth is to set a deterrent
example for other aspirant proliferators. And, finally,
whatever may be the hoped-for effect of sanctions, such
measures provide an irresistible alternative to the other two
options, which are even less desirable: the options of either
doing nothing to respond to Iranian nuclear program, or going
to war to prevent it.
Historically, sanctions have seldom forced improved
behavior on the part of targeted regimes. Sanctions did not
compel the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan, Pakistan
to halt its nuclear weapons program, Saddam to evacuate Kuwait,
the Haitian military regime to step aside, Milosovic to halt
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, or the Taliban to expel
Osama Bin Laden. Stiff sanctions were applied in all of these
cases, but it took either a foreign military intervention or
violent domestic resistance, or both, to bring about the
desired changes.
Now, while none of the above-named regimes altered their
behavior in response to sanctions, all but one of them
eventually fell. And sanctions may have contributed to their
fall, but more as a gesture of solidarity with those seeking to
change the regime, often by violent means, than as the prime
cause. Universally supported sanctions in support of human
rights in Iran might make a similar contribution, as they did
in South Africa, in Haiti, in Serbia, in Iraq, and in
Afghanistan. However, at the current moment, there is not much
prospect of getting universally supported sanctions against
Iran based on democratization as an objective.
The objective for additional sanctions in Iran is rather
under consideration, in order to try to force Iran to abandon
its nuclear aspirations. Sanctions so directed are unlikely to
encourage, and could even diminish, domestic resistance to the
regime. Most Iranians, as has been noted, including the
democratic supporters, support Iran's efforts to master the
nuclear fuel cycle. Sanctions that are applied for this purpose
could well increase support for the regime, rather than the
reverse.
Now, sanctions can definitely degrade the economic
performance of the targeted state and thereby limit its
military and power projection potential. That was certainly
true in Saddam's Iraq. It was also true with respect to Haiti,
Serbia, and Afghanistan. In each case, comprehensive and
universally enforced sanctions made an eventual American
military intervention even easier than it otherwise would be.
So sanctions as a prelude to invasion and occupation have a lot
to recommend them.
Even unilateral American sanctions, for instance, against
Cuba and Iran, have had some impact on the targeted country's
economy and capacity to project power. Unfortunately, these
unilaterally applied sanctions also have tended to bolster the
targeted regimes and increase their domestic political support.
Thus, paradoxically, unilateral American sanctions have both
moderated and perpetuated the threat that such regimes present.
The exemplary deterrent effect of sanctions is hard to
measure, but is probably the best reason for going ahead with
further sanctions against Iran. If the international community
failed to respond to the Iranian program, it would be giving a
green light to other countries, including a number of countries
in the region, to go down the same path. So that is certainly a
reason to continue to sanction Iran.
Finally, we have the political imperative to not just stand
there, but to do something. In situations where inaction is
unacceptable and preemptive military attack unappealing,
sanctions may provide the only alternative; and this is
certainly one of the reasons that many outside the government
and many of you will end up supporting sanctions.
While sanctions may offer an irresistible political fix to
a policy dilemma, they are not cost-free. Virtually every
country that has ever been sanctioned eventually had a
revolution, changed the regime, and became an American aid
recipient; and American aid to countries like Iraq,
Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Haiti, has in large measure been
directed to undoing the effect of sanctions. So, in effect, the
American taxpayer does end up paying a certain proportion, and
a not negligible proportion, of the cost of sanctions as they
are applied over time. One can only imagine how much money the
United States is going to provide a democratic Cuba to reverse
the effect of 50 years of embargo.
To recapitulate, further sanctions against Iran are not
likely to alter its nuclear policies. They will weaken the
state economically and even militarily. Sanctions against Iran
will serve, to some degree, at least, as a deterrent to other
proliferators. Further sanctions are almost inevitable for the
reasons I have suggested. The next question, therefore, is what
kind of sanctions make sense.
We have heard from Robin and from others about the nature
of the internal dynamic. There is basically a competition
between the Islamic tendency in the regime, personified by the
Ayatollahs; the republican nature of the regime, personified by
elected politicians; and the revolutionary nature of the
regime, personified by the Revolutionary Guard. And for 30
years these have been in some equilibrium. That equilibrium has
been broken as a result of the fraudulent election and the
popular reaction to it, and you are now moving increasingly
toward a police state. But that is not necessarily a stable
condition, and it could go in a number of different directions,
including toward more democratization, toward a greater police
state, or back toward some equilibrium.
It seems likely that sanctions that targeted Iranian
society as a whole would promote the least desirable of these
results; that is to say, the consolidation of a police state
under the Revolutionary Guard. Such would be particularly the
case if the sanctions were to restrict the flow of consumer
products, of which gasoline is probably the commodity most
widely consumed. Such a ban would hit hardest those who own
automobiles; that is to say, the urban middle class, precisely
those whose pictures we have seen protesting against the regime
and risking their lives to do so.
So an internationally opposed ban on the sale of gasoline
would probably penalize the population, particularly the most
politically progressive element of the population, and
strengthen the most regressive elements in the regime. A
unilateral American ban would be meaningless, as the United
States does not export any gasoline to Iran. A unilateral
American ban with extraterritorial application would seem to
offer the worst combination of effects: penalizing the
population, strengthening the regime, embroiling the United
States in endless disputes with its allies, and disrupting the
current international solidarity in opposition to Iran's
nuclear aspirations.
So what to do? Strengthened sanctions are needed to reduce
Iran's capacity to threaten its neighbors, to deter other
aspiring nuclear powers, and to provide an alternative to even
less productive courses of action. To achieve these results
while minimizing negative consequences, such sanctions should
be international. They should be targeted on the regime and on
its nuclear potential. Such measures would include a
comprehensive embargo on arms sales and on transfer of nuclear
technology, financial sanctions focused on the military, on
power projection capabilities, and on the internal security
apparatus, and an international travel ban on those associated
with all of these institutions. Sanctions would single out the
leadership and impose even symbolic penalties on them, further
delegitimizing that leadership in the eyes of the Iranian
people. Sanctions designed to impoverish the country as a whole
probably would have a reverse effect.
Finally, any sanctions need to be rapidly reversible.
Admittedly, there seems little immediate prospect that the
Iranian regime will alter its behavior in the near term.
