[Mb-civic] FW: The Persian Puzzle: An Interview With Kenneth Pollack

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From: Kambiz Atabai <katabai at nyc.rr.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 09:59:26 -0500
To: Golesorkhi Reza <grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net>
Subject: Fwd: The Persian Puzzle: An Interview With Kenneth Pollack



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> From: ks <ksinvest at wanadoo.fr>
> Date: January 26, 2005 11:41:23 AM EST
> To: Kambiz Atabai <katabai at nyc.rr.com>
> Subject: The Persian Puzzle: An Interview With Kenneth Pollack
>
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>  MotherJones.com / News / QA
>
> The Persian Puzzle: An Interview With Kenneth Pollack
>  What's next for U.S. foreign policy in Bush's second term? Iran,
> that's what.
>
>  Bradford Plumer
> January 24 , 2005
>
>  Iran, between its burgeoning nuclear program, its active support for
> terrorism, and its reported meddling in the Iraqi elections, is headed
> for a showdown with the Bush administration. But what to do about it?
> In his new book, The Persian Puzzle, Kenneth Pollack argues that
> regime change is not the answer to dealing with Iran‹instead, the Bush
> administration is going to have to flex some diplomatic muscle. It
> certainly won't be easy: the U.S. and Iran have built up a lot of
> animosity over the past few decades, and overcoming this distrust will
> be difficult, requiring a series of carrots and sticks from both the
> United States and her allies.
>
> Pollack, a veteran of both the CIA and the National Security Council,
> recently sat down with MotherJones.com over the phone to talk about
> Tehran's long, bloody relationship with the West, its nuclear program,
> the prospects for regime change, and most critically, the future of
> America's Iran policy.
>
> MotherJones.com: Going through the history of Iran, as you do in your
> book, is really useful. It seems that the conflict between Iran and
> the U.S. isn't so much about a geostrategic rivalry, or even
> necessarily about an ideological conflict per se, so much as a lot of
> bad blood built up between the two over the past few decades.
>
> Kenneth Pollack: Absolutely. I think if you could remove all of the
> baggage‹all of the ideology, the history, whatever else‹and look in
> purely geostrategic terms, I think it's hard to figure out why the US
> and Iran would necessarily be in conflict. In fact during the shah's
> era, before 1979‹recognizing that there were all kinds of other
> problems‹the US and Iran worked together splendidly at the strategic
> level.
>
>  But the source of the problem is this history‹our support for the
> Shah, the CIA coup in 1953‹has become infused into the Iranian
> political discourse. The regime that came to power in 1979 during the
> Iranian revolution actually defined itself as anti-American, and
> that's now a critical ingredient in the Iranian domestic political
> debate. That really is the source of our problems‹the regime in Tehran
> continues to see itself as opposing the  US. In their eyes, everything
> the  US does is directed at them in a very malevolent way, and
> therefore they have to fight back against it.
>
> MJ.com: So that's the Iranian side. On our side, why has the U.S.
> failed to engage the Iranian regime over the years?
>
> KP: Two reasons. The less important reason is that, in the United
> States, Iran is nothing but a whipping-boy. Few Americans have any
> real use for Iran. Most of us, what we know and remember about Iran
> are things like the hostage crisis in 1980, or they think about the
> Iranian attacks in Lebanon, or on the Khobar Towers. So you don't get
> a whole lot of political mileage in the United States by going out and
> advocating better relations with the Iranians.
>
> Second reason, and I ultimately think the bigger source of our
> problems, has actually just been neglect. It's one of the most
> consistent patterns that I found in U.S. foreign policy‹both in my
> research, and also from my 17 years in government and in the policy
> community. The US has just consistently tried to ignore Iran. And this
> is ironic because the Iranians believe that the United States is as
> obsessed about them as they are about us.
>
> MJ.com: Now the most pressing Iran issue right now is their nuclear
> program. Take me through the "Triple-Track" approach you outline in
> your book for dealing with this issue.
