PBS: Think Tank: Transcript for "Iranian Runaround"

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Iranian Runaround

MR. WATTENBURG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. American policy in Iran has been rooted in the idea that the Iranians have been developing a secret nuclear weapons program. Now a new national intelligence estimate indicates that Iran stop their weapons program in 2003. Should this report shape policy toward Iran? What threat does Iran still pose?

To find out, Think Tank is joined by John Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute. The topic before the House, Iranian Runaround, this week on Think Tank.

Michael Rubin, John Wolfsthal, thank you so much for joining us on Think Tank. We’re going to talk today about a topic that’s on everyone’s mind in America: Iran.

Now, let’s start with you, Michael. There’s this national intelligence estimate, the NIE, what’s it all about? And then we’ll go to you, John.

MR. RUBIN: Well, at first glace what the NIE said was that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. However, when you look into the details of this national intelligence estimate, issues are a lot less certain because first of all, it’s hard to tell where the civilian program ends and the military program begins.

As Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute pointed out, what really changed is an assessment of the sequence of Iran’s program. And likewise, even if Iran’s intentions have changed, I’m not so sure policy is going to change that much.

MR. WATTENBURG: Now do they say that that their intentions changed or just that they stopped producing – stopped the program. I mean is there a...go ahead.

MR. RUBIN: What they said is that the military program had been suspended in 2003. The NIE also said that Iran could be influenced by a packet of incentives of both carrots and sticks, and that therefore many people seized upon this to say that perhaps diplomacy can be reinvigorated with regard to the Iranian program.

MR. WATTENBURG: Well let me ask you a question. Just let’s stop here. Some of the commentary on this thing, particularly to those who are anti-Bush, say “See? We did it all wrong. Now’s the time to negotiate. We were too tough on them.”

The reason they stopped what they stopped is because we were, say were raveling, or we were squeezing them. So the morale of the story, to me as an outsider in this thing, would seem to be, “Sure, negotiate, but keep the squeeze.”

MR. RUBIN: I would actually add...I agree, but I would add a note of caution. First of all, this NIE said that Iran did have a nuclear weapons programs until 2003. The Iranians continue to reject this assessment that they had a weapons program. But if we do accept as fact that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program until 2003, this was before the administration of the current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This was during the Presidency of the former President, Mohammad Khatami, who many in Europe believed was a...described as a reformist. And it was during Mohammad Khatami’s time that we had a trickling of trade between the European Union and Iran in the name of engagement, in the name of diplomacy, in the name of drawing Iran into the international community.

So in a way, if we read through the lines of this national intelligence estimate, one could say, “Sure there should be perhaps renewed diplomacy.” I’m a little bit more cynical on that point. “But we can’t go back to the strategy that we had before 2003 in which we were just trading with Iran, the Europeans were just trading with Iran, giving them our currency – because even under the Reformist Administration, we saw that Iran took that engagement and continued to covert a program.”

MR. WATTERNBURG: Alright, let’s talk a minute about Iran. There’s a President, who’s name I can’t pronounce very well and I won’t even try. He was elected?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: Right.

MR. RUBIN: In a controlled election.

MR. WATTENBURG: Would you call it a free country? Can people speak their mind?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: Not fully, I mean it’s not free like it is in the United States. But they have ways of expressing themselves.

MR. RUBIN: What I would actually say is that you do have certain boundaries of freedom. The problem is, when you talk to Iranians, the way they describe it, is, “Yeah, we have freedom within these boundaries. But these boundaries of freedom are always shifting.”

MR. WATTENBURG: But can the people of Iran, through that process – suppose they said, “Look, this doesn’t make any sense for us to get the world all rattled by building nuclear stuff and we want to stop it.” Can they go on the press and say, “We ought to stop it and I’m going to form a political party to do it?”

MR. RUBIN: They can say the first part of that, “We should stop it.” In fact, Sherin Ebadi, the former Nobel Laureate Iranian human rights lawyer living in the Islamic Republic, did say, “This is getting too dangerous. We should take a step back.” However, it’s much...you really can’t form political parties. And the way elections work in Iran, is you have a council called The Council of Guardians, which that’s all the candidates. And only candidates which subscribe to its view of the Islamists, the Islamic Republic’s philosophy, can run.