Nevertheless, on two occasions over the last 8 years, the
Islamic Republic has made far-reaching overtures of cooperation
and accommodation with Washington. Those offers were made in
the immediate aftermath of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan
and then, a year later, its invasion of Iraq. In the mood of
national hubris which prevailed in this country back then,
Washington chose to ignore both overtures. We cannot predict if
and when another such opportunity will arise, but we should
ensure that our President is in a position to respond rapidly,
if and when it does. This argues for including in any
legislation broad authority for the President to waive or
terminate sanctions in response to changing conditions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dobbins follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Thanks to all of you. I think your testimony was very, very
helpful, and enlightening, as well. Let me start the
questioning aspect of this.
I heard, Dr. Maloney, and I see in your written testimony,
a statement saying the Supreme National Security Committee,
which is one of the key institutions of the state, is
responsible for nuclear negotiations and overall foreign policy
coordination, but it appears to be functioning in crisis mode
because of the bitter differences among the principals.
So, Ambassador, you have had as much direct contact with
Iranians as anyone here, so let me ask you: is it at all the
case that their failure to respond to the diplomatic overtures,
so far is because there are various conflicting groups that you
all testified to are just frozen right now politically, inside,
and they are unable to agree on a way forward to even react to
international overtures?
Mr. Dobbins. I think that is likely the case. The regime
clearly is both weakened and distracted by the reaction to the
election. I was actually quite surprised that they were able to
engage as quickly as they did and initially to agree to the
proposals that the international community had put to them, but
that rapidly degenerated into a national debate in which the
reformers, among others, began to criticize the regime for the
possible accommodation with the international community; and I
think that does mean that as long as this degree of
uncertainty, turmoil, weakness, and distraction continue, it is
going to be very difficult to constructively engage the regime.
Mr. Tierney. I think [remarks off mic] blame them for
exacerbating an already bad situation, or they feel that the
world community is sort of ganging up on them and making their
life worse, and they better get together and rally around the
national flag. Do all of you come down on one side or the other
of that argument, thinking that it is going to be a bad idea? I
know, Ambassador, you just testified to that effect, and I
think I heard that in the flavor of the others, that imposing
refined petroleum sanctions and things of that nature would
probably have the adverse effect of driving the general
populous of Iran toward the current regime, and maybe
buttressing them.
Dr. Maloney, we will start with you.
Dr. Maloney [remarks off mic]. the population responds.
Certainly, Iranians can walk and chew gum at the same time.
They can detest their regime and also resent the international
community for making their life more difficult. And, frankly,
that has always been the historical reaction to the American
sanctions regime among Iranians when you walk the streets; they
want to know why they are being punished for the misdeeds of
their own government.
I think the current conditions are chaotic and fluid enough
that it is possible that Iranians may turn more toward the
Green Movement in the aftermath of increased economic pressure,
but it will not, in fact, persuade the regime to be more
accommodating internationally. They will see themselves under
greater threat and they will certainly be more difficult to
deal with. Just as Ambassador Dobbins has suggested, the
current situation is making it difficult for them to come to
the table in a serious way and negotiate over a sustained
period of time with a clear and coherent position. If the
internal temperature becomes that much more inflamed, then I
think it will be that much more difficult to have a serious set
of nuclear negotiations in the near future; and, as Robin has
suggested, there is a time urgency to the nuclear dilemma.
Mr. Tierney. Dr. Lopez, you agree with that?
Dr. Lopez. Yes, I do. I would go one step further: the
imposition of sanctions permits the regime to shift attention
to a new level of competition, if not conflict, with the United
States, and takes the eyes off what ought to be the main focus,
and that is what is wrong with the Geneva Accord. We seemed, in
early October, to have a reasonable degree of consensus with
the Iranians. We want to keep our focus on that as a template
around which we negotiate, and there may be ways in which the
threat of sanctions over the next 3 to 6 months gives us much
more leverage with the Iranian leadership than the imposition,
because it doesn't permit the leadership to focus on new
actions by the United States taken under conditions of new
hostility; it keeps our eye on the central focus of what is
wrong with this existing nuclear deal, that on paper looked
fairly good to all concerned in early October.
Mr. Tierney. The statement I took out of Ambassador
Dobbins' statement on this was the political imperative to not
just stand there, but to do something. And I think you
mentioned in your testimony that it seems to be driving a lot
of Members, as well as anybody else; and it is a strong and
powerful situation when you feel that somebody is not
responding. Can we effectively target sanctions, say on the
Revolutionary Guard or on some of the elites there, in such a
way that it doesn't adversely affect the general population?
Are there things left to be done that do not already exist in
the current sanctions regime that we have?
You have the same problem that I have with the mic; we have
to turn it on. Ambassador, we have to turn the mic on.
Mr. Dobbins. Sorry. I think that things like international
travel bans, financial sanctions directed at individuals, named
individuals, targeting companies that are owned by the
Revolutionary Guard, and, frankly, just labeling those
individuals and those organizations as pariahs. And this has to
be international to be effective. International sanctions that
do that will further delegitimize the regime, encourage
domestic opposition, and make the regime feel uncomfortable;
and they won't like it, and that in itself can provide a
certain degree of satisfaction, even if it doesn't produce the
desired results.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman and thank all the
witnesses. This has been one of the most informative hearings I
have been a part of for a long time and I thank the chairman
for arranging it.
Dr. Maloney, you mentioned that the Iranian regime is
already preparing to deal with IRPSA, for example. What
examples can you give? How are they preparing?
Dr. Maloney. In the summer of 2007, they instituted a
nationwide gasoline rationing program that, despite some early
tremors of unrest, was largely accepted by the population. It
has been abused, it has been exploited, but, in fact, there is
now a very systemized rationing program, as well as a black
market price for gasoline, which did not exist prior to that
period. They have, in addition, put major investments into
transferring most of the public vehicle fleet away from
gasoline toward compressed natural gas, which, of course, they
have vast quantities of. So they have sought additional sort of
conservation measures; and they have, at least reportedly, been
trying to stockpile gasoline, as well as activate some of the
smuggling networks and craft deals with allies, including
Venezuela, and possibly also China--there are conflicting
reports on this--to expand their gasoline imports from those
countries. Finally, they have also been investing in a major
program of expanding and upgrading their own refinery capacity
so that they will not be as vulnerable in the future to this.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Dr. Lopez, you have studied this a lot and we hear from the
proponents of sanctions, particularly the petroleum sanctions,
that other countries and companies that are dealing with Iran
will simply have to make the choice: do they want to exclude
themselves from the U.S. market, or the Iranian market. And we
think they will choose to go with the United States. Is that
necessarily the case, is it that simple?
Dr. Lopez. No, I don't think it is that simple. I think
what has to come along with that assertion is what then is
going to be the cost and the logistics of implementing and
enforcing that. Imagine a world in which U.S. tankers in the
Persian Gulf are confronting Venezuelan ships, who see
themselves in solidarity with the Iranian people, trying to
deliver refined petroleum.
