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UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD

IRAN—NEXT STEPS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 8, 2006

Serial No. 109–183

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

HILLEL WEINBERG, Senior Professional Staff Member and Counsel 

JEAN CARROLL, Full Committee Hearing Coordinator 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. 

Department of State ............................................................................................ 11

The Honorable Robert Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, U.S. Department of State ..................................................... 22

John C. Hulsman, Ph.D., The Heritage Foundation ............................................. 58

Michael A. Ledeen, Ph.D., The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research .......................................................................................................... 65

Mr. Gary Milhollin, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control ....................... 72

Abbas William Samii, Ph.D., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ......................... 78

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Nicholas Burns: Prepared statement ........................................... 15

The Honorable Robert Joseph: Prepared statement ............................................. 25

John C. Hulsman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 60

Michael A. Ledeen, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................... 68

Mr. Gary Milhollin: Prepared statement ............................................................... 75

Abbas William Samii, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................ 79

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 91

(1)

UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAN—

NEXT STEPS 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:23 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Chairman HYDE. Iran presents perhaps the most difficult national security problem confronting the United States. Should 

Iran’s clerical regime acquire nuclear weapons, as is its evident 

aim, it would be able to foment mischief in its region or beyond 

without fear of regime threatening retaliation other than from another nuclear power. 

In a suicidal mode, it could well lash out at Israel, Europe or at 

American forces in the region. Inevitably, regional powers such as 

Saudi Arabia will seek nuclear powers of their own so that they 

will not have to rely on others to secure their survival. Were Iran 

not in such an important location, its behavior might be of marginal concern, even though we would reprove it for its abysmal 

human rights record and especially its record of religious intolerance. But Iran produces a significant portion of the world’s petroleum resources. Moreover, it can threaten from its proximity to the 

energy fields of the Arab countries, of the Gulf and its ability to 

close the Straits of Hormuz, much of the world’s energy supply. 

While we are less dependent on Gulf energy than are some of our 

major allies and trading partners, any disruption in oil supply from 

the Gulf would, as we have known for decades, present a major 

economic and national security problem. Given the current lack of 

non-Gulf excess production capacity, instability in the Gulf would 

cause world oil prices to spike significantly. Because of Iran’s economic importance, it has thus far proven to be hard to isolate or 

pressure successfully. Japan, for example, derives 15 percent of its 

energy from Iran and fully 90 percent of its energy from the Middle 

East. What should a Japanese political leader do if that country is 

asked to cut itself off from Iranian oil? 

Because of Iran’s size and military capacity, it is hard to coerce 

militarily, and it may prove to be exceedingly difficult to disable its 

nuclear assets. Any attempt to do so is likely to strengthen the 

most retrograde political forces there. 

Iran’s leaders know all this, which is evidently why they have 

continued to defy the world, breaking agreements and ignoring 

international standards of behavior with abandon. Iran’s internal 

2

politics are dominated by a clerical clique that holds power by 

force, but which also enjoys the active support of a strong minority 

of the Iranian population and the passive support of a larger share. 

Iranian nationalist sentiment can be stirred up easily. At the 

same time, the United States is popular in Iran, not least because 

we clearly oppose that regime and support the Iranian people’s true 

aspirations for peace and economic progress. 

The Administration has begun reaching out even more strongly 

and proposed a $75 million public diplomacy program in Fiscal 

Year 2006 supplemental budget now under consideration. The Administration’s approach to Iran in earlier years lacked focus, but 

for the past year it has found its footing and concentrated on a diplomatic strategy that has borne fruit not in the sense that Iran has 

been convinced to change its behavior, but in the sense that the 

world community is more united than ever on the proposition that 

Iran must change. 

This is a remarkable accomplishment for which the Administration deserves great credit. We got Iran to the Security Council not 

by bullying or sanctioning the IAEA’s members, but by persistent 

and skillful diplomacy. We will move forward the same way. 

We need to keep that in mind as we craft legislation to deal with 

Iran, although I think the Administration has sufficient tools and 

ample motivation right now. The next step will require cooperation 

by states which have a lot to lose in the short term by alienating 

Iran’s regime, so we must be able to show them that it is in their 

long-term interest to join us in the next difficult phase of this effort. 

I now yield to my colleague, Mr. Lantos, for any opening comments he may have. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

As we consider the question of United States policy toward Iran 

today, there is no room for naivete ́. We must be as clear-eyed as 

the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Philippe Douste-Blazy, was 3 

weeks ago when he said, and I quote:

‘‘No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear 

program. It is a clandestine military nuclear program. Now it 

is up to the Security Council to say what it will do, what 

means it will use to stop, to manage, to halt this terrible crisis 

of nuclear proliferation caused by Iran.’’

Mr. Chairman, I have not often had occasion recently to applaud 

statements from the French Foreign Ministry, but in this case I do 

so emphatically and without reservation. 

The Iranians are hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. If any 

leader any place on this planet still doubts this, he is in urgent 

need of medical attention. There is no other reasonable explanation 

for the nearly 20 years of lies and deceptions about their covert nuclear activities. 

We need to come to terms with this fact, and we need to respond 

with resolve. There are no good options in this situation, Mr. 

Chairman, and it comes at a time when we confront numerous serious other crises globally. 

This week, as we await the conclusion of the IAEA meetings in 

Vienna and the shifting of the Iran file to the UN Security Council, 

3

one thing is clear. The long Kabuki dance between Iran and the 

EU–3 has run its course. There may be more meetings, but the oilrich Iranians have decisively and contemptuously scorned Europe’s 

offer of economic benefits as an incentive to end their nuclear program. 

As the statement by the French Foreign Minister makes clear, 

the Iranians gave the European Union a cold dose of reality. Now 

there is a new Kabuki dance, Mr. Chairman, and many people are 

pinning their hopes on a proposal to enrich uranium for Iran on 

Russian soil, but giving Putin’s operatiks control of this process 

would be putting the fox in charge of the hen house. 

Moscow has been the number one enabler, supporter and investor in Iran’s nuclear program. It built the nuclear reactor at 

Bushehr. For over a decade, Moscow resisted United States entreaties to halt its work and to crack down on Russian scientists 

providing Iran with covert support. 

As you recall, Mr. Chairman, sometime back I took a special trip 

to Moscow to meet with Russian’s Minister of Energy on this issue. 

He gave me a handsome necktie with the logo of the Energy Ministry, but I was as unsuccessful in changing Russian views as was 

former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of State 

Condoleeza Rice and indeed the President. 

Extending discussion of the plan to have Russian enriched uranium for Iran would just bolster Tehran’s effort to stall the international community while it secretly pursues its nuclear capability. 

Let me just say, Mr. Chairman, that every single Iranian move 

for a long time now has just been taken to gain time to develop 

their nuclear weapons, and, willingly or otherwise, Western Powers 

played along with this phoney charade, which is palpably clear for 

a child to see. 

A recent newspaper headline summed it up well in ‘‘Nuclear Confrontation, Iran Bets that the World will Blink First.’’ That is exactly what the Islamic Republic of Iran is betting on, and that is 

exactly what the Iran Freedom Support Act, H.R. 282, is intended 

to prevent. 

Iran’s quest for nuclear arms requires us to do two things: 

Squeeze Iran’s economy as much as possible, and do so without 

delay. Our legislation, which this Committee will consider next 

week, will require the United States Government to sanction any 

company or nation that invests more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector. Current legislation to this end is set to expire this 

summer. Our new legislation will make it permanent. 

The Executive Branch has largely ignored the current legislation. 

Our legislation will contain provisions that will require the Administration to enforce the law. Moreover, it will require United 

States-based pension funds to divest themselves of foreign corporations that invest in Iran. 

Mr. Chairman, there is no time to lose. We all know that Iranian 

nuclear arms would seriously destabilize the region. It would intimidate its neighbors and provoke them to seek nuclear arms as 

well. We all know that senior Iranian leaders are driven by a 

blood-thirsty fanaticism that characterize suicide bombers in Iraq 

and in the Palestinian territories. 

4

We all know that hatred in the heart of the Iranian President 

who denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel to be wiped off the map 

and speaks rapturously of a day when America will no longer exist. 

This state, run by widely irrational terrorists, simply cannot be allowed to possess the ultimate weapon of terror. 

I call on all governments and all companies in Europe and Asia 

not to wait for our legislation. I call on them immediately to suspend and terminate their existing Iranian investments, just as the 

United States did over a decade ago. 

Soon, I hope, the UN Security Council will require UN members 

to reject all investment and non-humanitarian trade with Iran 

until Tehran verifiably gives up its nuclear weapons production 

program. It should declare unambiguously that Iran’s 20 years of 

nuclear deceit disqualified from any right to possess nuclear material production facilities. 

We cannot let Iran mock the international communities’ nonproliferation regime. If we do, that regime itself will become a joke. 

We must keep the pressure on our friends and allies who mistakenly believe that continued trade and investment will persuade the 

Ayatollahs to end their single-minded quest for nuclear weapons. 

We need to avail ourselves of all diplomatic, economic and strategic opportunities to avert a global danger, the nightmare of Iranian nuclear weapons that would irrevocably and permanently 

change our already crisis-filled world for something dramatically 

worse. In a word, Mr. Chairman, Iran must not and will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. 

I will now recognize Members if they feel a compulsion to speak 

for 1 minute. We tried 2 minutes last time, and we consumed an 

hour and 14 minutes. I would prefer getting to the witnesses as 

quickly as possible, so we will revert to 1 minute for any remarks 

a Member chooses to make. 

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today is International Women’s Day, and I am very pleased to 

recognize some women who will be following me around in my activities today from Iraq and Ireland, so hats off to them. Thank you 

for supporting women’s rights worldwide. 

Mr. Chairman, the potential threat to our security and interest 

is magnified by the fact that Iran is the world’s most active state 

sponsor of terrorism. The threat posed by Iranian terrorism became 

very clear in November 1979 when radicals stormed the United 

States Embassy in Tehran, took Americans hostage and held them 

for 444 days. 

Some of these brave Americans who endured 444 days in captivity are in the audience today. I would like to call them by name 

and have them be recognized. Ambassador Bruce Laingen, Richard 

Morefield, Kathryn Koob, David Roeder. Please stand up. Charles 

Jones, Bill Daugherty, Barry Rosen, Rocky Sickmann, Moorhead 

Kennedy and family members also. 

Let us give them a round of applause. Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

5

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. To this day, Iran has not paid for 

this crime, and these witnesses to Iranian terrorism will tell you 

that failure to hold Iran accountable for its actions throughout the 

last 25 years has only served to embolden the enemy and continue 

its destructive path. 

Today at 5:30 in Rayburn Room 2200 we are going to have a reception and a video presentation of the ‘‘First War on Terror,’’ 

which is a short documentary film that examines United States 

and Iranian relations over the last 25 years. Welcome and welcome. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Berman of California? 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just briefly, the Administration seems to have invested a great 

deal in this Russian effort to try and establish an agreement with 

Iran. I have no idea whether Iran is likely to accept what the Russians are proposing, but what I am curious about and hope the testimony elaborates on is if in fact Iran was to accept the Russian 

proposal just what is the specific nature of it related to the suspension of conversion and enrichment of the parallel military programs, of grabbing the materials that have already been converted 

in Iran, of continued inspections both of the programs we know 

about and the programs we suspect that exist. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. BERMAN. And whether or not were they to accept that agreement we in fact would have stopped the development of a nuclear 

weapon in Iran. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Smith of New Jersey? 

Mr. SMITH FROM NEW JERSEY. Mr. Chairman, alluding to your 

admonition——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SMITH FROM NEW JERSEY. Let me just finish. 

Chairman HYDE. Just a moment, Mr. Smith. 

Who is seeking recognition? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE. Is that Mr. Ackerman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Indeed. 

Chairman HYDE. What is it, Mr. Ackerman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like very much for you 

to please reconsider your position of allowing Members only 1 

minute to speak and prefacing it by saying if you feel compelled to 

say anything. 

The people here on this Committee, with all due respect, are very 

interested in policy issues, and to give them first an admonition if 

they wanted a meager 60 seconds and then limit them to that is 

rather insulting to the intelligence of people who come here to discuss policy and have no other opportunity but to do that when the 

Chair decides to call a long overdue hearing on an issue. 

I think that Mr. Smith and Mr. Berman and everybody else deserve to at least be able to finish a coherent sentence and maybe 

to get out a thought or two before the gavel is rapped upon them. 

I respectfully ask, especially if a hearing is held where a Subcommittee has not held a hearing, to at least allow 2 minutes. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Wait. If the gentleman would yield? 

6

Mr. ACKERMAN. I would be happy to yield to the Chairwoman, 

who had 2 minutes. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Ranking Member of our Middle East Subcommittee, we have held numerous hearings on the issue of Iran, 

which you have attended and made opening statements as long as 

you wanted to, and I would be glad to give you a list of those hearings. Perhaps you have just not remembered them. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Reclaiming my time, I remember very well, and 

I just said in those instances——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. But you said that we have not had the hearings. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. No. I said in those instances where there are no 

hearings to allow the Chairperson such as yourself, who was allowed 2 minutes, and the Ranking Member, who obviously will not 

be allowed 2 minutes, to have 2 minutes if their Subcommittee 

does not have a hearing on the subject that is called. 

There have been quite a few hearings that have fit that definition, Mr. Chairman. I just respectfully on behalf of all of the Members on this Committee, Democrats and Republicans, make that request in the interest of policy that we are here to seriously discuss 

to further the interest of the United States, something we all care 

jointly about. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. The Chair notes with interest what Mr. Ackerman says, always notes with interest what Mr. Ackerman says, 

and when you are Chairman, Mr. Ackerman, you may give each 

Member as long as they want prior to hearing the witnesses. 

For myself, I choose to hear the witnesses, not a debate among 

ourselves, which we can have any time, any place we want. We 

have brought witnesses here to instruct us on the subject under 

discussion, and the purpose of the hearing is to get to the witnesses, not to hear each other. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE. At least that is my narrow interpretation of the 

function of the Committee. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I respect that deeply, and I have 

a tremendous amount of respect for you, your intellect and the contribution you have made to this Congress and to our country. 

Chairman HYDE. Then you would understand. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. With all due respect, you being here to hear the 

witnesses and you and the Ranking Member take up as much time 

as the entire Committee making opening statements, and some of 

us would like to just get our toe in the water. 