So the analogy I would make would be if, in the Soviet Union, you had elections but only Communists Party members could run.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I think it’s hard, I mean, there a lot of analogies. Iran is not a free country. Women have to wear, you know, shoals over their heads. And men and women can’t say what they want. They can’t travel freely. So it’s not a free modern country.

MR. WATTENBURG: And they can’t change policy democratically.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: Well there are way of influencing the system, particularly among the elite. They can get rid of Ahmadinejad. We’ve gone from Khatami to Ahmadinejad, and I’m sure we’ll switch to somebody a little bit more progressive than the, sort of, anti, you know, the neocon Ahmadinejad. The problem is, he doesn’t...

MR. WATTENBURG: Be careful who you’re characterizing in part, right?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: The problem is he doesn’t – the President doesn’t control policy. When Khatami was in charge, we lamented the fact that this apparent reformer, although he’s not clearly a full reformer, didn’t control policy. Then we’re glad that Ahmadinejad doesn’t control policy.

The leader of the country, the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, is non-elected. He has control over the military, over the political system, and there’s a very narrow window in which people can influence policy.

MR. WATTENBERG: What do Iranians think about Americans? Not about the policy – what do they think about Americans?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: Americans in Iran are treated like rock stars. There isn’t – if you went into a Friday prayer and there were a hundred people shouting, “Death to America.” I guarantee you, 90 of them would like green cards to come and study and work in the United States. There’s a tremendous interest in American culture, American products, American broadcasting – but they don’t want to give up those things or engage with the United States at the cost of their pride in being Iranian.

MR. RUBIN: And I would actually add to it, Iranians are fiercely nationalistic. They may like Americans...

MR. WATTENBURG: Some are Americans.

MR. RUBIN: They make like – the Iranian...

MR. WATTENBERG: And you’ve noticed that, right?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: For Iranians, we say they’re nationalistic; we’re patriotic.

MR. RUBIN: Well, the point being that they may like things in America – they don’t want to be seen as America’s toady. But it’s also important – the vast majority I met on the street would bend over backwards with hospitality and so forth. But ordinary Iranians don’t have as much say in their government as many other people do. And the click that rules this country, some of them are downright hostile to the United States.

And this is the whole issue with the nuclear program. Oftentimes we talk about Iran’s nuclear program. Well who actually is in charge of the nuclear program? And this goes to your question about policy as well. Who’s in charge of the nuclear program? Basically it comes down to the Revolutionary Guard. And that – it comes down to the Revolutionary Guard both for the civilian nuclear program and for the military nuclear program, which creates this level of opacity – this shield of opacity – which raises our concern.

MR. WATTENBURG: Now, both of you, if Iran built a nuclear weapon or two or three, they’re not going to threaten the United States with it. They’re not going to threaten Europe with it. They don’t have that kind of delivery system. What they – they’re not going to threaten Russia. They’re not going to start popping them off against Arab countries. So is it correct to say that the only possible real victim of an Iranian nuclear program is Israel?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I’m very nervous about buying into that rhetoric. I mean we know that Ahmadinejad has spoken openly about...

MR. WATTENBURG: No, no, it’s not rhetoric. I’m asking you a question.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I don’t...I don’t think...

MR. WATTENBURG: What I think is a logical question.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I don’t believe, given what we know about Iran, that they’re suicidal. And they know, as well as everybody else, that nuclear weapon targeted against Israel would bring about the destruction of Iran.

MR. RUBIN: The question isn’t just whether Iran would use nuclear weapons against any other state. It’s whether Iran, with nuclear weapons, would feel itself so immune from consequence that it might lash out through Hezbollah, through other terrorist schemes. We’ve already seen that Iranian intelligence and Iranian terror networks can hit from Baghdad to Buenos Aires, as they did in 1994.

MR. WATTENBURG: And have.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: And have. So the issue is shall we retaliate should they do this. Can we deter them?

MR. WATTENBURG: So let’s run on this now. So it’s a terrorist thing.

MR. RUBIN: The State Department defines them as the leading State sponsor of terrorism.

MR. WATTENBURG: The leading State sponsored terrorism.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: They give guns, money, and support to terrorist organizations.