Which crisis do you want to manage? I think we would want
to manage a crisis with our Russian, Chinese, and other allies
at the Security Council of a defiant Iranian regime that wants
to throw out the IAEA, because we are on the stronger ground
there, rather than shifting the terms of enforcement of an oil
embargo, which has many, many routes for undercutting it. We
have never had any success with secondary sanctions, that is,
with those who have tried to participate in a sanctions regime
by sometimes honoring it diplomatically, but undercutting it
economically. That takes us, in a sense, on a side road that is
only going to be a very, very long and difficult road for the
United States to undo; it really becomes a sideshow that is not
at all in our interest.
Mr. Flake. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Wright, you mentioned that some of the protestors were
shouting, ``Mr. Obama, you are for us or against us.'' What do
you mean by that? If you say that they are not in favor of what
is on the table right now in terms of what the United States is
proposing, do you mean sanctions that will target or impact the
population in general? What do they want the President to do
that he is not doing, is it simply rhetorically getting behind
them, or what?
Ms. Wright. I think there is a particular focus or desire
for the United States to take a much stronger role or stronger
position on human rights. They are not looking for the White
House to come out and support the Green Movement; in fact, that
would end up tainting them and giving the regime grounds on
which to prosecute more of them for being spies for the United
States or agents of the United States.
But they do want to have a sense that the world, the United
States, as the most powerful spokesman for the Free World, is
willing to take a stand on behalf of them. The President's
reference in his Nobel acceptance--the announcement was made
about his Nobel Peace Prize and he referred just a little bit
to Neda Sultan--not by name, but a situation resembling--he
mentioned the situation when she died, and that resonated in
Iran in enormous ways. It doesn't take very much.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
In my remaining time, all of us up here have one of these,
and we are going to be asked to go to the floor later today and
use it: it is a voting card. With regard to IRPSA, if you had
one of these and you were going to vote this afternoon, how
would you vote? I realize arguments can be made this way, but
we only have this card and we only have this vote today.
If we could start with Dr. Maloney, how would you vote?
Dr. Maloney. I would vote against it.
Dr. Lopez. I would vote against these sanctions.
Ms. Wright. I think there are a lot of problems with these
sanctions and they could backfire.
Mr. Dobbins. I would vote against them unless I got the
kind of assurances that the chairman was talking about.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. The assurances, I don't know if you know what
they were. They are either not to be implemented until the
White House and the President, during the diplomatic
initiatives, think it now essential to move to that point, or
that he be given the flexibility to use them, but not be
mandated to use them.
Mr. Flake. Those assurances are not within the legislation
right now.
Mr. Tierney. Those are not in the legislation. The
assurances that I am going to receive are that they will be in
any final bill that we vote on after conference on that.
Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to thank our witnesses. I think the
testimony here has been very, very helpful in us making our
decision. My only regret is that the other 430-something
Members of the House are not here to hear your testimony as
well, and I want to associate myself both with the remarks of
our chairman and his conditions, as well as the concerns raised
by the ranking member. You know, this could be a case where
there is significant and courageous opposition right now in
Iran, as Ms. Wright has so articulately presented. This could
be a case of us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just
when there may be an opportunity here for an internal change
within Iran, we may be doing something that defeats all of
that.
I have very limited experience in this, you are the bona
fide experts, but I look at the situation in Cuba and I have
had an opportunity to review that firsthand. The support, the
rallying around the flag effect, as Dr. Lopez has described it,
it is a real phenomena, and I think that is what has kept
Castro in power in Cuba, because he stood up to America and he
also had a ready excuse: the embargo, for anything that went
wrong in Cuba. He blames tropical storms, he will blame that on
the embargo, and it gives him great cover.
I have been to Gaza a couple times and the embargo there in
Gaza has caused great rallying around Hamas, regardless of
their incompetence and inability to deliver for their people.
And I have a fear that we are going to--this is the best thing
that could possibly happen to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I think that
he is welcoming this. This will cause the Iranian population to
rally around him.
So I agree with basically everything that has been said
here this morning.
The one question I had was around the mechanics.
Ambassador, you might be the best person to answer this. To
really limit, to implement the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions
Act, it would seem to require a naval embargo of some sort, and
a land embargo to prevent refined petroleum from coming back
into Iran; and I guess I am asking is this a proxy vote for
military action here? Because I understand it is going to need
approval by the U.N. Security Council, but this is a first step
in that direction. So how would this work out in practice?
Mr. Dobbins. Well, if such a measure were to get Security
Council approval, the Security Council could also authorize
enforcement measures, as was the case with Iraq, for instance,
when it was even more--Iraq was forbidden from exporting its
oil, for instance, which was an even more effective means of
sanctions.
Mr. Lynch. You are referring to the Iraq Oil for Food
Program?
Mr. Dobbins. No. I am saying that, the Iraq Oil for Food
Program came later as an effort to ameliorate the effect of the
earlier sanction, which was simply to ban Iraq from exporting
its oil. And there were enforcement provisions that prevented
Iraq from exporting its oil: we were allowed to overfly the
country, we were allowed to bomb Iraq periodically, we could
stop ships. And this was all authorized by U.N. Security
Council. So, theoretically, you could do that.
First of all, you are not going to get a Security Council
measure in support of an embargo on gasoline or refined oil
products; that is not going to happen. Second, even if you did,
you probably wouldn't be able to get authorization for those
kinds of enforcement measures. So what we are talking about
here is a unilateral U.S. measure with some extraterritorial
application; that is, we will penalize foreign companies for
engaging in this behavior by denying them access to our market.
I don't think that either the Congress or the
administration would intend to use military forces to enforce
that, so I don't think there is a danger that this would
precipitate the administration is authorizing military action
to enforce this. I think the enforcement mechanisms, if they
were approved, would be legal mechanisms designed to penalize
firms from, say, Great Britain or France or Germany, who sell
products to Iran, from selling products in the United States;
and we would get into endless legal hassles and diplomatic
disputes with those countries.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan, you are recognized.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for calling a very interesting and informative hearing. First
of all, I want to associate myself with the opening remarks of
my ranking member, Mr. Flake; I thought he made a good summary
of what I wish was our position. I also agree with Mr. Lynch
that it is unfortunate that all the Members couldn't have heard
the presentation that has been made here this morning, because
I think all of us know that this afternoon we will in the
House, at least, pass this sanctions legislation by an
overwhelming margin, and I think that is unfortunate because I
think the witnesses have made a pretty convincing case that
these sanctions, or this legislation, is not a good thing to
do, at least at this time.
