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The Hagel Policy Toward Iran

Excerpted by Paul Olson

Speaking at the University of Nebraska at Kearney this past February, Senator Chuck Hagel forcefully argued against going to war with Iran. The senator’s comments matched many of the findings Joe Volk of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (who spoke to Nebraska audiences this past March) came away with after his visit to Iran, namely that: we have common interests with Iran; we should pursue diplomacy; we must seek a regional approach in talking with Iran; Iran does have some democratic institutions; the Iranian government was helpful in resisting terrorism in Afghanistan and may be helpful in the future; President Ahmadinejad does not make foreign policy for Iran — the Ayatollah Khamenei does; the population of Iran is very young and may well opt for political change on its own; and, we should reach out to Iran through ‘people-to-people’ -style contacts.

All of these points are important and points to which NFP can subscribe, as we seek to stave off movement by the Bush/ Cheney Administration for a possible attack on Iran.

We tend to be cautious, though, about what the senator means when he talks of holding Iran accountable for its actions. Such efforts should not be done without our encouraging the Iranians to hold us responsible for our actions toward it — including the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh government in 1953, U.S. complicity in the Shah’s torture regime, and supplying arms to both sides during the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

To defuse this potentially explosive situation, we would argue that the United Nations needs to step in to mediate the differences between our two nations; the U.S. in turn needs to pledge to quit feeding arms to our Arab allies and to Israel — if Iran will stop feeding arms to Shiite operatives in Iraq and to Hezbollah; and for its part, Iran needs to permit complete access to weapons inspections teams to confirm that its uranium enrichment program is not intended to produce nuclear weapons. Both countries should pledge not to work through intermediaries, for which neither nation can be held responsible. All told, Sen. Hagel’s speech constitutes, in our view, the beginning of a journey toward sanity on Iran, and he deserves our thanks for articulating such a level-headed and prudent perspective.

Key points from Sen. Hagel’s speech at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (excerpted by Paul Olson)

1. The United States must approach the Middle East with a clear understanding of the complexities of the region. Our strategic policies must be regional in scope… integrating Iran, Iraq, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, violent Islamic extremism, access to energy supplies and political reform into a comprehensive policy equation. This should be developed through consultation, cooperation and coordination with our regional allies Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel. This will require a new regional diplomatic and economic framework to work within… a new Middle East frame of reference.

2. Iran will be a key center of gravity [in the next century’s Middle East]. The United States cannot change that reality. America’s strategic 21st century regional policy for the Middle East must acknowledge the role of Iran today and over the next 25 years.

To acknowledge that reality in no way confuses Iran’s dangerous, destabilizing and threatening behavior in the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and provides material support to Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups. Iran publicly threatens Israel and is developing the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. Iran has not helped stabilize the current chaos in Iraq and is responsible for weapons and explosives being used against U.S. and Iraqi military forces in Iraq.

Iran must be held accountable for its actions. These actions by Iran are one part of a complicated picture of a country with a 3,000-year history, governed by a complex and opaque political structure, burdened by a stagnating economy and located in a geo-strategically unstable region.

3. As Tom Friedman described in a New York Times column earlier this year, Iran is a country that “regularly holds sort-of-free elections” where “women vote, hold office, are the majority of its university students, and are fully integrated in the work force” and whose residents “were among the very few in the Muslim world to hold spontaneous pro-U.S. demonstrations” on September 11, 2001. Friedman is correct in his observation that, “the hostility between Iran and the United States since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 is not organic. By dint of culture, history and geography, we actually have a lot of interests in common with Iran’s people.”

4. Iran has cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan to help the Afghans establish a new government after the Taliban was ousted. Iran continues to invest heavily in the reconstruction of western Afghanistan.

5. Iran is not monolithic. Iran is governed by competing centers of power. The President and the parliament — known as the Majles — are elected. But it is the Supreme Council, led by the Supreme Leader (currently Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) who serves as the Commander in Chief and has formal authority over Iran’s armed forces and foreign policy. Ayatollah Khamenei has the power to dismiss Iran’s President. A separate elected body — the Assembly of Experts — selects… and has the power to dismiss… the Supreme Leader. Yet another body — the Council of Guardians — screens presidential and parliamentary candidates, and reviews laws passed by the Majles. A third body — the Expediency Council — arbitrates disputes between the Council of Guardians and the Majles. Finally, the principal government and clerical officials from all of these entities have a seat on the Supreme National Security Council.

