Iran is Test of IAEA Relevance, Gingrich Says

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Talks over Iran’s nuclear programs should be seen as a test of the relevance of the International Atomic Energy Agency as a forum for handling such problems, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 15).

The failure of a U.S. bid to send the Iran case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions over Tehran’s alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, would indicate the nuclear agency is unable to take even minimal steps to address pressing crises, Gingrich told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

The nuclear agency’s Board of Governors meets next week at its Vienna headquarters in the latest in a two-year series of meetings focusing on the Iran impasse. At its last meeting in September, the board found that Iran was not complying with its nonproliferation commitments, a step needed to begin a sequence of events the Bush administration believes is required to end with a Security Council referral.

“The IAEA should see itself as being under test next week, not the United States,” said Gingrich, who is now a chairman of the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Task Force on the United Nations.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded last month to the U.N. nuclear watchdog and to its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has been widely seen as strengthening the agency’s hand in resisting U.S. pressure and seeking a diplomatic solution to the Iran standoff.

Gingrich said sanctions are unlikely to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, since such measures tend to strengthen tyrannical governments and encourage corruption. Short of a “naval blockade,” he said, “countries don’t collapse” because of economic penalties.

“We’ve had sanctions against [Cuban President] Fidel Castro since 1960. We had sanctions against [toppled Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein for years,” the Georgia Republican told the Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security Subcommittee.

The Iran case presents the world with two options, Gingrich said: potentially “lose Tel Aviv and Jerusalem” by allowing a “genocidal, homicidal regime” in Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon — a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remark last month that Israel should be “wiped off the map” — or “replace the regime.” A “simple, small first step” toward the second option, he said, would be to suspend Iranian membership in the United Nations.

Fellow conservatives on the subcommittee and among the witnesses at the hearing echoed Gingrich’s calls for a hard line with Iran.

Subcommittee Chairman Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) expressed alarm at Ahmadinejad’s comments on Israel, which Tehran has since sought to temper.

“There should be no doubt that Iran isn’t just blustering here. Iran has a history of carrying out its threats,” Coburn said. The United States should pursue “regime change” in Iran, he said, because “democracies tend not to threaten other democracies.”

Former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey told the subcommittee a “major expansion of our own armed forces” is needed in response to the Iranian threat.

Woolsey, now a vice president with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, warned against a policy of “appeasement” akin to some European countries’ reactions to the rise of Nazism in Germany. He said Iran would have a nuclear weapon in “extremely short order” if it obtained the necessary material.

“I think the Iranian intent is crystal clear to any objective observer,” Woolsey said.

Woolsey expressed hope that the United States would not have to use force against Iran but added, “I’m afraid … that with respect to this regime, regime change is the only option.”

U.S. President George W. Bush’s description of groups such as al-Qaeda as “Islamofascists” does not go far enough to describe the Iranian president, Woolsey said.

“That is not severe enough for Ahmadinejad, because the Italian Fascists, while terrible, were not genocidal, were not explicitly genocidal, while Ahmadinejad is genocidal,” Woolsey said.

Others at the hearing advocated stronger diplomatic and economic measures to try to change Iran’s plans.

Former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) called for a policy of “constrictive engagement” with Iran in which countries would work together to tighten or loosen economic penalties, according to Tehran’s nuclear conduct.

“It’s very easy to say, ‘We’ll just bring about regime change,’” said D’Amato, but “what policies will we undertake to bring about regime change? … I don’t think the American people are willing at this point to say, ‘Let’s go to war. Let’s bomb them.’”

Former White House nonproliferation adviser Gary Samore said Iran has been making only “tactical concessions” in its dealings with the nuclear agency and called Russia and China, which have resisted sending Iran to the Security Council, the keys to more tangible progress.

“The challenge is to mobilize strong international support for [uranium] enrichment as a red line, having already failed to enforce [uranium] conversion [activities] as the trigger for referral,” said Samore, vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Russia and China “basically … do not want to be dragged into a confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program, which could jeopardize their relations with Iran as well as their overall relations with the U.S. and European powers,” Samore said. “We need to convince Moscow and Beijing that the best way to avoid a crisis is to convince Iran not to aggravate the situation by resuming enrichment. That requires a strong warning by Russia and China to Iran not to expect protection if Iran decides to breach the enrichment red line.”

Council on Foreign Relations Middle East Studies Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh called for engagement with Iran, warning that U.S. belligerence would strengthen the hand of the country’s hard-liners generally and with respect to the need for a nuclear weapon. He called for using “soft power,” including “cultural exchanges, academic scholarships and a more relaxed visa policy,” as well as relaxing economic sanctions.

“By integrating Iran into the global economy, the U.S. can generate internal pressures for transparency and decentralization that will press Iran toward a more responsible international conduct,” Takeyh said.

Although Iran is now governed by its right wing, reforms over the last decade have made it “impossible for Iran to become a rigid, authoritarian state,” Takeyh said.

“Iran’s democratic transition must come on its own terms and at its own pace,” Takeyh said. “Iran will change.  However, this will not be a change imposed or accelerated from abroad.”

“It is neither inevitable nor absolute that Iran will become the next member of the nuclear club,” he added, “as its internal debates are real and its course of actions is still unsettled.”

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