Chairman HYDE. I understand that, and I appreciate your position. When you are Chairman I am sure that will happen, but until 

then I prefer getting to the witnesses with great——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Does that mean that the Chair will limit himself 

to 1 minute as well? 

Chairman HYDE. The Chairwoman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. The Chair. Would the Chair limit himself to the 

same rules as the Members are limited to if that is what you are 

here to do? 

Chairman HYDE. No. The Chair is the Chairman——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

7

Chairman HYDE [continuing]. And expects to use that prerogative in the most efficacious way to get to the witnesses, which I am 

not doing a good job right now. 

Mr. SMITH FROM NEW JERSEY. Mr. Chairman, in light of your superb statement, Mr. Lantos, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Berman, I 

ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. 

Chairman HYDE. I did not hear you, Mr. Ackerman, but Mr. Lantos as the Ranking Member gets special treatment. The Chairman 

gets special treatment. The power of recognition rests with the 

Chairman, and I intend to use it. 

Mr. Ackerman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Is this to respond to what the Chairman said or 

for my 60 seconds of contribution? 

Chairman HYDE. I prefer your 60 seconds of contribution. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Last month Secretary Rice announced a significant shift in our 

policy toward Iran. She is proposing to spend $85 million to reach 

out to the Iranian people. While most of this money will be spent 

on broadcasting, I am concerned about the $10 million identified 

for empowering Iranian civil society. 

My concern is not in principle since I think whatever we can do 

to foster effective opposition to the mullahs inside Iran is to the 

good. It is the effective part I am worried about, and our track 

record in this regard is not good. 

First we tried the sort of approach with Iraq only to find out that 

the Administration’s favorite exile, Ahmed Chalabi, took our 

money, gave us bad information and ultimately had no political 

support inside of Iraq, so I will be very curious to hear from the 

Administration whom we have identified to receive this new money 

and what sort of work they will carry on inside of Iran. 

Second, I think we have great difficulty identifying successful recipients of this money because, frankly, our intelligence in Iran is 

not particularly good. Iran is opaque to us. We do not see their decision making process well. 

We do not understand Iranian society well and so we are handicapped in our ability to discern how decisions get made and who 

makes them. It means our ability to develop a policy or set policies 

that will produce the desired outcome is extremely limited. 

Lastly, the Secretary’s proposal is about the long term, while we 

should be thinking and acting in accordance with our long-term interests. We do not have a more urgent short-term crisis on our 

hands. We seem to lurch from deadline to deadline with Iran while 

they drag out its negotiations with the EU–3 and the Russians. 

I fear diplomacy may be producing legitimacy for Iran, but doing 

little in the way of stopping its nuclear programs. As I said at our 

hearings a year ago, in order for our diplomatic partners to believe 

the Iran question is urgent, the Administration needs to convince 

them that they believe it is urgent. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished 

witnesses. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Paul of Texas? 

Mr. PAUL. Thank you. I turned my mic off on purpose. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

8

Very quickly, I want to make a point or two. Yesterday, our Ambassador to Iraq, Khalilzad, announced that this turned into a Pandora’s box of ethnic and sectarian strife. He also said that we have 

to be there to protect oil supplies. The Chairman today even mentioned how instability in Iran could contribute to a problem with 

the flow of oil. 

Of course, since we have been in Iraq, oil went from $30 to $60. 

I am just wondering whether our policy now of confrontation with 

Iran might not take oil from $60 to $120. 

ElBaradei just this week said, ‘‘We have not seen indication of 

diversion of material to nuclear weapons or other explosive devices,’’ which we should take note, and also Iran has never been 

ruled in violation of its international nuclear nonproliferation obligation, which I think we should take note. 

More importantly, I think our policy is not exactly in line with 

international law. The Administration told Iran on Tuesday that 

any enrichment of nuclear fuel in Iranian territory was unacceptable, and yet the Nonproliferation Treaty says, ‘‘Nothing in this 

treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable rights of all 

parties to the treaty to develop, research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.’’

We should pay attention to those comments. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Delahunt of Massachusetts? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I would just associate myself with the contribution of my friend from New York, Mr. Ackerman . I share the same 

concerns, and I would yield whatever time I have remaining to him 

if he so chooses to utilize it. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher of California? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

First and foremost let us remember through all of this kibitzing 

that we are at war, and Americans are losing their lives as we 

speak. We are at war with radical Islam. This is a very serious, not 

a political, issue, a serious national issue. 

If we win the allegiance of moderate Muslims who want their 

country to live at peace with the West, we may win this war and 

save millions of lives. If we do not, and if the Iranian mullahs end 

up the dominant force in that region and indeed in the Muslim 

world, we are in for real trouble. We are in for historic catastrophic 

incidents, especially if that is coupled with the Iranian mullahs 

getting their hands on nuclear weapons. 

What we are talking about today is deadly serious, but let us remember that we can combat this threat, the threat posed by these 

murderous mullahs in Iran, through tough policies—that is pressure from without—but also by supporting the internal reformists, 

the internal people in Iran who want to live at peace with the 

West, Iranians who want to have a democratic government, live in 

a decent country. 

As we discuss this issue, let us not forget our points of leverage—

not only pressure from outside, but supporting those moderates on 

the inside. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Payne of New Jersey? 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

9

In order to hear our witnesses, unless Mr. Ackerman would like 

to use my time. If you have a point? I yield my time to Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to use the time 

of other Members of the Committee. I was just fighting for the 

right of everybody to be able to say what they want to say. 

Chairman HYDE. As you know, Mr. Ackerman, you get to strike 

the last words at the end of the testimony, and I do not recall you 

ever being shut off from that process, so you will have a chance to 

express yourself fully. 

Mr. McCotter? 

Mr. MCCOTTER. I have nothing to say, but it is okay. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Blumenauer? 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I too am eager to get into the discussion. I hope at some point 

the notion that you reference to the role that Iran plays because 

of its energy resources might reflect back on our urgency to do 

something about our dependence on those. A sound, solid energy 

policy reducing our dependency would I hope filter into that discussion at some point. 

Chairman HYDE. I thank the gentleman. I suggest it is one of the 

major issues confronting us. 

Mr. Royce of California? 

Mr. ROYCE. You are right, Mr. Chairman. We should hear the 

witnesses. We should listen, and then we should speak. I withdraw. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Ms. Berkley of Nevada? 

Ms. BERKLEY. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Poe of Texas? 

Mr. POE. The United States can make a bold statement by supporting freedom of the Iranian people from their oppression. The 

State Department in their supplemental request is asking for $5 

million for educational outreach. According to the State Department, this funding will build bridges between the people of our nations. 

I support democracy through this educational exchange idea, but 

the United States must use common sense as we identify foreign 

students for enrollment in our universities. Just last week an Iranian graduate at the University of North Carolina calmly drove his 

truck through a campus meeting place at Chapel Hill, injuring nine 

people. 

He performed this despicable act to avenge what he called crimes 

against Islam. This is yet one more act of radical Islam extremists 

in our country. It is interesting to note he made sure he got his 

degree before he committed this crime. 

We must do our best to ensure that students who receive opportunities to study in America do not use that chance to commit political crimes against us. We already have a Taliban student at 

Yale, and we must not allow further infiltration of our universities 

by those who would do destruction to the United States. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Schiff of California? 

10

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. 

In addition to the questions that have already been posed by my 

colleagues, I would love to hear you comment on China. I think a 

lot of focus has been on Russia, and understandably so, but I am 

equally concerned about China and their willingness to confront 

Iran over its nuclear program. 

In particular, I think China will view this as an economic decision, and unless we make it very plain to China that there are economic consequences in terms of United States markets there will 

not be anything in the other balance for them to consider. 

If this is truly the top national security issue facing us as the 

Chairman alluded, and I think it certainly ranks up there, we 

should be prepared to use our economic leverage. I would be interested to know if you have considered that and how you intend to 

employ that technique. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Issa of California? 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for setting 

the tone with your opening remarks. I come here with questions, 

not answers, and I want to hear the speakers so I yield back. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Watson of California? 

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the witnesses for coming. 

I want to expressly thank Ambassador Burns for taking time to 

come to the Hill. Your presence tells me that you understand that 

Congress is not an obstacle to the Executive Branch on foreign policy. Rather, when fully informed we can be the most valuable ally 

even on delicate issues such as this. 

To confront Iran, the United States has assembled a global diplomatic coalition, and we have employed diplomacy to great effect, 

but the successes we have had have depended on our defense of the 

treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. We must not forget this. 

If our actions elsewhere around the globe weaken the NPT at the 

very moment that we are relying on it to confront Iran over nuclear 

weapons, we risk undoing all of our efforts, and on the issues of 

Iran’s nuclear program the stakes are too high for us to accept an 

American failure. 

We are looking forward to hearing your testimony. Thank you 

very much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Chandler of Kentucky? 

Mr. CHANDLER. I yield, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Lee of California? 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to welcome and 

thank the witnesses for being here. 

I also am extremely concerned with regard to the proliferation of 

nuclear weapons around the world. Especially, I have grave concerns regarding the threat that a nuclear Iran poses, but I believe 

that we must increase and enhance our diplomatic means to disarm Iran. We must take an active role in diplomatic engagement. 

I think that we must decide whether there is an opportunity to 

engage the United States in bilateral talks with Iran rather than 

seeking only to support negotiations of the EU or the efforts of 

11

Russia to control the reprocessing of nuclear materials to the satisfaction of the international community. 

Yes, Iran must be held to international standards and must disarm. I believe, however, Mr. Chairman, that we will not be well 

served by another military venture into the Middle East and neither will the cause of nonproliferation, so I think it is about time 

we enhance and elevate our diplomatic efforts. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. I want to thank the Committee for your cooperation. We now can proceed to the witnesses. 

We are privileged to have before us today two high ranking and 

expert witnesses on the situation in Iran. Our first witness will be 

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Ambassador Nicholas 

Burns. Ambassador Burns has had a long and illustrious career in 

the Foreign Service in postings throughout the world. 

As Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Ambassador 

Burns currently coordinates all U.S. diplomacy and State Department foreign policy efforts and has taken a special interest in dealing with the situation in Iran. 

Dr. Robert Joseph is the current Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. Dr. Joseph is the principal State 

Department officer for non- and counterproliferation matters, as 

well as for arms control, arms transfers, regional security and defense relations and security assistance. 

Previously, he served as Special Assistant to the President and 

Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and 

Homeland Defense at the National Security Council. 

Gentlemen, without objection, your full statement will be made 

a part of the record. I ask that you limit your oral presentation to 

about 5 minutes, give or take, as is customary so we may have as 

much time as feasible for you to respond to questions from Members of the Committee. 

Secretary Burns? 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDER 

SECRETARY FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

STATE 

Ambassador BURNS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for 

your invitation to Under Secretary Joseph and myself to be with 

you this morning. Thank you to Mr. Lantos and all the other distinguished Members of this Committee. 

I have submitted testimony for the record. I shall not read it in 

the interest of time. I just have a couple of points that I thought 

I should make in response to some of the opening comments by 

Members, but first may I say how much I want to second Representative Ros-Lehtinen’s welcome to the American hostages. 

Ambassador Bruce Laingen and his colleagues who are here 

today have gathered from across the United States to come to this 

hearing and to come over to the State Department this afternoon—

I look forward to meeting them—to give us their views on Iraq, and 

I for one am intensely interested to hear their perspective. They 

are American heroes. 

There were 53 of them taken hostage in November 1979, held 

unjustly for 444 days, and the fact that they have come out of that 

12

experience and contributed so much to our country is a source of 

great satisfaction to us. Three of them continue to serve in the 

American Foreign Service, and we are very, very proud of them. I 

just wanted to mention their presence and thank them for coming 

today. 

Mr. Chairman, the threat posed to the United States by Iran is 

as great, in our judgment, as any foreign policy challenge that our 

country faces. The Iranians have issued, in essence, four challenges 

to our country’s interests in the Middle East and globally. 

The first is the clear pursuit of Iran of a nuclear weapons capability. 

The second is the fact that Iran is the leading director and chief 

central banker of the major terrorist groups in the Middle East 

that have killed Americans and killed Israelis and Lebanese, and 

which stand in direct opposition to peace in the Middle East. 

The third is the attempt by Iran, particularly under the regime 

of President Ahmadi-Nejad, to exert a dominant role in the Middle 

East itself and to make Iran into the most powerful country in the 

Middle East. 

The fourth, of course, is the repression of the people of Iran by 

this autocratic regime. That in essence, in our judgment, represents the totality of the threat that Iran poses to American interests, as well as those to our friends and allies around the world. 

What we have attempted to do over the past year in particular 

is not to have a go-it-alone policy of trying to confront Iran ourselves, but to create a large and diverse international coalition of 

countries on each of these issues designed to deny Iran a nuclear 

weapon and to roll back its support for terrorism and to influence 

the people of Iran who we see as victims of the regime and to assert a comprehensive and aggressive American foreign policy to 

counter Iran on all of these issues. 

My colleague, Bob Joseph, and I have worked very closely together on all of these issues. He is our chief official responsible for 

nuclear policy, and he will go into some detail on our analysis of 

their intentions, but suffice it to say that the greatest immediate 

threat that we face is that Iran is clearly trying to create a nuclear 

weapons capability. 

I made 11 trips to Europe and to the Middle East in the last year 

on this issue, and in the hundreds of conversations that I had with 

Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans, not a single person, not a 

single official from any of those governments, ever said that they 

doubted that Iran was trying to seek a nuclear weapons capability. 

There is no international difference of opinion. There is no debate 

around the world about the essential fact of what Iran is trying to 

do, and that does inform our diplomacy and our national strategy. 

What we have tried to do is to support those who would try to 

roll back the Iranians, engage them in negotiations and have them 

suspend their nuclear activities, so just a year ago this week Secretary Rice announced that we would support the European 3—

Britain, France and Germany—in their efforts to negotiate with the 

Iranians, and we did that for 6 months until the Iranians walked 

out of the talks with the Europeans, walked out unilaterally and 

said they were not interested in dealing with the Europeans. 

13

Then we worked throughout the autumn because of that result 

to create a larger coalition of countries designed to block the Iranians. Secretary Rice went to Moscow in October with President 

Bush, met President Putin in Asia in November, and we began to 

assemble this coalition of Russia and China—India had already decided to be with us—which resulted in the historic vote of the IAEA 

on February 4, where more members of the nonaligned movement 

voted against Iran than with Iran and where Russia and China 

and India and Brazil and Egypt and Sri Lanka, as well as Europe 

and Japan and Australia, voted with us to block the Iranians. 

