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75–021 PDF 2012

S. HRG. 112–474

HIGH STAKES AND HARD CHOICES:

U.S. POLICY ON IRAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 28, 2012

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

WILLIAM C. DANVERS, Staff Director

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Cartwright, Gen. James E., former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, Washington, DC ......................................................................................... 14

Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, opening statement ..... 1

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement ........... 3

Pickering, Hon. Thomas R., Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs 

and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Washington, DC .......... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9

Sadjadpour, Karim, senior associate, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC ................................................ 17

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19

(III)

(1)

HIGH STAKES AND HARD CHOICES:

U.S. POLICY ON IRAN 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Kerry, Menendez, Webb, Shaheen, Lugar, 

Corker, and Risch. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,

U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

Good morning. Thank you all for being here with us this morning. This is an important hearing on a timely subject. 

Iran, I think it is safe to say, presents the biggest foreign policy 

challenge facing the United States and others at this moment in 

time. There are many facets to this particular issue—decades of 

mutual antagonism, Iran’s support for terrorism, a deep-seated regional sectarian rivalry. But also their perceptions of U.S. involvement in the region, the unresolved Mideast peace process, which 

contributes or at least provides certainly an excuse for many in the 

region. 

And of course, front and center is Iran’s nuclear enrichment and 

reprocessing program, which continues despite best efforts of the 

international community, the International Atomic Energy Agency, 

and the U.N. Security Council to confirm its represented, purported 

peaceful interests. 

According to American intelligence officials, obviously, there are 

serious questions that remain about whether Iran has, or has not, 

made a decision with respect to nuclear weapons. But based on 

abundant evidence, there is little reason to doubt our intelligence 

community’s assessment that Iran is developing various nuclear 

capabilities, technologies that better position it should it choose to 

build or break out to a nuclear weapon. 

In response, the Obama administration has worked with a broad 

international coalition to assemble an unprecedented sanctions 

regime. The administration is now implementing new legislation 

requiring countries to significantly reduce Iranian crude purchases 

or risk being cut off from the U.S. financial system. 

The European Union has banned new oil import contracts with 

Iran and will end all preexisting contracts by July 1. And most 

2

recently, Swift, the Belgian cooperative that manages the world’s 

financial transfer network, announced that Iranian banks will no 

longer have access to the system. 

Collectively, these steps are having, to the best of people’s knowledge, significant effect on the Iranian economy, and they make it 

increasingly difficult for Iran to sell oil and obtain hard currency. 

I think certainly this pressure has affected Iran’s nuclear program, 

but it hasn’t yet achieved compliance with the international community’s nuclear program requirements. 

I believe the reality is that sanctions alone are highly unlikely 

to simply create a spontaneous Iranian decision to moderate their 

nuclear program. I think it is going to take diplomacy, and it is 

going to take some level of understanding about mutual interests. 

The President has rightly and repeatedly said that all options 

are on the table. And I personally do not think anybody should 

doubt the President’s resolve regarding this. 

The prospect of a military confrontation gives next month’s P5+1 

meeting added urgency. Even at this late date, a coordinated strategy of pressure and diplomacy gives us, I think, the best chance of 

avoiding conflict, which I think is in everybody’s interests if it is 

possible. 

So we must engage in hard-nosed diplomacy that affects or offers 

Iran a strategic choice—to continue to push forward in defiance of 

international norms as an outlier facing crippling economic sanctions and the possibility of a military confrontation, or embrace the 

opportunity of a new Mideast of publicly certifying the legitimacy 

of what it has already insisted is a civilian program by fully cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency under a comprehensive inspection regime and thereby rejoin the mainstream of 

the community of nations. 

I would comment parenthetically that there is a long history of 

our involvement going back to the 1950s and plenty of reasons for 

people in that part of the world to have their own suspicions. And 

it is important for us also to be thoughtful about how we can proceed forward here in the most effective way. 

After more than three decades of hostility, it is certainly not realistic to expect that one high-level meeting is going to resolve all the 

differences or erase all of those decades, years of either misunderstanding or mistrust or actions by one or the other that exacerbate 

that mistrust. To have any prospect of success, we need an approach that gives diplomatic engagement space to breathe without 

creating delay and certainly without being drawn into a drawn-out 

process that reduces the options for Israel or for other countries 

with respect to potential breakout. 

That is the challenge. The challenge is to find a solution that is 

acceptable to both sides but also gives the international community 

confidence that Iran neither has the capacity nor the desire to 

make a mad dash to nuclear weapons. 

To help us sort through these challenges, we have, I think, an 

excellent panel of witnesses. First, we will hear from Ambassador 

Tom Pickering. Maybe I should say Secretary Tom Pickering, one 

of our most capable and experienced diplomats. 

He is a former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, but 

he has also served remarkably as Ambassador to the United 

3

Nations, Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan. I 

don’t know if I left anything out there, Tom. That is an extraordinary portfolio by anybody’s standards, and it is a delight to have 

his experience and wisdom here. 

Then we will also hear from Gen. James Cartwright. ‘‘Hoss,’’ as 

he was called and is called, retired last year after 40 years of service in the Marine Corps. His last assignment was as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he previously served as Commander of STRATCOM. 

And last, we will hear from Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, and Karim is certainly one of 

our leading experts on Iran, an important voice in this discussion. 

And we welcome all three of you back to the committee. 

Senator Lugar. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,

U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA 

Senator LUGAR. Well, I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for 

scheduling this very important hearing, and I join you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses. 

I hope that their insights will give us a better understanding of 

the impact of United States policy and the efforts of the international community in confronting the Iranian threat. 

As a personal aside, as I see Ambassador Pickering, I am reminded of his rescue of Senator Sam Nunn and me from problems 

at the Moscow airport, but that is a long story. I appreciate it, 

nonetheless. 

And likewise, Karim Sadjadpour has been so helpful at our congressional Aspen Institute conferences in which we have discussed 

Iran. He has brought his insights, together with 20 members of 

both houses, and we appreciate that. 

I said at our last hearing in December on Iran that Iran was a 

direct threat to United States national security, the security of our 

close ally Israel, and other United States interests in the region. 

That situation persists today. Iranian intransigence toward fulfilling its international obligations with respect to its nuclear program continues. 

Iran’s parliamentary elections on March 2 were boycotted by opposition candidates and reformers, and the election results appear 

to embolden Iran’s hard-liners. Even as its isolation grows, little 

has changed in Iran. 

Democratic movements across the Middle East and North Africa 

gave voice to the demands for democratic pluralism and respect for 

the rule of law and human rights, but the Iranian regime continues 

its brutal repression of journalists, political activists, students, and 

trade unionists. 

Moreover, it continues its persecution of Christian pastor, Yousef 

Nadarkhani, who faces execution because of his religious beliefs. 

Iran’s support for the regime in Syria, where the death toll has 

surpassed 8,000 people, has enabled President Assad to pursue his 

deadly campaign of attacks against the Syrian people. 

Outside Iran, the political posture of many of Iran’s neighbors 

has changed and with it, perhaps, their inclination to respond

4

to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability by seeking their own 

weapons. 

Four years ago, I commissioned a staff report entitled ‘‘Chain 

Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East,’’ to 

assess the risks of nuclear proliferation in this volatile region 

should Iran get a nuclear weapon. It reviewed the history of nuclear proliferation and focused on three countries—Saudi Arabia, 

Egypt, and Turkey. 

That report expressed grave concerns about a Middle East arms 

race, and I will be interested to learn our witnesses’ views on this 

proliferation dynamic. 

In order to confront the threat posed by Iran to our national 

security, our interests in the region, and the security of Israel, I 

continue to believe that our challenge lies in the achievement of an 

international consensus that presents the Iranian regime with the 

plain choice between pursuing its nuclear weapons program or preserving the economic viability of the country. 

In December, the Senate unanimously passed an amendment to 

the Defense Authorization Act sanctioning those institutions doing 

business with the Central Bank of Iran, which lies at the center 

of Iran’s efforts to circumvent multilateral sanctions. I am hopeful 

about reports suggesting that these and other sanctions are beginning to bite. I am also encouraged by the news that certain European Union countries and Japan have significantly reduced their 

crude oil imports from Iran, and that the United States and its 

international partners are working with other importing countries 

to further cut off the Iranian regime’s lifeblood derived from its oil 

revenues. 

I have repeatedly urged the Obama administration to lessen our 

own need for foreign oil imports by permitting such things as the 

construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. Although 

the United States imports no oil directly from Iran, the more nonIranian oil on the global oil market, the more there is for others 

seeking alternatives to Iran’s crude. 

The Energy Department says Keystone would help lower gas 

prices for Americans, and it would give the United States more 

flexibility in a crisis. All options in the Iranian crisis remain on the 

table. 

The fundamental question for United States policymakers is 

whether a sanctions regime can be imposed that will verifiably stop 

Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Can we say that sanctions are 

having the intended effect of inducing change in Iran’s behavior? 

I’ll be interested to hear our witnesses address this question 

because it is, I believe, the fundamental issue. If a cornerstone of 

our current policy is sanctions, it seems to me incumbent to ask: 

Are they working and are they being used to good effect? 

I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you, Senator Lugar. 

I appreciate the participation of everybody. 

And Mr. Secretary, you are on. All the full statements will be 

placed in the record as if read in full, and we welcome your 

testimony. 

5

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. PICKERING, FORMER UNDER 

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS AND 

FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Ambassador PICKERING. Thank you very much, Chairman Kerry 

and Senator Lugar and members of the committee. 

It is a great pleasure to be back and, indeed, an honor and privilege for me to be asked today to testify on this most important 

issue, as you have described it. I thank you for your invitation. 

It is also an honor and a privilege for me to join General Cartwright and Karim Sadjadpour, both of whom I admire and respect 

and both of whom I believe will have very important contributions 

as well to make. 

My hope is to use my prepared testimony as a basis to address 

three issues regarding Iran and the United States, which I believe 

are responsive to a number of points in your opening statements. 

First, what do we know about Iran’s nuclear program and its evolution? Second, what is the current diplomatic situation, and what 

might we expect? And third, what options are available to us and 

my recommendations in that regard. 

My career has been in diplomacy. I will, therefore, focus my time 

and attention to that aspect of the subject. 

Let me begin by saying that the Iran nuclear program is not a 

new device. It began under the Shah and, indeed, we had concerns 

that under the Shah the program was much broader in its future 

intent than a civil nuclear program. 

When the revolution came in 1979, that program was terminated 

by the incoming government. After the attack of Iraq on Iran and 

the long 8-year war, Iran showed new interest in a program. 

Among other things, it purchased a civil power reactor from Germany, the delivery and construction of which was shut off by the 

United States. 

It then went to the Russians, who made a deal consistent with 

proliferation that the fuel would be provided by Russia and then 

Russia would take back the spent fuel to do everything possible to 

assure there would be no plutonium route to a bomb. 

Subsequent to that, Iran got very interested in enrichment, seeking, as it said, to provide itself with the possibility of assuring its 

own future needs, even though it had a one-reactor program where 

the fuel was provided by Russia. 

Iran now has something on the order of 6,000 to 9,000 centrifuges, enriching in the main to the 3.5 percent low-enriched uranium requirement for civil power reactors. It has an additional 

small set of centrifuges enriching to 20 percent in order to provide, 

in their view, the necessary fuel for a research reactor originally 

provided by the United States, which makes medical isotopes. 

The upgrading of Iranian enrichment capability is worrying, as 

well as the accumulation of a large amount of low-enriched uranium, which, were there to be a breakout effort, would probably be 

detected but would certainly give them something of a head start. 

And there are various estimates about how long it would take. 

The conclusion that I reach—but I believe it is a conclusion reflected by a number of others, including the United States Government, Israel, and, indeed, Iranian friends—is that Iran is attemptVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:38 Jul 27, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\HEARIN~1\112THC~2\2012IS~1\032812-G.TXT BETTY
6

ing to put itself in a position to know enough about technology and 

have enough equipment that were it to make a decision to make 

a nuclear weapon, it would be able to do so. 

I think the other important point is that the U.S. intelligence 

judgments recently reaffirmed by General Clapper seem to continue to indicate that Iran has not made a decision to make a 

nuclear weapon. 

Let me now turn to diplomacy. In recent days, diplomacy has 

quickened in terms of its possibilities. Some weeks ago, Iran invited the P5+1, the European three—Britain, France, Germany—

Russia, China, and the United States, to resume negotiations on its 

nuclear program. It did so in a fairly straightforward way compared to past efforts. 

Recently, the P5+1 has responded positively, and as you know, 

overnight the information was published that the talks will take 

place in Istanbul on April 14. Leading into the talks, there have 

been two or three interesting developments that I think are worth 

looking at in terms of trying to read the tea leaves. 

Not only was there the invitation to the talks, there was more 

Iranian cooperation, I understand, with the IAEA and efforts to 

clear up the past. More significantly, the famous fatwa in Iran 

against making nuclear weapons was reissued by the Supreme 

Leader in terms that for the first time in my knowledge actually 

mentioned nuclear weapons. 

And the Supreme Leader took notice in his blog site, whatever 

that may be, of the President’s recent speech to AIPAC and did so 

positively. These may or may not be significant. We will have to 

wait and see. 

It is also true that the President in his speech to AIPAC made 

something of a serious point, and I am grateful for it, that diplomacy was a choice for him to move ahead for the future. That 

means we are on the verge of new talks. 

