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E-mail a friendVali Nasr
original airdate April 2, 2007
Vali Nasr is an authority on the Islamic world. He's advised senior policy makers, members of Congress and executives in the private sector. Nasr is a professor of Middle East and South Asia politics and associate research chair in the Naval Postgraduate School's Department of National Security Affairs and a visiting professor at Stanford University. He's written for the New York Times and Washington Post and is author of several important books on Muslim politics and Islam, including The Shia Revival.
Vali Nasr
Tavis: Vali Nasr is a professor of Middle East and South Asia politics at the Naval Post Graduate School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the author of a number of notable books, including his latest "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future." The book is now out in paperback. He joins us tonight from Monterey, California. Dr. Nasr, nice to have you on the program again.
Dr. Vali Nasr: Thank you for inviting me, Tavis.
Tavis: I've been anxious to talk to you. Before I go inside of Iraq, I wanna just go first to the region. And as we all know, of course, this ongoing crisis where Iran is concerned, and these British hostages that we're reading about in the news every day. The story isn't quite over as yet, although I was just reading a little bit earlier before we came on the air tonight, the newswire suggesting that Iran wants to now talk with Britain, and Britain is saying that they are happy to have those conversations.
I'm paraphrasing here. There seems to be some movement on this crisis, but what do you make of what we've been watching for the last few days around this issue?
Nasr: Well, it all began with Iran's show of force, trying to show that the strategy of trying to contain it is not working. That it's willing to push back against U.N. sanctions and that it's willing to push back against any kind of a measure, U.K. and, uh, United States may take against it in Persian Gulf. I think the Iranians now feel that they've made their point, that they have established the facts that they had wanted to, and that it's time to find a way to release the hostages.
Tavis: When you say that you think Iran feels that they've now finally made their point and to my earlier comment about the fact that diplomatic conversations may seem to be on the way here, what is the point they were trying to make?
Nasr: Well first of all, they did this right after the United States adopted a very tough strategy against Iran and Iraq, arresting their personnel, trying to eliminate their influence. They're sending another aircraft carrier to Persian Gulf. And then also the United Nations passed a new set of sanctions against Iran, and I think Iran wanted to send a signal that it's not gonna easily roll over; that it's got fight in it, and it wanted to send a deterrent note against these moves as to say that it's going to be defiant. I think it's done that. Now it's going to look for a political cover; an excuse that allow it to release the hostages without losing face.
Tavis: What does this mean long term for the geopolitics of that region? This particular incident? What impact will it have long term?
Nasr: It will have some impact, partly because it shows that Iran is not likely to bow to international pressure easily. That if the United States and Great Britain and the members of the security council thought that with sanctions alone or with just putting pressure on Iran by sending aircraft carriers to the Gulf you're going to get Iran to change its position on Iraq or on nuclear enrichment, that it's not gonna happen. That the international community now has to think of a different way of dealing with a resurgent Iran in the Persian Gulf region.
Tavis: When you say the international community having to find a different way to deal with Iran, let me set that aside for just a moment. I'm specifically concerned about how the U.S., going forward, has to engage Iran, given what we've seen them do here.
Nasr: Well, the U.S. is obviously in a difficult position, because it's involved in Iraq, it has to look at the stability of Iraq, it has to look at the nuclear issue, and it has to look at the stability of Persian Gulf. And in all of these arenas, Iran is very important and it's very clear that the initial policy of get tough with Iran has not worked. So for the U.S., the issue is what do you do next?
Do you get even tougher and risk an escalation of conflict with Iran? Or do you follow a different strategy of for instance trying to engage them, or do you rely on the Europeans, Russians, and the Chinese to try to deal with Iran?
Tavis: So far, the Bush administration has said that Iran is one of a number of countries that we don't really wanna talk to. We don't really wanna talk to Iran, we really don't wanna talk to Syria, we of course did talk to North Korea some weeks back. But there is a list of countries that this administration at least isn't interested in talking to. What's your sense of how that strategy will play or not play, as it were, in the coming weeks and months where Iran is concerned?
Nasr: It's going to be very tough to hold on to that strategy. First of all, the issue is not whether Iran is good or Iran is bad, or whether we want to talk to them. The question is, can we afford not to talk to Iran? If the policy of escalating tensions with Iran is not working, then we either have to go down the path of open confrontation, which means then expansion of the Iraq war into Iran, or we have to find a way to get to change Iran's behavior.
If pressure is not changing Iran's behavior, we might think that talking to them might have the kind of influence that pressure has not had, and that's what we saw with North Korea as well.