I think that we need a more neutral foreign policy toward
the Middle East. I think we need to try very hard to be friends
with Israel, but we also need to try harder and do more to be
friends with other countries in the Middle East. I read, a year
or so ago, an interesting book called All the Shah's Men, about
Iran and some of our activities there. Unfortunately, in many
other countries some of our activities to intervene in
political or religious or ethnic disputes have created almost
more enemies than friends for our country.
Basically, that is all I really have to say. I don't know
if you have any suggestions as to how, ever, when we pass this
sanctions legislation, how we could do that and still--if there
is something more we can do to show the Iranian people that it
is not really aimed at them, but really toward their top
leadership, and almost even more toward one man at the top. If
you have any comments or anything you wish to add, feel free to
comment.
Dr. Lopez. Well, I would suggest, Mr. Duncan, that it is
very, very important to get the extra rider in this bill out of
conference that gives the White House some degree of
flexibility on this: that the executive branch would judge when
implementation, and under what conditions, would occur. And I
think we ought to be much further down the road before that
implementation occurs.
Mr. Duncan. Well, I think that is a good suggestion.
Ms. Wright.
Ms. Wright. I was just going to add, very briefly, that
there has always been a struggle on public relations on these
initiatives and we never have been able, over 30 years, to
explain ourselves and what our goals are to the Iranian people.
Sometimes the White House or the State Department will come out
with a statement simply saying ``our target is not the people
of Iran,'' but that doesn't go very far. The Iranians, of
course, with their media monopoly, can spin this in a way, not
just this bill, but any action taken by the United States, as
something designed to hurt all Iranians. Any effort to portray
the alternative, that this is designed to, in the end, help
them could make a difference.
Mr. Duncan. All right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the relatively new
person on the block, this is quite an education for me as well.
And I appreciate the remarks that my colleagues have made about
the reservations that the panel seems to have about the
effectiveness of sanctions, but I can't help read the obvious
in the news recently, in the Times of London, about the Iranian
nuclear weapon system being farther along than we had
anticipated and, in recent news, much larger than we
anticipated. So I hear that either sanctions don't work--and
not just from this panel--or that they take a long time to
work, or they must be specifically targeted with a lot of
coalition assistance.
They haven't worked yet, with the exceptions and the
limitations that the Ambassador has talked about, and they
probably won't work in this set of circumstances, but we don't
have a lot of time. And, with the greatest respect, I would
suggest that it is not going to do the Iranian people, who we
want to be friends with, a whole lot of good if they achieve a
nuclear weapon or two, and they certainly have enough material.
And that makes them, more than anyone else, a target for
reprisal and for destabilization of the entire region, and a
threat not just to Israel, but to our other allies and our
troops.
So I guess I am saying Monty Hall isn't pointing to door
No. 3; there is door No. 1 or door No. 2. If we are in a short
timeframe, tell us the options then if you would vote against
this.
Dr. Maloney. I will take an opening crack at that. I don't
think there are any good options, and that is something that
Secretary Gates has been saying for many years now. It is
something that most of us who work on Iran deal with every day.
There are no silver bullets to a regime that has been in power
for 30 years, that has survived endless crises, and will
probably even see this one through, at least for the short to
medium term.
I would raise just one point about the timeframe. The
Iranian nuclear program is an urgent dilemma, but we are not
yet at a stage where Iran has either a nuclear weapon or the
capacity to deliver one--we are several years away from that
period. And we need to give diplomacy some time to work. That
means diplomacy using sanctions, using the combined weight of
the international community working in coordinated fashion, for
perhaps the very first time since the Iranian Revolution, to
deal with this government. It means giving the Iranian
democratic opposition some time to actually bring itself
together, find a strategy, develop a leadership that can truly
confront the regime.
But I am quite confident that, in fact, we can, over a
period of several years, deal in a much more coordinated, much
more effective fashion with Iran. Yet that needs to involve
both diplomacy and economic pressure and, in particular, very
strong coordination with the international community.
Mr. Quigley. Well, wouldn't you acknowledge, Doctor, that
the timeframe that we thought we were working with has
compressed already? You are talking about taking a pretty big
risk if we are assuming it is not going to contract again.
Dr. Maloney. I am making no assumptions whatsoever, because
I think, obviously, we don't know everything that there is to
know about the Iranian nuclear program--and we were surprised
in 2002 about the extent. We have been surprised by the
regime's willingness and determination to push forward despite
the threat of international pressure and sanctions.
But I think we also recognize that there have been
technical problems with the program; that, in fact, despite the
massive investment that the regime has made, they have not yet
achieved a weapons capability. There is fuel that has been
amassed, but there are ways that the international community
can deal with that, and one of them, the very good, I think,
proposal by the administration to export the LEU is one that
can be continued to be pursued.
There are at least some signs that there are some within
the Iranian regime who would support a revised review of that
deal, and I think that is one of the aims that sanctions ought
to be directed toward, rather than simply punishing the country
as a whole, rather than simply trying to reap the highest
economic price against Iran, because we know from past history
that won't succeed.
Dr. Lopez. May I, Mr. Chairman, respond to this in that I
think it really focuses us on what is a medium term goal; and
the highest order of a medium term goal, it seems to me, is to
create an environment in which it becomes far too costly for
the Iranians to continue to reject IAEA guidelines and IAEA
inspections. Let's remember that the Natanz Plant is still
under IAEA guidelines. The primary generator of enriched
uranium is still under international inspection and control.
One of the great advantages of the Iraqi sanctions over
time was that we had a nice linkage between the pressure of
sanctions and the maintenance of inspections. If you wanted the
sanctions lifted, you had to be continually forthcoming with
inspections. And I think to the extent to which there is
pressure on this government to worry about a longer-term time
clock, and sanctions is the answer, well you then targeted
limited sanctions against key component entities that supply
high level components to the regime or elements of the
Revolutionary Guard--identifiable people who are in charge of
the nuclear program, to the extent that they can be targeted,
sends the appropriate message of urgency but also doesn't risk
the possibility of the Iranians expelling the IAEA or
withdrawing from the NPT.
So we want to keep this tense synergy between those, and
there is a way in which the greatest dilemma that Congress
faces is that all the available tools seem to be a toy store
that we can mobilize. In fact, you have to be very astute and
selective about how to do that with a medium-term goal being
continued dialog and inspection by the IAEA.