>
> KP: Sure. The first track is to say the Iranians, "Look, we think
> there is a deal to be cut here. You give up your nuclear program, put
> it under the sort of inspection and monitoring regime that we had in
> Iraq, give up your support for terrorism, and stop opposing the Middle
> East peace process. In return, we'll lift our sanctions, we'll settle
> all the claims dating back to the shah's era, we'll bring you into the
> World Trade Organization, we'll give you security guarantees, and
> we'll create a security structure in the Persian Gulf that benefits
> you."
>
> The problem, of course, is that we've been offering this deal to the
> Iranians for the past 20 years, and they've never been able to pick it
> up, often for domestic political reasons. So here you fall back to the
> second track: a true carrot-and-stick approach, where we work with
> Europe and Japan to persuade the Iranians that they're going to have
> to make a choice. One of the problems we had in the 1990s was that we
> and the Europeans were on different sheets of music on Iran. We were
> only interested in sticks: just hit the Iranians and hit 'em harder
> with sanctions. The Europeans, meanwhile, were only interested in
> carrots‹no matter what the Iranians did, they would turn a blind eye
> and still offer trade, investment, and foreign aid.
>
> MJ.com: But Europe's starting to change their approach?
>
> KP: The Europeans are starting to show that they're finally serious
> about the Iranian nuclear program, and they appear to be willing to
> use sticks against Iran. So I think it is imperative that as part of
> the second track, the United States sit down with the Europeans and
> say, "Let's make this very clear to the Iranians. Either they can give
> up their nuclear program and their support for terrorism, in which
> case we'll given them all kinds of benefits. Otherwise, we'll join in
> comprehensive, multilateral sanctions that will cripple their very
> fragile economy."
>
>  MJ.com: And do you think this would really work?
>
> KP: What we've seen from the Iranians over the last 15 years is that
> any time they thought they really were going to get multilateral
> sanctions, they jumped out of their socks, and reversed course
> immediately. They're very vulnerable on the economic front.
>
> MJ.com: So what if we can't get Europe and Japan on board?
>
> KP: Exactly. I'm not convinced that the second track is going to work.
> I've seen the Europeans sound tough before and not willing to come
> through. If that's the case, the Iranians will find it out very
> quickly. So you have to have the third track: pure containment. Laying
> down "red lines" for the Iranians, so they know what is and is not
> permissible. Working harder to shut down the flow of nuclear
> technology to Iran. Setting up some kind of security structure in the
> Persian Gulf that will hopefully make other countries feel less
> anxious about their own security. We need to make Iran understand that
> they are not able to act aggressively in the Persian Gulf, and that
> they are paying some kind of price for this continued intransigence.
>
> MJ.com: Now many people have suggested that regime change or some sort
> of military strike might be better options for dealing with Iran's
> nuclear program. What do you think about these options?
>
> KP: Let's start with the disarming strike. I think here it's a matter
> of weighing the costs and benefits. We just don't know a great deal
> about the Iranian nuclear program, especially where all of the key
> Iranian nuclear sites are. I mean, in 2002 we suddenly found about
> Arak and Natanz, to our surprise. So it's just unclear. This would be
> a very big effort, we're talking about days of air-strikes, maybe even
> weeks, and we wouldn't know what, if anything, we'd accomplished.
> Meanwhile, we would also pay some very high prices for a strike. We'd
> set back regime change, because the people would rally around the
> government. It would preclude any further diplomacy. And beyond all
> that, the Iranians are very skilled terrorist, and we'd have to expect
> that they'd hit back at us as hard as they could. Especially in Iraq,
> where they have a great deal of power and influence. If they wanted
> to, they could wage a clandestine war against us in Iraq that would be
> truly horrific. So it just doesn't look like the costs and befits add
> up, at least not until a) we have a much better intelligence picture
> of the nuclear program, b) we're much less vulnerable in Iraq, and c)
> not until we've exhausted all of our other options. You don't want to
> go down this path unless we've at least tried all the diplomatic
> options.
>
> As far as regime change, I think you need to look back at Iran's
> history. First off, regime change is coming‹it's clear that the
> Iranian people generally want a very different form of government.