Secretary Rice had a very important gathering of the foreign 

ministers of the permanent five countries of the United Nations Security Council about 5 weeks ago, and all of those countries, led by 

the United States, decided that we would try to block Iran at the 

IAEA, but give them 30 days to reflect on their isolation. 

The 30 days are up, and we believe that next Monday or Tuesday 

the United Nations Security Council will begin a very active debate 

about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. That debate will be designed to 

shine a very large and intensive spotlight on what we believe to be 

a clear Iranian program. 

We will likely see a Presidential statement of the Security Council designed to condemn Iran. We would like beyond that to entertain the possibility of a Chapter 7 resolution designed to isolate it 

and hopefully influence its behavior, but beyond that if Iran does 

not respond to words and resolutions then we believe that the 

world community should entertain the possibility of sanctions 

against Iran. 

Now, our country, of course, has had sanctions in place for decades. It is across the board. There may be more that we can do as 

a country to try to hit against those in Iran via sanctions who build 

these nuclear programs and design them and who lead the government’s efforts, but it is going to be incumbent upon our allies 

around the world and interested countries to show that they are 

willing to act should the words and resolutions of the United Nations not suffice. 

Mr. Chairman, on terrorism we will be happy to respond to questions on this, but Iranian support for terrorism of course affects 

every vital American interest and American lives in the Middle 

East and throughout the world. 

Iran is supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic 

Jihad. We have noticed the emergence of a nexus of these terrorist 

groups with Iran and the Syrian Government just over the last 5 

to 6 weeks, and President Ahmadi-Nejad had a summit meeting 

with President Assad of Syria and all these terrorist groups just recently, several weeks ago. It is of great concern to us, and we are 

working actively to try to turn back that terrorist challenge that 

Iran poses to us. 

On democracy and human rights, the Iranian Government has 

locked up dissidents. It has jailed journalists. Last month bus drivers went on strike for better wages. The Iranian Government sent 

armed thugs to beat them up. 

Mr. Akbar Ganji, who has been held for many years as a journalist, may be released last week, but he is a celebrated human 

rights figure who deserves the support of all of us. I know he has 

14

the support of the Congress, as well as the Administration, but we 

are concerned about the repression of the Iranian people. 

As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, the 

great irony of this situation as we face this Iranian threat is that 

a majority of Iranians in public opinion polls have a favorable view 

of our country. They like American democracy. They want to study 

here. They want to have exchange programs. 

They do not particularly all support, a great number of them, the 

actions of their own government and so as we go on to the next 

issue, Mr. Chairman, that is how can we influence Iran and how 

can the Congress and the Administration work together, we hope 

the Congress will support Secretary Rice’s and the President’s $75 

million supplemental request, which is designed to open up our 

ability to connect with average Iranian citizens. We would like to use $50 million of that money to expand our 

TV and radio broadcast through Voice of America and Radio Farda 

into Iran. We would like to work with some of the private American radio and TV stations from the State of California and New 

Jersey and the Washington, DC, area to help them get the American message into Iran itself. 

We would like to use some of the money, and Congressman Ackerman referred to this, to try to do a very difficult job. Congressman Ackerman, I agree with you. This is a high hill to climb, but 

to see if we can work through non-governmental organizations 

around the world and with some of the European NGOs to try to 

plant some roots of democracy, of independent journalism, of civil 

society into Iran. 

It is difficult to do. In an open hearing we cannot say everything 

that we are intending to do obviously, but we do hope the Congress 

will respond to the request for $10 million in funding. 

Finally, a number of the Members spoke about exchanges. We 

want to connect with the Iranian people. We do not want to be so 

blunt in our approach that we penalize innocent Iranians for the 

sins of their government and so we would like to bring Iranian 

high school and university students to this country. We would like 

to have exchanges among union officials, among teachers, among 

average citizens. 

There was a time before the Iranian revolution when there were 

several hundred thousand Iranians studying in the United States. 

Today it is just 2,000 people. It is part of the longer-term effort 

that goes along with the shorter-term policy that Under Secretary 

Joseph and I are talking about today. 

My final comment, Mr. Chairman, would be to say this. The 

presence of our hostages reminds us of how ill-equipped we are as 

a government to understand Iran, to have officials who can speak 

Farsi and to engage Iranians around the world. 

Since our hostages were taken and since they were released, of 

course, our Embassy has been shuttered in Tehran. We do not intend to reopen that Embassy anytime soon. 

We have a policy of trying to isolate Iran, but it is important that 

we understand it, understand the country, and so, Secretary Rice 

has directed that we undertake a series of measures designed to 

bolster our capability within the State Department to be smart 

about Iran and so, for the very first time since 1980, she has just 

15

created in the last 2 weeks a new Iran desk in our Bureau of Middle Eastern Affairs in the State Department. It is up and functioning. 

She has also directed that we establish an American presence 

post, a diplomatic post, in Dubai, which will be solely concerned 

with Iranian affairs. We will put about 10 diplomats in Dubai by 

this summer, and they will watch Iran. They will talk to Iranian 

dissidents and travelers from Iran and understand that country in 

a way that we have not been able to do before. 

Last, Secretary Rice has directed that we expand significantly 

our Farsi language training at the Foreign Service Institute and 

that we try to produce a new generation of Foreign Service officers 

who understand Iranian history, culture and language who can be 

deployed to Embassies and Consulates outside of Iran, but in the 

neighborhood, to do in essence what we did, Mr. Chairman, in the 

1920s when we had no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. 

We sent young diplomats like George Kennan to Riga, and we 

created Riga Station. That station watched the Soviet Union from 

a close distance. A lot of those diplomats went on to have illustrious careers in the State Department. 

We have lost the expertise that the generation of Bruce Laingen, 

who is here today, represented. Secretary Rice now wants to recreate that, and we do so because Iran represents a generational challenge to American foreign policy, and we must defeat Iran in its 

pursuit of nuclear weapons, its sponsorship of terrorism and its 

subjugation of the people of Iran and hope that better days will 

come for those people who deserve freedom and democracy in that 

great country. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR

POLITICAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lantos and distinguished Members 

of the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the United States’ policy toward 

Iran. 

Let me begin by noting that this Committee is surely right to focus on U.S. policy 

toward Iran at this time. Successive U.S. administrations have recognized that 

Iran’s regime poses a profound threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East and more 

broadly across the globe. Over the past six months, however, since the August 2005 

inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, this threat has intensified as 

Iran’s approach to the world has become even more radical. Today, the Iranian leadership is actively working against all that the U.S. and our allies desire for the region—peace in Lebanon, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and an end to 

terrorism. In fact, no country stands more resolutely opposed to our hope for peace 

and freedom in the Middle East than Iran. 

Iran’s leadership directly threatens vital American interests in four distinct and 

grave areas:

• its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability;

• its role as the ‘‘Central Banker’’ in directing and funding terror;

• its determination to dominate the Middle East as the most powerful state in 

the Persian Gulf region; and finally,

• its repression of the democratic hopes of the Iranian people.

Crafting an effective response to this Iranian threat is as important as any challenge America faces in the world today. It is critical that we succeed. The endurance 

of the Iranian regime and its extremist policies and the alarming stridency of its 

leaders, who have spent more than a quarter-century leading chants of ‘‘Death to 

America,’’ mean that inaction or failure is simply not an option. For this reason, 

16

President Bush and Secretary Rice have placed the highest priority on opposing 

Iran’s policies across the board in the greater Middle East region. 

The dangers posed by the Iranian regime are complex and diverse, and they necessitate an equally multi-faceted and sophisticated American response. We have 

constructed a new and comprehensive policy that is designed to prevent Tehran 

from achieving each of its objectives—and as the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions 

moves this week to the United Nations Security Council, it is clear that we are on 

the right track. 

As Secretary Rice reported to this Committee two weeks ago, our policy toward 

Iran is clear and focused. We seek to work within a broad international coalition 

of countries to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability; to stop its sponsorship of 

terrorism in the region and around the world; to coalesce with Arab governments, 

our European allies and friends from across the world to blunt Tehran’s regional 

ambitions; and finally to extend support to the Iranian people, especially the millions of young Iranians who suffer due to the regime’s repression and economic misrule and crave opportunities to connect with the wider world. I will review each of 

these essential components of our policy, and finish by offering my thoughts on the 

ways in which Congress can enhance U.S. efforts to oppose the Iranian regime. 

IRAN NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The greatest immediate threat posed by the Ahmadi-Nejad government is Iran’s 

clear desire to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. 

Around the world, there is simply no substantial difference of opinion about what 

Iran’s nuclear program is intended to achieve. Iran’s actions—its history of deception and continuing efforts to avoid full cooperation with the International Atomic 

Energy Agency—have convinced leaders of every political persuasion, in every corner of the globe, that Iran’s leaders intend to acquire nuclear weapons. In my last 

twelve months of countless discussions with officials from Europe, Russia, India, 

China and other countries, I have not encountered a single person who has found 

the ritualistic public denials of the Iranian leadership convincing. Not a single one 

has disputed the danger posed if Iran were to succeed. In short, there is no international debate about Iran’s aims—it is universally agreed that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. With the possible exception of Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela, no other 

country wants to see Iran succeed. 

This widespread international concern represents a tremendous asset for our efforts to counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Our diplomatic activities over the past 

year have been designed to assemble an ever-wider coalition of countries to prevent 

Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. This coalition has grown in number and strength. 

We have taken over the past 12 months a series of steps to blunt Iran’s ambitions 

and isolate it. 

In March 2005, Secretary Rice announced our support for the EU–3’s diplomatic 

negotiations with Iran, which was intended to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. This 

was a significant step forward for U.S. policy. The EU–3 offered a proposal that 

would grant Iran far-reaching economic incentives, including access to and assistance with peaceful nuclear reactors. The United States offered its own incentives—

we agreed to consider licensing the sale of spare parts for Iran’s aging civilian airliners and dropping our prior objections to Iran’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. Last August, Iran rejected the EU–3 proposal, unilaterally broke off negotiations with the Europeans, and resumed uranium conversion in violation of the 

Paris Agreement. 

This began a new and more demanding phase of our diplomatic campaign. After 

Iran’s provocative actions, we and the Europeans worked for months and succeeded 

in creating a broad international coalition to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear 

program. In October 2005, Secretary Rice traveled to Moscow to convince Russia of 

the importance of cohesion on this issue. I made eleven trips to Europe in 2005 to 

consult with our European allies, Russia, China and India on Iran. In November, 

President Bush offered public U.S. backing for a Russian proposal to supply Russian 

fuel for Iran’s peaceful nuclear reactors in exchange for a permanent suspension of 

enrichment activity within Iran itself. The Iranian regime had every opportunity to 

change course and agree to suspend nuclear activities, but rejected the proposal and 

insisted on its right and intention to carry out enrichment activities on its own soil. 

Iran tried throughout 2005 to divide the U.S. from Europe and then Russia, China, 

India and other countries. But its leaders miscalculated our ability to construct a 

strong international coalition. 

In response to Iran’s difficult and confrontational approach, in late January 2006 

Secretary Rice successfully persuaded all five permanent Members of the UN Security Council to vote together at the IAEA to report Iran to the UNSC. On February 

17

4, the Permanent Five, along with a massive global coalition comprised of countries 

as diverse as India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Egypt, and Yemen, spoke with one voice: 

These countries, all represented in the IAEA Board of Governors, adopted a resolution to report Iran’s noncompliance to the UN Security Council. We agreed to give 

Iran thirty days to reflect on its isolation. 

The thirty days is now up. Iran has not met the conditions of the IAEA. We will 

therefore start a new phase of diplomacy—action by the UN Security Council starting next week. The UN Security Council is the right place to intensify the international debate on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. We plan a concerted approach at the 

UN that gradually escalates pressure on Iran. We will shine a bright spotlight on 

Iran’s nuclear program. We intend to participate in a vigorous international debate 

about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Security Council will consider a Presidential 

Statement, or a Chapter 7 resolution. If after all those steps were taken Iran has 

not acceded to the wishes of the international community, then of course we would 

have to look at possible targeted sanctions, which a number of countries are already 

beginning to explore. Any sanctions we would consider will be specifically targeted 

to pressure the regime and Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, rather than hurting 

the great majority of innocent Iranians. 

Going forward, we will do everything we can to maintain the widest possible 

international consensus on the steps Iran must take, and continue to keep Iran isolated on this issue. Iran’s leadership must realize that its only available choice is 

the one that serves its people’s true national interests—a strategic decision to end 

its pursuit of nuclear weapons. 

While we make it clear that no option is off the table, the U.S. strongly supports 

a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Iranian nuclear problem. That is why we 

supported the EU3 process, and will continue to work with all our allies through 

the UN to change Iran’s behavior. 

Our message to Tehran is clear: recommit to the Paris Agreement, return to full 

suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, and return to negotiations. 

IRAN’S TERRORIST SPONSORSHIP AND REGIONAL AMBITIONS

A second critical dimension of the threat posed by the Iranian regime is its role 

as the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the world today. Iranian leaders 

consider extremism and terror to be legitimate tools of propagating their influence 

domestically and regionally. Ultimately, our concern is focused on not simply the 

tool, but also the objective—Tehran’s aspiration to assert influence over its neighbors and frustrate democracy and development in the Persian Gulf and broader 

Middle East. 

Across the region, the record of the Islamic Republic is one of violence and radicalism. This places Iran in direct opposition to each of America’s most important interests in the region. 

In Iraq, we have worked tirelessly and at great cost over the past three years to 

help Iraqis develop a pluralistic, democratic, federal, and united Iraq, which is stable and at peace with its neighbors. This is a historic effort, and one that is ultimately led by Iraqis themselves. The Iranian people—who were among the greatest 

victims of Saddam Hussein’s brutality—would benefit from a secure and successful 

Iraq. However, for their part, the Iranian leadership has played a provocative and 

problematic role. They have interfered in Iraq’s internal affairs by supporting sectarian militias and extremist groups and assisting anti-Coalition forces in Iraq by 

supplying weapons, training and explosives. As Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday, 

Iran’s activities are ‘‘harmful to the future of Iraq.’’ Tehran is responsible for at 

least some of the increasing lethality of anti-Coalition attacks in 2005 by providing 

Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs with explosively formed projectiles 

similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizballah. 

