Khalilzad’s cautious optimism

Iran sanctions still on?

Marjorie Miller: It seems like the prospects for tougher sanctions are a little bit dimmer at this point (since the release of a National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, undermining the Bush administration's claims that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat).

Zalmay Khalilzad: We'll have to see. Of course, as you know the NIE dealt with the covert military program, which as a footnote of the NIE said…the definition of the program talked about the work on the design of the weapon and work on how the weapon can fit on top of a missile and some uranium processing. But a nuclear weapon system has got the fissile material, whether uranium or plutonium, you've got the warhead issues, the design of the bomb, and then you've got the delivery. And what the NIE said with high confidence was that they were covertly and in an undeclared way in violation of the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], working on a bomb….

That they've stopped, which we think is positive…. It was done in the context of moving Iraq at that time, in the context of what Libya did. And it was fearful it was going to be discovered. So it stopped, which is good. But the work on the fuel part and the missile part continues….

The same sort of pressure and talking to them could produce, we hope, a similar change in their approach here. Now, I'll have to wait and see frankly what my colleagues [think], I'll have to negotiate this. It will take a lot of my time in the coming weeks. But I'm going to make the case the way I've described it to you, that we welcome that. That now we have come to a judgment with regard to the program, but they need to deal with this problem, suspension.

Jim Newton: I assume that's a particularly hard sell with Russians and the Chinese? Zalmay Khalilzad: We will see. I just saw today in your paper or one of the other papers that Mr. [Russian President Vladimir V.] Putin saw Mr. [Saeed] Jalili, who is the new negotiator [for Iran], and the foreign minister was quoting from that meeting and that Putin said they need to comply with the Security Council and suspend their enrichment program.

I'm not trying to say it's going to be easy. No. But I feel that I can make a case for this two-track approach: pressure, willingness to talk…. They need to suspend, as demanded by two security council resolutions….

They do worry about pressure. They do worry about being isolated. So that we can diplomatically come to an agreement with them.… It will be much harder to get to that point if we don't work together with the Chinese and the Russians. If the Iranians can play one of us against each other, I think it will be a lot tougher. But I don't think the Russians want them to have nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons capability. So therefore, while it's going to be tough, I'm cautiously optimistic that we can get something.

Marjorie Miller: But they don't want tougher sanctions because they don't want to lose the business.

Zalmay Khalilzad: That's the dilemma of sanctions, of course: For sanctions to be effective, they need to be broadly supported and be painful. That's unfortunately the reality….

But they know that this is very important. I don't think any of them would like Iran to have nuclear weapons. That's one thing. Two, they know that this important for us. The Europeans are much more focused on this then they were on Iraq, for instance. Also, we're all dependent on the Middle East, the Chinese, the Europeans, everyone. We don't want to destabilize this region. Imagine if Iran gets nuclear weapons or gets closer. Other countries in the region will also want to. The region is dysfunctional enough already. Add nuclear weapons, several nuclear powers in the middle of this is something that none of us would want….

Iran is a rising power. It wants regional preeminence or hegemony. Iran has a self-image that it is a special country. A number of others have it, too…but they belong to that group with a sense of self, of history and civilization. I benefited from Persian civilization myself. I was born in Afghanistan, and I know Persian literature very well. They have dominated that region at times in history. They are the biggest country in the Gulf, largest population. So they think there are some things they are entitled to. Maybe some of them think nuclear weapons are part of that….

Jim Newton: Critics of the Iraq war have spent years beating up on the intelligence that the administration used to justify the invasion, and now we have the spectacle of conservatives and those who believe Iran should be addressed militarily criticizing the intelligence with respect to Iran. Is a legacy of this administration a bi-partisan discrediting of American intelligence capability?

Zalmay Khalilzad: Well, people shouldn't be surprised. It's not just during this administration that we've had this intelligence issue…. You can go back to Truman and the analysis of the Soviet Union.

This is not a partisan issue. You wish you had perfect information, and you don't. Often information is contradictory. People try to deceive you. You try not to fall into that trap, but sometimes, perhaps one does. I am surprised that people are surprised that we run into this problem every now and then.

We were shocked by what happened in Iran before the Revolution. President Carter a few months before the revolution was visiting Iran and said "This is an island of stability." Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — President Carter said it was the most surprising thing. I could go on.

This is a hard business. People can conceal their true intentions or their activities from adversaries.

Marjorie Miller: So, what do you think about this estimate? Do you think it's closer to the truth?