> It's coming very slowly. Most Iranians are sick and tired of
> revolutions. They've had one for the last 25 years, and they don't
> want another one. Those who've tried to spark another revolution have
> failed time and again. I don't think there's any evidence that
> somehow, if the  U.S. gave these guys the high sign, it would make
> regime change somehow more likely. Every time the U.S. has tried to
> interfere in Iranian affairs to help a particular group of Iranians,
> it's backfired on us, and hurt the group we tried to help. Look,
> regime change will eventually happen, but this isn't an answer to the
> very short-term problem of the nuclear program.
>
> MJ.com: So now how does the current deal that Iran struck with the
> Europeans fit into your triple-track approach?
>
> KP: I think that the European deal is a perfectly fine first step
> towards the second track. There are still big holes in that
> agreement‹there is no threat of sanctions if  Iran reneges, and there
> isn't a viable inspections program to actually monitor the deal.
> There's also nothing about terrorism. But I think if the United States
> were willing to get involved, we could take the deal and make it a lot
> better. Unfortunately, right now we are wasting a terrific
> opportunity. Standing on the sidelines and simply criticizing Europe
> when we have no viable alternative, that's not helping anyone. Time is
> passing. Iran's at least three‹and probably more like 8 or 10‹years
> off from having a nuclear weapon. But we do have a fairly narrow
> window‹probably a year or two‹to deal with this problem at the
> diplomatic level.
>
> MJ.com: Now you've been a big critic of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
> (NPT), arguing that it's inadequate to deal with states like Iran.
> Especially since it allows these countries to build a civilian nuclear
> program, and then pull out at the last minute when they have
> everything they need to build a nuclear bomb. So how should we go
> about updating the NPT?
>
> KP: The basic problem with the NPT is there's no teeth in it, no
> penalties for countries that don't comply. Worse, as you say, the very
> naïve structure of the NPT has actually made it helpful for countries
> who want to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq, North Korea, Iran, all used
> the NPT to build up their nuclear programs. Unfortunately I don't
> think you can solve the problem by calling a meeting of all NPT
> signatories and renegotiate the treaty. That's too difficult to do.
> What we could do, though, is call together a group of countries
> outside of the framework of the NPT, all of whom have an interest in
> squelching nonproliferation. We could ask them to adopt, on a
> multilateral basis, a series of sanctions that would be applied to
> states that do violate a more rigorous version of the NPT. Because of
> the importance of trade from the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc., I think
> the potential nuclear wannabes would take this very seriously. We've
> seen this historically‹there have been several dozen countries that
> pursued nuclear weapons, and then discontinued their programs out of
> fear of sanctions they would incur by doing so. So this would just
> formalize the process.
>
> MJ.com: Now what if all of this fails? What happens if Iran does get
> nuclear weapons anyways‹what do we need to worry about then?
>
> KP: What people normally think about is the possibility that Iran will
> give nuclear weapons to terrorists‹to Hizbullah or some similar group.
> I think that fear is mostly groundless. Iran has had WMDs‹chemical and
> biological weapons‹for at least 15 years, they've supported terrorist
> groups for 25 years, and they've never mixed the two. Iran uses
> terrorism very instrumentally as an element of foreign policy; they
> are not just intent on just killing as many people as possible, like
> al Qaeda. There's no reason to believe that would change.
>
>  The real concern is that Iran would do what Pakistan did. Pakistan
> wanted nuclear weapons, like  Iran, purely for defensive reasons‹to
> defend itself against India. The problem was that once Pakistan
> acquired the weapons, it allowed the country to be more aggressive. So
> they stepped up their support for the Kashmiri terrorists, and it led
> very quickly to the Kargil crisis in 2000, which almost sparked a
> nuclear war between India and Pakistan. That's the greater concern
> with Iran. What we saw in the last 8 years, Iran moderated its
> aggressive behavior largely out of fear of a U.S. conventional
> military response or a European economic response. Once  Iran gets
> nuclear weapons, they may believe that they are no longer vulnerable
> to either.
>
>  MJ.com: So how do we learn to live with a nuclear Iran?