Iran has also come into direct confrontation with our regional interests with its 

campaign to undermine the fragile progress toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Iran’s leadership has made no secret of its hostility toward Israel—President Ahmadi-Nejad rightly earned severe international condemnation for his outrageous vow to wipe Israel off the map. We take his words seriously. Tehran provides money, weapons, and training to HAMAS and other Palestinian rejectionist 

groups. Iran’s support for these groups fuels terrorist violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. It is intended to subvert the efforts of the international community to advance the prospects for lasting peace and security between Palestinians 

and Israelis. Alone among all other governments, Iran is championing the hateful 

language in the HAMAS covenant and encouraging HAMAS leaders to ignore the 

18

requirements of responsible leadership and the conditions articulated by the Quartet to ensure the continuation of international aid to the Palestinian Authority. 

Closely related to its destructive approach to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is Iran’s long-time relationship with Hizballah in Lebanon, which is responsible 

for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization apart from alQaida. More than a year after the brutal assassination of former Prime Minister 

Rafik Hariri and the momentous Cedar Revolution, Lebanon has made great strides. 

Iran’s ongoing and extensive support to Hizballah runs in direct contradiction to the 

clearly articulated desire of the Lebanese people for sovereignty and democracy. 

Iran is working within a coalition of rejectionists in Lebanon. Members of Lebanese Hizbullah have received explosives training in Iran arranged by the Iranian 

government’s intelligence services. In January 2006, Ahmadi-Nejad again visited 

Syria and met with the leaders of Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, HAMAS, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP–GC pro-Syrian faction). We continue to work closely with the UN and key allies to urge Lebanon to implement fully 

UNSCR 1559, which calls for the dismantling of all armed militias in Lebanon, including Lebanese Hizbullah. 

We are also deeply concerned about Iran’s unwillingness to bring to justice senior 

al-Qaida members who are wanted for murdering Americans and others in the 1998 

East Africa Embassy bombings and for plotting to kill countless others. Iran has refused to identify these senior al-Qaida members in its custody on ‘‘security grounds.’’ 

Iran has also resisted numerous calls to transfer custody of these individuals to the 

U.S., their countries-of-origin, or third countries to face justice. Iranian judiciary officials claimed to have tried and convicted some Iranian supporters of al-Qa’ida during 2004, but refused to provide details. 

Just as with its nuclear ambitions, Iran’s support for terrorism and regional agenda requires a determined American approach and a global alliance. We have sanctioned Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and called for the regime to abide by 

the requirements of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 to deny safe haven to 

those who plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, and to affirmatively take steps 

to prevent terrorist acts by providing early warning to other states by exchange of 

information. 

We are also devoting significant effort to ensure that Iran’s efforts to sow instability among Palestinians will not succeed. Working with the Quartet, we have 

clearly articulated the conditions that the elected Hamas leadership must meet to 

ensure true international support for the Palestinian Authority and fulfill the Palestinian people’s desire for a better life. At the same time, we are mindful of avoiding 

a humanitarian crisis and working to redirect our assistance to avoid any deterioration that might benefit Iran’s radical ambitions. 

We also continue to urge other governments to press Iran on its support for and 

sponsorship of terrorism, and on its threatening behavior towards its neighbors. 

Just two weeks ago, Secretary Rice met with leaders in Cairo, Riyadh, Beirut, and 

Abu Dhabi, and with the Gulf Cooperation Council. She highlighted the destabilizing effects of Iran’s hostile foreign policy, including its support for terrorism and 

desire to acquire nuclear weapons. The Arab countries should not wish to see Iran 

contribute to nuclear proliferation in the region. We intend to work closely with the 

Arab governments to thwart Iran’s support for terror and counter its destabilizing 

influences across the region. 

STATE OF IRANIAN DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

As we work to end the threat posed by the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions 

and sponsorship of terror, we also wish to support the Iranian people in their aspirations for freedom. Some in the West watched with hope and anticipation over the 

course of the late 1990s, as Iranians voiced their clear desire for a government that 

pursued their interests in a better life, free from state harassment, ideological impositions, and isolation from the world community. 

Sadly, we know the outcome of these efforts—newspapers were shuttered and 

journalists jailed, student demonstrators were beaten and imprisoned, and activists 

from all walks of life found their efforts to promote political change stymied and repressed. 

The hard-liners in Iran mounted an all-out defense of their hold on the regime 

and its people, culminating in last June’s election of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad as its 

president. The election itself was deeply flawed :

• A small group of clerics prevented hundreds of declared candidates, including 

all the women, from running for President. Only a handful whose loyalty to 

the regime seemed assured were permitted to run.

19

• Hard-liners undertook a concerted, last minute campaign through their networks of influence in the mosques, the military, and the Revolutionary Guard 

to mobilize support for Ahmadi-Nejad.

• The polling was reportedly rife with manipulation and fraud.

From this inherently flawed process came the ascent of Ahmadi-Nejad. 

Some Iranian citizens may have voted for Ahmadi-Nejad with the sincere hope 

that he represented change from the corrupt, old guard of the regime. If so, they 

have been sorely disappointed. Many who had hoped for a break from the corrupt 

past have been appalled by the rhetoric and policies of the new president and have 

seen him do nothing to improve their standard of living. The Iranian people deserve 

better. 

His repeated denial of the Holocaust and his threats to ‘‘wipe Israel off the map’’ 

have earned the legitimate outrage of the international community, and have deeply 

shamed a country that—until its revolution 27 years ago—had a unique history of 

tolerance and a large Jewish community. 

Just as his comments and actions have isolated Iran internationally, AhmadiNejad has tried to turn the clock back for Iranians at home. The regime issued 

edicts banning Western music and demanding that Iranian television broadcast 

fewer programs about women’s issues. He has put forward a budget that would 

make Iran more dependent than ever on oil revenues, and make its economy even 

less competitive in attracting domestic or foreign investment. 

Ahmadi-Nejad may be its most public face, but he is by no means the only 

hardliner or radical in the Iranian regime. Although the Islamic Republic is a complex system with multiple power centers, today, all of the levers of power in Iran 

are in the hands of hard-liners. These men reject the basic notion that the governed 

should determine their leaders and their nation’s course and who use religious faith 

to justify perpetuating their absolute hold on power. 

Perpetuating the survival of the regime remains the highest priority for the Iranian leadership and has empowered an increasingly repressive approach to the Iranian citizenry. The regime’s poor human rights record worsened throughout 2005, 

including summary executions, disappearances, extremist vigilantism, widespread 

use of torture, solitary confinement, and other degrading treatment. Juvenile offenders were executed, and sentences of stoning continue to be handed down. 

Discrimination against women and religious and ethnic minority groups, including 

Jews, Sunnis and Sufi Muslims, persists. The Baha’i community has faced particular harassment. In December 2005 the longest held Baha’i prisoner died in prison of undisclosed causes. 

Just as the Middle East is beginning to open to greater political participation and 

economic reform, it is especially disturbing to note the intensifying repression of the 

Iranian people. Protesters have been arrested and tortured. Journalists and webbloggers continue to be arrested and mistreated for daring to publish their opinions. 

In February the Iranian regime answered the pleas of Tehran bus drivers for better 

working conditions by sending paid thugs to beat them. Journalist and political activist Akbar Ganji has spent nearly six years in prison for his reporting on the murders of Iranian dissidents and his advocacy of a secular Iranian republic. Having 

endured solitary confinement, a hunger strike, and reported torture, Ganji is due 

to be released next week, but it is unclear whether the Iranian regime will indeed 

release him. 

We have worked cooperatively with a range of other countries to highlight the situation of Ganji and the many other Iranians who have been imprisoned unjustly 

or otherwise punished by the regime for expressing their views. At the UN General 

Assembly, for the third year in a row, we co-sponsored and helped ensure passage 

of a Canadian resolution condemning Iran’s human rights abuses. This sent an important signal to the Iranian people and their government of continued international 

concern at Iran’s mistreatment of its citizens. 

As President Bush has said, it is important that the Iranian people know we will 

stand with them in their struggle. We are trying to do a great deal more to help 

Iranians who are trying to bring about peaceful democratic change. In the face of 

their difficult internal conditions, the people of Iran regularly give the world reason 

for hope about the country’s future. Iranians know that their government may punish them for voicing their views on the Internet or in the newspapers, and yet journalists continue to write provocative pieces, and thousands of other Iranians post 

their thoughts to web-blogs every day. They gather on the streets to demand better 

pay and working conditions although the forceful reaction of the regime’s thugs is 

a bitter reality. Iranians have found ways to endure in a system that strives to deprive them of their basic rights and culture—and we are confident that they will 

also find ways to change that system. 

20

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESS CAN DO

Here, I would like to suggest how the U.S. Congress can help to support change 

and reform in Iran. The first and most important action that Congress can take is 

the appropriation of funding requested last month by Secretary Rice for an additional $75 million to expand our effort to reach out to the Iranian people. This funding will build upon the $10 million provided by Congress in FY 2006 to support the 

cause of freedom and human rights in Iran. The supplemental request would support an ambitious program of activities that will promote peaceful change and democratization in Iran. 

Fifty-five million dollars, the largest portion, will be dedicated to communicating 

our message to the Iranian people, offering them unbiased information. Funds will 

be used to greatly expand our television broadcasting in Farsi into Iran to penetrate 

Iran’s government dominated media. We will use tools we already have through the 

Broadcasting Board of Governors while supporting the development of competitive 

and independent Farsi television and radio. We intend to work through U.S. Government sponsored media, such as the Voice of America and Radio Farda, as well 

as broadcasting organizations in the private sector. We will seek to develop civic 

education campaigns that increase understanding of the rights and responsibilities 

of citizens in a democracy through written publications and new technologies such 

as pod casting, SMS messaging, and the Internet. We plan to utilize $15 million of the supplemental request—in addition to the $10 

million that Congress has already appropriated—to empower local activists and thus 

further human rights, support and strengthen civil society, help Iranians acquire 

the skills of citizenry and advocacy, support alternative political centers of gravity, 

improve justice and accountability, and increase tolerance and freedom of speech, 

assembly, and other basic rights for the Iranian people. 

Finally, we will expand our outreach to young Iranians who have never experi- enced democracy. We will spend $5 million on Iranian student education and international exchanges, providing scholarships as well as creating professional, cultural, 

sports and youth exchanges designed to build bridges between our two nations. If 

Iranians are banned from playing Mozart in Iran, we will help them to do so in our 

country. 

We are also working to better ensure that we streamline the process for expeditiously awarding and allocating our grants. To this end the Department of State is 

working with the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and others to secure the 

necessary licenses and waivers for our grantees to do their work. 

RE-AUTHORIZING ILSA

As you can see, the Administration entirely shares Congress’ deep concerns about 

Iran—its pursuit of nuclear weapons; its role as the ‘‘central banker’’ and leading 

state-sponsor of terrorism, including support for groups that oppose Middle East 

peace with violence; its destabilizing role in Iraq; and its oppression of its own people. 

The House has already taken a very helpful step by giving overwhelming support 

to a resolution authored by Chairman Hyde and introduced by Congresswoman RosLehtinen and Congressman Lantos that condemns Iranian nuclear policy and calls 

for a strong response by the Security Council. 

As the Secretary has said, the Iran Libya Sanctions Act (or ‘‘ILSA’’) has been ‘‘useful to us as a tool.’’ In particular, the existence of the law has underlined the depth 

of our concerns about Iran’s pursuit of WMD and support for terrorism, and has provided a platform for continually raising those concerns with others. 

We very much welcome the interest of the House and this committee in working 

with the Administration on legislation relating to Iran. We are particularly encouraged by those provisions of HR 282 that provide support for democracy in Iran. We 

would also support a reauthorization of ILSA for Iran (excluding Libya) for a further 

five-year term. 

At the same time, we are concerned with those provisions of HR 282 that would 

strain relations with our close allies whose help we need to change Iran’s behavior. 

Since ILSA’s original enactment and the subsequent extension of the law, there has 

been a paradigm shift on confronting the threats posed by Iran: increasingly, other 

governments share our views and concerns, and are working cooperatively with us 

to make their weight felt. Iran is working very hard to divide the Permanent-5 

members of the UN Security Council, and we believe that some of the provisions 

in ILSA would make it easier for Iran to succeed at this game. We believe it is essential to strengthen the unprecedented coalition we currently have in place and 

would be concerned about any step we might take that could complicate our diplomacy. 

21

Further, we believe that some provisions in the bill could constrain the administration’s flexibility, just when we need to be able to maintain all of our policy options for dealing with Iran. I am sure this is not the intention of those sponsoring 

legislation. 

Finally, we must take care not to jump to conclusions about what kinds of sanctions might be appropriate. We are confident that—if it becomes necessary—likeminded states will be able to agree on measures that will have a significant effect 

on Iran’s economy. 

We entirely share Congress’ concerns about Iran and look forward to working 

closely with you as we move forward. We want to keep the focus on Iran’s misdeeds, 

not create friction and division in the camp that is confronting Iran. 

STATE DEPARTMENT CAPABILITIES

Beyond our legislative agenda, let me update you on an important initiative that 

the State Department has undertaken as part of Secretary Rice’s global repositioning to support Transformational Diplomacy. For more than a generation, the 

U.S has had no diplomatic contacts with Iran—a unique state of affairs replicated 

in no other country in the world. We have not trained Foreign Service Officers to 

speak Farsi or established a significant effort to follow Iranian developments. This 

left a serious divergence between our capabilities and the profound challenges before 

us concerning Iran. 

Secretary Rice directed us to address this disparity. During the last month, the 

State Department has created a new Office of Iranian Affairs within the Bureau for 

Near East and North African Affairs (NEA). We will add a significant number of 

diplomats to focus solely on Iran in this office, as well as adding new positions to 

our Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau to coordinate and expedite programming for Iran. We will also create by this summer a new office focused on Iran 

at the U.S. Consulate in Dubai. In addition, we will increase the number of officers 

working on Iran at other diplomatic posts in the region. We will expand our Farsi 

language training to train a new generation of American diplomats in Iranian history, culture, and language. 

