[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 136 (Wednesday, November 24, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2143-E2144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE CASE FOR RESTRAINT IN IRAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES A. LEACH

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 24, 2004

  Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, there are few areas of the world with a more 
troubling mix of geopolitical problems than the Middle East. The irony 
is that the war in Iraq which has consumed so much of our country's 
political and economic capital may hold less far-reaching consequences 
than challenges posed in neighboring Middle Eastern countries.
  To the West, the Israeli-Palestinian stand-off remains the sorest 
point in world relations, although new opportunities for reconciliation 
between the two sides have presented themselves in the wake of Yasser 
Arafat's passing. To the East, the sobering prospect of Iran joining 
the nuclear club stands out.
  It is this East of Baghdad trauma that I wish to address this 
afternoon.
  In life, individuals and countries sometimes face circumstances in 
which all judgments and options are bad. The Iranian dilemma is a case-
in-point. But it is more than just an abstract bad option model because 
at issue are nuclear weapons in the hands of a mullah-controlled 
society which has actively aided and abetted regional terrorists for 
years.
  In reference to recent disclosures of enhanced Iranian efforts to 
develop nuclear weapons as well as missile delivery systems to carry 
such weapons, concerned outside parties are actively reviewing options.
  The Europeans have led with diplomatic entreaties; the Israelis, with 
requests for the provision by the United States of sophisticated 
bunker-busting bombs; American policy-makers, with open-option 
planning, with neo-con muscularity being the principal reported theme.
  In the background are references to the 1981 preemptive strike by the 
Israeli Air Force against Iraq's Osirak reactor.
  At issue is the question of whether preemption is justified; if so, 
how it should be carried out; and, if carried out, whether intervention 
would lead to a more conciliatory, non-nuclear Iran or whether the 
effects of military action would be short-term, perhaps pushing back 
nuclear development a year or two, but precipitating a new level of 
hostility against the United States and Israel in Iran and the rest of 
the Muslim world which could continue for decades, if not centuries.
  Since the American hostage crisis which so bedeviled the Carter 
administration in the late 1970s, we have had a policy of economic 
sanctions coupled with comprehensive efforts to politically isolate 
Iran.
  Four years ago, Senator Arlen Specter and I invited Iran's U.N. 
Ambassador to Capitol Hill, the first visit to Washington by a high-
level Iranian representative since the hostage crisis.
  On the subject of possible movement toward normalization of relations 
with Iran, I told the ambassador that while many would like to see a 
warming of relations, it would be inconceivable for the United States 
to consider normalizing our relationship so long as Iran continued its 
support of Hamas and Hezbollah. The ambassador forthrightly 
acknowledged that Iran provided help to both these terrorist 
organizations, but also noted, in what was the most optimistic thing he 
said that day, that his government was prepared to cease support to 
anti-Israeli terrorist groups the moment a Palestinian state was 
established with borders acceptable to Palestinians.
  For decades in the Muslim world, debate has been on-going whether to 
embrace a credible two state (Israel and Palestine) approach or advance 
an irrevocable push-Israel-to-the-sea agenda.
  The implicit Iranian position, as articulated by the ambassador, is 
support for a two-state approach, but if the United States on its own, 
or Israel as a perceived surrogate, were to attack Iran, the 
possibility that such a compromise can ever become possible 
deteriorates.

  While angst-ridden, the Muslim world understands the rationale for 
our intervention in Afghanistan where the plotting for the 9/11 attack 
on the United States occurred. It has no sympathy for our engagement in 
Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, but if these two interventions 
were followed by a third in Iran, the likelihood is that such would be 
perceived in the vocabulary of the Harvard historian, Samuel 
Huntington, as an all-out ``clash of civilizations,'' pitting the 
Judeo-Christian against the Muslim world. In the Middle East it would 
be considered a war of choice precipitated by the United States. We 
might want it to be seen as a short-term action to halt the spread of 
nuclear weapons, but the Muslim world would more likely view it as a 
continuance of the Crusades: a religious conflict of centuries' 
dimensions, with a revived future.
  If military action is deemed necessary, the United States broadly has 
only three tactical options: (a) Full scale invasion a la Iraq; (b) 
surgical strikes of Iranian nuclear and missile installations; or (c) a 
surrogate strike by Israel, modeled along the lines of Osirak.
  The first can be described as manifestly more difficult than our 
engagement in Iraq, particularly a post-conflict occupation. The second 
presents a number of difficulties, including the comprehensiveness of 
such a strike and the question of whether all aspects of a program that 
is clandestine can be eliminated. The third makes the United States 
accountable for Israeli actions, which themselves are likely to be more 
physically destructive but less effective than the 1981 strike against 
Osirak.
  In thinking through the consequences of military action, even if 
projected to be successfully carried out, policymakers must put 
themselves in the place of a potential adversary. A strike that merely 
buys time may also