>
> KP: It's not going to be easy, and I'd like to avoid doing it if we
> can. But what I've seen from Iranian behavior over the past 15 years,
> since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, really does convince me that it
> will be possible to live with a nuclear Iran. This is not a reckless
> regime like Saddam Hussein's was‹it's nasty, aggressive, and ruthless,
> but it's also very pragmatic. That suggests that we could approach
> Iran like we approached the Soviet Union‹laying down "red lines",
> making clear that things like destabilizing Saudi Arabia would be
> beyond the pale. We would also need to set up the kind of cooperative
> security arrangements in the Persian Gulf that we used in Europe
> during the Cold War, maybe even moving towards arms control. I think
> all of those things should allow us to work out a cold peace between
> ourselves and the Iranians.
>
> MJ.com: Is it possible that a nuclear Iran could be a positive thing
> in some respects? For instance, might the GCC countries start huddling
> closer to the United States, thus giving us more of an ability to push
> for political and social reforms on the Arabian peninsula? Or is that
> crazy?
>
> KP: I don't think that's crazy. But it's just unclear which direction
> the GCC would go in. There's an equally plausible case that they would
> go in the opposite direction. Perhaps they'd decide that the US
> couldn't prevent Iran from going nuclear and therefore they either
> have to find their own means of deterring Iran, maybe by getting their
> own nuclear weapons, or else accommodate Iran entirely. On the other
> hand, if they saw the US being responsible and determined in
> response‹if we made clear to the Iranians that they couldn't just come
> across the Gulf and do whatever they wanted to‹then I think we'd have
> a much greater likelihood of getting the GCC to move in a more
> positive direction.
>
> MJ.com: Now what's your take on Iran's apparent support for al-Qaeda?
>
> KP: Yeah, Iran is constantly doing this to us, where you shake your
> head and say, "What on earth are you guys doing?" I think that leaders
> in Tehran, for whatever reasons, were trying to keep their options
> open with al-Qaeda, especially since they didn't know what the U.S.
> was going to do after we got through with Iraq. I think they were also
> hoping to trade the al-Qaeda leadership they had in Iran for the MEK
> people we had in custody.
>
> More likely, there were probably some real divisions within the
> Iranian government‹some groups wanted to ally with al Qaeda against
> us, others didn't want to have anything to do with that. So I think
> that debate resulted in no decision being made for awhile. The problem
> was they left the al-Qaeda folks in Iran in the hands of their
> intelligence services and Revolutionary Guard, who didn't really keep
> an eye on them‹and may not have kept an eye on them on purpose. As a
> result, al-Qaeda used Iran as a base to participate in the May 2003
> Riyadh attacks. But I think the fact that Iran clamped down on them so
> quickly afterwards, and are now claiming to put these guys on trial,
> suggests that Tehran recognizes that they were way too lax with them.
>
>  MJ.com: Now how about Iraq? You suggest in the book that there's a
> lot of common ground to work with between the U.S. and Iran over
> Iraq‹that both want a stable Iraq. But what if this isn't true?
> There's a lot of reporting out there indicating that the adherents of
> Khomeini are afraid of the Iraqi Shia school in Najaf emerging to
> challenge the Iranian model of clerical rule. Is it possible that
> Iran might see some benefits in a relatively unstable and weak Iraq?
>
>  KP: Well, yes and no. I do not think they want a completely
> destabilized Iraq. Yes, I hear Americans talking about how the
> Iranians don't want Najaf to rival the Iranian clergy in Qom. But I've
> never heard an Iraqi or an Iranian suggest that as being something
> meaningful to them. In fact, if you were Khamane'i, it would be quite
> good for you to have Najaf eclipse Qom. The clerics in Qom are all
> against Khamene'i, they think he's completely illegitimate and
> untrained. So I don't think this is a factor.