It may be that the end point--2011, 2012, or 2013--puts us
in the same position as the one we were in with Libya. I would
make the case that sanctions were very successful in turning
around Libyan commitment to terrorism and to its weapons of
mass destruction program. We had to go past the eleventh hour
and, fortunately, we didn't sacrifice constructive engagement--
even when they went beyond the threshold that we hoped they
would not. They woke up 1 day and realized that a nuclearized
state is not all it is cracked up to be.
We may have to go through that entire threshold with the
Iranians. I hope we do not, but I think only a strategy of
constructive engagement and a step-by-step approach to medium
goals will get us to where we want to be.
Mr. Tierney. Sure.
Ms. Wright. If you are looking for impact, the kinds of
sanctions that have had the biggest impact on the regime are
the banking sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department. This
is something that has mobilized the international community
because of laws passed after 9/11 that make every bank
responsible for knowing their origin of the flow of money that
they have in their banks and, as a result, the five largest
banks in Iran have been crippled from doing international
business. Expanding that avenue, that type of sanctions, even
though it does have impact on the people, makes the regime sit
up and notice, and it ends up paying a real price because it
can find alternatives, but at a much higher price.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to know,
as you say, though, that sanctions worked and they did, as you
suggest, hurt the Iranian people at the same time. I mean, it
is very complicated and difficult, but you challenge us not to
use the only tool we have right now, to a certain extent, if
you start limiting what sanctions we can use.
Ms. Wright. You asked what works, and this is something
that, very quickly, has had an impact. I lived in Africa for 7
years: the last 7 years of sanctions against Rhodesia and
sanctions during Apartheid, and it takes a very long time for
sanctions to work. The impact of banking sanctions has been
almost unprecedented of any case around the world in terms of
how quickly it has made a regime sit up and notice; how big a
price, literally and politically, it has exacted.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
our witnesses, as well, for being here and their testimony.
In today's Post, Danielle Pletka, and I believe I am
pronouncing that name right, has a piece in there--a pretty
compelling piece--and the writer talks about this. She believes
the administration has kind of resigned itself to a nuclear-
armed Iran and is moving in the direction of a ``containment
policy.'' I would like to get your reactions to the premise of
the piece. And then, also, kind of moving into what Ms. Wright
pointed out in her opening statements, if in fact that is the
case, that this containment policy is what is being pursued,
the implications that has for our country to support the reform
or democracy movement that is in Iran.
So we can just go down the list and you can fire away.
Dr. Maloney. I would disagree that the administration, at
this stage, has settled on containment. I think that really
belies everything that has been done, particularly the very
creative and positive proposals that were put forward and
originally agreed to by the Iranians to export the LEU and
support the Tehran research reactor deal.
So I just don't see that evidence. I think that we need to
be planning for that eventuality, simply because we can't
predict the way these sorts of things play out, as we learned
from both India and Pakistan. There may be drivers that force
this regime to move forward more quickly that, in fact, produce
a nuclear-armed Iran more quickly than we anticipate, and we
should be prepared for containment if and when that comes. That
needs to be done quietly and discreetly, but I would hope that
planning is already underway.
I do not see that as in any way contrasting or undercutting
the very strenuous diplomacy that we have had, resetting the
relationship with Russia, putting forward serious proposals
toward the Iranians, and actually, I think, very quietly
mobilizing at least some international support for the kinds of
multilateral sanctions that would be effective--because I think
no one on this panel has said that sanctions should never be
used, but simply that they need to be used only where and how
they are most effective.
In terms of how that coordinates with our support for the
Iranian opposition, I would say, quite frankly, that the
Iranian opposition is a force that we neither created nor
anticipated, and our support--while important because we are a
moral leader, because we have a certain responsibility given
our history, given our ideals--to voice those sorts of ideas,
our support is not going to be what changes the future for the
Iranian opposition. Iran is a proud country that resents the
interference of foreigners very deeply. Fifty years later, they
still deeply resent, as one of the other representatives
suggested, the involvement with the Mossadeq affair in 1953. I
don't believe, at this stage, that anything other than moral
support for the opposition would be useful or welcome from that
side, and I do believe that opposition, in fact, will succeed
over time, simply because it represents the view of the large
swath of the Iranian people.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Lopez.
Dr. Lopez. Thank you. It is a very, very important
question. I detect, through dealing with people on the National
Security Council and elsewhere, no resignation to the
containment strategy. In fact, I believe that the good example
here is the way we are dealing with the North Korea
nuclearization problem; that is, we are going to find every
diplomatic and, in the North Korean case, sanctions-based way
to roll this back. So I detect a strategy that--on the one
hand, counter to where I think we have been for the last
decade--rejects the notion that there is an immediacy to the
ability to apply increased pressure and then somehow arm twist
the Iranians into changing their behavior. The new realism I
detect in town now is that we know we are dealing with a very
determined regime which has domestic, cultural, and other
reasons to move only straight ahead with nuclear development.
Now, how do we show them that is a choice that has
consequences without immediately imposing penalties? How do we
hold before them a vision of be careful what you wish for, when
you get it, as you deal in your neighborhood and as you deal in
the rest of the global community? How do we find a way for them
to match their own rhetoric with a responsible participation in
the global community's concerns about nuclearization? I think
the contingencies will be there for dealing with this, but I
like the notion that this current approach sees a very, very
long road ahead, and if the measures we don't take result in
the desired turning back away from the program and an export of
uranium, if they go nuclear, we have models for which to deal
with that, as we have executed in Libya and in North Korea;
that is, in a sense we are playing, if you will excuse the
sports analogy, with two game plans: one for regulation time,
and one for if we have to go to overtime.
Ms. Wright. I don't have much to add except that
containment is the end of the process, and we are still at the
beginning.
Mr. Dobbins. Well, I think, first of all, you have to
understand it is perfectly logical for Iran to be pursuing
nuclear weapons; they are surrounded by other nuclear powers
and they are at a level of sophistication and capability which
allows them to achieve a nuclear capability. If Barack Obama or
George W. Bush were elected president of Iran, they would be
pursuing a nuclear capability; any leader in that geopolitical
context would be. The question is can you, first of all, move
toward a regime that is not threatening its neighbors
ideologically, so that people are more relaxed about it and,
second, create incentives and disincentives that persuade them
that a nuclear capability is not in their interest.
We have already seen North Korea cross a nuclear threshold,
and the current policies are to roll it back; and there are
fairly massive sanctions that are in place, and also some
fairly substantial inducements that are being offered to try to
roll that back. So Iran crossing the nuclear threshold is not
necessarily the end of the world and it doesn't mean, even if
it happens, that you are going to live with it indefinitely or
try to live with it indefinitely.