[[Page E2144]]

be a strike that changes the manner and rationale of Iranian support 
for terrorist organizations. It may also change the geo-strategic 
reason for a country like Iran to garner control of nuclear weapons.
  It is presumed that the major reasons that Iran currently seeks 
nuclear weapons relates to: (1) Pride: a belief that a 5,000-year-old 
society has as much right to control the most modern of weapons systems 
as a younger civilization like America or its neighbors to the west, 
Israel, and to the east, Pakistan; (2) power: the implications of 
control of nuclear weapons with regard to its perceived hegemony as the 
largest and most powerful country in the Persian Gulf, particularly 
with regard to its nemesis, Iraq, which not only once attacked Kuwait, 
but Iran itself using chemical weapons; and (3) politics: the concern 
that Israeli military dominance is based in part on the control of 
weapons that cannot be balanced in the Muslim world, except by a very 
distant Pakistan.
  The issue of the day from an American perspective is weapons of mass 
destruction (WMD), their development and potential proliferation to 
nation-states and non-national terrorist groups. The question that 
cannot be ducked is whether military action against Iran might add to 
the list of reasons Iran may wish to control such weapons: their 
potential use against the United States. Perhaps as significantly, 
American policymakers must think through the new world of terrorism and 
what might be described as lesser weapons of mass destruction, which 
might be dubbed, ``LWMD.''
  Any strike on Iran would be expected to immediately precipitate a 
violent reaction in the Shi'a part of Iraq, where the United States has 
some support today. With ease, Iranian influence on the majority Shi'a 
of Iraq could make our ability to constructively influence the 
direction of change in Iraq near hopeless.
  And there should be little doubt that in a world in which ``tit for 
tat'' is the norm, a strike on Iran would increase the prospect of 
counter-strikes on American assets around the world and American 
territory itself. The asymmetrical nature of modern warfare is such 
that traditional armies will not be challenged in traditional ways. 
Nation-states which are attacked may feel they have little option 
except to ally themselves with terrorist groups to advance national 
interests.
  We view terrorism as an illegitimate tool of uncivilized agents of 
change. In other parts of the world, increasing numbers of people view 
terrorist acts as legitimate responses of societies and, in some cases, 
groups within societies who are oppressed, against those who have 
stronger military forces.

  If Afghanistan, an impoverished country as distant from our shores as 
any in the world, could become a plotting place for international 
terrorism, such danger would increase manifoldly with an increase in 
Iranian hostility, especially if based on an American attack.
  If there exists today something like a one-in-three chance of another 
9/11-type incident or set of incidents in the United States in the next 
few years, a preemptive strike against Iran must be assumed to increase 
the prospect to two-in-three.
  And Iran, far more than Osama bin-Laden, has within its power the 
ability not only to destabilize world politics, but world economies as 
well. Oil is, after all, the grease of economic activity, and a 
devastating Iranian-led cutback in supply cannot be ruled out.
  Given the risk, if not the untenability, of military action, 
policymakers are obligated to review other than military options. One, 
which has characterized our post-hostage taking Iranian policy for a 
full generation, is isolation of Iran. This policy can be continued, 
but as tempting as it is, there is little prospect of ratcheting it up 
much more, except in ways, such as a naval embargo on Iranian oil, that 
would be difficult to garner international support for and would, in 
any regard, damage us more than Iran.
  The only logical alternative is to consider advancing carrots, 
without abandoning the possibility of future sticks, and increase our 
dialogue with this very difficult government.
  A proposal that might be suggested is negotiation of a Persian Gulf 
nuclear-free zone, which would reduce, although given the high 
possibility of cheating, not eliminate entirely one of the reasons Iran 
presumably seeks nuclear weapons--fear that it may be at a disadvantage 
in a conflict with an oil-rich neighbor. In return, America could offer 
not only normalization of relations in trade but the prospect of a free 
trade agreement and expanded country-to-country cultural ties with 
Iran.
  Here, it should be stressed, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have 
been educated in the United States. The country has strong democratic 
proclivities. While the apparatus of democratic governance is 
extensive, real power is controlled by the mullahs. Nevertheless, few 
societies in the world have more potential to move quickly in a 
democratic direction than Iran. And just as it is hard to believe that 
outside military intervention would lead to anything except greater 
ensconcement of authoritarian mullah rule, the prospect of a bettering 
of U.S. relations with Iran implies a greater prospect of a better 
Iranian society.
  Finally, a note about arms control. If the United States wishes to 
lead in multilateral restraint, we might want to consider joining 
rather than rebuking the international community in development of a 
comprehensive test ban (CTB). All American administrations from 
Eisenhower on favored negotiation of a CTB. This one has taken the 
position the Senate took when it irrationally rejected such a ban 5 
years ago. The Senate took its angst against the strategic leadership 
of the Clinton administration out on the wrong issue. This partisan, 
ideological posturing demands reconsideration. We simply cannot expect 
others to restrain themselves when we refuse to put constraints on 
ourselves.
  We are in a world where use of force can not be ruled out. But we are 
also in a world where alternatives are vastly preferable. They must be 
put forthrightly on the table.