MR. RUBIN: Another consequence, if I will, and I think you would agree with me on this, if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, it means more or less the end of the non-proliferation treaty because in the Middle East you would have Saudi Arabia, you would have Egypt, you would have perhaps Turkey – you’d have a whole cascade of proliferation in response to an Iranian nuclear breakout.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I don’t know I’d go so far as say it’s the end of the regime. I mean, everybody said when China built the bomb, it was the end of the system, you know. The sky always seems to be falling in this line of work. There’s no doubt that if Iran built a nuclear capability, others are going to want to follow suit. I think there’s a question about how capable these states are. I think Turkey could build a nuclear power plant. They have a lot of money. Saudi Arabia might be able to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Egypt’s had a program in the past and they couldn’t put the pieces together. So I think that risk is there, but I don’t know that it’s a fore-bound conclusion.

MR. RUBIN: And I think if the State decides they want to do it, and we’ve already seen non-State proliferation efforts, which is another issue by the way, which gets into this NIE. This NIE assumes that Iran is developing just an indigenous nuclear program. But as with the rumored Syrian plant that the Israelis bombed back in September, we see what can happen if someone inserts an unknown – if materials are purchased from elsewhere.

MR. WATTENBERG: If there was credible evidence that Iran is moving toward nuclear weapons and getting fairly close, would the Israelis take out that capability? And is it easy to do?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I’ve spoken with Israeli officials about this. I think if Israeli leaders had a sense that they could set back Iran’s program by five years, ten years, they’d do it. I think they recognize that they can’t. This program is diversified, it’s hardened, it’s underground, there’re parts of it we don’t know...

MR. RUBIN: ...you can see.

MR. WATTENBERG: It’s not like what was in Iraq.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: It’s not like what happened in Iraq. If the United States felt that we could put it back ten years, we might.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, but wait. Suppose – let’s just play some games here – suppose you don’t go after the actual capability, but you go after a command in control. And you say, “Boy, we hit the nerve center. Sure, they may have this stuff, but they can’t put it together.” Does that make any sense?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I think...what I think Michael and I probably want to be careful of, I’m sure that Israelis and others are looking at vulnerable points within the Iranian nuclear program to see how they can set it back. And that might involve targeting individuals as well as facilities.
But I think most people would acknowledge that if a country wants to build nuclear weapons badly enough, if it’s willing to suffer the pain, the isolation, and invest the money, they can get there. The question is: how long will it take and are we preparing ourselves, God forbid it should happen, to live in that world? And I would argue that we’re not doing enough to stop it. And we’re not doing enough to prepare for it should it happen?

MR. RUBIN: I mean, and one example of that, and this goes into the whole issue about whether there be a third round of sanctions or not, is even though the first two sanctions have prohibited some of the technology trade, have prohibited Iranian exports of weapons, although not imports of weapons into Iran, they haven’t prohibited...they haven’t imposed a blanket band on all nuclear cooperation with Iran. So you still do have Russian engineers.

MR. WATTENBERG: Can a nation that is a principal oil producer, the way Iran is, be efficiently boycotted? I mean oil is a fungible product. You can say, “We’re not going to buy your oil.” And they sell it to somebody else, right?

MR. RUBIN: Ben, Iran’s vulnerability here is that it has to import 40-percent of its refined petroleum products because it does have a lot of natural resources. It doesn’t have a lot of refinery capability, which is where sanctions can be more effective.

MR. WATTENBERG: But it’s principle. Revenue comes from the export of oil.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: That’s correct – and natural gas. And look, if we were willing to pull out the stops, could we boycott Iranian fuel? Sure. Are American’s willing to pay six-dollar-a-gallon gasoline? Are we prepared to live in a recession? Those are the possible consequences.

I would argue that those might be better than a nuclear Iran, but politically America and American leaders aren’t willing to take that chance.

The problem is you’re never going to get international support for such a strong reaction at this point. Most countries around the world, the publics at least, look at the United States and Iran and they say, “It’s the United States that’s the problem.” We have very badly mismanaged our image in the world and our relationships with other countries. And we’ve made it very difficult to get the sort of international cooperation and pressure we need on Iran. Even to our best friends.

We just released this NIE. The British and the French, who have been as strong as we have in pushing for sanctions, weren’t briefed ahead of time. So they’re left looking really stupid because they don’t even know that Iran turned off their nuclear weapon program in 2003. It doesn’t endear us to our allies. And those countries like Russia and China that already aren’t anxious to be with us are simply going to take advantage of it and drag their heels even more.