One of the reasons, as I have said, for substantial and
mounting sanctions against Iran is to persuade other countries
that they don't want to do the same thing. So keeping Iran in
its pariah status, even if it achieved nuclear weapons or
nuclear capability, would be sound policy, in my judgment. So I
don't think we should set an absolute deadline here.
That said, we are not going to physically prevent Iran from
getting nuclear weapons by anything short of invasion and
occupation. Bombing might delay it, but not indefinitely.
Therefore, we are going to have to continue to pursue a track
which involves mounting sanctions, continued engagement, and
international solidarity in an effort to arrest, slow, or
eventually, if necessary, roll back this program.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Luetkemeyer.
Mr. Leutkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
witnesses for their testimony; it has been very compelling.
I happened to have the opportunity to go to Israel back in
August, and our group, both Democrats and Republicans, met with
the leadership, both there in Israel, as well as in Palestine,
and they were adamant in their analysis of the situation that
Iran would have the nuclear capability by the end of the year.
If that is the case, I think it is being very naive, from the
testimony we have heard this morning, that we have plenty of
time with which to deal with this. I think that a sense of
urgency is necessary in order to be able to confront this, have
a plan ready to confront it. I haven't heard that plan yet this
morning. I have heard some ideas, but I haven't heard that
plan. And if we are going to be ready for this, we need to have
a sense of urgency belying an ability to contain this or deal
with it, as the Ambassador just said.
One of the concerns I have is that sanctions are only part
of one of the layers of ways to deal with this, and diplomacy
is one of the ways. But the folks in the Middle East don't seem
to be able to understand that with diplomacy comes commitment;
and they don't seem to be willing to live up to commitments. We
can get commitments from them, but they are just ignored; it is
just a statement that they can throw away. There doesn't seem
to be any willingness to complete their commitment.
So, in that light, knowing we have a sense of urgency,
knowing we have a difficult group to deal with, knowing that
they probably, if they don't have it already, will have nuclear
capabilities very shortly, where do we need to go with our
sanctions and our diplomatic efforts? Because if we get another
North Korea, which ignores diplomacy, which ignores the
international community, how do we deal with those folks?
Ambassador, would you like to start?
Mr. Dobbins. Well, first of all, I think that deadlines and
a sense of urgency may tend to work against us, rather than for
us. They don't feel a sense of urgency. If we feel a sense of
urgency, then we are the ones under the gun and we are the ones
who are constantly pressured to come up with new ideas, new
proposals, new diplomatic offers.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Yes, but don't you feel we need to be
ahead of the curve on this? Don't you feel we need to be
proactive, rather than reactive?
Mr. Dobbins. I am not arguing that we shouldn't be. I am
arguing that we need a sustainable policy, a policy that will
continue to penalize Iran, will continue to make it, over the
longer term, unattractive for Iran to either gain or retain a
nuclear capability. We need to maintain international consensus
which isolates Iran and penalizes them in that regard. And to
the extent we become fixated on a particular deadline, we are
the ones who then become under pressure; we are the ones who
then find our position weakened by that kind of time pressure.
So I understand the apparent urgency. Now, I am not sure
you said the Israelis thought they would have a nuclear weapon
by the end of the year. I don't know what year that refers to.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. This year.
Mr. Dobbins. Well, they are certainly not going to have one
by the end of this year, so I think we can dismiss that
possibility. I don't think they are likely to have a nuclear
weapon by the end of next year, either.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Well, with all due respect, Mr.
Ambassador, here is an article from the Times online, December
14th, Secret Document Exposes Iran's Nuclear Trigger. They have
their final component of the nuclear bomb; they are working on
it as we speak.
Mr. Dobbins. If Iran has nuclear materials for a weapon,
they have a facility we don't know about and can't bomb,
because we don't know it exists and we don't know where it is.
So if Iran could develop a nuclear weapon at this point, they
would do it in a way that we would have absolutely no way of
stopping, unless we invade and occupy the entire country.
The uranium they do have, which we know about, is not
capable of creating a bomb, and wouldn't be capable of creating
a bomb for several years because it requires extensive further
enrichment, which the Iranians do not, at the present, have the
capability to do, but which they could do over an extended
period of time.
So it is possible they have nuclear material we don't know
about, but, if so, then our options are pretty limited.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Well, not to belabor the point, but Dr.
Maloney made the point in her testimony that gave at least two
examples where we had underestimated what was going on in Iran.
To me, if we have already underestimated twice, it would seem
logical that it is very possible we underestimated them again;
and when you are dealing with a nuclear bomb and a regime such
as that, to underestimate those folks is very, very dangerous.
Anybody else like to comment on the discussion?
Dr. Maloney. You also posed in your question the idea of
where do we go next, and I think that needs to be the focus of
the deliberation at this stage, and particularly with respect
to IRPSA. Where we go next is not more unilateral measures that
have limited or counterproductive impact within Iran. Where we
go next is to the U.N. Security Council; test how successful we
have been in changing the dynamic with the Russians, test how
serious the Chinese are, as they have suggested, at least, in
some rhetoric, about applying new pressure to Iran, and test
the Europeans and see if they are finally willing, for perhaps
the first time since the Revolution, to put their money where
their mouth is when it comes to Iran.
I think that is the route that we go. And we will not
succeed fully, but I think that we can have some real impact in
crafting the kind of measures that, as Robin suggested, have
already begun to make important elites within Iran, people who
really do have some influence over the future of its policies
on core security issues, stand up and take notice; and that is
the sort of thing that can pay off, but it will take time.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. I appreciate your responses and I would
love to ask more questions, especially with regards to how in
the world we can get the rest of the world to go along with us
when half the world sides with Iran right now, but I realize my
time is up.
I appreciate the chairman's indulgence. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Ms. Wright.
Ms. Wright. I just have one brief thought. Implicit in your
statement is some knowledge that we have about where Iran is,
and the bottom line is you think we knew too little about what
was going on in Iraq, try Iran--we know even less. And that is
a sobering reality when it comes to figuring things out down
the road.
But I will also say that if you thought Iraq was a
complicated war, try Iran. The military option is not just an
issue of using strategic bombing of suspected targets, which
would clearly backfire and clearly galvanize the population
around the regime, however much they hate it, but, because of
the nature of conflict in our own deployment of troops in both
neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, force the United States to
engage in something that was far broader and would look like an
open-ended war with Iran.