Past talks have suffered, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, because they have been a series of one-night stands. Meetings that took place over 1 day, where one side or the other, either 

Iran or the United States, had a proposal, and the other side 

rejected it. They went away and then spent another 6 to 8 months 

negotiating a resumption of talks. 

Happily, Catherine Ashton, who speaks for the P5+1 in recent 

days, has said the intention on our side, if I can call it that, is to 

open the door to a negotiating process which lasts more than 1 day 

and, hopefully, will have some continuation to address not only 

what issues are not acceptable, but how they might be made 

acceptable through a negotiating process. That is important. 

Let me now briefly run through the options that I feel are out 

there for us and for Iran for the future. The first might be a throwaway option, but it is not an insignificant option to some. That is 

the question of whether we just sit back and let Iran proliferate. 

Perhaps that may be a form of containment. Perhaps it is not. 

I feel it is not a good option. It puts down the tools that we have 

now put ourselves in place to use through sanctions to assist in 

opening to diplomacy. It condemns us to perhaps a stark choice 

between permitting proliferation to take place and using military 

force. 

7

Not only that, further proliferation in the region I think is a significant possibility if Iran proliferates. The more proliferation we 

have, the more chance there is for the use of a weapon either 

through accident, miscalculation, or design. That is not the world 

we want for us or for the future, and I would say that others in 

the region, including Iran, need to think very carefully about that. 

The second option is military force. There have been volumes 

written on this. My sense is, without going into all the details, that 

the risks that we and others would take, including Israel, are far 

more significant than the advantages we might achieve. And the 

general assumption is that an advantage of setting back the program for several years would be a useful justification. 

I don’t agree with that. I think that it is, in my view, a seriously 

flawed approach, particularly now when we haven’t exhausted the 

other options, including diplomacy. 

I would only say two or three things about the military option. 

It has a very high propensity, in my view, of driving Iran into the 

direction of openly declaring and deciding, which it has not yet 

done, according to our intelligence, to make a nuclear weapon 

seemingly to defend itself under what might look to them and 

others to be an unprovoked attack. 

Iran has great possibilities for asymmetrical reactions, including 

against Israel through Hezbollah and Hamas, who have accumulated a large number of missiles. And we can go on from there, including the potential vulnerabilities of Americans overseas to 

asymmetrical reposts and the fact that were that to happen, one 

option for us would be a larger, more engaged, more significant allout attack on Iran to try to stop such attacks against Americans. 

It is a series of potential escalatory possibilities that puts us 

deep in the potential for another land war in Asia, something I 

think that we have spent the last number of years trying to get out 

of. 

The next to the last option is sanctions. You and others have described it. I believe, quite frankly and very succinctly, that sanctions without an open door to a process to exploit the value of those 

sanctions in the diplomatic arena is a mistake. Expecting, in fact, 

that through the escalation of sanctions, Iran will, like the Marxist 

famous ripe plum, drop into our laps—that Iran will accept any 

particular alternative we have in mind—is certainly in the dream 

world rather than reality. 

But I do very much believe that sanctions—and there is a whole 

panoply of these—can be very helpful in moving us into a diplomatic direction. And then that raises the question of diplomacy. 

Now let me say just two or three things again about the importance of diplomacy. And hopefully, you will want to explore some 

of this as we go ahead. 

Diplomacy, in my view, is a question of timing. Timing is very 

significant. Timing ought to take advantage of sanctions, but it 

ought to move the process when seemingly the other side, through 

its invitation, is ready. 

It also ought to enjoy the opportunity to move before we have 

exhausted all of our sanctions because that is throwing away our 

future leverage to affect the outcome of diplomacy if we, in fact, 

8

continue to wait. We don’t have an unlimited time, but we have 

some time for diplomacy to work. 

The second question is how should we start? Very frankly there 

is on the table already an Iranian proposal which is very simple, 

but potentially a good starting place. That proposal would, in effect, 

commit Iran to cease enriching uranium to 20 percent if we, on our 

side of the fence, the P5+1, were prepared to help them obtain the 

fuel for the research reactor that makes medical isotopes. 

To me, this is a good starting place. It is a good starting place 

for a number of reasons. It is a proposal on the table. It is a simple 

proposal, and it is one that could be accomplished at coming meetings at Istanbul, in my judgment. 

It might be followed by other steps and stages. And I want to say 

two things here about those. A follow-on step that would be germane and relevant would, in effect, be to take the original Iranian 

proposal, once agreed, and turn it into a cap on enrichment in Iran 

at 5 percent, which basically accommodates their stated intention 

to have fuel for future nuclear reactors but, on the other hand, 

keeps them from escalating enrichment up the line toward weapons 

grade. 

The second piece would be to take the accumulated 20 percent 

material which they have, something around 100 kilograms, and 

use that to be turned over in exchange for the turnover to them 

of the fabricated fuel elements to make the reactor function. And 

perhaps this deal at that stage could be enriched by a freeze, not 

a cessation, but a freeze, on several of the important sanctions—

those perhaps on the Central Bank of Iran and those that relate 

to a stop in European purchases of crude oil. 

Beyond that, I will say only that other steps and stages might 

take advantage of two very important objectives that are significant for Iran. One is to do everything we can to strengthen and 

improve and, indeed, embed International Atomic Energy Agency 

monitoring in Iran. 

It is the one way we have to demonstrate and, indeed, control an 

Iranian program at the time which they may seek, either clandestinely or otherwise, to achieve a breakout. In regard to that, for a 

long time, I have personally advocated that we then should be willing to put on the table a positive response to Iran’s interest in 

enriching material for civil purposes only—that is, below the 5 percent threshold. 

And I would add to that that we should continue to insist that 

an accumulation of such material be under safeguards and perhaps 

moved out of Iran if it is above any current need which they have. 

Finally, I think an endgame for diplomacy would, importantly, 

have four elements. A full commitment on the part of Iran to stay 

completely away from bombmaking, if I can put it that way. Second, a full inspection system that would have the maximum capability both to control and deter that. In return, permission for Iran 

to enrich below the threshold of 5 percent and, second, the gradual 

removal of sanctions on Iran. 

One final point, Mr. Chairman. There are other issues nonnuclear, as you and Senator Lugar have pointed out, between the 

United States, the Western countries, and Iran. They need to be 

addressed, perhaps outside of the nuclear framework. But they can 

9

help to improve relationships and, indeed, build on early progress, 

which I hope will be achieved in the nuclear area. 

They relate to the futures of countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, 

where we share some common interests, but they also relate to 

questions of Iranian preoccupation with drugs and, indeed, our preoccupation with Iranian support for terrorism, for violations of 

human rights, and for Iranian objections to and steps taken in the 

past against the Middle East peace process. 

We have an opportunity now, Mr. Chairman, to move ahead. Not 

too long ago, an Iranian friend of mine who had played an important role in Iranian foreign policy over the years told me, ‘‘The historical record shows that every time we have been ready, you have 

not been. And every time you have been ready, we have not been.’’ 

Maybe we can emerge from that position of the past to begin with 

some small things that we can use to find a way to pull the curves 

of mutual interest together rather than to have them continue to 

bend apart. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Pickering follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS PICKERING

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is an honor and a privilege to 

be asked to testify this morning on one of the most important issues of the day. I 

thank you for your invitation. It is also an honor to join General Cartwright and 

Karim Sadjadpour, both of whom I admire and respect. 

My hope is to use my prepared testimony to address three issues regarding Iran 

and the United States: 

(1) What do we know about Iran’s nuclear program and its evolution? 

(2) What is the current diplomatic situation and what might we expect? 

(3) What options are available to us? 

My career has been in diplomacy. I will therefore focus most of my time and 

attention to that subject. 

THE NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Let me begin by saying Iran was interested in nuclear questions at the time of 

the Shah. He started a large program. Indeed, the Shah was responsible for articulating a program to build 20 civil power reactors which has now been readopted by 

the present, revolutionary government. There were many of us who had suspicions 

that the Shah—much as Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan in those days—was interested in objectives beyond the civil program. But, out of deference to the Shah and 

his position in the world and his influence, the United States asked fewer questions 

than it should have. 

When the Islamic revolution came in 1979, interestingly enough, the new regime 

called off the Shah’s nuclear program. The new regime set a firm policy—a fatwa 

or Islamic ruling—that nuclear bombs are un-Islamic and forbidden. And, interestingly enough, the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, within the last few weeks has 

repeated that particular fatwa, which at the moment appears to be from his perspective a binding attribute of Iranian policy. 

After the Iraqi attack against Iran in the early 1980s, the long 8-year war, and 

much attention to Iraqi nuclear developments, we saw evidence that the Iranians 

began to reconsider their nuclear program. By the 1990s, the United States had a 

concern about a reactor at Bushehr the Iranians bought from Germany and we succeeded in persuading Germany to cancel the deal. Then Iran sought Russian support to build the reactor. 

The Russians have a continuing policy that they will build reactors overseas, but 

only on the basis that they provide the fuel and take back the spent fuel. Since civil 

light water nuclear power reactors produce plutonium in the spent fuel, it is important that the spent fuel route to a nuclear weapon, at least with respect to the Russian-built Bushehr reactor, has been closed for now by the Russian policy and by 

its long term contract with Iran. 

At the time of the new deal with Russia on Bushehr, Iran became interested in 

enrichment. Enrichment of uranium is, of course, important for civil power reactors, 

10

but that requires a very low level of enrichment, 3.5 to 5 percent. Any enrichment 

level above that raises suspicion because it begins to point toward moving to much 

higher levels, around 90 percent, which makes uranium capable of being fissioned 

in a bomb. So the United States became worried about Iranian intentions regarding 

enriching uranium. 

At the same time, in the late 1990s, the United States learned that at least some 

Iranians in the atomic establishment made a deal with Mr. A.Q. Khan from Pakistan. Iran bought, according to the description by some Iranians, material to build 

a uranium enrichment capacity. Some Iranians claim that they did not know what 

they had acquired from A.Q Kahn but they paid a great deal of money for it. 

It turned out the Iranians acquired materials that helped them develop their enrichment program. Iran apparently bought a schematic plan for a nuclear weapon 

that appears to have Chinese origins and perhaps additional material. 

That particular set of efforts went ahead until 2003. Without trying to judge why, 

in 2003 Iran apparently made a conscious decision not to continue activities that 

would, in effect, constitute a committed program to make nuclear weapons. 

Since then, we believe that the Iranian posture essentially has been to try to develop technology and perhaps equipment that would put them in a position to be 

able to make a decision to move to a nuclear weapon, but they have not decided 

to develop a nuclear weapon. That conclusion seems to be a widely shared view in 

the U.S. Government and reportedly in Israel. It parallels some Iranian explanations of its own program. 

In the meantime, I would say the following about the Iranian program: They have 

around 6,000–9,000 centrifuges. The bulk of those are enriching to the civil nuclear 

reactor scale, 3.5 percent, at the underground facility at Natanz. They are storing 

the low enriched uranium (LEU) material because Iran has no current use for it. 

This storage of growing quantities of LEU is another of the reasons why the United 

States has had serious questions about Iran’s civil nuclear program. It could constitute a basis for a ‘‘breakout’’ by moving it into higher levels of enrichment for 

a weapon. 

Second, a few years ago, Iran decided to start enriching uranium to 20 percent 

because it has a research reactor in Tehran, which the United States supplied to 

the Shah. The Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) is used for making medical isotopes 

(isotopes used, for example, in cancer treatments). Iran had run out of fuel for that 

reactor which consists of fuel elements of 20 percent enriched uranium. So they 

started enriching to 20 percent. Iran now has accumulated approximately 100 kilograms of 20 percent material, and approximately 3–4 tons of LEU (3.5 percent) now 

in Iraq, on which if they did further enrichment work, would put them in a position 

to have material for two, three, or four nuclear weapons They would then need to 

develop the capacity to fabricate that material into a usable weapon that could be 

effectively delivered for it to have a military use—a process that might take several 

years. They have also developed and begun testing at least one trial fuel element 

for the TRR. 

Iran has also started a plutonium-based program. They have a (40 MW) research 

reactor at Arak which could be used to produce plutonium. But that plant is not 

now functioning; it is still being worked on. One of the key questions that is often 

ignored with the preoccupation with Iran’s uranium enrichment, is that the United 

States and the international community needs to find a way to deal with the potential this reactor provides Iran to produce and then separate plutonium for a weapon 

should it decide to do so. It is not yet operational. It’s a heavy water reactor, which 

means it could use natural uranium with a heavy water moderator to produce plutonium. Iran is developing a heavy water plant to support the Arak reactor. 

RECENT DIPLOMACY

Six weeks or so ago, the Iranians said they were prepared to restart negotiations 

with the E3+3 on their nuclear program. They appeared to offer renewed talks without preconditions. They sent a letter to the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy 

Agency of the United Nations, which is the U.N. agency designated to carry out 

nuclear inspections to prevent proliferation and which has been also Iran’s appropriately preferred intermediary for negotiations on the nuclear issues. The letter 

was, unlike previous Iranian letters, apparently almost a ‘‘plain vanilla’’ diplomatic 

invitation, without preconditions and qualifications, which was encouraging. 

Within recent days, there has been a response on the part of the so called E3+3, 

(essentially Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States) 

accepting the Iranian offer to negotiate. We understand that these negotiations will 

begin on April 13, but it is still unclear where. There has been some speculation 

they might be held in Geneva, Switzerland. 

11

Interestingly, other possibly helpful signals have come from the Iranian side. The 

Supreme Leader was reported to have commented positively on President Obama’s 

speech to AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], something that we 

would not have expected and has happened rarely, if at all. 