MR. WATTENBERG: Does a country who comes up with an intelligence estimate have to share it in advance with its allies?

MR. RUBIN: Well if it’s going to made public, it’s a normal courtesy to do so. But this raises a whole issue...

MR. WATTENBERG: A day before, a month before? I mean, this has been going on since 2003 – this study...

MR. WOLFSTHAL: The President knew as early as August, it’s now been confirmed, that there was information that could be reliable, that might prove or demonstrate that Iran ended its program in 2003. You’d think in one of his conversations – Sarkozy was just here in November. You’d think he might have mentioned it to him.

MR. RUBIN: But you have a situation also of contradictory intelligence. I agree with you that, in short answer to your question, yes. We could have briefed them ahead of the announcement. But there’s also a real issue: the NIE isn’t black and white even if the press likes to make them out to be. NIE’s though history have been proven wrong. One of the reasons why the 2003 NIE was so hawkish, I would hypothesize is because the intelligence community had gotten Iraq’s weapons program so wrong back in 1990. And therefore there always seems to be almost like a pendulum, an overreaction from passivity to hawkishness and perhaps we’re seeing a nonreaction... (Conversations overlapping.) The 2003, the Iraq NIE, and then before that and the one that led to the additional...(Overlapping conversation.).

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I think you’re being a little generous here. I mean the White Paper that was released in 2003 on Iraq’s weapons programs, or 2002, was stripped of any nuance. There were no maybe’s, it could, and might have because the political leaders in the Pentagon and elsewhere wanted them out. They wanted a black and white case.
But at least what we have in this case, because there are pieces on both sides in this NIE...

MR. WATTENBERG: The what is?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: In this latest national intelligence is that we have pieces on both sides. We have on the one hand and on the other hand. But at least we’re able to judge somewhat what strength there is behind that information. They say we’re highly confident, or only mid-level confidence, or low-level confidence. And that’s, then, what political leaders have to use to develop policies.

MR. WATTENBERG: Just to give our viewers a sense of the complexities that go on here, former U.N. Ambassador, John Bolton, said the other day that the NIE, because the people in the Intelligence Agency are often fighting President Bush, they are part of the permanent party bureaucracy, not part of the appointed political government, purposely designed the first summary paragraph or two to say, “It no longer exists.” When in point, a fact that you both have pointed out, when you read the whole thing, it is much more rarified and complex.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I think that is another sign of people using unfair assessment or unfair tactics. This intelligence estimate is a consensus document signed off by sixteen intelligence agencies, almost all of which were appointed by President Bush.

MR. WATTENBERG: I understand...

MR. RUBIN: I’m sorry, I would disagree with Ben.

MR. WATTENBERG: That’s not what Bolton said.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: Every NIE is a consensus...

MR. WATTENBERG: Yeah, wait...what he said is what – I mean, I’m a journalist – what they chose to lead with is what the journalist report. And what they chose to lead with, he says, does not accurately reflect the sophistication and the two-sided nature of this document that you both point to.

MR. RUBIN: I would concur with that.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I don’t agree with former Ambassador Bolton.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. I like conflict. That’s fine.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I mean, I’ve said before and I’ll it again. If anybody knows about politicization of intelligence, it’s John Bolton. He doesn’t like this assessment. So he’s going to criticize the people that he wrote...that wrote it. And I think it’s unfair to go after civil servants who are doing their job, who are doing it for very low pay and under a very difficult situation, and say, “They’re not doing the right thing. They’re not being intellectually credible.” The information is the information. If John Bolton doesn’t like the way the media is reporting it – he didn’t mind when the media reported it badly on Iraq – so unfortunately he doesn’t get to pick and chose.

MR. RUBIN: Well I’m going to jump in hard here because if anyone deserves an apology, I think it’s John Bolton. Because when you look at what John Bolton was saying back in 2003, he was saying Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. And everyone was bashing John Bolton as saying he was wrong.

And yet, now, people are trying to perhaps scapegoat John Bolton for criticizing. There’s never anything wrong with criticize...not with criticizing – with questioning intelligence. That’s number one.