So I think that when we talk about these options, yes,
sanctions are frustrating. But the military option is one that
is so costly, and we make assumptions about being able to go in
and having some impact, that could be, in many ways, the worst
thing to do, because it would also encourage people to think
they need the bomb to protect themselves.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Luetkemeyer, I can offer two things. You weren't yet a
member of this committee last session when we had a hearing on
the war gaming of just what would be entailed in having a
military response and what would be the ramifications, so the
committee staff would be more than willing to make those
materials available to you if you think they are useful at all,
with the testimony of the various witnesses on that. I think
there were graphs and charts and all of that.
The other thing you might find useful, although I suspect
we are a little late for the vote today, you might find it
useful if we can arrange for the Intelligence Committee to give
you a briefing on what it is that we do know. I think everybody
acknowledges we don't know everything on that, but it is just
as dangerous to overestimate their capacity as it is to
underestimate it; and if you want to raise that directly, it is
fine. If we can be helpful in that, we will certainly try to do
that with you.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. You are welcome.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. I ran out of time before I could ask Ambassador
Dobbins first, and maybe the others if they want to comment,
with regard to the mentioned advisability of the sanctions
route, the economic sanctions route, of international
cooperation and getting our allies on board. Does it make it
more difficult, or do we help by leading, imposing our own
unilateral sanctions?
And there may be a mix of both, I understand, but let's
take today's action in the House with IRPSA. Does this
complicate the likelihood of getting our international allies
on board on other, perhaps more effective sanctions, or some
variant of these sanctions? How does that impact us moving
ahead, the fact that we are going to impose these in the House?
The Senate may not go there, it may look different in
conference, I understand, but I just want you to talk to the
advisability of leading on this. Is it something that our
international partners are looking for our guidance on or is it
more useful, and I tend to think, and I want to see if you
agree, to move in concert with them?
Ambassador Dobbins.
Mr. Dobbins. I think that the element of the bill that you
face, as I understand it, that would disrupt international
solidarity and make agreement more difficult, is the
extraterritorial elements, the effort to use U.S. law to impose
sanctions on foreign companies for doing something that is
perfectly legal in their own country and perfectly legal
internationally. We have done that in the past and we have
ended up backing away from it because of the virulently
negative reaction of our closest allies to being manipulated in
that fashion.
Mr. Flake. If I could interrupt for a minute. Within IRPSA,
that is precisely what we are doing, is it not?
Mr. Dobbins. Right. Exactly.
Mr. Flake. Dr. Lopez, do you have a comment on that?
Dr. Lopez. I am in agreement with you on this and I think I
would just add two layers to this. One is in terms of the
multilateral versus unilateral dynamic, it needs to be more
widely understood in the Congress how the Russians and the
Chinese share very much our view that a nuclear Iran is in no
one's interest.
And if we believe we have to march down the road of leading
with economic coercion so that we persuade the Russians and the
Chinese, we are already on the same plain on this; and I think
that is what pushes us to think about more astute arrangements
than are built into this legislation.
Second, I believe we have a new era of good feeling around
the Security Council table that has been hard earned over the
last 2 years, and that concerns, particularly in this town,
that the Security Council is either inept or the environment is
not right there for us. In fact, within this week I think the
United States has shown remarkable leadership in the Security
Council, in the reformulation of the 1267 guidelines with
Russian and Chinese partners.
I think we are at a unique moment in which the multilateral
may need to lead the domestic, and we would be much better off
in a technical sense saying the United States has in its
holster, if you will, a set of punishing sanctions, but because
our highest order of priority is changing Iranian behavior in
concert with its region and in concert with the globe, we are
keeping that powder dry. But it is very clear what we can do
technically and economically, but at this moment we choose not
to because we believe this is a global concern of which we are
pleased to play a part.
Mr. Flake. Dr. Maloney.
Dr. Maloney. Let me just add one final point. Under IRPSA,
as I understand it, currently formulated without flexibility or
waiver authority, we would have to sanction Chinese companies.
And if you think that is going to make it easy to bring the
Chinese on board with the kind of sanctions at the Security
Council that would actually have an impact in Iran, I think
there is some obvious conflict there. The Chinese have an
enormous interest in investment in Iran, and if we can in any
way encourage them or coerce them to use that leverage with
Iran, that would be far more valuable. They are unlikely to do
that if we are involved in the business of sanctioning their
energy firms.
Mr. Flake. Thank you very much.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Foster, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Foster. Well, thank you. And my apologies for not being
present for all of your testimony here. But I am specifically
interested in the possibilities for further micro-targeting of
financial sanctions toward different segments of society that
might actually provide us with some leverage to try to
encourage the developments that we want to happen in government
there. Obvious targets would be individual institutions and
banks, or maybe sections of the ruling class that might realize
that their hold on power is a little bit shaky and they may be
shoveling their assets offshore, or elements that we think
might be friendly toward developments we want to encourage and
making their financial lives easier.
I was wondering if there is anything that we are missing,
anything Congress can do to encourage or enable that sort of
better targeting of financial sanctions.
Dr. Lopez. I am willing to respond. I think this particular
leadership in Treasury has examined this in detail and I have
great confidence in Mr. Levey for knowing what that is; and
there have been a number of discussions, as you know, about
that. I think the focus of this should be on those entities
whose activities are most auspiciously in violation of the U.N.
Security Council resolutions passed in 2007 and 2008, which
restricted higher levels technologies and the movement of
moneys to support the nuclear program.
I think with the revelations that the Congressman has noted
earlier--of the possibility of trigger devices, the movement of
scientists, etc.--I think we have possibilities of looking into
new areas where this kind of micro-targeting would be very
effective. It has a combination of sending a very, very strong
message that our intelligence is state-of-the-art; that there
are ways in which we are trying to focus on the nature of the
problem, which is nuclear development, and not the whole
economy; and it also has the ability to be voided very quickly
if we need to reward compliant behavior.
Dr. Maloney. Can I just add to that? I think, in addition
to micro-targeting and looking for the most important
constituencies within the regime to influence, we also need to
think about the way that we are implementing sanctions; and one
of the, I think, existing holes--and it is well known--is
Iranian economic interests in Dubai. To the extent that we can
get the UAE, the Dubai Emirate in particular--to step up its
scrutiny and make its financial transactions with the Iranians
more difficult, that will have, I think, some significant
impact on the regime elites who currently support the nuclear
strategy.
Mr. Foster. Is there any detailed knowledge about segments
of Iranian society moving their assets offshore, into places
where we might or might not be able to see? There are a lot of
things happening in the financial services bill that is
intended to give us leverage to pry open places like
Switzerland, and I was just wondering if that is a source of
frustration in understanding what is really going on there and
where we could apply leverage.