Within days prior to the Supreme Leader’s remarks on President Obama’s speech, 

he reissued the language of the fatwa against military nuclear development, this 

time referring specifically to the prohibition on making nuclear weapons. And just 

before that, he reintroduced into the world of literature a book he wrote 40 years 

ago on an arcane subject having to do with the origins of Shiism. But the value of 

this particular introduction is that the last two words of the title contain the words 

‘‘flexible compromise.’’

Reading these tea leaves suggest a possible message from Tehran on negotiations. 

We do not know exactly what to make of that message but it is hard to ignore. 

On the U.S. side for a long time there has been an internal dispute between the 

United States Government and some Europeans, and possibly inside the U.S. Government as well, over the question of whether, in any negotiations, we would end 

up permitting Iran to do any enrichment. This is a ‘‘right’’ which Iran claims as a 

signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty. There have been past proposals, including 

on my part, that it might facilitate a helpful conclusion to negotiations if enrichment 

were permitted at civil levels (3.5–5.0 percent) and was concretely firewalled from 

efforts to make a nuclear weapon by serious IAEA-run inspection systems in Iran. 

That set of differences has perhaps begun to change. Secretary Clinton in a 

speech in February opened the door very carefully to the possibility that, with good 

behavior and real progress, Iran would be permitted to enrich to levels consistent 

with civil energy needs. 

President Obama, who has not declared himself in months on the question of how 

to move forward, was quite specific in his AIPAC speech that diplomacy—‘‘the big 

D,’’ as a lot of my friends call it—is now something he wishes to support. From his 

perspective, while the military option is always there, it is now apparently a clear 

second choice—rather that the first choice is diplomacy. 

This is a help because we now seem to be witnessing the beginning of an exchange of signals across the airwaves which could serve to reinvigorate the preparations and the potential for a negotiation. 

We have had 32 years of separation from Iran and, with the rare exception perhaps in setting up the Karzai government at Bonn in 2002, we’ve had almost no 

cooperation with the Iranians on issues of importance to both of us. We have a relationship effctively dominated by mistrust and misunderstanding. 

My own view is that anyone who believes that he understands enough about 

Iranian internal politics to be able to use it as a set of guideposts to calculate how 

to move ahead on negotiations is doomed to failure. This is particularly true for 

America whose favorite fetish is trying to pick the negotiator on the other side. And 

anybody in Iran who thinks he understands American politics enough to know the 

full answer to the future of our relationship is probably in the same trap. 

We will need to move ahead on the basis that we will deal with Iran the way it 

is and Iran must deal with the United States the way it is. Both sides will have 

deal without preconditions. 

Finally, there has been some encouragement regarding the duration of the meetings. In the past there have been 1-day meetings where one side simply rejected the 

proposal of the other. There was no opportunity provided to negotiate and discuss 

differences. It appears that the intention this time is to make the up-coming meeting a multiday event with hopefully then the opportunity for constructive give and 

take. 

WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS?

As a long term participant in Washington ‘‘option production,’’ I see four options. 

This is unusual—in Washington there are usually only three and the decisionmaker 

is supposed to choose the middle one. 

The first option is a nonoption. But it is important to understand it. That is to 

‘‘sit back and enjoy it.’’ Iran will proliferate and then we can rely on deterrence to 

deal with the problem. Not a very good option—one that in my view can only encourage proliferation and its attendant dangers in the rest of the region. 

It is certainly clear that within the last 2 years, several Arab countries have developed a new fascination with civil nuclear power. The United States is very much 

aware of and concerned about it. The United States is apparently finding ways to 

keep it hedged, but it is nevertheless a problem. 

There are serious concerns on the part of some that Iran would immediately provide its first nuclear weapon to Hezbollah or Hamas, or a similar organization. I 

12

don’t fear that happening. I think the first instinct of any nation that acquires a 

nuclear weapon is to make sure nobody else gets one. The second instinct is to sit 

down and figure out what one really does with the bomb. 

A move toward further proliferation in the region would set back the hope that 

many people have, however hard it may be, that we could actually move in the 

direction of either lower numbers or maybe even zero nuclear weapons in the future. 

Therefore, the ‘‘sit back and enjoy it, let them proliferate’’ option for all those reasons makes no sense. It might be a result of the failure of other options, but it is 

not in my view a useful option. 

The second option, the one that might be dangerous to choose because it is has 

many more disadvantages than advantages, is the military option. Let me from the 

perspective of a former diplomat set out a few key pros and cons. 

On the advantage side, our friends in Israel would like to be able to set back the 

Iran program even 2 (or maybe 1) years, if they could. They would do so on the expectation that something else more helpful will turn up in the meantime. That is 

a weak justification to move to the calamitous decision of using military force. 

At the moment at least, Iran apparently does have a conscious nondecision to 

make nuclear weapons. But if they are attacked without provocation, and particularly if they are attacked on the basis of ‘‘they might get a weapon but they haven’t 

decided yet,’’ there would be several results. 

One is that Iran would be pushed toward saying, ‘‘We never thought we would 

want to build a weapon. Now that we have been attacked, of course we have to build 

a weapon to defend ourselves. We will now go ahead and do it come hell or high 

water.’’

The second is that Iran which enjoys about a 15-percent popularity in the Muslim 

world, would see that popularity skyrocket if it became the ‘‘victim’’ of a poorly justified and supported preemptive attack. Could we then stick with the sanctions 

program? 

Another question is an operational one: Would the United States or Israel be able 

to know what all the targets are and where they are? We have had some success 

in looking at the Iran program and knowing when they began their various parts 

of it and what they chose not to tell the world at the time. With the help of periodic 

inspections from the IAEA, we have had a pretty good idea of where Iran’s nuclear 

sites are located. But would we know where all the targets are? I don’t know the 

answer to that question. It remains hard to be pretty sure about what you don’t 

know on these kinds of issues. 

On the other side, the retaliatory capability that Iran could exercise is large. They 

have influence with terrorist organizations that straddle Israel with large numbers 

of missiles. 

There is no question at all in my mind that they could operate in a terrorist way 

against ‘‘soft’’ American targets all around the world. Iran or surrogates could attack 

businesses, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], missionaries and virtually 

every American establishment in the region and beyond. And what would the U.S. 

Government be able to do to protect the huge American traveling public if, in fact, 

there were a very concerted and determined Iranian reaction in the form of continuing asymmetrical attacks against Americans? Launch a fuller scale attack 

against Iran? 

Even if the Iranians were to decide not to risk high profile attacks against American assets and interests so as not to escalate the U.S. retaliation, Iran has a network that could cause great damage to the U.S. presence in the region and worldwide that could help to avoid being traced directly to the Iranian Government. 

So let me leave the military option aside. It is not, in my view, something one 

would totally rule out in extremis if Iran actually decided to make a weapon and 

other options could not stop it. We could take the information on which we would 

base that decision to the international community. In the case of a clear obvious 

decision by Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, the United States would still have 

a serious problem in the United Nations Security Council getting support for multilateral military action against Iran, but there would be more justification. 

And if Israel were to attack on its own, the United States would share in the 

blame—the responsibility for the action—whatever role we actually played. 

In Israel there are some differences over some aspects of the military option. But 

I think there are no differences in Israel over the question of the serious problems 

an Iranian nuclear weapon would cause for them. But there are certainly differences 

about when and how the Israelis might act. 

The United States, at least, has the option, given the strength of its military 

forces, to respond to any later decision by Iran to go for a nuclear weapon. Under 

current circumstances, Iran, to carry out such a decision rapidly, would literally 

have to declare their intentions to the IAEA inspectors, or take steps to remove the 

13

enriched material that is now under IAEA safeguards from IAEA controls. So there 

is a significant challenge with the existing level of transparency of Iran’s program 

were Iran to try to use stored material from the present civil program to build a 

weapon. 

The Israelis now believe that increasingly it will become harder for them to use 

military force to attack the Iranian program because the Iranians are beginning to 

enrich in the deep tunnels under the mountain at Qom/Fordow. Losing the capacity 

to take military action to stop that aspect of the Iranian program is worrying to 

Israel and might become a driver of action on the part of Israel to use military force. 

Finally, internally and politically in Israel, large numbers of people believe that 

Israel should not go alone; that it should only attack Iran with the United States 

in concert. 

These are critical questions that Prime Minister Netanyahu has to resolve: Can 

he bring all the members, or most of the members, of his security cabinet along with 

him? Not all of them are apparently now convinced that they should stand where 

Netanyahu stands on the issue of strikes against Iran, although I have to say I 

think a great majority of them are there. 

Within the last 6 months, the Israelis have changed, just in the normal rotation, 

the chiefs of all three of their intelligence services and of their military. The outgoing chiefs of the intelligence services and the military have spoken out forthrightly and politically about the dangers and problems with military action. The 

incoming chiefs, are in my view, less influential politically and maybe less capable 

of speaking out on their own, and it is not certain whether they share the notion 

that they would recommend an attack on Iran. 

The third option is sanctions. We have relied heavily on sanctions to move the 

question ahead. Indeed, in my view, sanctions have had a potentially useful effect. 

I have been concerned that we have not securely tied the sanctions to diplomacy. 

In the last few days, however, we are beginning to open the door to diplomacy with 

the President’s AIPAC speech. 

But sanctions alone, without a decision on what we would take to the negotiating 

table on core issues such as Iran’s enrichment program, has meant we have been 

hooked to a policy that has all pressure but no open door to negotiations and possible acceptable outcomes. The United States seems to be expecting this policy of 

sanctions and pressure will produce Iran in our hands, like the traditional Marxist 

ripe plum dropping from the tree, with almost any outcome we would dictate acceptable to Iran. That Iran in effect would finally accept all the U.S. demands. Of 

course, bringing Iran around to our way of thinking would be the easy way to bridge 

the gap between any permitted enrichment and no enrichment. But will it work? 

I think not. 

The fourth option is diplomacy. It has possibilities, but is not a certain solution. 

It appears to me that under present circumstances, we have to start with something the Iranians have proposed. They suggested some time ago they would stop 

enriching to 20 percent if the E3+3 would provide the 20 percent fuel elements for 

the Tehran Research Reactor. Ending 20 percent enrichment, which takes them 

halfway to the enrichment level for a bomb, not mathematically but in terms of the 

physics of enrichment, would be a helpful step. 

This small package to begin with could be enhanced in a second stage by two further steps. First, a cap on Iran’s enrichment at 3.5 percent or 5 percent as a followon to Iran agreeing to the cessation of enrichment at 20 percent. Iran would have 

no further need for material enriched above 5 percent if the needs of the TRR were 

assured by the E3+3. 

Second, we should consider asking Iran to turn over to us the material it has enriched to 20 percent at the time we deliver the fuel elements for the TRR reactor. 

Some freezing or easing of sanctions might be a fair quid pro quo for such a steps. 

That could be a good beginning. 

An important follow-on objective for subsequent stages of negotiation should be 

to expand significantly the inspections and monitoring of Iran’s entire nuclear program. This would be a far more important goal of successful negotiations with Iran 

than to persist in our insistence that Iran suspend or freeze enrichment which it 

is highly unlikely not do and where the knowledge of how to enrich is now well established. Right now Iran is under a limited regime of inspections and monitoring. 

The United States and its allies ought to negotiate, with the IAEA’s full participation, an agreement to improve, and indeed strengthen, the inspection process for the 

future. Iran has in the past accepted in principle a broader area of inspection under 

the Additional Protocol and related arrangements of the IAEA. In return for Iran 

agreeing to expanded inspections the United States would recognize Iran’s right to 

enrich for civil purposes only. 

In addition there is a wider range of issues to be taken up with Iran. 

14

Regime change is certainly something the Iranian Supreme Leader is apparently 

deeply concerned about. If I were Supreme Leader and I thought somebody was trying to change my regime, I guess I would be concerned about it too. 

While some of our colleagues might imagine that regime change will solve our 

problems with Iran, I believe that remains farfetched and highly unlikely. Our past 

history at changing regimes has been pretty parlous. It is not something that we 

do very well and certainly not without many unanticipated consequences. Those Iranians who might replace the present regime seem no less attached to an Iranian 

nuclear program at least. And besides, in the longer term, in Iran it’s the people 

of Iran—many of them very young—even under their unhappy system, that are 

going to decide how to deal with their regime and its future. Since Iranian beliefs 

in regard to the perceived U.S. regime change policy appear to stand in the way 

of progress in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, the United States will need to 

consider how and when that policy, or the Iranian perception of it, should come off 

the table. 

While the Iranians would congenitally be unwilling to believe any professions of 

faith in the direction of no regime change from the United States, there are some 

things that we might do in terms of actions that could begin to help them build 

some confidence. These might include making clear to them that we are not helping 

internal hostile activists in Iran who have carried a gun against them, and provide 

ways to communicate about actions that concern them. Secretary Clinton’s recent 

public expression of concern about assassinations in Iran is a case in point. It would 

also help if we begin to consider freezing or relaxing the imposition of some sanctions in return for real progress in making their nuclear program more open and 

more fully inspected and in improving relations with Iran in other areas. 

Thus, as we look toward the coming negotiations on nuclear issues, the United 

States should try to find a way to improve both the atmosphere and make progress. 

Without mixing a broader agenda with Iran with those nuclear discussions, the 

United States could begin to speak with Iran about such issues as the future of Iraq 

and Afghanistan, drugs, and outstanding financial issues. We could deal with some 

of the many other bilateral issues between Iran and the United States. 