Power and influence in Iran evolve and shift… and are difficult to understand. Supreme Leader Khamenei did not support President Ahmadinejad’s presidential bid. In December 2006, Ahmadinejad’s supporters suffered major defeats in elections for municipal councils and the Assembly of Experts. Last month, an Iranian newspaper owned by Ayatollah Khamenei admonished Ahmadinejad to remove himself from the nuclear issue.

6. Two-thirds of Iran’s population is under the age of 30. Iran is undergoing a generational shift that will shape Iran’s outlook… and its opinions of the United States… for decades to come. Iran’s young people use the internet in large numbers, wear American jeans, listen to American music and are positive about America and the West. We do not want to lose this pro-American generation by turning them away from us. They are the hope of Iran. They bristle

under the heavy yoke of the Ayatollahs’ strident limitations of personal freedom.

7. The United States and Iran do not know one another. This unfamiliarity, distrust, and lack of engagement risks producing disastrous consequences. When countries do not engage, the risk of misperception based on faulty judgments spawns uninformed and dangerous decisions…

The United States must be cautious and wise not to follow the same destructive path on Iran as we did on Iraq. We blundered into Iraq because of flawed intelligence, flawed assumptions, flawed judgments, and questionable intentions.

8. The United States must find a new regional diplomatic strategy to deal with Iran that integrates our regional allies, military power and economic leverage… As the 2006 Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq concluded, “The United States should engage directly with Iran and Syria in order to try to obtain their commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues.”

9. Our refusal to recognize Iran’s influence does not decrease its influence, but rather increases it. Engagement creates dialogue and opportunities to identify common interests, demonstrate America’s strengths, as well as make clear disagreements. Diplomacy is an essential tool in world affairs, using it where possible to ratchet down the pressure of conflict and increase the leverage of strength… Last month, Dr. Abbas Milani, the co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institute, testified before the House Foreign Relations Committee, saying:

“The U.S. should offer to negotiate with Iran on all the outstanding issues. Comprehensive negotiations are not a ‘grand bargain.’ Instead such negotiations can offer [Iran’s leaders] powerful inducements, such as a lifting of the economic embargo and even establishing diplomatic ties. But contrary to the ‘grand bargain’ suggestion, central to such negotiations must be the issue of the human rights of the Iranian people. Contrary to the masses of nearly all other Muslim nations, and contrary to the declining popularity of the U.S. in the world, Iranian people are favorably disposed towards the United States. An offer of serious, frank discussions with the regime on all of these issues will, regardless of whether the regime accepts or rejects the offer, be a win-win situation for the United States, for the Iranian democrats and for the existing U.N. coalition against the regime’s adventurism.”

There will be no stability in the Middle East until the broader interests of Iran, the region and the world are addressed.

10. The United States must be resolute and clear-headed in our dealings with Iran… We must be clear that our objections are to the actions of the Iranian government… not the Iranian people. Our decisions to deploy a second carrier battlegroup and other military assets into the Persian Gulf, as well as the decision to target Iranian military assistance flowing into Iraq, should be coupled with a clear and credible commitment to diplomatically engage Iran. America must have a strategic and comprehensive Middle East framework of resolution, using all the levers of influence available to the U.S. and its allies.

11. [We must] find new and imaginative ways to reach out to the Iranian people. Part of that initiative could be offering to re-open a consulate in Tehran… not formal diplomatic relations… but a Consulate… to help encourage and facilitate people-to-people exchange. All nations of Europe and most of our allies in the Middle East and Asia have diplomatic relations with Iran.

The failure of Iran to comply with the U.N. Security Council deadline to halt its uranium enrichment activities should be an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm and expand the international consensus to address Iran’s nuclear program. The will of the international community gives credibility to its demands of Iran.

12. Today, some of America’s own actions are undermining the very interests that we must protect and advance in the Middle East. A recent poll conducted by Zogby International in the countries of Arab allies… Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates… found that only 12 percent expressed favorable attitudes toward the United States. As Washington Post writer David Ignatius observed when covering a conference in Doha, Qatar, this past winter, “It isn’t a tiny handful of people in the Arab world who oppose what America is doing. It’s nearly everyone.”