>
> That said, it is true that the Iranians are wary of us building too
> strong an Iraq, especially an Iraq that's very pro-Aemrican. But I
> don't think the Iranians are very afraid of that  right now, because
> that doesn't seem to be terribly likely. More pressingly, the senior
> leadership in  Iran is very concerned about chaos in Iraq. In their
> heart of hearts they would probably love to have an Iraq that's
> completely subservient to Tehran, but they know that's not going to
> happen. The experience of the Iran-Iraq war demonstrated that‹Khomeini
> invaded Iraq in 1982 because he thought the Iraqi Shia would rise up
> against Saddam and join him, and they didn't. Instead they fought Iran
> tooth and nail. So the Iranians are under no illusions that the Iraqi
> Shia will be subservient to them. So they'll settle for a stable,
> pluralistic Iraq, dominated by Shi'a‹they can live with that.
>
>  However, the problem is that some elements of the Iranian
> Revolutionary Guard are wild-eyed ideologues, some of whom really do
> believe in spreading the revolution, others of whom simply want to
> fight the United States. Those groups are in Iraq, trying to stir up
> trouble. But so far Tehran has mostly kept the yahoos under control,
> under a tight leash. By and large, most of what's going on in  Iraq
> from the Iranian side is still good for us‹they continue to tell SCIRI
> and Da'wa and other pro-Iranian groups to go along with the Americans.
> Are they trying to influence the elections? Of course they are‹it's
> the Middle East. What did we expect? Are they doing it more than the
> Syrians or the Saudis? I doubt it. To some extent they have more
> influence so they might be doing it better, but this isn't somehow
> unique to Iran or uniquely dangerous.
>
> MJ.com: So what about reports that Iran is behind Sunni insurgent
> groups like Ansar al-Islam, or behind the al-Sadr insurgency?
>
> KP: Yeah, I think that was wildly overblown. Again, this is a problem
> we've got‹the neo-conservatives in the administration are doing with
> the Iran intelligence what they did in  Iraq‹cherry-picking. We're
> talking to all these Iraqis, who will tell us whatever they think we
> want to hear. For many Iraqis, it's very convenient to blame all of
> the insurgency problems on  Iran, because they don't want to admit
> they have a problem with the Sunnis.
>
> MJ.com: Now your contention is that there are pragmatic elements of
> the Iranian leadership‹Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'I and former
> president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani especially‹but that they're limited
> by the radical elements in the regime. Doesn't it seem, though, that
> the hardliners are increasing their control in the government, and
> there's not much room for engagement any more?
>
> KP: Well, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Iranians are
> going to have a big decision to make in 2005 when they elect a new
> president. This time around Mohammed Khatami is not going to be a
> candidate, the reformist movement has effectively been completely
> disqualified, and so Iranians are going to have to choose among
> different brands of hardliners. But the differences between hardliners
> matters. We're all expecting that Khamene'i is going to pick the
> candidate who will likely win the election. So who will he pick?
> You've got everyone from Rafsanjani‹who is the ultimate technocratic
> pragmatist, though completely unscrupulous of course‹all the way to
> people like Ali Larijani or Ahmad Janati, who are basically Iranian
> versions of the neocons. So who Khamene'i picks I think will give us a
> good sense of where he wants to take the country.
>
> MJ.com: Even if the Iranians do come around, what about the Bush
> administration? Thus far, they seem to be wholly focused on regime
> change, and have shown no interest in negotiating. Is that going to
> change anytime soon?
>
> KP: Yeah, I agree. My sense is that they remain so committed to regime
> change, even though I think they recognize that there is very little
> likelihood that it will succeed anytime soon. So they're unwilling to
> participate in the carrot and stick approach that I've outlined,
> because they believe that that will mean compromising on regime
> change. They may well be right about that. But to my way of thinking,
> it's foolish, making perfect the enemy of the good. What is important
> right now is stop Iran's nuclear program, their support for terrorism,
> their opposition to Middle East peace process. And there's a
> likelihood that we can do so. I wouldn't squander that very real
> chance to pursue what is something of a will-o-wisp.
>
> Bradford Plumer is an editorial fellow at MotherJones.com.
>
>   
>
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> . . . . . .
>
>  This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National
> Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from
> generous readers like you.
>
>  © 2005 The Foundation for National Progress
>
>  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> . . . . . .


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