[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

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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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