As all of you are aware, since Iran seized our embassy and held 52 of our diplomats hostage for 444 days, we have not stationed a single diplomat in Iran or 

trained many officers in Farsi. We do not intend to re-open our Embassy any time 

soon. But we do plan to put more people, better trained, on the job of watching Iran 

both in the region on Iran’s doorstep and here in Washington—so that we can block 

its destructive policies and so that we can communicate more effectively with the 

people of Iran. These enhancements are a key part of Secretary Rice’s Global Diplomatic Repositioning initiative to shift our people to where they are needed most. 

CONCLUSION

Let me conclude by thanking the Congress for the effort and interest that you 

have devoted to Iran and for your support for our policies. As we move forward, we 

will need your help on a variety of fronts:

• to reach out the Iranian population with approval of our $75 million supplemental request;

• to re-authorize ILSA in a format that facilitates the strengthening of the 

broad global coalition that is already achieving real progress in addressing 

Iran’s nuclear ambitions; and

• to continue to support the Administration as we seek to stop Iran’s pursuit 

of a nuclear weapons, its support for terrorism, its harmful meddling in the 

affairs of the region, and end its repression of its own citizenry.

It may be a long struggle to block Iranian ambitions in each of these areas and 

to roll back their dangerous policies, but it is necessary for achieving a better, more 

democratic future for the Middle East and greater security for U.S. interests across 

the world. The problem of the Iranian regime has become entrenched over the 

course of an entire generation, and it may require a generational struggle to address 

it, but we have no choice but to do so in a serious, committed and effective way.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Ambassador Burns. 

Under Secretary Joseph? 

22

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT JOSEPH, UNDER 

SECRETARY FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. JOSEPH. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos, distinguished Members 

of the Committee, it is a pleasure for me to appear before you today 

with my colleague, Under Secretary Burns, to discuss what Iran is 

doing in terms of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and what 

we are doing to blunt that effort. 

I have submitted a written statement. What I would like to do 

with your permission, Mr. Chairman, is simply summarize some of 

the main points. 

I begin from the premise that Mr. Lantos has articulated, and 

that is that a nuclear armed Iran is intolerable. Let me outline the 

reasons. 

First, a nuclear armed Iran could embolden the leadership in 

Tehran to advance its aggressive and expansionist ambitions in 

and outside of the region, both directly and through the terrorists 

that it supports. 

Today, even with an Iran that does not have a nuclear weapons 

capability, we are confronted by it and its surrogates in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon and by Tehran’s efforts to undercut peace 

between Israel and the Palestinians. If Iran possessed nuclear 

weapons, those confrontations would be sharpened and expanded. 

Second, a nuclear armed Iran would represent, in my view, a direct threat to United States forces and allies in the region, to the 

greater Middle East, Europe and Asia and eventually to the United 

States itself. 

Iran would be more likely to use force, perhaps even chemical 

and biological weapons, which it is also pursuing, if it believed that 

a nuclear shield protected it from retaliation. At a very minimum 

Iran could seek to use nuclear weapons for intimidation and blackmail. 

Third, as you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Lantos, pointed out, a nuclear armed Iran could engender further proliferation and a reevaluation of security requirements across this vital region, undermining the very integrity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. 

Fourth, a nuclear armed Iran would represent an existential 

threat to the State of Israel. President Ahmadi-Nejad has repeatedly stated his goal of wiping Israel off the map. Many in Israel 

believe that he means exactly what he says, and I believe for good 

reason. He is a true believer. 

Finally, Iran is at the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and 

terrorism. If it has fissile material or a nuclear weapon, the likelihood of their transfer to a third party would increase either by design or by diversion. 

For these reasons, I believe we must not concede the inevitability 

of a nuclear armed Iran, but rather pursue determined diplomacy 

and defensive measures to preclude such an outcome. 

Let me just turn very briefly to Iran’s nuclear program. Today 

we are challenged by a determined Iranian effort. Iran is pressing 

ahead on the centrifuge enrichment technology. It has since January put both feet on the accelerator. 

Recently it began to introduce UF–6 gas, the feed material for 

centrifuges, into a 10 centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium at a 

23

pilot plant. This is the beginning of a much larger cascade with 

hundreds of centrifuges at this pilot facility. 

Iran has openly notified the IAEA that this fall it will begin installing the first 3,000 centrifuges at an industrial enrichment 

plant at Natanz, which is in fact designed to hold tens of thousands 

of centrifuges. 

Iran has already produced approximately 85 tons of feed material, uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for these centrifuges. If 

this amount of feedstock were enriched to weapons grade uranium, 

the result would be enough highly-enriched uranium for about 10 

nuclear weapons. The only plausible explanation for the expansion 

and the urgency of the Iranian enrichment program is to produce 

fissile material for nuclear weapons as soon as possible. 

There are also disturbing indications that Iran is working on the 

next step, that is weaponization. The IAEA has uncovered documentation in Iran for the casting and machining of enriched uranium hemispheres, which are directly relevant to the production of 

nuclear weapons components. 

The IAEA is also pursuing information on high explosive tests 

and on the design of a specific delivery system which clearly point 

to a military rather than a civilian peaceful purpose. 

In short, Iran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, but we are equally determined to stop it. The President has 

emphasized that all options are on the table to deal with this 

threat, but that our strong preference is to do so through effective 

diplomacy. 

Under Secretary Burns has addressed some of our diplomatic efforts. I would just add a few points. The IAEA statute requires that 

noncompliance with IAEA safeguards be reported to the Security 

Council. 

The IAEA board in November 2003, now over 21⁄2 years ago, decided to put off reporting Iran’s noncompliance to the Security 

Council to allow time for the United Kingdom, France and Germany, or the EU–3, to reach an agreement with Iran that would 

provide confidence that Iran’s activities in the nuclear area were 

solely for peaceful purposes. 

In November 2004, an agreement was reached in Paris between 

the EU–3 and Iran to suspend all uranium conversion and enrichment activities during the negotiations on a long-term agreement, 

and the United States supported that effort. 

Russia also has put forward a creative proposal for a joint venture for uranium enrichment in Russia, but in a way that does not 

allow Iran access to sensitive technology and would not permit Iran 

to conduct any enrichment related activities on Iranian soil. 

While Iran continues to feign interest in such a deal with Russia 

and very cynically calls for negotiations in compromise, it has refused to agree to stop those enrichment related activities in Iran, 

which is an essential part of the package, and in violation of this 

Paris agreement and in defiance of the will of the international 

community Iran resumed uranium conversion activity in August 

2004 and enrichment activities in January of this year. 

In September 2005, the IAEA board found that Iran’s many 

breaches and failures to comply with its safeguards agreement constituted formal noncompliance under the state and found that 

24

Iran’s nuclear activities have given rise to questions within the 

competence of the UN Security Council. 

In early February, the IAEA board by a wide majority instructed 

the Director General, Dr. ElBaradei, to report his findings on Iran 

to the Security Council, and he has since done so. We expect that 

the Security Council will take up action on Iran noncompliance 

next week. The Council’s action will not supplement the IAEA’s 

role, but rather enforce it. 

It is imperative that the Council make clear to the Iranian regime that there will be significant negative consequences if it does 

not step away from its nuclear weapons ambitions. The Security 

Council can take progressively firmer action to induce Iran to come 

into compliance with its NPT and safeguard obligations, to suspend 

all of its enrichment and reprocessing related activities and, finally, 

to cooperate fully with the IAEA. 

While our diplomacy in the IAEA and the UN Security Council 

is an essential part of our strategy, we must do more, and we recognize that through the development of a broader strategy. We will 

work closely with other states to continue and, as necessary, to expand defensive measures to protect ourselves against the WMD 

threat from Iran, as well as from other proliferant states. 

These defense measures require an increasing array of instruments, policies and programs. At one end of that spectrum are programs like the Nunn-Lugar work that helps to prevent Iran, as 

well as others, from gaining access to enabling technologies and 

materials, to deny Iran and others a shortcut to a nuclear weapon. 

At the other end are capabilities such as missile defense and 

other counterproliferation capabilities that we need to deploy in 

order to address the threats, to protect ourselves and to provide assurance and reassurance to our friends and allies. 

Other defense measures address the financial underpinnings of 

proliferation, including the President’s June 2005 Executive Order 

authorizing the United States Government to freeze assets and 

block transactions of proliferators and their supporters. 

One of our most important defensive measures is the Proliferation Security Initiative or PSI, which is now expanded to include 

support from 70 other countries and continues to grow. PSI action 

has stopped the transshipment of material and equipment for 

Iran’s ballistic missile and WMD programs, including their nuclear 

program. 

We continue to consider possible new or expanded defensive 

measures to combat the proliferation threat from Iran. This is—I 

agree with what has been said—the greatest strategic challenge we 

will face in the foreseeable future. We must and we will pursue 

multiple avenues to prevent the emergence of a nuclear armed 

Iran. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Joseph follows:]

25

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT JOSEPH, UNDER SECRETARY FOR

ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Introduction 

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss what Iran is doing to acquire a nuclear 

weapons capability and what we are doing to counter this emerging threat. 

I start from the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable. Let me outline 

some of the key reasons:

• A nuclear-armed Iran could embolden the leadership in Tehran to advance its 

aggressive ambitions in and outside of the region, both directly and through 

the terrorists it supports—ambitions that gravely threaten stability and the 

security of U.S. friends and allies.

• A nuclear-armed Iran would represent a direct threat to U.S. forces and allies 

in the region, the greater Middle East, Europe and Asia, and eventually to 

the United States itself. The likelihood of Iranian use of force, including possibly chemical and biological weapons, could increase if Tehran believed its 

nuclear capability protected it from retaliation. At a minimum, it could seek 

to use nuclear weapons as a powerful tool of intimidation and blackmail.

• A nuclear-armed Iran could provide the fuse for further proliferation, engendering a re-evaluation of security requirements across the region, and undermining the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

• A nuclear-armed Iran would consolidate the chokehold of the mullahs, making democracy in Iran a more distant prospect.

• A nuclear-armed Iran would represent an existential threat to the state of 

Israel. Not content with his efforts to destroy peace between Israel and the 

Palestinians, President Ahmadi-Nejad may believe that nuclear weapons are 

the chosen instrument to achieve his stated goal of wiping Israel ‘‘off the 

map.’’ Despite the resulting apocalyptic costs for Iran itself, the regime could 

miscalculate, or accept those costs in the cause of martyrdom.

• Finally, Iran is at the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, 

pursuing nuclear, chemical and biological programs and actively supporting 

terrorist movements. If Iran has fissile material or nuclear weapons, the likelihood of their transfer to a third party would increase—by design or through 

diversion.

For these reasons, we should not concede the inevitability of a nuclear-armed Iran 

but rather pursue determined diplomacy and defensive measures to preclude such 

an outcome. But there is no question that Iran is as committed and determined as 

we. As a result, stopping Iran is one of the most fundamental strategic challenges 

we face. 

Iran’s Nuclear Program 

Two decades ago, Iran embarked on a secret program to acquire the capability to 

produce fissile material—the most critical component for nuclear weapons. Since 

then, Iran has pursued the goal of large-scale production of both enriched uranium 

and plutonium, spanning the full range of activities from laboratory experiments to 

industrial facilities. 

Iran pursued two parallel uranium enrichment approaches, a laser process based 

on Russian technology and a centrifuge process based on technology acquired from 

the A.Q. Khan network. The Russian government terminated cooperation with Iran 

on laser enrichment in 2001, following extensive consultations with the United 

States, and it appears to be no longer active. 

Most of Iran’s effort in the enrichment area has been concentrated on centrifuge 

technology, which Tehran is aggressively pressing forward with today. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found that Iran repeatedly violated its 

IAEA safeguards agreement during an 18-year period of covert development and 

testing. Currently, Iran is operating a small centrifuge cascade and is conducting 

research and development work at a pilot facility at Natanz. This is the beginning 

of a much larger effort with hundreds of centrifuges at the pilot facility, and Iran 

has notified the IAEA that this fall it will begin installing the first 3000 centrifuges 

at an industrial enrichment plant also at Natanz. Let there be no mistake that what 

Iran calls innocent research and development is actually the next step toward 

achieving a large-scale enrichment capability. 

26

Supporting this conclusion, Iran is now producing feedstock for centrifuges at a 

uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Iran has already produced approximately 85 

tons of uranium hexafluoride at Isfahan. If this amount of feedstock were enriched 

in centrifuges to weapons grade material, the result would be enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for about 10 nuclear weapons. Nearby, Iran has dug an underground tunnel for storing uranium hexafluoride. The facility at Isfahan is also 

capable of converting uranium hexafluoride to uranium metal, the form used in nuclear weapons components. 

Iran is obviously moving forward to master the technology of centrifuge enrichment and to commence industrial-scale production as rapidly as it can, in defiance 

of calls by the international community to suspend all enrichment-related activity. 

Iran claims that this program is entirely peaceful, for production of fuel for power 

reactors. The only power reactor Iran will have for at least the next ten years is 

the one being built by Russia at Bushehr, the fuel for which Russia is obligated to 

provide for the first ten years. 

The only plausible explanation for the urgency of the Iranian enrichment program 

is to produce fissile material that can be used in nuclear weapons as soon as possible, no matter the international cost. The secret origins, military involvement, acquisition of key technologies from a proliferation network, violation of IAEA safeguards, false reporting to the IAEA, and denial of IAEA requests for access to individuals and locations also belie assertions of peaceful intent. 

To produce plutonium, Iran has built a heavy water production plant and is now 

constructing a large, heavy water-moderated reactor whose technical characteristics 

are well suited for the production of weapons grade plutonium. In support of this 

effort, Iran produced small quantities of plutonium in targets inserted into the safeguarded Tehran research reactor and conducted plutonium separation experiments, 

in violation of its IAEA safeguards agreement. 

Because of Iran’s incomplete and false reporting and denial of access to its inspectors, the IAEA has been unable to determine the full scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program. The IAEA is pursuing information on what could be another uranium conversion project. Iran has designs for a next generation, more sophisticated 

centrifuge (P–2), but the IAEA has been unable to determine the complete history 

of this activity. 

In addition to its determined effort to put in place the capability to produce fissile 

material, there are also disturbing indications that Iran is working on the next step, 

weaponization. The IAEA has discovered documentation in Iran for casting and machining enriched uranium hemispheres, which are directly relevant to production of 

nuclear weapons components. The IAEA is also pursuing information on high-explosive tests and on the design of a delivery system, which clearly point to a military 

rather than peaceful purpose. 