We have some interesting issues on our side that we want on the negotiating 

table as well: Iran’s support for terrorist organizations and past Iranian intervention in the Middle East peace process—to name two. 

My recommendation is that we now take the sanctions pressure and turn it into 

a useful diplomatic tool to begin serious diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Such a 

new direction will require much care and management of the rhetoric to cause the 

diplomatic process move forward. The United States now has an opportunity to start 

in the forum of the E3+3. But sooner rather than later, direct talks between the 

United States and Iran will be necessary. 

We have much to do. There is once again a difficult challenge but an invaluable 

opportunity ahead of us. 

The President has brought us to where we are and the course has been hard. The 

path ahead is slippery and difficult. It will require the greatest care and leadership 

on the part of President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Thirty-two years of deep distrust, buttressed by misunderstanding, will not disappear overnight. The challenge 

for diplomacy on both sides will be to turn the old zero-sum question into a new 

era in which we try to extract some win-win results. Compromises that are painful 

on both sides will be needed. Hopefully, we can now find a way to reverse the perils 

of the past. 

An Iranian friend of mine who has played an important role in Iranian foreign 

policy over the years once told me that ‘‘The historical record shows that every time 

we have been ready, you have not been, and every time you have been ready, we 

have not been.’’ Maybe we can emerge from that position of the past to begin with 

some small things—that we can find the way to pull the curves mutual of interest 

together rather than have them continue to bend apart.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Very constructive and important. 

General Cartwright. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT, FORMER VICE 

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, WASHINGTON, 

DC 

General CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar. 

15

I, like the Ambassador, kind of thought maybe I had already had 

my last hearing ever. So this is an honor, and I do appreciate the 

opportunity. 

I think also in the comments from the Ambassador, I would align 

with him pretty much totally. The only thing I would add as a 

caveat on the military options is that even though we may have an 

assessment, a personal assessment of those options, they should 

never be removed from the President as options. 

They have to stay on the table. And I just want to make sure 

that that is understood. 

I think, first, the construct here of risk. If Iran were to obtain 

a nuclear weapon, there are all sorts of prognostications out there 

about what could happen in the region from an arms race, the failure of extended deterrents. None of the options look good, and so 

this is a significant threat. It is one that we have to pay a lot of 

attention to. The good news is several administrations have and 

continue to do so. 

I also want to make sure people understand for the most part, 

historically, nation states, when they seek to have nuclear weapons, seek to have them as a shield, a guarantor of their sovereignty 

and their ability to remain sovereign. 

When you move that over to a surrogate, or a terrorist, that is 

where it becomes a sword. That is where the greatest threat is to 

an unpredictable act of violence. 

It is that nexus that people probably most worry about, at least 

in my community, associated with Iran gaining a nuclear weapon. 

It is not as much the idea that they are going to conduct some sort 

of attack. They would never win that kind of an exchange. It would 

be an existential threat on them, not on others for the most part. 

I also want to talk a little bit about the military activities that 

have occurred over the past few years in the region in an understanding of this threat. And I think the first thing to understand 

is that we have put in place and worked with the regional partners 

active and passive defenses. 

The simple things that keep terrorists from obtaining their objectives, someone who wants to attack you, but seemingly is undeterrable—you can take the objective away from the adversary by 

doing simple things like creating standoff distances from buildings 

and those types of activities. 

Those measures have been in progress of several years. The 

region has been, as we would say in the military, hardened to those 

types of threats, which you have to worry about particularly in 

order to maintain the viability of several of the options that the 

President might have. 

The second has been to have an active role in the region in exercises and working with the local armed forces in ensuring that they 

are capable of responding to any threat. On the active side of 

defenses, we have moved radars, missile defense capabilities into 

the region that are significant and would put into question any 

first strike or decapitating type of strike that Iran may wish to undertake. 

And then I think equally important is we have changed our posture in the region. Some of it has been the result of the ongoing 

16

conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but our posture in the region is 

significant from the standpoint of military capability. 

I think the third issue that I would bring out is one of context. 

We are, in fact, a nation that has been at war for over 10 years 

now. We are a nation that has significant financial issues out there 

that we are working our way through. 

None of those should be interpreted by the Iranians as limiting 

our ability to go in there and do what we need to do. By the same 

token, if you look around the yard out there, you have the decisions 

on leadership in places like China, Russia, France, U.K., United 

States over this year. That is in some part going to affect diplomacy and discussions and probably has. And it may be interpreted 

by the Iranians as a window of opportunity, and so we should be 

careful as we move through that period. 

The last issue that I would like to cover just briefly here is the 

idea of how a weapon is developed and how they might go about 

that in the Iranian side. And generally, there are three stages here 

in the thought process. 

The first stage is that you have a limited number of scientists 

and technical people who believe that they have at least the 

essence of being able to build a device. That leads you through the 

reprocessing activities, the enrichment activities, and takes you to 

weaponization. 

In weaponization, again, a limited number of people trying to 

understand how to actually put a weapon together that will attain 

a critical mass and then react. 

The third activity is a delivery system. And in the delivery system, that is a very visible activity, much like an underground test, 

but it is a very visible activity that you can watch and we can 

watch develop. It takes a lot of capability to develop rockets that 

can, in fact, deliver over long distances, but also short distances. 

It also takes very precise entry and pointing and those types of 

activities which you can watch and takes several years to develop. 

The worry here is that things could interrupt the timeline, and the 

intelligence community has spoken often to this. But if outside 

assistance is gained through intelligence and intellectual capital on 

how to reprocess, that could accelerate the process. 

If there is someone who understands how to build a weapon, that 

accelerates the process. Many people look at weapons and think 

this is what it took us, the United States, to do. There is no reason 

to build a weapon exquisite—to the degree of exquisiteness that the 

United States has. You can develop a weapon in a much more simple format and do it much quicker. So we have to be careful about 

trying to equate our timelines with their timelines. 

And then I think the third issue here is one of if you have just 

a few scientists, that is a vulnerability. There is always the option, 

as we would say, to cut the head of the snake off and remove that 

capability. 

Once a country moves on, the second stage generally is to build 

a succession plan. In other words, depth in your scientists, depth 

in your engineers, the ability to have people come in behind if you 

lose somebody. I would say that is likely and quite possibly where 

the Iranians are right now. 

17

The third stage is called franchising. This is when you distribute 

the capability. You have indigenous capabilities, and they proliferate to more places than you can obviously find. And that becomes a very dangerous situation. That is a situation we and the 

Israelis are very worried about that we might be approaching and 

one that we have to watch very carefully in the assessments. 

I think in my mind the breakout is the transition between that 

second and third stage to where they start to proliferate intellectual capital and physical infrastructure. We are starting to see underground facilities and know about them. That is the type of indicators that we are worried about. 

And I will hold at that point and stand ready for your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thanks. Thanks very much, General. 

Mr. Sadjadpour. 

STATEMENT OF KARIM SADJADPOUR, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. Thank you, Chairman Kerry and Senator 

Lugar and members of the committee. 

It is really an honor to be back here with you. I am honored to 

be here alongside Ambassador Pickering and General Cartwright. 

I always admire my friend Ambassador Pickering’s youthful 

optimism. 

Let me begin today with two quotes from Henry Kissinger, which 

I think really nicely frame our national policy discussion on Iran. 

The first quote is from Kissinger’s book on 21st century diplomacy, 

and he says, ‘‘There are few nations in the world with whom the 

United States has more common interests and less reason to quarrel than Iran.’’

But several years later, Kissinger also said something which I 

think was quite brilliant in its simplicity. He said that Iran has to 

decide whether it is a nation or a cause. If it sees itself as a nation 

and it pursues its national interests, there is tremendous overlapping interests between the United States and Iran. But if Iran continues to see itself as a cause, in opposition to the United States, 

in opposition to Israel, we are going to continue to butt heads. 

And I would argue that the Obama administration, more than 

any United States administration since the 1979 Iranian revolution, tried to probe that question. And they tried to probe that 

question with a policy of unprecedented overtures to Iran, which I 

would argue went unreciprocated by the Iranian regime. 

And I think after a year of a policy of engagement, the Obama 

administration came to the realization that for Iran’s leadership, 

anti-Americanism, enmity toward the United States, has in a way 

metastasized. Opposition toward the United States has become central to the identity of the Iranian regime, and this applies very 

much to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

And so, I think from the vantage point of the Obama administration, they have concluded that it is very difficult to reach an accommodation with the regime in Tehran, which needs us as an adversary for their own ideological legitimacy. 

Now let me move to Iran’s internal power dynamics. And I think 

for our intents and purposes, Iran has essentially become a oneVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:38 Jul 27, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 S:\HEARIN~1\112THC~2\2012IS~1\032812-G.TXT BETTY
18

party system, and that is the party of the Supreme Leader, Ali 

Khamenei, who rules in conjunction with the Revolutionary Guards 

who have really eclipsed the clergy in terms of their political and 

economic influence. And Khamenei is the one who is steering Iran’s 

nuclear ship. 

And since he has been in power from 1989 onward, he has tried 

to preserve the status quo in Iran by avoiding transformative decisions. And increasingly with this unprecedented degree of international pressure, the international economic and political coercion, 

Khamenei’s back is increasingly up against the wall. 

The Central Bank sanctions and actions by Swift have essentially cut Iran off from the global financial market. The looming 

EU oil embargo promises to decrease Iran—or Iran’s exports to 

Europe, which is about 20 percent of their oil export market, 

stands to be dried up soon. 

But I haven’t yet seen indications that this unprecedented pressure, as I said, has affected Khamenei’s nuclear calculations. For 

a variety of reasons, Khamenei has long been averse to any type 

of compromise. He believes that when you are being pressured, 

compromise projects weakness and invites even more pressure. 

He believes deep down that United States policy toward Iran is 

not behavior change. It is regime change. And again, if he shows 

signs of compromise, the United State is going to increase the 

pressure. 

The lessons he has learned from contemporary history is that 

when Gaddafi gave up his nuclear program in 2006, he made himself vulnerable to the NATO intervention of 2011. The lesson he 

drew from the experience of Pakistan is that when Pakistan 

obtained a nuclear weapon and detonated a device, paradoxically, 

that alleviated the pressure against them and, in fact, turned outside pressure into outside engagement and incentive. 

So, for a variety of reasons, Khamenei is averse to compromise, 

and so far the unprecedented degree of international pressure, 

while impressive, hasn’t affected his nuclear calculations. And I 

would have to say that the most important variable on this realm 

has been the price of oil. 

That when oil prices hover over $100, $110 a barrel, this really 

softens the blow of any type of international sanctions, no matter 

how expansive they are. So where does that leave us? Where does 

that leave U.S. policy options? 

I think if we are going to resolve this issue diplomatically, we do 

have to provide Iran an exit path. Pressure alone is not sufficient, 

and in that realm I very much welcome Ambassador Pickering’s 

suggestions. I think they are constructive, and they are welcome, 

and I share Ambassador Pickering and General Cartwright’s 

assessment that the risks of military action significantly outweigh 

the rewards of military action. 

That said, I think we need to be sober about the nature of the 

Iranian regime and sober about the interests of the Iranian regime 

and realistic about what both diplomacy and coercive diplomacy 

can really achieve here. 

I think dialogue and coercive diplomacy with Iran can slow down 

their nuclear program, their nuclear progress. It has slowed down 

their nuclear progress, but I don’t think it can entirely stop their 

19

nuclear progress. I think dialogue can very importantly prevent our 

cold conflict with Iran from turning into a hot conflict with Iran by 

making it very clear to the Iranians what our precise redlines are. 

I think the outreach of the Obama administration has served to 

expose the fact that Iran is the intransigent actor in this equation, 

not the United States. That has really strengthened the breadth 

and the depth of our international alliances. 

But I would argue that as long as Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, remains in power, I think the likelihood that 

Iran will be willing to make meaningful and binding compromises 

on this nuclear program is not very high. So, for that reason, I 

would argue that this is a conflict. 

Our conflict with Iran is a conflict which has to be managed. It 

is unlikely to be resolved. And I would say it is unlikely to be 

resolved until this regime is eventually forced to change under the 

weight of its own internal contradictions and economic malaise. 

As I said earlier, I think the most important determinant for this 

regime’s future will be the price of oil. And in that respect, President Obama’s speech at AIPAC I think is well worth hearing, that 

all the talk of military action tends to benefit Iran because it 

increases the risk premium of oil prices. 

When this change will happen in Iran is entirely unpredictable. 

But I think the events in the Arab world over the last 2 years are 

an important reminder of that old maxim from Trotsky, Trotsky’s 

old maxim about dictatorships. He said while they rule, their collapse appears inconceivable, and after they have fallen, their collapse appeared inevitable. 

And I think the Iranian regime is at the crossroads of that 

maxim in that their short-term collapse and their long-term survival appear very much unlikely. 

I would argue that the most important role that we, the United 

States, can play in expediting change in Iran is to inhibit the 

Iranian regime’s ability to control communication and to control information and, as Secretary Clinton said, tear down their electronic 

curtain. I agree with Senator Kerry that our approach up until now 

toward Iran has focused too exclusively on sanctions and hard 

power, and it hasn’t focused enough on media and communications. 

If you look at what has transpired in the Arab world over the 

last 2 years, the role that satellite television and Al Jazeera played 

were enormous. And I think that we have the capacity to play a 

somewhat similar role in Iran with our Voice of America Persian 

language service, but so far it has really lagged behind. 

