[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 4, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   IN MEMORY OF LT. GEN. WILLIAM ODOM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 4, 2008

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, I ask that the following article be 
inserted into the Record.

                        A Sensible Path on Iran

               (By Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Odom)

       Current U.S. policy toward the regime in Tehran will almost 
     certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons. The 
     seemingly clever combination of the use of ``sticks'' and 
     ``carrots,'' including the frequent official hints of an 
     American military option ``remaining on the table,'' simply 
     intensifies Iran's desire to have its own nuclear arsenal. 
     Alas, such a heavy-handed ``sticks'' and ``carrots'' policy 
     may work with donkeys but not with serious countries. The 
     United States would have a better chance of success if the 
     White House abandoned its threats of military action and its 
     calls for regime change.
       Consider countries that could have quickly become nuclear 
     weapon states had they been treated similarly. Brazil, 
     Argentina and South Africa had nuclear weapons programs but 
     gave them up, each for different reasons. Had the United 
     States threatened to change their regimes if they would not, 
     probably none would have complied. But when ``sticks'' and 
     ``carrots'' failed to prevent India and Pakistan from 
     acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States rapidly 
     accommodated both, preferring good relations with them to 
     hostile ones. What does this suggest to leaders in Iran?
       To look at the issue another way, imagine if China, a 
     signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a 
     country that has deliberately not engaged in a nuclear arms 
     race with Russia or the United States, threatened to change 
     the American regime if it did not begin a steady destruction 
     of its nuclear arsenal. The threat would have an arguable 
     legal basis, because all treaty signatories promised long ago 
     to reduce their arsenals, eventually to zero. The American 
     reaction, of course, would be explosive public opposition to 
     such a demand. U.S. leaders might even mimic the fantasy 
     rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding 
     the use of nuclear weapons.
       A successful approach to Iran has to accommodate its 
     security interests and ours. Neither a U.S. air attack on 
     Iranian nuclear facilities nor a less effective Israeli one 
     could do more than merely set back Iran's nuclear program. In 
     either case, the United States would be held accountable and 
     would have to pay the price resulting from likely Iranian 
     reactions. These would almost certainly involve destabilizing 
     the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan, and serious efforts 
     to disrupt the flow of oil, at the very least generating a 
     massive increase in its already high cost. The turmoil in the 
     Middle East resulting from a preemptive attack on Iran would 
     hurt America and eventually Israel, too.
       Given Iran's stated goals--a nuclear power capability but 
     not nuclear weapons, as well as an alleged desire to discuss 
     broader U.S.-Iranian security issues--a realistic policy 
     would exploit this opening to see what it might yield. The 
     United States could indicate that it is prepared to 
     negotiate, either on the basis of no preconditions by either 
     side (though retaining the right to terminate the 
     negotiations if Iran remains unyielding but begins to enrich 
     its uranium beyond levels allowed by the Non-Proliferation 
     Treaty); or to negotiate on the basis of an Iranian 
     willingness to suspend enrichment in return for simultaneous 
     U.S. suspension of major economic and financial sanctions.
       Such a broader and more flexible approach would increase 
     the prospects of an international arrangement being devised 
     to accommodate Iran's desire for an autonomous nuclear energy 
     program while minimizing the possibility that it could be 
     rapidly transformed into a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, 
     there is no credible reason to assume that the traditional 
     policy of strategic deterrence, which worked so well in U.S. 
     relations with the Soviet Union and with China and which has 
     helped to stabilize India-Pakistan hostility, would not work 
     in the case of Iran. The widely propagated notion of a 
     suicidal Iran detonating its very first nuclear weapon 
     against Israel is more the product of paranoia or demagogy 
     than of serious strategic calculus. It cannot be the basis 
     for U.S. policy, and it should not be for Israel's, either.
       An additional longer-range benefit of such a dramatically 
     different diplomatic approach is that it could help bring 
     Iran back into its traditional role of strategic cooperation 
     with the United States in stabilizing the Gulf region. 
     Eventually, Iran could even return to its long-standing and 
     geopolitically natural pre-1979 policy of cooperative 
     relations with Israel. One should note also in this 
     connection Iranian hostility toward al-Qaeda, lately 
     intensified by al-Qaeda's Web-based campaign urging a U.S.-
     Iranian war, which could both weaken what al-Qaeda views as 
     Iran's apostate Shiite regime and bog America down in a 
     prolonged regional conflict.
       Last but not least, consider that American sanctions have 
     been deliberately obstructing Iran's efforts to increase its 
     oil and natural gas outputs. That has contributed to the 
     rising cost of energy. An eventual American-Iranian 
     accommodation would significantly increase the flow of 
     Iranian energy to the world market. Americans doubtless would 
     prefer to pay less for filling their gas tanks than having to 
     pay much more to finance a wider conflict in the Persian 
     Gulf.

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