Tavis: Let me go now inside of Iraq, as I promised a few minutes ago at the start of this conversation. I was honored to have you on this program when this book came out in hardcover, "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future." So I had you on some time back when the book came out in hardcover.
I've been anxious to ask you, now that it's just out in paperback, we get a chance to talk again about events that have changed in the world since that conversation. What has most caught your attention? What have you most been focused on with regard to change, given the Shi'a-Sunni conflict, since you first wrote this book?
Nasr: Well, it has found a complete life of its own. First of all, in Iraq it has come to dominate everything. When we last spoke, it was an important issue, but it had not become the single issue that's going to choose Iraq's future. Now the Shi'a-Sunni conflict is the single most important issue for Iraq. Secondly, it's already spread outside of Iraq.
We've seen it get reflected in the war in Lebanon, it's become reflected in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It has now become far broader than Iraq, and it has come to dominate, if you would, a lot of the discussions in the region about a host of issues. And this is something that has taken off in a major way in 2006 after sectarian violence in Iraq exploded and we had the Lebanon war, and we're also seeing a much more aggressive and hegemonic Iran in the region, making this a central issue.
Tavis: As you well know - as we all know, the conversation in Iraq - in Washington, rather, these days about Iraq is when to get out, under what conditions to get out, how quickly we ought to get out. Both the House and the Senate have said to the president in two separate votes that we need to set a date certain to get out.
How does that conversation, much less the reality of our getting out at a date certain, impact this Shi'a-Sunni conflict? 'Cause you can't talk about one without talking about the other, it seems to me.
Nasr: You're correct. The fundamental issue in Iraq from the beginning all the way to right now is that there is no political framework for power sharing, for constitutional negotiation, for making a final deal between these communities in Iraq. We all the time are debating about security. Troop numbers, how long are they gonna be there, when are they gonna come home?
But we're not really asking about what has been done in terms of putting a political deal on the table that could create a credible state in Iraq, could bring a resolution to the conflict in Iraq? So long as there is no political deal, there's going to be fighting, whether we stay or whether we leave. And that's really the issue that we should focus on. Not the date that the troops are gonna leave, but why isn't there a political deal, and why aren't we working more aggressively to bring one about?
Tavis: Let me ask you two questions, then, that really pick up on how you've just closed now. That is, question one, why aren't - to your question, really - why aren't we working more diligently at a political solution where the Shi'a and the Sunni are concerned? And number two, is that even possible? Is there a political deal? Since there seems not to be a military solution here to our liking, is there a political solution to our liking?
Nasr: It might not be to our liking, but it might bring stability to Iraq. And the political deal is obviously getting weaker. The possibility of a political deal is getting weaker the longer we stand by the side and not do anything about it, and the more Iraqis are killed in the process. But the question is that whether or not there is a deal possible, we ought to be trying for it.
We're trying a lot harder to solve the Palestinian issue. We're putting a lot more diplomatic capital in the game. Our high officials travel a lot more to the Middle East to bring all sides together. There's only been a single meeting on Iraq on March tenth which was rather inconclusive. We're not talking to any of the neighbors about the political solution.
We are not engaged in a political diplomacy with the Shi'as, with the Sunnis, with the Kurds. Our assumption is that if the security solution is solved, somehow, the political solution would follow. Whereas it's the other way around: the security problem is a consequence of the absence of a political solution. And often, we are putting the cart before the horse, and the result, we're not seeing a solution to our satisfaction.
Tavis: You have any sense of what that political solution might look like?
Nasr: Ultimately in all cases like this, there has to be a certain give-and-take. The Sunnis have to accept less than what they're demanding, and the Shi'as have to give a lot more than they've been willing to give. And the Kurds similarly have to give up certain things that they already have. But right now, there is no framework for conversation.
Nobody is talking to anybody else. There is no table (unintelligible) around which they are meeting and discussing these things, and there's no real pressure on them to make the necessary concessions. And then as a result, we're not seeing any progress.
Tavis: Finally, right quick from our end, who ought to be leading that conversation, as you see it?
Nasr: Well, it could have been our ambassador in Iraq. It could be also a high-level delegation or a representative from Washington. It requires us to be talking to all of Iraq's neighbors, either collectively or one at a time. We ought to be talking directly with all the power brokers in Iraq. We ought to be leaning on everybody, as well as providing incentives. It doesn't mean that necessarily we will succeed in a very short run, but we ought to at least be exploring the possibility, and that would probably relieve a lot more pressure from the security solution that we're finding ourselves in.
Tavis: His bestseller, now out in paperback, "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future." His name is Vali Nasr. Dr. Nasr, nice to have you on the program once again.
Nasr: Thank you.
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