And I think there is an important role for Congress to play in 

all of this. The Voice of America Persian language service has the 

capacity to reach over 20 million Iranians, but so far we haven’t 

really taken it seriously. 

And I will stop my comments there and look forward to your 

questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sadjadpour follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KARIM SADJADPOUR

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has never been a gambling man. Since becoming Iran’s 

‘‘Supreme Leader’’ in 1989, he’s sought to preserve the status quo by eschewing 

transformative decisions. But as unprecedented political and economic pressures—

20

including sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank and a looming EU oil embargo—

push his back against the wall, Khamenei increasingly has two paths to deliverance: 

a nuclear compromise, or a nuclear weapon. Each could be perilous for him, and the 

regime. 

Khamenei’s aversion to compromise is well-established. He’s long asserted that 

Washington’s underlying goal in Tehran is not behavior change but regime change, 

and yielding to coercion would only project weakness and invite greater pressure 

from Washington. Just as Perestroika hastened the demise of the U.S.S.R., 

Khamenei believes that compromising on revolutionary ideals could destabilize the 

foundations of the Islamic Republic. 

Contemporary history has validated his worldview. In Khamenei’s eyes, Libyan 

dictator Muammar Ghaddafi’s abdication of his nuclear program in 2006 was precisely what made him vulnerable to the 2011 NATO intervention which ended his 

regime, and his life. Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear weapons tests, on the other hand, 

helped turn foreign pressure and sanctions into foreign engagement and incentives. 

While Khamenei may shun compromise, however, his path to a nuclear weapon 

would be a perilous one. To begin, overt signs of weaponization—including the expulsion of nuclear inspectors or the enriched of weapons-grade uranium—would 

likely trigger U.S. or Israeli military action. Unless Khamenei wants to provoke a 

military attack on Iran for domestic expediency—which is improbable but not implausible—he will continue to favor a deliberate, incremental approach. 

Time, however, is arguably no longer on Khamenei’s side. He must calculate 

whether his regime can sustain severe and escalating economic pressure for the 

duration of time it will take them to acquire a nuclear weapon. Despite media hype, 

if Tehran were to decide tomorrow that it wants to weaponize, it is, according to 

best estimates, at least 2 years away—and likely more—from the finish line. 

What’s more, Khamenei must also take into account the fact that Iran’s nuclear 

facilities have likely been penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies. Unforeseen 

roadblocks—including computer viruses, ‘‘accidental’’ explosions, mysterious assassinations, and defections—could likely set back Iran’s nuclear clock even further. 

Faced with this seemingly binary choice, how will Khamenei decide? 

It has been correctly observed that the few instances in which Iran has compromised on revolutionary rigidity, or shown signs of conciliation vis-a-vis the 

United States, have been when the regime has perceived ‘‘existential angst.’’ 

Today Iran is once again subject to enormous pressure, but two factors are different. 

First, in previous instances in which Iran felt a need to compromise, oil prices 

were below $25 barrel. Today they hover over four times that amount, which softens 

the blow of sanctions. 

Second, the instances in which Iran has compromised in the past were spearheaded not by the obstinate Khamenei, but by wily former president, Hashemi 

Rafsanjani. In the last few years, however, Khamenei has purged Rafsanjani and 

his more pragmatic acolytes from positions of authority and surrounded himself 

with sycophants who share his rigid worldview. 

That said, it’s possible that in the near term Khamenei will calculate that the 

costs of continued intransigence are too high, and he will attempt a tactical and 

temporary compromise in order to stave off pressure and sew divisions within the 

P5+1, namely to peel China and Russia away from the United States and EU. 

There are currently no indications, however, to believe that international pressure 

will compel Khamenei to make the types of meaningful and binding compromises 

on its nuclear program—which would likely include capping enrichment at 5 percent, sending out stockpiles of low enriched uranium (LEU), and agreeing to an intrusive inspections regime—that would reassure the United States and placate 

Israel. 

It’s oft asserted that in order to persuade Tehran not to pursue a nuclear weapon, 

Washington must reassure Khamenei that the United States merely seeks a change 

in Iranian behavior, not a change of the Iranian regime. While this makes sense 

in theory, in practice it’s complicated by Khamenei’s deep-seated conviction that 

U.S. designs to overthrow the Islamic Republic hinge not on military invasion, but 

on cultural and political subversion intended to foment a soft or ‘‘velvet’’ revolution 

from within. The following Khamenei speech on state television, in 2005, is both 

representative and revealing of his world view:

More than Iran’s enemies need artillery and guns, they need to spread 

cultural values that lead to moral corruption . . . I recently read in the 

news that a senior official in an important American political center, said: 

‘‘Instead of bombs, send them miniskirts.’’ He is right. If they arouse sexual 

desires in any given country, if they spread unrestrained mixing of men and 

21

women, and if they lead youth to behavior to which they are naturally inclined by instincts, there will no longer be any need for artillery and guns 

against that nation.

Khamenei’s vast collection of writings and speeches make clear that he fears 

American cultural WMDs and soft power more than bunker busters and aircraft carriers. In other words, Tehran is threatened not only by what America does, but 

what America represents. For this reason Khamenei has asserted that ‘‘the conflict 

and confrontation [between Washington and Tehran] is something natural and unavoidable.’’ Herein lays our policy conundrum: No nuclear deal with Tehran can be 

made without Khamenei, but it appears almost equally unlikely that any deal can 

be made with him. 

Where does this leave us? 

Shortly before his death, the great American diplomat and cold war scholar, 

George Kennan—reflecting on 70 years of experience in foreign affairs—observed 

that ‘‘Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for 

war, for peaceful methods or for military methods, in the present age there is a 

strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.’’

We should keep Kennan’s words in mind while at the same time being sober 

about the nature of the regime in Tehran, and the challenges it poses. Realistically, 

the utility of continued dialogue and negotiations will not be to resolve our differences with Tehran, but to prevent our cold conflict from turning hot. The Obama 

administration’s unprecedented and unreciprocated overtures to Iran also help expose the fact—both to the outside world and the Iranian people—that Tehran is the 

intransigent actor in this equation, not Washington. This has served to strengthen 

both the breadth and the depth of our international coalition. 

The goal of coercive diplomacy should be to significantly slow Iran’s nuclear 

progress, and contain their regional political influence, until the regime is eventually forced to change—or is changed—under the weight of its own internal contradictions and economic malaise. When this might happen is entirely unpredictable, 

but the events in the Arab world over the last 2 years are a reminder of Trotsky’s 

old maxim about dictatorships: ‘‘While they rule their collapse appears inconceivable; after they’ve fallen their collapse appeared inevitable.’’

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Sadjadpour. It 

was very interesting. 

Everybody, I think, has made a significant and interesting contribution here. You may be the first witness in 26 years to have 

quoted Trotsky before this committee. 

[Laughter.] 

But it was a pretty astute observation, without doubt. 

Let me just begin, if I can, I want to come back to you, Mr. 

Sadjadpour, but I want to set it up this way. 

Ambassador Pickering, you said there were three options, and 

your first option was this potential of doing nothing, and you then 

go forward and they do what they want to do and they break out. 

I don’t think—I am not sure that is, in fact, an option under any 

circumstance because Israel isn’t going to let it be an option. 

And that is really the quandary that we are in, that there really 

are only two options. Either there is going to be military action 

because one country is going to make a judgment about where they 

think the rush to a weapon will occur. And based on that, they will 

self-help, regardless of whether we are there. 

And the other option is that that doesn’t take place because Iran, 

hopefully in its wisdom, sees that that takes everybody to a bad 

place, including them, and that there is a much better road to go 

down. And therefore, there is something along the lines of an 

agreement that you have defined or some other agreement. 

Now I say that because I want to go directly thereforth. There 

are those two poles that I think probably you would agree, Mr. 

Sadjadpour, those are the two poles. If that is true then, you made 

the judgment a moment ago in your testimony. You said there is 

22

no evidence that Khamenei is going to see things differently or 

move in a different direction. 

How do you say that? Do you know whether there is an internal 

debate? Do you know why then are they going to go to these talks? 

Does that mean you are predicting these talks are a mere delay 

process and destined to fail, or is something happening that maybe 

none of us are aware of at this point? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. I think in the near term what the Iranians will 

attempt with the talks is to offer some tactical or potential cosmetic 

gesture of conciliation in order to try to stave off pressure and create so rifts within the P5+1 to try to peel China and Russia away 

from the United States and Europe. But again, there are no indications to believe that Iran is prepared to make the types of meaningful and binding compromises which Ambassador Pickering has 

suggested. 

And you know, again, I think that Khamenei’s current dilemma 

is that, on one hand, he is averse to compromise because he 

believes that the United States endgame is not simply to change 

Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but to change the Iranian regime. On the 

other hand, I think the path for him toward a nuclear weapon is 

equally perilous. It is not that they are months away. They are 

years away. And if, indeed, he pursues that path, he has to assume 

that it is going to trigger some type of military action. 

The CHAIRMAN. So what is your advice to us with respect to this 

question of their perceptions? I don’t disagree with you. I think 

there is great fear in certain quarters that our primary goal is not 

the nuclear plan at all. It is, rather, the regime change. And we 

have to deal with that in any kind of dialogue or any dealings. 

But given the speech that you quote in your written testimony 

that the Supreme Leader gave in 2005 regarding bombs versus 

miniskirts and so forth, it really poses a major challenge to us to 

try to get over that inherent deep suspicion. What is your counsel? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. I wish I could be more optimistic in this sense. 

But my perception of the Supreme Leader is that his cynicism 

toward the United States is cloaked in ideology, but it is driven by 

self-preservation, meaning he is shrewd enough to appreciate the 

fact that were there to be an opening with the United States, it 

could bring about unpredictable reforms and open up outside phenomena like globalization which could well sweep him aside. 

So I compare him in some ways to the late Kim Jong-il or Bashar 

al-Assad in the sense that I think he surely appreciates the fact 

that he can rule over a closed system, but not an open system. 

The CHAIRMAN. But he is a smart man, a very, very smart man 

and very clearly driven by religious foundation. It would seem to 

me that that would also be very compelling to him with respect to 

the alternatives, which are to find themselves even more isolated, 

more punitive set of sanctions, greater threats in some ways to a 

regime, and ultimately the potential of a very concerted military 

action. 

If everybody’s efforts are exhausted and there isn’t sufficient verification, sufficient compliance, it may not be Israel acting alone at 

that point. 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. Well, you know, he has been ruling a system 

which has been enduring sanctions and punitive measures and 

23

threats for the last few decades. And the economic welfare of the 

Iranian priority has never been his top priority or the regime’s top 

priority. 

And at the moment, I would say this. That Khamenei, what is 

paramount for him is the preservation of the system, to preserve 

the status quo. But I would say at the moment, he doesn’t feel existential angst. The pressure is significant. The threats of military 

action, I am sure, he takes seriously. But so far with these soaring 

oil prices, they have managed to muddle through. 

And I think it is plausible, within the realm of possibilities, that 

he calculates that a limited Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear 

facilities could be net positive for the regime because they would—

it could resuscitate revolutionary fervor and, in fact, prolong the 

shelf life of the regime. So I think those are his calculations at the 

moment. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, hopefully, I mean, I understand those calculations. I think there are some much brighter and more significant options available, and the question is obviously whether or 

not, over the course of these next weeks, it will be possible for them 

to see that and for people to reach what Tom Pickering has said 

is sort of the confluence of interests here. It seems to me there are 

real possibilities there. 

But I am going to just stop there. 

Senator Lugar. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just following up this thought of existential angst, you have 

mentioned one specific idea that could be used to reach out to the 

Iranian people, and that is the Voice of America Persian language 

service. Now if that was to be beefed up, and I gather from your 

testimony that you feel not much is happening there, and it is 

worth our committee taking a look into, what would the messages 

of our broadcasts be? 

In other words, if we were to try to improve our image among 

the Iranian people, the 20 million listeners or what have you, what 

would we say? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. It is a great question. What I would say is that 

the conclusion I have reached about Voice of America is that, like 

the Iranian regime, it is going to be very difficult to reform, and 

it is something which we have to take outside the confines of the 

U.S. Government. And there should be a public-private partnership 

in the same way that BBC works. 

And it is notable that BBC Persian has been in existence for 

about 21⁄2 years, and in that short period, it has already managed 

to significantly eclipse Voice of America. So I think that we can do 

much better. In this country, we have a fantastic track record on 

doing media. But again, I think doing it within the U.S. Government is difficult. 

And in terms of what the message should be, I think what we 

simply can do is provide Iranians information about United States 

policy, about what is happening in their own country, inhibit the 

regime’s ability to control the information they receive, and inhibit 

the regime’s ability to prevent Iranians from communicating with 

the outside world and with one another. 

24

So I think that, as Secretary Clinton described, the electronic 

curtain is a very apt term. 

Senator LUGAR. Well, let us say they do begin to communicate. 

Are we hopeful then that the Iranian public or elements of it, 

young people or whoever, come out into the streets, that they 

decide simply that they have had enough and this becomes irrepressible? What is the scenario for making any difference to 

Khamenei with regard to his situation? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. Well, as my colleague Tom Carruthers says, it 

is always impossible to predict popular uprisings because it is not 

social sciences. It is psychology, and we can’t predict when these 

psychological tipping points are going to happen. 