And number two, one of the big differences between this NIE and previous NIEs is this NIE inserted not only the physical aspects of Iran’s program, but analysis as to their intentions. And that analysis, I’m sorry, I think we’ve all seen intelligence documents can be quite arbitrary.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: But let’s say what’s actually happening here. John Bolton is questioning the patriotism and the objectivity of people because...(Overlapping conversation.).

MR. WATTENBERG: No, no, look – I was there when he said it. It was not to patriotism. He was saying they have a point of view. Surprise. Bureaucrats have a point of view. And he said they designed the way the first few paragraphs were constructed to give a news lead that would lead to something less complex than the documents itself.

MR. RUBIN: Let’s just say the first few paragraphs were much more definite sounding than some of the details, which many people didn’t...

MR. WATTENBERG: Yes, alright. Let me answer another question. You run around Washington and there are a lot of Iranians here. A lot of them say, you know, Iran was a whole lot better off under the Shah. True or false?

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I wasn’t in Iran under the Shah, so I can’t comment.

MR. RUBIN: I’d say there’s a lot of grass is always greener mentality.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: There’re people in Russia who think that Russia was better under Stalin, but nobody really want to go back and live under Stalin.

MR. RUBIN: One of the interesting sociological factors in Iran, though, is that seventy percent of Iranians, seventy percent of the seventy million people, almost fifty million people were born after or came of age after the Islamic Revolution. And therefore, they have nothing to compare it with.

While some of the older generation may remember the corruption, the abuses of power, and so forth, that took place during the Shah’s time, this new generation only knows the corruption of the current regime.

And so, I mean, I was on a bus once from Tehran to (Khonj) when – in the dessert, in the middle of the summer, (Amoola) asked some guy to take down the window because it’s hot in here. And the guy responded, “You’d better get used to the heat because you guys are all going to hell anyway.” I mean, there’s this sort of this public animosity towards the regime.

And, I mean, one of the problems in Iran is it’s not really democratic. And if people don’t like the regime, they may be able to pick some of the personalities, but they can’t change the general direction.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I think that’s right. And I think also you’re seeing in Iran the same thing you’ve seen in other countries, particularly Russia, where people are frustrated. They haven’t been able to change or impact a political system. And so they’re dropping out of politics and they’re trying to change their lives by engaging in economic policy. They all want to get rich. They all want to work hard. They want to start shops. And so they turn their attention to the economic side and they say, “Let the politicians worry about politics. We just want to make a living.”

And as a result, a lot of people are dropping out of the political system. And that small clique that is running things gets a free pass.

MR. RUBIN: And when people actually criticize President Ahmadinejad in Iran right now, they’re not criticizing him for his stances on the nuclear program. As John said, they’re very focused on the economy and he’s really suffering a lot of criticism about his management...(Overlapping.).

MR. WOLFSTHAL: He didn’t fulfill his promises in the election.

MR. RUBIN: All politics is local.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: That’s right. You know, he said, “We’re going to have jobs. We’re going to give money.” And that hasn’t worked.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let me ask you a fast question. Michael, John, it’s not 2007. It’s 2012. Is there going to be a strike against the Iranian nuclear force or a severe credible threat of same?

MR. RUBIN: I think that there’s a real possibility that could happen. And I’m judging this on two ways. First of all, do I trust the Iranians more than I trust the NIE? I don’t trust either of them. I always have doubt about both. That’s number one.

But what I worry most about now with the NIE, and we’ve already seen this in he Iranian statements over the last couple of days, is they feel they’re off the hook. And there might be overconfidence, which might cause them to do something rash, some stupid, which will force an international reaction.

MR. WOLFSTHAL: I would be very surprised if Israel or the United took over military action against Iran’s nuclear capability. I just...circumstances can change. Five years is a long time. But I don’t see that happening. I think there’s a great risk that we will end up in a military conflict because of some other set of issues, whether it’s Iranian support for insurgence in Iraq, whether it’s terrorist operations in Lebanon that draws in Israelis or Americans – I think those are possible flash points. You know, because we don’t communicate very well with Iranians and we don’t have a clear sense of control, it can very quickly spiral out of control.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Michael Rubin, thank you. John Wolfsthal, and thank you. Please send your comments to Think Tank via email. We think it makes our program a better program. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg.

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