Last week, in his most recent report, IAEA Director General ElBaradei made 

clear that Iran has not taken any of the steps the IAEA Board has called for. Iran 

has not re-suspended enrichment activities, not stopped construction of the heavy 

water reactor, not ratified the Additional Protocol, and not cooperated fully with the 

IAEA investigation. None of the outstanding problems have been resolved. In his 

overall assessment of the current situation, Dr. ElBaradei expressed regret and concern that the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program have not been clarified 

after three years of intensive IAEA efforts. 

Diplomatic Efforts to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program 

The President has emphasized that all options are on the table to deal with the 

threat from Iran, but that our strong preference is to do so through determined diplomacy. A peaceful diplomatic solution to this issue would spare the world from 

the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran and would benefit the Iranian people with 

the possibility of fuller integration with the international community. Diplomacy remains essential and, despite the frustrations, is working. 

The IAEA investigation of the Iranian nuclear program began in 2003, following 

revelations about the enrichment and heavy water programs by an Iranian opposition group in August 2002. In November 2003, IAEA Director General ElBaradei 

issued a comprehensive report, finding that ‘‘it is clear that Iran has failed in a 

number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under 

its Safeguards Agreement.’’

The IAEA Statute requires that non-compliance with IAEA safeguards be reported to the United Nations Security Council. The IAEA Board decided at its November 2003 meeting to put off reporting Iran’s non-compliance to the Security 

Council to allow time for the United Kingdom, France and Germany (the ‘‘EU3’’) 

and Iran to reach an agreement that would provide the international community 

confidence that Iran’s nuclear activities were entirely peaceful. 

27

It was essential to the Europeans and to us that Iran suspend all enrichmentrelated and reprocessing activities while negotiations on a long-term agreement 

were undertaken. The EU3 and Iran reached an understanding on this point in 

Tehran in October 2003, but this broke down over differences whether the agreed 

suspension covered conversion of uranium into uranium hexafluoride feedstock for 

the centrifuge process. In November 2004 a more explicit agreement was reached 

in Paris in which Iran agreed to suspend all uranium conversion and enrichment 

activities during negotiations on a long-term agreement. 

On this basis, the EU3 developed a comprehensive and ambitious proposal for extensive economic and technical cooperation between the European Union (EU) and 

Iran, including cooperation on nuclear energy. The United States supported the EU3 

effort, including by changing our policies with respect to World Trade Organization 

(WTO) membership and civilian aircraft parts for Iran. 

While the EU3 engaged with Iran, the IAEA continued and expanded its investigation of the Iranian nuclear program, and the result has been a growing number 

of unresolved problems and concerns. The reports of the IAEA Director General document a long list of unresolved problems, including: discrepancies between Iran’s account of its acquisition and use of P–1 and P–2 centrifuge technology and other information available to the IAEA; Iran’s possession of documentation on casting and 

machining enriched uranium into hemispheres, related to the fabrication of nuclear 

weapon components, and refusal to provide the IAEA a copy of this document; discrepancies between Iran’s account of plutonium separation experiments and the 

IAEA’s technical analysis; unresolved questions concerning military involvement in 

the Iranian nuclear program; and failure to fully cooperate with IAEA requests for 

access to individuals, information, and locations. The IAEA Board has adopted nine 

resolutions calling on Iran to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, and to cooperate fully with IAEA requests. 

Russia has put forward a creative proposal for a joint venture for uranium enrichment in Russia, which would not give Iran access to sensitive technology. While 

Iran continues to feign interest in a joint venture in Russia, and cynically calls for 

negotiations and compromise, it has refused to agree to suspend enrichment activities in Iran, an essential part of the package for the EU3, Russia and the United 

States. I want to be particularly clear on this point. Given Iran’s 18-year clandestine 

enrichment program, any solution must provide objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear programs will be solely for peaceful purposes, including complete cessation of 

all enrichment and reprocessing activities in Iran. Some have suggested that Iran 

be allowed small-scale enrichment activities, but even these could enable Iran to 

master technology critical to making nuclear weapons. Therefore, they would not be 

an acceptable solution. 

Iran responded to the generous EU3 proposal by calling it an insult. In violation 

of the Paris agreement with the EU3 and in defiance of the will of the international 

community expressed in the resolutions of the IAEA Board, Iran initiated unilateral 

actions that shattered the basis for negotiations, resuming uranium conversion in 

August 2005 and, following its provocative removal of IAEA seals this January, resumed uranium enrichment activities. 

With the negotiations with the EU3 stalled, in September 2005 the IAEA Board 

returned to the task it had set aside nearly two years earlier, and made two important findings. First, the Board found that Iran’s many breaches and failures of its 

obligations to comply with its safeguards agreement constituted noncompliance as 

described in Article XII.C of the IAEA Statute. Second, the Board found that the 

long history of deception and concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities, the nature of 

those activities, and the absence of confidence in Iran’s peaceful nuclear intentions 

have given rise to questions within the competence of the UN security Council. 

Both of those findings were cause to report Iran to the UN Security Council, but 

the Board chose to defer the timing and content of that report to give Iran one final 

chance to change course, and to restore the basis for a negotiated solution. Iran 

again chose the course of confrontation rather than negotiation, however, and following Iran’s resumption of enrichment activities in January 2006, the IAEA Board 

by a 27–3 vote, with 5 abstentions, instructed the Director General to report Iran 

to the UN Security Council. Dr. ElBaradei has done so, and the Iranian nuclear program is now before the Council, the international body responsible for dealing with 

threats to international peace and security, which this surely is. 

We are now moving to a new phase, in which the Security Council can add its 

considerable authority to the international effort to counter Iran’s quest for nuclear 

weapons. We expect the Security Council to take up action on Iranian noncompliance next week. The Council will not supplant the IAEA effort, but reinforce it—

for example, by calling on Iran to cooperate with the Agency and to take steps the 

28

IAEA Board has identified to restore confidence, and by giving the IAEA new, needed authority to investigate all aspects of the Iranian nuclear effort. 

The Council should make clear to the Iranian regime that there will be consequences if it does not step away from its nuclear weapons ambitions. We will continue to consult closely with the EU–3 and the European Union, with Russia, China, 

and many other members of the international community as this new diplomatic 

phase proceeds. 

Absent even more provocative actions by Iran, we envision a graduated approach 

by the Security Council, interacting closely with the IAEA. The Security Council can 

take progressively firmer action, to the extent necessary, to induce Iran to come into 

complete compliance with its NPT and safeguards obligations, suspend all its 

enrichment- and reprocessing-related activities, and cooperate fully with the IAEA. 

For the first step, we may look to a Statement by the President of the Security 

Council. Such statements are issued by the Council President, but agreed by all 

members of the Council. In our view, a Presidential Statement could underline serious Council concern over Iran’s nuclear activities and support for the IAEA investigation. In that regard, it could call on Iran to comply with IAEA Board resolutions, 

including by reestablishing full suspension, halting construction of the heavy water 

plant, resuming implementation of the Additional Protocol and bringing it into force, 

and cooperating fully with the IAEA investigation. Further, the Statement could call 

for a report on its implementation from the IAEA Director General within a short 

period—a few weeks, not months. We will urge that such a Presidential Statement 

be issued rapidly after the Council takes up the Iranian dossier next week. 

If Iran defies the Security Council Presidential Statement, as it has the IAEA 

Board of Governors resolutions, we will urge a Council resolution to put increased 

pressure on Iran to comply. The resolution could be grounded in Chapter VII of the 

UN Charter, given the threat to international peace and security posed by Iran’s 

nuclear program. In issuing such a resolution, the Council could require Iran, within 

a specified short period of time, to comply with all elements of the IAEA Board resolutions, as well as with additional Council requirements such as opening up to substantially increased IAEA investigative authority. 

If Iran still does not comply, we will look to even firmer Council action. Our aim 

is that Iran will be persuaded to reverse course by the obvious resolve of the international community, shown first in the IAEA Board of Governors and beginning this 

month in the Security Council. 

Defensive Measures 

In addition to our diplomatic efforts to end the Iranian nuclear threat, we will 

work closely with other states to continue—and as necessary, expand—our defensive 

measures to protect ourselves against WMD proliferation and all WMD-armed adversaries, including Iran. Those defensive measures require an increasing array of 

instruments, policies and programs. 

At one end of the spectrum are programs like Nunn-Lugar that help to prevent 

Iran and other proliferators from gaining access to sensitive technologies and materials that could represent a short cut to nuclear weapons. At the other end is missile 

defense and other counterproliferation capabilities. These capabilities not only 

strengthen our strategic posture against the threat we face, but provide another reason to persuade states like Iran not to acquire nuclear weapons in the first place. 

Other defensive measures address the financial underpinnings of proliferation. 

UN Security Council Resolution 1540—adopted at the President’s urging—requires 

states to adopt and enforce effective controls on funds and services related to export 

and transshipment that would contribute to WMD programs. Consistent with Resolution 1540, G–8 Leaders have called for enhanced efforts to combat proliferation 

through cooperation to identify, track and freeze transactions and assets associated 

with proliferation activities. 

President Bush augmented U.S. efforts in this field when he issued last June a 

new Executive Order, which authorizes the U.S. Government to freeze assets and 

block transactions of entities and persons, or their supporters, engaged in proliferation activities, and to prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with 

them. Currently 18 entities—6 from Iran, as well as 11 from North Korea and one 

from Syria—have been designated under the Order, and we are actively considering 

designating additional ones. 

One of the most important defensive measures undertaken by the Bush Administration is the Proliferation Security Initiative, which shows the close interaction 

among—and the creative use of—diplomatic, military, economic, law enforcement, 

and intelligence tools to combat proliferation. PSI countries have put all of these assets to work in a multinational, yet flexible, fashion. The participating countries are 

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fore to interdict shipments, to disrupt proliferation networks, and to hold accountable the front companies that support them. PSI has now expanded to include support from more than 70 countries, and continues to grow. It is not a treaty-based 

approach, involving long, ponderous negotiations that yield results only slowly, if at 

all. Instead, it is an active—and proactive—partnership, to deter, disrupt and prevent proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery. And PSI is working—including against Iran. PSI cooperation has stopped the transshipment of material and 

equipment bound for Iran’s ballistic missile programs. PSI partners, working at 

times with others, have also prevented Iran from procuring goods to support its 

WMD programs, including its nuclear program. 

We continue to consider possible new or expanded defensive measures to combat 

the proliferation threat from Iran. We must and will pursue multiple avenues to 

prevent the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

We will now get to questions under the 5-minute rule. I do not 

usually ask a question, but to give you an opportunity to outline 

your concerns with H.R. 282 will you tell us if the passage of that 

bill will help or hurt your efforts and why? 

Ambassador Burns? 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you for the opportunity to comment on H.R. 282. 

We believe that the current legislation in place, ILSA, has been 

a very effective tool for our foreign policy. Secretary Rice has said 

that quite often. 

We are a country that has had a harder edge to its diplomacy 

than many others, and sometimes in international diplomacy you 

have countries that are out in front engaging and other countries 

that stand behind with a great deal of solidity to their position. We 

have been that country standing behind the European countries 

and the Russians and Chinese with very effective sanctions in 

place. 

We know that the ILSA, perhaps without Libya in our view, 

needs to be reauthorized. Our view, Mr. Chairman, is that it ought 

to be reauthorized, and we think it can continue to be an effective 

tool for American foreign policy and the good union of congressional, as well as Executive Branch interest. 

I would say this, Mr. Chairman. It is in my written contribution. 

When the bill is being debated I think we will want to have discussions with you and other Members about ways that some of the 

provisions in the current draft could be modified because one thing 

we do not want to do is divide the international diplomatic coalition 

that we have put together. 

We think that rather than focus some of the sanctions on our allies we ought to focus the sanctions on the Iranians. In our view, 

over the last 12 months the most significant achievement of American foreign policy toward Iran has been to broaden the group of 

countries who are standing with us. The Europeans are solidly 

with us. Japan and Australia are with us, but, most importantly, 

India has voted twice with the United States in the IAEA against 

Iran, and now Russia and China have done so. 

I know Secretary Rice prizes the fact that we have this coalition 

in place, and rather than have new legislation that would really 

focus sanctions on our allies we would rather focus it on the Iranians, so as you begin your work—or should I say as you continue 

it—we will want to make that suggestion. 

30

We have some specific suggestions, Mr. Chairman, that we can 

put forward with respect to Members of Congress, and we will be 

happy to engage further with you on this. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. Berman of California? 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few questions, 

but I just have to respond to Ambassador Burns’ comment. 

I understand reservations about this legislation. I can understand. I myself would argue that Congress moving this kind of legislation creates an atmosphere which helps you push the impetus 

toward a multilateral and diplomatic approach to the problem if for 

no other reason than the good cop/bad cop routine, but I do not 

think you should try to sell the notion that ILSA has been effective. 

While it had some initial deterrent benefits on investment in the 

energy section, the fact is this Administration and the previous Administration initially through the use of waivers and now through 

the total unwillingness to make any findings never acknowledges 

any foreign investment in Iran’s energy section, and therefore nothing ever gets triggered. 

Whatever the reservations may be about the legislation before 

us, I do not think we should try and sell it on how effective this 

legislation, the existing law, has been. As a sponsor of the existing 

law, I am sorry to have to admit that fact, but I think that fact 

is clear. 

My questions though, and perhaps, Secretary Joseph, you are the 

right person to direct them to. I raised this initially. Is Russia in 

the context of its proposal to Iran pushing? Here are the few things 

I would like you to respond to. 

Are they pushing for a complete suspension not only of enrichment, but of conversion? Are they pushing for continued IAEA inspections until all aspects of the Iranian program, including the 

evidence already available of a parallel military program, are they 

pushing total access to individuals and sites as part of their proposal? 

Are they seeking a time-limited agreement or an agreement of 

indefinite duration? Are the Russians going beyond simply the willingness to provide the enriched fuel to provide assurances that 

there will be no research and development on these issues? 

Just how broad is the Russian proposal that Iran may never accept, but if they do accept it will be very hard to get Russia then 

to become an ally of imposing sanctions at the Security Council if 

it is deficient, so I am wondering are we right in investing as much 

as we are in this effort. 