I would say this. If you look at the collapse of the Mubarak 

regime and the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, it seemed to me there 

were three important factors—corruption, economic malaise, and 

repression. And if you look at objective metrics, Iran ranks higher 

than Mubarak’s Egypt and Ben Ali’s Tunisia in all three categories. 

So the discontent certainly exists within Iran, but I would argue 

that the Iranian opposition, in contrast to the Arab opposition 

movements, has reached an impasse and that they have recognized 

that they can’t reform the system from within. But because of the 

fact that they have already suffered one disillusioning revolution, 

they don’t have the same type of revolutionary romanticism which 

exists in the Arab world. So they have revolutionary ends, but they 

are not willing to pursue revolutionary means. 

That said, again, I think it would be useful for us to be able to 

communicate to the Iranian people what our policy is toward their 

nuclear program. Because at the moment, the only information 

they hear is from their leadership, which says that the United 

States and imperial powers are trying to deprive Iran of this wonderfully fantastic technology, which would totally change the 

Iranian economy, when the reality is, in fact, much different. 

Senator LUGAR Ambassador Pickering, if, in fact, Voice of America Persian was revived and these messages were getting to the 

public, granted that, as Karim has pointed out, the people might 

not come out into the streets. Perhaps not quite ready for that. 

But how does that affect your point four of this diplomacy situation if all of this is going on as we have revived something very 

different and are obviously going after Iranian public opinion with 

the thought of potential regime change? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Senator, it is a very interesting and important point. First, I begin with the notion that I have clearly no 

objection and, indeed, some reason to support the idea that the people of Iran should know much more clearly what is going on. 

I went there as a tourist in 2004, and I was amazed at the number of people who came up to me on the street as an apparent foreigner and said, ‘‘Why? What are the real problems between the 

U.S. and Iran?’’ They were totally isolated. And I think that is a 

significant point. 

Second, it would help to reinforce a point that I would like to differ just a little bit from Karim on, that the Supreme Leader is so 

implacably dedicated against any deal, so frightened of any deal 

that he won’t come. I think that we only have to look back to 2002 

25

when my good friend, Jim Dobbins, was negotiating, with the help 

of Iran, the new Government for Afghanistan. 

And at the end of that, he famously writes in his book he got a 

long message from Iran saying we would now like to explore other 

options for negotiations with the United States. He brought it back, 

and it died in the inbox somewhere, or it died in somebody’s circular file, or it died with somebody’s ideology, whatever it was. But 

it didn’t get anywhere. 

So my sense is, from Iranian friends who have worked with the 

Supreme Leader, that he is suspicious. He is, indeed, as Karim 

said so correctly, upset by the notion that the only U.S. policy is 

really this regime change policy and that in the end, it will do him 

in. 

But nevertheless, throughout the period, he apparently has said 

you guys who want to deal with America are wrong and you won’t 

succeed, and they will end up confirming that to you. But go ahead 

and try. And we have a number of cases where they went ahead 

and tried, a number of cases where it didn’t succeed. Not, I think, 

entirely all on the part of Iran, although they certainly played a 

significant role in making the negotiations very difficult. 

So my hope is, to get back to your original question, that with 

more enlightenment on the part of the people of Iran they can support a negotiating process that will give them confidence that, in 

effect, with good behavior on Iran’s part, with an ability to come 

together on these issues, there will be a much better option than 

either bombing or continued unlimited repression of one kind or 

another, which has its own consequences. 

Senator LUGAR. Yes? 

General CARTWRIGHT. Could I just offer just a quick comment? 

The only thing that I would add to this is that broadcasting to the 

Iranian people is like telling them what to think. What we really 

need to do is to engender an internal dialogue and the tools to do 

that, which allow both collaboration internally and exposure to the 

outside. 

So the work that many of the agencies have undertaken is to try 

to get things like the Internet opened up because the maldistribution of wealth that is occurring as a result of these sanctions is 

going to put pressure on the system. 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Shahee. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

There is the prospect for a new round of negotiations. 

I was in Brussels over the weekend at the Brussels forum, and 

Lady Cathy Ashton was there talking about what we might look 

for as an indication that the Iranians might really be serious about 

those negotiations. And I wonder if, I guess, Ambassador Pickering, 

I would ask you first what you think we ought to be looking for 

to determine whether the Iranians are really serious? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Thank you, Senator. 

I think it is the most important question. My own sense, and I 

spoke briefly about this in my presentation, is that we ought to 

take a proposal they put on the table, which I believe happens to 

be in our interest, which is that they would stop producing mateVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:38 Jul 27, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 S:\HEARIN~1\112THC~2\2012IS~1\032812-G.TXT BETTY
26

rial at 20 percent. Which at least in the physics of enrichment is 

a long way up the line, a lot further than 3.5 percent. 

And in return, we would provide the fuel elements to continue 

to allow them to operate a reactor that makes medical isotopes, as 

civilian as you can get. And it seems to me that is a test case, and 

we ought to be able to try to be creative and move ahead with that 

test case. 

The second piece is, overall, their proposals have been they 

would like to run a civilian program. We have plenty of good reasons for believing that in the past they have flirted with nuclear 

weapons and done things that have taken them out of the purely 

civil. But we also know from our own intelligence that in 2003, 

apparently for reasons that we don’t know, but we can imagine, 

they stopped that bomb program. 

And so, we ought to take them to a position to do everything we 

can to put that so solidly in concrete they cannot move beyond it 

on the one hand and put in place the kind of inspection mechanisms, broaden the IAEA mandate, work with the IAEA to do that. 

Buttress that with our own sources of information so that, in 

fact, we create as much of a deterrent as we can against their getting away from the firewall that I talked about earlier, that we 

would hopefully put in place through negotiations. 

Now, look, nobody knows whether negotiations will succeed or 

not. I don’t share Karim’s notion that the situation is so bad that 

it is almost feckless to try. And he and I both agree, and he said 

so here, that we ought to try. 

Indeed, if we are contemplating other options like the use of 

force, I certainly think we ought to exhaust diplomacy before we 

get there. We have been there before, Senator, as you know, and 

it hasn’t treated us or the region or, indeed, others very well to 

jump over those particular possibilities, if I can phrase them that 

way. 

Senator SHAHEEN. And can I get you to talk a little bit more 

about the impediments to being able to accomplish that kind of a 

negotiation? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Sure. I think that we would all agree 

that Iran has a very intensive way of negotiating. It may have 

learned, unfortunately, lessons from North Korea that has its own 

way. I suppose that if you have ever had the experience of raising 

children to the age of 2 years, you get some sense of how and in 

what way that process operates at a perhaps slightly more elemental level of psychology. 

They are extremely hard bargainers. They have grown up, after 

all, in a society where bargaining is a science, not just an art form. 

And so, we have those questions already. 

They may have internal differences. They may seek over a period 

of time, as I believe they did when they first agreed to the arrangement in October 2009, that, in fact, they would turn over to us 

1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium in return for the fuel elements I am now advocating we provide for the 20-percent material. 

But nevertheless, that failed. It failed in part because I believe 

there was serious internal disagreement. The Supreme Leader did 

not really want President Ahmadinejad to claim some credit for 

this. He didn’t trust that. He was concerned. 

27

So we have had problems on both sides in being able, if I could 

put it that way, to manage the negotiating process. 

And I, without digressing too much, see, in fact, arrangements 

here on the Hill which I deeply am opposed to to try to impose restrictions on the President with respect to what he can negotiate, 

rather than to follow the normal rule in which you are hopefully 

fully consulted but then have the opportunity to up-or-down 

approve an agreement that the executive branch brings to you as 

a result of our constitutional and traditional processes in that regard. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

I will tell you what my pediatrician said about negotiating with 

my 2-year-old, and that was they are totally self-absorbed. 

[Laughter.] 

Ambassador PICKERING. I couldn’t know of a wiser statement. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Karim, you talked about the possible belief on 

the Iranian part that an Israeli strike could be a net positive for 

the regime. Do you think the Israelis have taken that into their 

considerations, and how do they react to that? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. That is a great question. Just quickly on the 

issue of negotiations. I always say that in America, our negotiating 

culture is getting to ‘‘yes.’’ In Iran, the negotiating culture is staying on ‘‘maybe.’’

But with regards to an Israeli strike and whether the Israelis 

have taken that into consideration, my sense is that they don’t take 

that argument very seriously for two reasons. I think there is two 

schools of thought. 

One school of thought, and I think this is probably reflective of 

Prime Minister Netanyahu, says that a strike on Iran, a military 

strike on their nuclear facilities could actually expedite the demise 

of the Iranian regime. And he has said this before in interviews, 

and you may argue that he has motivated biases to believe that. 

The second school of thought among those in Israel who would 

support military action is to say that that is OK, that we will set 

them back 3, 4 years, and it may entrench the regime. It may not. 

But this is an existential threat to us, and so we can’t afford to 

take this lightly. And if need be, we will do it again 3 to 4 years 

later. It is like mowing the lawn is sometimes an analogy that they 

use. 

So my sense is that what it would do to Iran’s internal politics 

hasn’t been a first-tier consideration for them. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. My time is up. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Great hearing, and very much appreciated. And outstanding witnesses. Thank you very much. 

And to Mr. Pickering, Ambassador Pickering, the isotope offer, if 

you will, that you are talking about, that is an old offer. Is there 

any reason to believe that today that still has a degree of life? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Senator, that is an offer that I think is 

only a few months old, and that may be in terms of the time scale 

of Iran an old offer. But I think that it has been on the table not 

so long that it would be dead. 

28

Now there are some considerations here that we need to keep in 

mind. The Iranians have produced one fuel element at 20 percent, 

which they are now testing in the reactor. My friends who are 

much more expert than I in this say that no one, even the Iranians, 

would be sufficiently confident enough without a long test of that 

one fuel element to feel they have now achieved independence with 

respect to the operation of that reactor. So I think the dependency 

piece is still there. 

There are also, obviously, other important things we can do. 

They had talked about building three or four more such reactors 

to make medical isotopes. My own view is that there is probably 

technology that would be available that could make the one reactor 

they have much more efficient at producing medical isotopes. 

So there are things here that I think we can turn into win/win, 

even if, in fact, the basic proposal might be complexified, if I could 

put it that way, by the Iranian negotiating reaction. And we need 

to think down the road about that. 

Nevertheless, it is still their proposal. It is giving them what 

they have asked for, and I believe in that sense, it is very much 

in the U.S. interests. I believe it is in Israel’s interest not to have 

any more 20-percent material, not to have any more material above 

3.5 percent produced as a place to start. There are gains in both 

directions. 

Senator CORKER. Thank you. 

General Cartwright, I certainly want to thank you for all the 

time you spent with me during the Libyan issue, and I really 

appreciate it. I know you had a lot going on, and thank you for 

your service. 

And speaking of that, what would the leadership of Iran take 

away from Libya? I know that has been alluded to, but we had diplomatic relations. They did do away with their weapons of mass 

destruction, and we did, in fact, implement regime changes. So 

what did they learn from this? 

General CARTWRIGHT. My sense, Senator, is combined with 

Libya, the Arab Spring activities in the region, there is a sense 

that they are emboldened more to need some sort of a guarantor 

of their sovereignty and that internal the dialogue is such to make 

that even more pronounced that see what has happened—see what 

happens if we go along with this path of denuclearizing, see what 

happens if we give too much of a voice to the populace. 

I mean, it is an internal dialogue. That is why I was pushing on 

making sure that if we actually embrace trying to give the Iranian 

people a way to communicate, it is probably going to be more efficient than just Voice of America. In other words, having them be 

able to talk amongst themselves and with people external is probably a more powerful weapon than just broadcasting to them. 

But they have looked at that lesson. I can’t tell you what is in 

their mind, but we have heard reporting along the lines—see what 

happens if you go down this path? 

Senator CORKER. And just for what it is worth, you know, to me, 

that was a problem with our involvement there and expressed it 

at the time, and mostly what the outcome ends up being. You 

talked about the difference between shield and sword, and obviously, the shield component, especially in light of what you just 

29

said, is, you would think, of paramount importance, especially 

when you only have a handful of weapons at most. 

What is it in their psychology that would move them along 

toward the franchise component where they would actually allow 

those weapons to be in terrorist hands? And this is way down the 

road, I understand. But why would that be in their self-interest in 

any way? 

General CARTWRIGHT. This is again supposition, sir. Certainly 

trying to guess what the future is going to bring here. But the dialogue that you would fear and the thought process that you would 

fear is one that the acknowledgment that even if they have a dozen 

of these weapons, there is no way to win a nuclear exchange. But 

these weapons in the hands of a surrogate, even at the onesie or 

twosie level, become items that create blackmail scenarios all 

around the world. 

And then what you are trying to do is undermine confidence. The 

thought process that one of these could emerge in a city someplace 

in the world is a very destabilizing activity and makes the weapon 

far more powerful than exploding it. 

Senator CORKER. You mentioned the opportunity Iran may see 

this year because of all the leadership changes that are taking 

place around the world. I didn’t exactly understand what that 

opportunity might be for them. 

General CARTWRIGHT. It is a double-edged sword for them, actually. On one side, they could see leadership changes that would 

favor their position. On the other side, they could see leadership 

changes that potentially would change the position of Russia or 

China in the P5. They could see the lack of will potentially of 

nations to want to go to armed conflict in a year of——

Senator CORKER. During that period of time? 

General CARTWRIGHT. Yes, sir. 

Senator CORKER. But I still don’t understand—I understand they 

don’t know what the outcomes of these elections might be, and you 

don’t know whether they would be good or bad for them. None of 

us know that here. 