Ms. Wright. There has been an enormous drain of capital in
Iran by both people in the regime and others. As Suzanne
mentioned, Dubai's economy is now fueled significantly by the
inflow of Iranian businesses that have basically set up shop
there to get around sanctions. So they bring their goods, or
whatever their office is involved in, to Dubai, running out of
Dubai, and then they ship things across the Gulf or use that as
their backup office. But Dubai, at the moment, is also looking
for any source of income it can get, so how much pressure we
can actually put on Dubai is very tricky.
Mr. Foster. OK. Well, thank you, and my apologies again for
only covering part of it.
I yield back.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Luetkemeyer, do you have any further questions?
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Yes, I just have one, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
We talked about the opposition many times. How strong is
the opposition? How well organized is it? Where do you feel
that it is going to grow to?
Ms. Wright. There has been a reform movement that has been
vibrant since the early 1990's in Iran; it took root officially
with the election of President Khatami in 1997, but it never
had critical mass. Today it does and it crosses all sectors of
society. You have people who were among the original
revolutionaries, as well as people who have never been involved
in politics and hate the system. It has all aspects of societal
life. I had some of the slides, I think before you arrived, of
women old and young; you have taxi drivers, as well as
professionals. This is something where everyone has been
affected.
And I know we talk a lot about the Revolutionary Guards and
kind of lump them together, but one of the things you need to
remember is that even within the military, including the
Revolutionary Guards, there is dissent. In 1997, the Iranian
polls found that 84 percent of the Revolutionary Guards voted
for President Khatami, the reform president. Every young man
has to do service in the military and many opt to do the
Revolutionary Guards because their training is better, it helps
get them entry to university, and, most of all, because they
get off at 2:30 p.m., and then the young men can go off and get
a second job, as many young men have to do to support their
families in this bad economy.
So we need to be very careful in looking at lumping any
sector of society in one basket. There are even confirmable
reports from some of the housing compounds from the
Revolutionary Guards that there were people shouting from the
rooftops at night, you know, ``Allahu Akbar'' and ``down with
the system,'' so forth.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. What percentage of the people do you
believe either belong to or strongly support these efforts?
Ms. Wright. I would be dishonest if I told you I had an
exact number, but I think that there are vast numbers who
either support the opposition, or are disillusioned with the
regime because of their treatment of Iranian society over the
last 6 months. Do I think it is the majority? I can't honestly
tell you, but I think that to brave the kind of repercussions,
whether it is going to jail, facing torture, potential rape,
and that people still get out in the streets, still engage in
civil disobedience in very imaginative ways is stunning, and
there is nothing like it anyplace else in the world today.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. OK, you made an excellent point with
regards to how some sanctions would hurt the people in this
group, and they are very politically oriented toward their own
world and very defensive and very protective of it. What do you
think, if we could have them write our policy, what would they
like to see us do to hurt the regime, and yet be able not to
hurt their people? What do you think the suggestions would be
from them?
Ms. Wright. Well, as I tried to suggest earlier, I think
that the one common denominator among all three layers of
categories of activism is a desire to see the regime pay the
price: the specific individuals, the Revolutionary Guard
leadership, the Basij, the head of the young religious
vigilantes. But they also know that there are lots of little
loopholes, so that in the case of an individual who may be
sanctioned, his kid may be in Europe in school. The head of
household may be affected by the limitations, but it doesn't
affect their broader life and the ability of them to generate
players in society down the road.
So they are interested in seeing us support human rights
issues, give greater attention, acknowledge what is happening
without saying, you know, we are going to allocate $400 million
to support the Iranian opposition. That is not what they are
looking for. In fact, they don't want any American money for
fear that it will taint them.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. OK. Very good. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. I just have one other question.
Ms. Wright and others have mentioned the more effective
sanctions or efforts to disrupt or impact the regime have been
financial banking regulations. OFAC, or the Office of Foreign
Assets Control, currently does that. Do they need any more
authorization or authority from Congress to do things that they
aren't doing now? I would like to see them be more active, not
chasing Americans with suntans coming back from Cuba. Rather,
they should do what might benefit us more. Do they need more
authority from the U.S. Congress in that regard?
Dr. Maloney, do you have thoughts on that?
Dr. Maloney. I think, in contrast, the Treasury Department
has been very creative in using the existing authority, and
particularly some of the regulations passed after 9/11 that
specifically target financial support for terrorism and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and using those
kinds of measures in ways that they probably weren't originally
envisioned to target Iran, to make it more difficult for Iran
to continue to do business with the international community.
The big dilemma of applying pain to Iran is that as long as
they sell oil, they are making tens of billions of dollars a
year as a regime, and I don't think that there is currently
international support for a full-fledged oil embargo on Iran.
But we can make what they do more difficult, more painful, and
more expensive; and to the extent that we do that, it tends to
hurt those who have some influence over regime policy.
Mr. Flake. But OFAC has the authority that they need?
Ms. Wright. I think that they have a lot, and they have
used it very well lately.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
One of the interesting things is, in Treasury, they have
quite a defined list of Iranian Revolutionary Guard, other
people on that from which we can choose to apply or not apply
certain sanctions on, and they refined it quite well to move
forward on that.
Let me just ask one last question from me to Ms. Wright,
whose slide show was great. Thank you very much for sharing it
with us. There is a bill that was filed either yesterday or
today that would seek to remove technology like Twitter or
Google, from sanctions in Iran things like that, for non-
governmental aspects on that. What are your thoughts about
that? What impact would it have? Would you be favorably
disposed to it, or not?
Ms. Wright. I think the opposition would be stunned and
pleased that the Congress was enlightened enough to understand
something like that. The regime would probably use it for its
own ends, but if it would actually--and I don't know the answer
to this question--if it would actually change the accessibility
of technology to the opposition. This has been one of the big
obstacles. Just like the Revolution in 1979 was the most modern
revolution in the use of the fax machine and the tape cassette,
what these kids have done is really unbelievable given that
they don't have the same kind of access that we do, and how
they have gotten around the bans by the government. So it is a
very creative idea.
Mr. Tierney. I didn't mean to imply to our other three
panelists that they couldn't Twitter or Google on that, just
that you had done the presentation. I thought that you
probably, with your background, had a better insight into it.
Are there any members of our panel who have a comment that
they want to share with us, one they feel that they wouldn't
have told us all that they need to tell us before they leave if
we don't cover that area?
[No response.]
Mr. Tierney. Then I want to thank all of you very, very
much. You were terrific witnesses; you helped us get a focus on
this and we appreciate your time and your information. Thank
you very much.
Meeting adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
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