Finally, could you give us your best guess, not about when Iran 

will have a nuclear weapon, but about the fastest in which they 

would have the independent capability to develop a nuclear weapon 

without explicitly or illicitly gaining technologies from outside 

Iran? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If you could just address some of 

those? 

Ambassador BURNS. Mr. Berman, if I could just steal 15 seconds 

with Under Secretary Joseph’s permission just to respond to the 

initial comment you made on sanctions and on ILSA? 

31

We want to work with your Committee, this Committee, and 

with the Congress on a reauthorization of the ILSA. We just would 

request a certain degree of flexibility because what is ahead of us 

diplomatically is this process in the UN, and if the process of 

words, resolutions, does not work that process will head toward the 

consideration of some kind of targeted sanctions. 

That is the only point I wanted to make. 

Mr. BERMAN. I was not arguing with that point, although I think 

movement of a strong bill can have some benefits. I was arguing 

with the point that ILSA has been effective. 

Mr. JOSEPH. Mr. Berman, thank you. In terms of the Russian 

proposal, the Russians first put forward some ideas that evolved 

into their proposal. They put forth those ideas last September, and 

they have been developing those ideas ever since. 

The proposal, as I understand the proposal, as has been described to me by Russian authorities, is that it would prohibit on 

Iranian territory all enrichment-related activities. It would, however, allow the continuation of conversion of uranium, which is ongoing at Isfahan as we speak today. 

The Russians have been very supportive of the IAEA authorities, 

and in the context of their proposal they have encouraged Iran as 

part of the arrangement that they would try to negotiate to adhere 

to the additional protocol, which would give the IAEA additional 

authorities to pursue their investigation. 

They have been very frustrated with Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate fully with the IAEA, which is repeated successively in 

about nine—I think the count is now nine—IAEA resolutions on 

this issue. 

The Russians I believe are very frustrated that Iran continues to 

pursue its nuclear weapons capability, and I think it is quite apparent to the Russian authorities exactly what is happening. 

In terms of the time limitation, I have not heard that there is 

any time limits associated with their proposal other than rumors 

that have recently been circulating in Vienna in the context of this 

board meeting. I do not give any credence to those rumors. 

I think the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, when he spoke to 

this issue here in Washington, made very clear that there is not 

a Russian proposal, a new Russian proposal that would allow limited research and development in Iran in the area of enrichment 

activities. 

In terms of Iran’s capabilities, indigenous capabilities, it is my 

sense that Iran has a very large, a very capable scientific and technical community. Iran has access to tremendous resources which 

you can see reflected in the scale of their investment in Natanz and 

in Isfahan, their overall nuclear program. 

My sense is that there will be impediments that Iranian scientists and technicians will need to overcome before they are able 

to master the enrichment process. They are currently now hooking 

up centrifuges into small cascades. It is not easy to go from individual centrifuges to small cascades to larger cascades, but my 

sense is they have the ability to overcome those problems in time. 

The issue is how much time. I do not know that we have a good 

sense of how much time it will take Iran to master these technologies on their own. There is always of course the concern that 

32

they can shortcut the process. They can either acquire fissile material on the black market, or they can bring in expertise to help 

them solve some of the problems that are associated with developing an enrichment capability. 

A.Q. Khan, for example, provided expertise. We believe that we 

have closed down the A.Q. Khan network, but there may be others 

out there for hire. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Smith of New Jersey? 

Mr. SMITH FROM NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Burns, Secretary Joseph, thank you for your tremendous leadership on behalf of our country. 

Let me ask a couple of questions. Given the longstanding, bitter 

animosity between Iran and Iraq, how do you assess the immediate, the intermediate and the long-term threat of Iran to democratic Iraq and especially as it relates to our troops who are deployed there? 

Secondly, Iran, as we all know, is a country of particular concern 

because of its ongoing egregious abuse of religious freedom. Has 

Iran’s already bad record been made worse under the new President, and can you speak to the issue of evangelical Christians in 

the Baha’i, and what about the small Jewish community which 

goes back thousands of years in Iran? 

Thirdly, the issue of Internet companies. We held a joint hearing, 

Mr. Leach and I, just a few days ago on the ongoing complicity of 

many of our larger Internet companies, including Yahoo!, Cisco, 

Google, with China and their secret police and their propaganda organs, and I wonder if you can tell us, since we know that the Internet is very severely monitored by the Iranians have any of our companies directly or indirectly been a part of that? 

Have they lent any of their technology, for example, to their secret police in Iran to crack down on anyone who might seek freedom or justice? 

Again, along those same lines, are VOA and Radio Farda bypassing Iranians’ jamming efforts? 

Ambassador BURNS. Congressman Smith, thank you very much 

for your leadership on all these issues. Let me just try to address 

them one-by-one. 

We believe that Iran is playing a ‘‘negative’’ role in Iraq. First, 

there is evidence, and it is in my testimony again today, that the 

Iranians have supplied sophisticated improved explosive device 

technology to Shi’a terrorist groups, and those grounds have used 

that technology against British forces in the southern part of Iraq, 

as well as against American forces. We are very concerned about 

that development. It is not new. We have known about this for 

some months. 

Secretary Rice and Ambassador Khalilzad have discussed it publicly, and that is why we discuss it publicly again today, but we 

have communicated with the Iranian Government through the 

intrasection, the Swiss intrasection that represents our interests in 

Tehran, that this is unacceptable, and we believe that message has 

been heard in Tehran. 

We also believe that the Iranians obviously are trying to enhance 

their own influence in Iran. They do that in a number of ways. We 

33

do not think their influence has been as ours has to suggest that 

Shi’as, Sunni and Kurds should live together peacefully and should 

form a government peacefully, but rather the Iranians have been 

trying to really speak to one community, and that is the Shi’a community in Iraq. 

We also think that they have been exceedingly unhelpful in not 

using their influence to downplay sectarian violence and so we do 

not have anything good to say about what the Iranians have done 

as a country, as a government in Iraq. 

On your second question, one of the great tragedies of the last 

26 years is that a country that previously had a reputation and history of some tolerance for religious differences within its society, 

that has disappeared especially with this very aggressive group of 

leaders that have taken power in Iran over the last 25 years. 

They have persecuted Baha’i and Christian and Jews, and in our 

annual human rights report we document that. I know you have 

done a lot of work on this yourself, Mr. Smith, and of course we 

have been sorely disappointed to see this. We speak out against it. 

We ask our European allies, all of which have Embassies in 

Tehran, unlike us, to use their influence, as well as Arab countries 

to use their influence, to speak up on behalf of persecuted minorities. 

Third, on the question of American Internet companies, if I have 

understood it correctly, I would respectfully ask just to accept that 

question and give you a written answer. I simply do not know to 

what extent American companies may or may not be involved in 

working with the Government of Iran. 

As we do not have an Embassy there, as there are very few 

American citizens living in Iran, our ability sometimes to understand everything that is happening is quite limited but I will take 

the question and look at it for you and get back to you. 

Mr. SMITH FROM NEW JERSEY. And Radio Farda? 

Ambassador BURNS. Yes. The Iranians have attempted to impede 

the transmission of Radio Farda, as well as the Persian language, 

and the Farsi language TV stations that we fund. They obviously 

try to do that to blunt the private American and international 

radio and TV stations that broadcast into Iran. 

That is one of the reasons why the President and Secretary Rice have requested $50 million from the Congress to upgrade our ability to effectively transmit an American voice into Iran. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I want to thank both of our witnesses for their 

very thoughtful approach to this and so many other difficult issues. 

Since our involvement in Iraq, we have not heard any mention 

of the other two participants in terms of calling them part of the 

evil axis. They have each very strongly continued to try to procure 

a nuclear weapons program. They are very much alive. 

My first question is the Bush doctrine. Is that alive? We have not 

heard mention of it for a while. 

Also, shortly one of our later witnesses is going to suggest that 

we cannot move ahead with a nuclear cooperation agreement until 

we resolve the Iran issue. In that regard I want to ask you about 

the relationship between what we are trying to achieve in Iran, 

mainly stopping their nuclear program, and what we are trying to 

34

achieve with India, and that is providing them access to nuclear 

technology. 

Not speaking specifically for myself, but in the minds of many 

proceeding with the Indian deal undercuts our efforts to stop Iran 

from acquiring nuclear weapons. I would like you to outline if you 

would for the Committee why the Administration sees these as two 

separate and distinct cases and why our progress with India will 

not hinder our efforts to stop Iran. 

Then I would like, if you could, to address the question of whether our friends on the Security Council, which does include all of the 

members of the nuclear club, also see these two cases as distinct. 

Mr. JOSEPH. Mr. Ackerman, thank you very much. Why do I not 

try to address your first question? 

We are, of course, under no illusions about the nature of the regime in Pyongyang or in Tehran. I think the statements that have 

been made by President Ahmadi-Nejad reflect the nature of that 

regime, statements that call for Israel and, by the way, the United 

States to be wiped off the face of the map, statements that deny 

the historical reality of the Holocaust. 

This is a truly abhorrent regime, and we see it in many contexts. 

Clearly the same is true with regard to North Korea in terms of 

their violation of the basic fundamental human rights of their own 

citizens, a nation that uses starvation as part of their national policy. Again, we are under no illusions. 

In terms of the Bush doctrine, that can mean many things to 

many different people. My understanding of the Bush doctrine is 

the national strategy that we developed for combatting weapons of 

mass destruction, the first truly comprehensive approach to dealing 

with the very complex and dangerous spectrum of threats associated with the spread of weapons of mass destruction and their 

means of delivery. 

It is a strategy that has three principle pillars. First of all, prevention. This Administration has put forth record requests for 

spending to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, to 

build up the Nunn-Lugar and DOE type programs so that countries 

like Iran and North Korea and others do not have easy access to 

sensitive materials and technologies. 

We have expanded that set of programs to include international 

funding through the G–8 global partnership, a partnership that has 

added approximately $7 billion in non-U.S. funds to this mission. 

The second pillar is prevention. We know that we are not always 

going to be successful in terms of preventing the spread of weapons 

of mass destruction. Therefore, we need to be able to deter and defend against that threat both for our own protection, as well as for 

the protection of our friends and allies. 

Here again we have led the way through such measures as the 

Proliferation Security Initiative, which I mentioned before, which 

has resulted in I think significant nonproliferation results, including the unraveling of the A.Q. Khan Network, as well as the Libyan decision to give up its nuclear weapons program, as well as its 

long-range missile capabilities. 

The third pillar of this strategy——

Mr. ACKERMAN. If I might, Mr. Secretary, because I want to 

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tion. I assume that is the way you are dividing it up. If you could 

just cut to the chase on that? 

Are we prepared to do in Iran and North Korea what we did in 

Iraq? 

Mr. JOSEPH. The President has made clear that there are no options off the table and that a nuclear armed Iran is intolerable. 

Ambassador BURNS. Mr. Ackerman, I am pleased to respond to 

your second question about India and Iran. 

Let us look at the differences between these two countries. India 

is democratic and peaceful and a great friend of the United States. 

Iran is autocratic and adversarial and one of the greatest threats 

facing our country today. 

India, through the arrangement negotiated by President Bush 

last week, is seeking to bring the IAEA in to India for the very first 

time significantly to place safeguards on the great majority of their 

nuclear facilities. Iran is trying to kick the IAEA out, so these two 

countries are going in opposite directions concerning their relationship with the IAEA. 

We are looking forward, Bob and I, very much to coming up to 

brief all of you and also to testify if you wish, Mr. Chairman, about 

this India agreement, but if I could just say the deal would call for 

14 of the 22 current India nuclear power plants, civil plants, to be 

put under safeguards. All future civilian breeder and thermal reactors will be put under safeguards, permanent safeguards in place, 

a moratorium on nuclear testing. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you might, Mr. Ambassador, just in the interest of time I think most of us are familiar with the provisions so 

far, but the question on do our friends in the Security Council and 

specifically those in the nuclear club see it this way with regard to 

both programs? 

Ambassador BURNS. President Chirac, Prime Minister Blair, 

Prime Minister Howard and Mr. ElBaradei have all spoken out in 

support of the President’s civil nuclear arrangement with India 

over the past week, and we think we are far better off bringing 

India into the nonproliferation system, as this deal does, than 

keeping it outside in isolation. 

India is seeking inclusion. Iran is seeking exclusion. There is a 

great difference between the two, and we do not believe that an aggressive American policy on Iran means that we should not have 

an inclusive American policy toward India. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you for the time. It is great to see you gentlemen again. 

Secretary Burns, you had said in your testimony that as the bill, 

our Iran bill, H.R. 282, is being debated we would like to find ways 

to modify it. With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, we have asked the 

Administration for comments for over a year. 

The bill now has 345 co-sponsors as it is, and I thank Chairman 

Hyde for helping us out and bringing it to a markup next week. 

Thank you, Chairman Hyde, for that help. 

Secretary Burns, in your testimony you referred to a number of 

steps we have taken in the last year to blunt Iran’s ambitions. You 

then proceeded to discuss our support for the EU–3’s proposal of 

36

far-reaching economic incentives, including access to and assistance 

with peaceful nuclear reactors. 

How do incentives and nuclear assistance prevent Iran from 

crossing the nuclear threshold, and also related to that then after 

Iran’s proactive and provocative actions in your words, why do we 

support Russia’s proposal of having the fox guarding the hen 

house, and would you agree that the time has come for punitive action? 

We have been working with you, and we have done all we can 

to give the Presidential waiver and the flexibility that needs to be 

reviewed every 6 months. It is in the bill. We do give the Department and the Administration a lot of flexibility. I would like to 

hear your comments. 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen. 

We are impressed by the 345 number, and we know how strong the 

sentiment is here in Congress to have an effective bill. 

I apologize that we have not given you specific comments. I can 

assure you we will do so. We just had a review within the Administration of this bill, and I think you were out of the room when I 

said before in response to another question we would like to see the 

reauthorization of the bill. We think the bill can be a useful tool 

and has been and so we would like to work with you on that basis. 

We do want some flexibility given the diplomacy, which gets to 

your second question. We are certainly entering a new phase of diplomacy. The European Union’s attempt to negotiate an end of the 

nuclear program was spurned by the Iranians, and now the attempt to have the IAEA be an effective tool to influence the Iranians, that did not work either and so we are turning to the UN 

Security Council. 