I don’t understand what actions, though, that would cause them 

internally to possibly take. 

General CARTWRIGHT. Well, a potential scenario is to declare—to 

declare either the dash or just to declare that they are going to test 

or have tested. We have no way of proving or disproving that action, and the declaration, in and of itself, is extremely destabilizing. 

Senator CORKER. Is there, speaking of declaring and not declaring, do you sense—and our intelligence community, obviously, has 

come under much criticism because of the Iraq issue. Do you 

sense—and you know, I had a classified briefing yesterday at 

length. I didn’t really learn anything that I haven’t read multiple 

times in the Washington Post and the New York Times. 

And is there a sense from your perspective that because of what 

happened with Iraq that the intelligence community is almost overconcerned about saying anything that might be provocative, and I 

mean, is there a hesitancy on their part to really lay out more provocative situations as it relates to Iran? 

General CARTWRIGHT. I have not seen hesitancy on their part to 

have a dialogue about the ‘‘what if’’ side of it. But as they lay down, 

30

they want to make sure whoever reads the documents has a clear 

view of what they actually know, not what the supposition side of 

it is. 

In conversation, in briefings, they will often get into here is 

potential turns, potential misunderstandings of how we are interpreting the data. I think more what is happening here with our 

intelligence community is they are trying to be very precise about 

what they actually know and don’t know and then have a dialogue 

after that and document that. 

Senator CORKER. Just one last question, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Sadjadpour, what is our policy as it relates to Iran? Is it regime change, or is it not? I mean, I think that would be an interesting thing for me to even know. 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. I think our policy at the moment is to try to 

subject Iran to enough political and economic pressure to compel it 

to moderate its nuclear program, to make, as I said, meaningful 

and binding compromises on its nuclear program. 

I think in the last year or so, many folks in the Obama administration have come to the realization that as long as Ayatollah 

Khamenei remains Supreme Leader, it is going to be very difficult 

to get Iran to make those meaningful and binding compromises. So, 

in some way, Khamenei’s perception that U.S. policy is regime 

change, not behavior change, is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Menendez. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

Ambassador Pickering, let me ask you, we originally had some 

resistance to the sanctions that we approved in the Congress last 

December. And but for those sanctions and the fact that we have 

a great success moving in the direction of multilateralism as it relate to those sanctions, which are always more desirable, would we 

have any traction with the Iranians at the end of the day? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Senator, if you have gained the impression that I was against the sanctions, that is not the impression 

I intended to leave. I intended to say that it is extremely important 

we use the sanctions in a creative way to move toward diplomacy, 

and I think that has been the general view of the three of us here. 

Senator MENENDEZ. It still begs my question. I didn’t suggest 

that was your view. I was asking, but for the sanctions, would we 

have any leverage going into a process to get the Iranians to engage in a discussion that would hopefully have this solved without 

a military process? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes. I think that we have just had a discussion with one of your members about regime change, does that 

have an effect? Some may argue that pressures that look like regime change may have a positive effect in moving Iran toward a 

deal. Others may argue, as I think Mr. Sadjadpour, although he is 

best able to speak for himself, that this is having a negative reaction on the Supreme Leader’s willingness to make a decision. 

We have had lots of discussion of all options on the table. There 

is only one reason for me to believe that all options should be on 

the table because it has initially and very importantly a potentially 

positive effect on Iran’s willingness to look at a negotiating option, 

31

and we have discussed some of that in detail. So it isn’t sanctions 

alone, but the panoply of efforts. 

We need to be careful, however, in calculating that, that as we 

move with those efforts, we do not drive the Iranians in a direction 

that Mr. Sadjadpour signaled that we would not wish to see them 

go about trying to find a solution to this problem and, hopefully, 

a solution to this problem short of what I consider to be the highly 

risky, very low advantage military option. 

Senator MENENDEZ. General Cartwright, you have said in the 

past, and correct me if I am mistaken, ‘‘if they,’’ meaning the Iranians, ‘‘have the intent, all the weapons in the world are not going 

to change that.’’ Not change their intent, but do all the weapons 

in the world change their ability to achieve nuclear weaponry? 

General CARTWRIGHT. My general belief is that a limited strike 

would—and we have had that conversation here today—would, one, 

probably steel their resolve. In other words, make them more resolved to move forward. You never know for sure because of all of 

the other things that are going on. 

But as the franchising of this enterprise, nuclear enterprise 

occurs, the effect of bombing and the ability of bombing to actually 

find all of the targets becomes problematic, No. 1. And No. 2, the 

intellectual capital now has been so diffused that should they continue to intend, the ability to rebuild is actually well within their 

power. 

And so, it is not a question of trying to eliminate some sort of 

thought process by kinetic energy. That usually tends to take you 

in the opposite direction. What we want is for the Iranian people 

to come to the judgment on their own through a variety of meanings, sanctions, the threat of force potentially. 

My worry is that, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombing 

itself is not going to change their mind. 

Senator MENENDEZ. You said in your testimony that Iran doesn’t 

need to make a U.S.-style weapon. What is your estimate of how 

long it would take if Iran decides to break out and to have them 

enrich uranium to 90 percent and make a crude nuclear weapon? 

General CARTWRIGHT. Yes. It would depend on whether they 

were getting any assistance in that area from somebody who has 

worked in this area and built a weapon themselves. But assuming 

that they haven’t, well within a year they would be able to do 

something like that. That is after they have gotten the reprocessed 

material, not all the way to weapons grade in our construct. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Mr. Sadjadpour, this conversation about the 

thought process of Ayatollah Khamenei, if he believes that regime 

change is our goal, then he is less likely, I would assume, to think 

that there is any process worthy of a negotiation. 

If he thinks, as you described it as behavior change, that we simply do not believe that for the world and our own national security 

interests and certainly in the region that having nuclear weapons 

in a country that has so much oil and obviously doesn’t need it for 

domestic power is our goal, does his thinking change? Is there some 

way to persuade that it is not regime change, but simply behavior? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. The challenge with Khamenei is that he responds to both incentives and overtures and disincentives and pressure in the same way. When President Obama tried to reach out, 

32

and we can go into more detail about some of the things which 

President Obama did, which haven’t really been publicized—for 

example, the private letters which President Obama sent to Ayatollah Khamenei, two private letters—Khamenei was very cynical. 

He said that this is an iron fist with a velvet glove on it. 

And so, he in a way is paralyzed with mistrust, and again, I 

think that it is expedient for him to project this cynicism because 

he recognizes that an opening with the United States—I would 

argue that there are three symbolic pillars left of the Islamic 

Republic. It is enmity toward the United States, enmity toward 

Israel, and the veil, the hijab for women. And if he gets rid of one 

of those pillars, it could really shake the foundations of the system. 

So, in theory, it makes a lot of sense to say, OK, Iran is pursuing 

a nuclear weapon because of a sense of insecurity vis-a-vis the 

United States. So let us simply eliminate that sense of insecurity 

in order to curtail their nuclear weapons ambitions. 

But as I said in my testimony, the reality is that what Khamenei 

obsesses about is not U.S. hard power or U.S. military action, it is 

U.S. soft power and this idea of a soft or velvet revolution. And I 

don’t think, realistically, we can reassure him that we are not pursuing that path because what it would take is for us to cease saying anything about Iranian human rights abuses, which isn’t likely. 

It would require us to shut down Voice of America and Radio 

Farda. I even think it would take us, it would take us shutting 

down Hollywood before he thinks that——

Senator MENENDEZ. Well, that is not going to happen. 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. That is not going to happen. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Let me ask you one final question. Is anybody concerned about, OK, so Iran gets nuclear weapons. Is anybody concerned about what Turkey and Syria do in the region? 

How is it that they say to themselves, ‘‘I can live and secure my 

people without my own nuclear power?’’

Ambassador PICKERING. I addressed that in my opening remarks, 

Senator, and I think it is very clear that, in effect, we have had 

this renewal of sudden interest on the part of a number of states 

in the region, United Arab Emirates for one, and others in ‘‘a civil 

nuclear program.’’

Many of us have felt for years that if Iran proliferates, there will 

be enormous pressure on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United 

Arab Emirates, and others to move in that direction. And indeed, 

there are some feelings they have already thought well enough 

about that to be able to perhaps make that kind of move. 

And that kind of proliferation adds significantly to the instability 

that is at the essence of the nonproliferation argument. The more 

people who have these, the more chance you have for use by accident, miscalculation, or even design. The franchise process may be 

there, although I myself believe very strongly that everyone who 

gets a weapon’s first instinct is to make sure nobody else gets it. 

And their second instinct is to wonder what are they really going 

to use this thing for? And to some extent, I think that is an argument against putting weapons out to franchisees, who are not 

McDonald’s employees but are likely in their own way, once they 

have one, unless you have some kind of remote control permissive 

action link to control use of that weapon, going to use it for their 

33

own purposes. So franchising is not an absolutely certainly controlled process, and we need to be concerned about proliferation on 

its own to other nation states as well as the franchise problem. 

And my sense is that proliferation in the region is going to be 

self-stimulating. If you just look at the history, India says it got a 

weapon because China had a weapon. Pakistan said it had to get 

a weapon because India had a weapon, and we see others going on. 

So this chain is one that we have worked hard to try to break, 

and in a number of cases, we have been successful. It has not been 

a totally feckless proposition. 

You look at South Africa. You could look at the potential for 

South Korea in the past, for Taiwan in the past, and so on. And 

I think we obviously need to keep it up. And so, strongly, strongly, 

my view is we must stop proliferation in Iran. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Risch. 

Senator RISCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Pickering, you made comment about the 2003 decision that 

was made, which I think everyone agrees to. I have reservations 

about the permanency of that decision or the depth of that decision. 

You seem to accept that decision as one that it really overrides 

what is going on today. 

How do you square that with the fact that they are building so 

many centrifuges, they are increasing the number of centrifuges 

rapidly, and the degree to which they are enriching nuclear material? How does that square with the 2003 decision? 

Ambassador PICKERING. I share your concerns. I believe that 

were you to get a briefing, you would not believe that there is such 

a rapid expansion of centrifuges, but any expansion concerns me. 

My own——

Senator RISCH. By the way, I do get briefings. I am on the Intelligence Committee. 

Ambassador PICKERING. OK. 

Senator RISCH. Relatively regularly. 

Ambassador PICKERING. I assumed you were. In any event, you 

might want to ask that question again with respect to the pace and 

speed. 

The next question that I think we have to address is are the centrifuges solely devoted to a program which our Intelligence Committee, at least as of the last time I heard, believes is not a weapons program. I don’t know the answer to that. 

They claim they would like to have the material so that the reactor that they have and the reactors they might buy in the future, 

they can assure there will be fuel for that. 

And I——

Senator RISCH. But the problem—the problem——

Ambassador PICKERING. Let me, if I may, please answer that? 

Senator RISCH. Go ahead. 

Ambassador PICKERING. And then I will get into the dialogue. 

The fatwa is more than just the isolated musings of an addled 

cleric. But you will have to get experts on Shiism to talk to you 

about it. I have looked into it. I believe it could be reversed. I believe it could be rapidly reversed were they attacked. 

Finally, I would say we need to find a way, in my view, to get 

the various pieces of this program under control, regardless of what 

34

we may say or believe about where they are going in the future, 

and that is, in my view, the purpose of negotiations. 

And thank you for your patience, and I am ready for any other 

question you have got. 

Senator RISCH. Well, I guess the only part I have difficulty with 

is the degree to which they are enriching. I mean, it is hard, when 

you look at the percentage and the degree to which they are enriching, it really hard to say, well, you know, this could be for civilian 

or it could be for medical. 

There are some real issues there. Would you agree with me on 

that, Mr. Pickering? 

Ambassador PICKERING. I do, and I have a fundamental question 

about why they would need enrichment at all if they haven’t 

bought the reactors and they have to go to Russia for the reactors. 

And Russia seemingly will not provide the reactors without the fuel 

and the spent fuel. 

These all worry me, and they are all very much part of my continuing concern about what we are engaged in here. My hope is 

that we can start a process that can get at these, but I mean, I 

believe that it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can to 

make that process work. 

But I can’t tell you any more than anybody else at this table can 

tell you there is any guarantee that it will work. 

Senator RISCH. You made a comment, I think it was parenthetically, but you talked about, I think I picked up your comment 

about Iran’s preoccupation with drugs. And you were using it as 

compared to our preoccupation with their nuclear program, something like that. 

It is something we don’t talk about much. Could you give us, 

briefly give us your thoughts on that? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes, sir. I merely said it was a subject 

in which Iran would like, I believe, to talk to us about seeing, in 

fact, whether more active action could be taken, and I think that 

they specifically refer to Afghanistan. They have made comments, 

and I don’t think there are any reasons to doubt these, there may 

be that they have lost over 3,000 people in the long war against 

drugs moving across their border from Afghanistan. 

And we have had a considerable problem in Afghanistan, as you 

know. Our problem has been——

Senator RISCH. What——

Ambassador PICKERING [continuing]. The lack of an ability to 

provide a serious and immediate or at least fast-acting alternative 

to the cultivation of drugs that doesn’t at the same time produce 

a significant recruiting tool for the Taliban. And as we are now 

postured, we are working on long-term solutions. While at the 

same time, drugs continue to produce significant amount of income, 

which I cannot believe stays away from funding Taliban interests 

in Afghanistan. 

So it is a part of the problem. And to some extent, they see a 

common interest in both our parts, but I have been in Russia and 

I have talked to Iranians, and they both say why aren’t you, now 

that you are, you know, in a big position in Afghanistan, doing 

more to stop the drug cultivation which, in some ways, feeds the 

problem monetarily. 

35

And our answer has to be, well, we are going to have to do everything we can. But we cannot feed the problem in terms of producing more new fighters in the hands of the Taliban if we can possibly avoid that. And this has been a very tough decision, one that 

I am troubled by, but I wish I could tell you I knew a fast-acting 

and easy solution to deal with it. 

Senator RISCH. That same question has been asked by a number 

of us United States Senators, and it is the elephant in the room 

nobody wants to talk about. 

General Cartwright, just briefly, you talked about the steps that 

Iran would have to go through to produce, to get to the point of a 

nuclear weapon. And a number of those were based upon your 

analysis, or at least an analysis of their own development. 

Assuming you have access to intelligence information, are you 

concerned with the commerce between North Korea and Iran, 

which could short-circuit some of those steps? Because obviously 

North Korea has accomplished those steps and has already gone 

through this. And they both, in many respects, have similar motivations regarding the United States. Does that concern you? 

General CARTWRIGHT. It does. It does. It concerns me from the 

standpoint of weaponization reprocessing and then weaponization. 

Also concerns me from the standpoint of delivery. The components 

that could be manufactured or at least developed in Korea for their 

weapons systems, missiles, could easily migrate. And you just have 

to worry about that because it would fundamentally change the 

timelines to fielding these types of capabilities. 

Senator RISCH. And of course, this is not only measured by us, 

but also by the Israelis? 

General CARTWRIGHT. Right. 

Senator RISCH. Thank you. My time is up. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thanks very much, Senator. I appreciate it. 

Do any other Senators have additional questions they wanted to 

ask? 

Senator Shaheen. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You may have addressed this in your opening remarks, but there 

has been a lot of—in the media, there has been a lot of discussion 

about redlines and whether there should be redlines for—that 

should govern our negotiations with Iran. I think Secretary 

Panetta said that a redline would be an Iranian effort to actually 

construct a nuclear weapon. 

So I have two questions really. One is, is there general agreement on what that Iranian effort to actually construct a nuclear 

weapon would look like? And second, what do each of you believe 

with respect to redlines around any future U.S. action or negotiations? 

Ambassador PICKERING. I might go ahead, and I would certainly 

defer to General Cartwright and all of the military pieces. My 

sense is that the best bright redline I could come up with at the 

moment is a decision to make a nuclear weapon. We may or may 

not know about it immediately. 

If that decision is to use what has already been produced in the 

way of, say, low-enriched uranium as the basis for upgrading, then 

36

we will know about it because all of that material and the operational system that supports it is under IAEA control—seals and 

visits and cameras. 

If the decision is to develop a completely black program from 

zero, with no relationship to the existing program except for perhaps the passage of information, and even that would open it up 

to some transparency, then I think it would take a quite long time 

to produce. If there is intercommunication, if I could put it, 

between the black program and the existing program, then there 

are obviously chances of detection, but not perfect. 

But my feeling is that is a much better redline than the redline 

of nuclear capability, which, as we know, floats around and is 

something the Israelis are concerned about because they are feeling 

that they have perhaps limited military capability with respect to 

some underground and other installations. 

My feeling is that nuclear capability already exists. If you look 

around the world, most people who engage in one way at all with 

things like enrichment and reprocessing have ‘‘nuclear capability.’’ 

The nuclear capability is dual purpose, as we all know. There are 

reasons why we call it sensitive technology and why we have struggled for years to try, despite the freedom to use it in the Nonproliferation Treaty, to bring it under some more control. 

And indeed, my own view is that it would be well worthwhile for 

us to look at even having the declared nuclear states put their sensitive facilities under much more strict international control and 

perhaps multinational management as a way to get at this fundamental problem. But it is a very fuzzy area. 

Does reading a book that gives you some of the critical information about this, which is in public, entitle you to be in the area of 

nuclear capability and, therefore, subject to bombing by somebody 

who doesn’t trust you or doesn’t like your program? So we see all 

of that. And I don’t know that I have a good bright redline to give 

you under nuclear capability. 

You could begin to think about, at least on one side, the use of 

research to develop tools that have nothing to do with civil nuclear 

power but have to do with weapons development. And those have 

been the IAEA concerns about possible military developments in 

Iran, including such things as ignition systems for nuclear weapons 

and the explosive systems that are used, in effect, to create a 

fission reaction in nuclear weapons, which are quite different. 

And we have seen signs, as the IAEA has, of those before 2003 

in Iran, and they are worrying. And it is one of the things that the 

international community, including the United States, would like 

to have the Iranians clear up as we work our way through a negotiating process that should try to end this program. 

Would they be redlines? Possibly. But again, it would take a lot 

of scientific work and some real care, in effect, to understand what 

those were and how and in what way they could be dealt with. 

My own view is if that is the case, the first option would be to 

deal with them the way we have been dealing with them in Iran 

and use our considerable pressure and our growing pressure, in a 

sense, to try to get that set of situations explained, stopped if it 

continues, we don’t believe it is, and put behind us. 

37

Senator SHAHEEN. So, based on that, I assume the answer is that 

there isn’t a commonly accepted definition for nuclear capability 

that we could all agree to? 

General CARTWRIGHT. Could I just add just briefly? 

Senator SHAHEEN. Yes, please. 

General CARTWRIGHT. I mean, there are kind of three issues 

here. If the adversary doesn’t know what your redlines are, they 

don’t know when they cross them. So you have to put them 

forward. 

If you put them forward and then you negotiate through them, 

beyond them, you lose credibility. And the third issue, which I 

think we are probably starting to see play out with the Korean 

missile launch here that is projected, is other parties may see this 

differently than we do. And so, in the case of Korea right now, the 

Japanese and their administration are taking a look at alternatives 

that we may not be considering. 

And so, this is a very difficult area, and making those lines too 

bright red oftentimes undermines our credibility. 

Senator SHAHEEN. And so, does that argue for not doing that? 

For not trying to set——

General CARTWRIGHT. My sense is you have to have redlines. You 

have to put them out, but you have to also understand that you 

are entering into a negotiation and that other parties may see 

those redlines differently, and it makes it very difficult to move 

forward. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Mr. Sadjadpour, do you share that? 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. I do share that, and I wanted to note that of 

the three examples General Cartwright gave, the first two exist in 

the context with Iran, meaning we don’t have clear communication 

with them to communicate redlines to them, and that is why I do 

advocate dialogue. I think, if nothing else, it is very important to 

be able to communicate those redlines to them directly. 

And over the last 6, 7 years, Iran has continuously transgressed 

what were perhaps not very bright redlines, but things that the 

Israelis had communicated in the public realm would be redlines. 

My concern is their facility in Fordo outside of Qom, and it is my 

sense—this is speculation. But it is my sense that if they go beyond 

20-percent enrichment in Fordo, that could be transgressing a redline, which could trigger some type of military conflagration. 

Senator SHAHEEN. So, General Cartwright, if the Israelis were to 

bomb Iran, I assume that would result in some corresponding 

action on the part of the United States. 

And can you—do we have any good predictions for what would 

result in the Middle East as the result of that kind of action? 

The CHAIRMAN. Before you answer that, if I could just say I have 

to go to a meeting at noon. So I apologize. 

Senator Lugar, would you close it out, if you could, afterward 

and——

Senator SHAHEEN. Yes, that is my last question. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. I thank all of the witnesses for being 

here today. It has been a very, very helpful and important hearing. 

Thank you. 

I am sorry, Senator, to interrupt you. 

38

General CARTWRIGHT. You know, you are trying to forecast, and 

my crystal ball is probably no better than anybody else’s here. But 

the concern would likely be that there would be an initial exchange 

of ballistic missiles, short and medium range, which I believe the 

Israelis have already put into their calculus and for which the region is now starting to develop a very robust capability against. 

It doesn’t mean it is a shield. It just means the likelihood is diminished. Then the likelihood of asymmetric actions, as people 

have called it, but terrorist type acts that are focused at undermining the confidence of each of the nations’ populace and government, and they could take the form of critical infrastructure. They 

could take the form of going against civilian population concentrations. 

All of those are possible. So that is where things like passive 

defenses, stand-off and what not, are important to try to deter 

what is generally accepted as nondeterrable type activities, but 

remove from the adversary the goal they seek. 

The other is that, and we have talked briefly about, is that an 

attack like that could very easily steel the resolve of the Iranian 

people that, ‘‘See, this is what we have said.’’ And so, I think all 

of those are on the very negative side of this activity of considering. 

And again, I would never remove this as an option from a President, but I think our judgment here at the table is that it is not 

a good option, and certainly it should be left for the very last. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Senator Lugar. 

Senator LUGAR [presiding]. Thank you very much. 

I have just one final question. I mentioned in my opening 

remarks that sometimes the thought is expressed that the Iranian 

program could trigger other countries in the Middle East to feel 

that in terms of their own defense or prestige or for a variety of 

other reasons, including maybe the continuity of their own regimes, 

they ought to develop nuclear weapons programs. 

Is that a realistic assumption, or is it simply a debating tool? Or 

do you have any judgment as to technically or financially or foreign 

policywise whether it is likely—and I don’t want to name countries 

for fear of being accused of at least impugning their situations. 

There are some candidates at least often mentioned. But as a general principle, is the proliferation idea a valid one? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Perhaps I could start? I know the others 

will want to comment as well. 

My sense is that it is more than just a kind of arguing point. It 

is more than chimerical. It is, in fact, serious enough for us, in my 

view, even in advance of any such steps, to be taking actions, and 

I have welcomed the agreement that we have signed, the 123 

agreement with the UAE, which is buying reactors from Korea. 

Which agreement, in fact, with the UAE’s full cooperation, is keeping them away from the sensitive facilities and taking actions that 

make sense. 

Others may or may not be prepared to come along. In the past, 

we have had a history with Turkey on this issue. My feeling is we 

have had a history with Egypt on this issue, and we need to find 

ways to reinforce the reasons that I think you, with great justificaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:38 Jul 27, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 S:\HEARIN~1\112THC~2\2012IS~1\032812-G.TXT BETTY
39

tion, have put forward that might move them in this direction, 

including questions of defense and stability. 

I think we should give very careful consideration to what additional assurances we should give those states that do not proliferate with respect to the threats and dangers that might be 

against them beyond what we already have under the Nonproliferation Treaty. 

Whether that is as extensive as Article 5 of NATO or not, I don’t 

know. But it would seem to me that it would be in our interest to 

do that whether Iran proliferates or not perhaps in terms of building our relationships and stability in the area. Whether other 

nuclear powers ought to also join us in this as a way of providing 

a kind of more secure roadblock against disintegration in the area, 

I would not foreclose other states in the region. 

I would have to be cautious, and we would have to think through 

very carefully how this related to Israel, which, as we all know, has 

not declared and at the same time is widely assumed to be in that 

category. But up until now, and certainly my experience in Israel, 

where I lived there for a period of time representing the country, 

is that they are not throwing around whatever it is they think—

people think they may have, if I could phrase it that way, in a 

threatening way. 

And my sense is that we need to look at all of those questions 

and options and examine them. I hope they are being looked at because they can help us provide for more stability and more security 

in a region which, at the moment, is being a little more than torn 

apart by instability, insecurity. Not just in the country we are talking about, but elsewhere. 

Senator LUGAR. General Cartwright. 

General CARTWRIGHT. I think, Senator, the thing that worries me 

probably the most here is—and I am trying to choose the words 

carefully. It is the proliferation issue of the technology, not necessarily the pure weaponization or the ownership of weaponization. 

It is the fact that the fuel cycle is now very well understood around 

the world. That the nodes on the fuel cycle where weaponization 

can occur are now known how to make them relatively obscure to 

visibility and inspection. 

And that that knowledge, that intellectual capital is now moving 

and potentially moving faster as a result of this activity and is 

likely—you can look at the pattern of Iran versus North Korea—

is likely to emerge in other places. They may emerge in allies. It 

may emerge in adversaries. 

But that knowledge is not going to be uninvented. So we are—

if you look farther down the road, which I know you do, this problem is not going away. In the short term, we are worried about 

Iran. And the longer term problem for us as a planet is the proliferation of this activity. 

Mr. SADJADPOUR. Senator Lugar, I share very much Ambassador 

Pickering’s comments, and I would say that if there is one country 

in the world which perhaps is more concerned about a nucleararmed Iran than Israel is it is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia views 

the Middle East very much through sectarian lenses. They see the 

Iranian regime as being irrational Shiites which can’t be deterred. 

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And if they were to decide, if the Saudis were to decide to build 

their own nuclear program, it would take them probably over a 

decade. The option, which many people talk about, is Saudi Arabia 

somehow acquiring a nuclear device from Pakistan. I am not sure 

if that is a strong possibility. But I would just go back to Ambassador Pickering’s proscriptions that this is something that we 

should be talking about and planning for right now. 

Senator LUGAR. Well, I thank you each for those responses because this is, I suspect, another avenue of diplomacy that is related 

to Iran, which we are discussing today, but also clearly pertains to 

longer term objectives of security for our country, as well as for our 

friends in the Middle East. 

Do you have any further questions, Senator Shaheen? 

Well, we just thank you all very, very much. This has been a tremendous hearing, tremendously informative for us and we hope for 

citizens of the country who have been listening to you and to the 

responses to our questions. 

And the hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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