Now, we will begin a diplomatic phase there of conversations, 

discussions, Presidential statements and resolutions, but should 

they not work then we are going to have to have a harder edge, 

and I mean a harder diplomatic edge to the policy, and that would 

be the consideration of targeted sanctions. 

If we can have some flexibility in that domain as you write and 

finish your legislation that would be greatly appreciated. I know 

Secretary Rice will be happy to talk to you about that in some detail. 

I would just say in answer to your final question the Russian 

Government has played a constructive role in our judgment over 

the last 5 or 6 months. It does not mean we agree with everything 

Russia says or does on this issue. 

For instance, we do not agree that Russia should be selling arms 

to Iran as it has said it will do. We have never favored, either the 

Clinton Administration or this Administration, the construction of 

the Bushehr reactor in Iran with the help of the Russians, but they 

have put forward a proposal, as Under Secretary Joseph said, that 

would effectively allow the Iranian people to have access to civil 

nuclear power, but none of the sensitive aspects of a nuclear fuel 

cycle would be on Iranian territory. It would be an offshore arrangement. 

President Bush said on November 16 when he was in Asia that 

we would support that proposal if the Iranians accepted it. Now, 

what have they done? They have rejected it. The Iranians have 

37

played a double game here. They said well, we are interested in the 

Russian proposal, but we insist on our right to have enrichment on 

Iranian soil, which is a basic contradiction of the Russian proposal. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

Thank you, Mr. Hyde. I just am very disappointed with the disengagement from the Bush Administration with Congress on the 

issue of Iran, and I think that we have seen a build up of support 

that has been incredible for this bill. 

To come back, over a year later, and say we want to work with 

you and we want to be flexible, it is just incredible to me. You had 

willing partners who reached out and did everything we could to 

engage you. You wanted to go another way. 

I thank the Chairman for giving us the opportunity to mark the 

bill and pass it. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Delahunt of Massachusetts? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Ambassador, my friend from California talked 

about dialogue with the Iranians. I noted where our Ambassador 

to Iran has been authorized by the President to engage in discussions with the Iranians regarding Iraq and stability in the region. 

Have we made an effort to engage or has the Ambassador had 

communication, and if he has, has there been a response from the 

Iranians, and might there be an expansion of the agenda if in fact 

those discussions are available and an option? That is one question. 

Secondly, in a memorandum prepared by CRS in preparation for 

this hearing, there is a statement that is made by the author that 

the ‘‘U.S. military ousting of Saddam Hussein appears to have benefitted Iran strategically. Pro-Iranian Shi’ite Islamist parties have 

triumphed in two national assembly elections in 2005, essentially 

putting Tehran’s proteges or groups friendly to Iran in power in 

Iraq.’’

Could you identify those parties for us, and what kind of influence they are bringing to bear in terms of stability in Iraq and in 

the region? 

Also, in that same memorandum there is an observation, at least 

this is the inference that I drew, that the new President, and I cannot pronounce his name so I am not going to make that effort, 

might not exactly be on the same page with the ruling religious 

elite. There was a statement that they have granted new governmental advisory parties to a council that in fact is headed by his 

Presidential rival, Rafsanjani. 

I do not want to fall into the trap where there are no nuances 

in terms of our discussions relative to Iran. If you see any nuances 

such as a potential disagreement within the Iranian Government 

as to its bilateral relationship could you relate that to us? 

A final question. I am concerned, as Mr. Ackerman indicated, about that $10 million. I think one of our most serious mistakes 

was our reliance on Ahmed Chalabi for intelligence and for insight 

into what was occurring in Iraq. 

You know, we have groups here that I think potentially would 

like to engage and influence American foreign policy. There is a 

terrorist group, MEK, that has considerable presence here in the 

United States through various front groups. Are they still on the 

terrorist list? I would hope that there would not be any consideration or support given for any group associated with them. 

38

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

Ambassador BURNS. Congressman, thank you very much. I will 

try to be brief in answering your four questions. 

On the first question regarding our limited contacts with the Iranian Government, since 1980 there are available to us a series of 

channels through which we communicate to the Iranian Government. The first is the fact that Switzerland is our protecting power 

in Tehran and so we have an ability to pass messages, written 

messages, through the Swiss to the Iranian authorities, and every 

Administration since President Reagan has availed itself of that 

opportunity, including the current Administration. 

Second, there is an Algiers channel, a legal channel, which is 

meant to adjudicate concerns regarding government-to-government 

but also private legal and financial issues between the two governments. 

Third, as Secretary Rice I think mentioned to the House International Relations Committee—I know she did to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when she testified 3 weeks ago—she has 

authorized Ambassador Ron Neumann, our Ambassador in Afghanistan, to be in contact with the Iranian Ambassador in Afghanistan 

about issues there, and she has authorized Ambassador Khalilzad 

in the past to have the same type of channel. 

Obviously in an open hearing I would prefer not to give you a 

report card on those channels, on the results of those contacts, but 

I would be happy to do that in classified session. 

We believe, and I think it is the question you are asking, that 

with this current regime of President Ahmadi-Nejad it is better to 

isolate than to engage directly. I think the Iranians would like 

nothing better than to see business as usual. They would like to 

see the United States re-open an Embassy. They would like to see 

the United States talk to it every day, but this is, after all, the 

President who said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the 

map and that the Holocaust did not happen. 

As a matter of diplomatic tactics, the Iranians do not want to be 

isolated in the world—perhaps the North Koreans do; the Iranians 

do not—and so we prefer to isolate them and deny them the benefits that would come from a regular and normal degree of diplomatic relations with the United States. We are not going to change 

our policy on that issue. 

On your second question, Iran’s influence in Iraq; as I said before 

in answer to a prior question the Iranians are seeking influence in 

Iraq. You would expect them to. They were of assistance to a lot 

of the Iraqi exiles during the regime of Saddam Hussein. Some of 

those exiled figures are now figures of some consequence in the 

southern part of Iraq and so Iran is giving financial and political 

and other support to some of these leaders. 

The Iranians we think have played a very unhelpful role because 

they have not encouraged cohesion or tolerance among the various 

groups of political moderation. They have tended to encourage more 

extremist activities, including sectarian violence. 

As I said before, we believe they provided sophisticated IED technology, at least their services have, to a militant Shi’a group and 

that those devices have been used to kill British soldiers and to attack American soldiers. 

39

On your third question regarding President Ahmadi-Nejad and 

his counterpart, the Supreme Leader, Mr. Hamani, there are lots 

of different views as to who is up and who is down and who is influential and who is not. 

I think you are right. You are very correct to say that, like any 

country, there is no monolithic internal political system in Iran. It 

is a very complicated system of government. There are all sorts of 

factions vying for power. There are factions that believe in internal 

reform or engagement with the United States, and there are factions that completely reject both of those propositions. 

You referred to Mr. Rafsanjani, the defeated Presidential candidate. He is Chairman of the Expediency Council, which is named 

by the Supreme Leader to cast judgment on the actions of the government and so many have speculated that perhaps there is a competitive relationship between Rafsanjani and Ahmadi-Nejad. 

What we have to do ultimately, we are interested in the parlor 

game of looking at the internal machinations of their political system. We have to ultimately judge them by what they do. Across the 

board, this is an entire regime that is quite radical. They have 

banned the playing of Mozart and of classical music inside their 

country. They repress journalists and political dissidents across the 

board, and they have mounted a terrorist campaign against the 

United States that has been unrelenting for 20 years. 

We judge them by those actions, but we are interested in looking 

at the internal configurations as you are. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Paul of Texas? 

Mr. PAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First off, Secretary Joseph, I know you did not come here to scare 

us, but I think you have frightened me a little bit. In one of your 

answers to Mr. Ackerman when he asked whether or not the Iraq 

option was off the table, you said no options are off the table. 

Considering the results in Iraq, I would hope that our planning 

and our discussion now would concentrate on where we went wrong 

in Iraq because we cannot find many successes there. 

Another quick point I would like to make is my understanding 

that Iran is not in defiance of the Paris agreement because the 

agreement clearly states that it was totally voluntary, purely voluntary, and we do know that they have a legal right to develop nuclear power for peaceful means and that the Paris agreement was 

not legally binding. 

I approach this from a noninterventionist viewpoint, which is not 

all that popular today, and I know the interventions that most everybody advises are well intended, but interference in the internal 

affairs of other nations does not do much good for us. Playing the 

policemen of the world has not been beneficial, and getting involved in nation building has generally backfired. 

Instead of it leading to peace and trade, too often it has led to 

war and protectionism. A perfect example of how our policies have 

led to protectionism is this tremendous sentiment on the Dubai incident. We drum up this fear and hatred of certain types of people, 

and all of a sudden here we are. We are in a protectionism sentiment now. It will not be just getting rid of one company. We may 

be seeing a lot of serious protectionism come about because of the 

type of policies that we follow. 

40

Instead of getting peace and trade, we end up with the concern 

about blow back, unintended consequences and unintended alliances. We all were surprised. All of a sudden they have aligned 

themselves with somebody else. 

I think this is a policy that really is an open invitation for commercial interests to get involved in our foreign policy. We have already mentioned oil, and it is frankly admitted now that oil is a 

very important thing that we are involved in, in the Middle East. 

In line of questioning, I would like to ask about this argument 

that is used by the Administration that Iran has no need for nuclear power because they have all this oil. That sounds fairly logical, but why did we give them a nuclear reactor in the 1950s when 

they had just as much oil or more oil then? They had used up less. 

This whole idea that at one time—this is part of this intervention 

that I disapprove of, we literally provided them with technology 

back in the 1950s, and here now we are faced with a great deal 

of difficulty. 

At the same time, how do we treat India? Does India follow all 

the rules? They do not even belong to the nonproliferation treaty, 

and we reward them with technology and money. The same way 

with Pakistan. Then we get carried away with it and it just seems 

to be trying to provoke and aggravate and looking for a fight. 

I know it is a serious problem, but what we do and how we react 

is very serious. Is it not true that the Iranians have a right to nuclear power, and is it not true that they have not been found in 

any violations, and is it not true that there is no absolute concrete 

evidence that they are developing a nuclear bomb? Is it not true 

that the very way we treat Pakistan and India and even North 

Korea, is it not true that this is the tremendous incentive for a 

country like Iran to get a nuclear weapon? 

It just seems like what we do, no matter how well intended, 

seems to backfire. I do not know. I just think that all these options 

on the table to do to Iran what we have done to Iraq ought to make 

us sit back and say what have we done these last 3 years? Is it 

not time for a reassessment? 

Maybe we do too much too fast, and maybe we ought to just sit 

back and cool off a little bit rather than going out and looking for 

the next place where we can send more troops. 

Mr. JOSEPH. Mr. Congressman, thank you. Let me say that with 

regard to the Paris agreement, that agreement was the basis for 

the negotiations between the EU–3 on the one side and Iran on the 

other, and that agreement called for the full suspension of enrichment related activities. 

When Iran removed the IAEA seals in January and began enrichment related materials, that was clearly in contradiction to the 

Paris agreement. It shattered the basis for the negotiations, and as 

the EU–3 foreign ministers made very clear it drove that process 

to a dead end. Iran has consistently chosen confrontation over negotiation. 

In terms of the question of a right, we have avoided the whole 

debate over theoretical rights because I can tell you that Iran does 

not have the right to enrich uranium if it is for the purpose of a 

nuclear weapon, but Iran, like other countries, has cynically manipVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
41

ulated the provisions of the NPT, which provide for the right of 

non-nuclear weapon states to peaceful nuclear energy technology. 

Iran has used that provision as a means for gaining access to 

sensitive technologies for the purpose of moving forward to acquire 

a nuclear weapon. This is a major loophole in the regime, and it 

is one that we are trying to address in a number of ways, including 

the provision of fuel assurances to countries if they forego this sensitive technology. 

In terms of Iran and its violations, it is in violation of its NPT 

and IAEA safeguards commitments. That was clearly found to be 

the case in September by the IAEA Board of Governors. It was a 

clear statement in the resolution that these violations are inconsistent with Iran’s obligations under its own agreements with the 

IAEA, and that is the basis for reporting under the statute of the 

IAEA, reporting Iran to the Security Council. 

In terms of no evidence of a bomb, I think that Dr. ElBaradei’s 

most recent report makes very clear that after 3 years of extensive, 

intensive investigation in Iran by the IAEA inspectors he is still 

unable to state that there has not been a diversion, and clearly the 

outstanding questions that are identified in report after report regarding plutonium experiments and even more recently regarding 

evidence of weaponization leads us to the conclusion that there is 

no doubt that Iran’s intention is to acquire a nuclear weapon. 

In terms of Iran and how it relates to Pakistan and India, Pakistan and India and Israel are the only countries that did not sign 

the NPT. Iran has signed the NPT? Iran has committed not to acquire a nuclear weapon, and yet it is clearly determined to do exactly that. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Blumenauer? 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Burns, I appreciated your indication that as we 

come forward with H.R. 282, the Iran Freedom Support Act, that 

you would have some observations. I am of the opinion that there 

are a number of people in Congress who are obviously appalled, as 

is the Administration, at Iran’s actions over a number of periods 

of time and so there may be some reflexive support for something, 

and I understand that, but I think as I look at the bill it is a long 

way from what I hope comes through Congress. 

Your offering of specific recommendations to shape the language 

so that we are clear about what we are saying, we do not have 

things in there that are unnecessarily harsh or undercut your diplomatic initiatives or send the wrong signals to people you are trying to work with in the other sectors that you mentioned would be 

extraordinarily helpful, along with recommendations to make sure 

that there is appropriate flexibility for this Administration and the 

next Administration and the next Administration to be able to use 

all the tools available to it. 

I fear sometimes we in Congress pass, with the best of intentions, instruments that are somewhat blunt, and sometimes language comes back to haunt us. We have never met a sanction we 

did not like and I think we are the only developed country that 

does not have a sanctions policy. Maybe some day we will have a 

sanctions policy that tells us when we should implement them, 

42

when we get rid of them, how we know whether we are succeeding 

or failing. 

I would urge you to share with the sponsors and those of us who 

have not yet sponsored it, because we do not think it has ripened, 

those observations and thoughts so that under the guidance of our 

Chairman in a markup that if it is the will that is passed that it 

is something that is not counterproductive and works for the Administration. 

I want to go back to the issue that has been raised by several 

of my colleagues with the difference between India and the proposed agreement that is coming forward to Congress and your concerns about how we get our friends and allies and people who actually have friendlier relations with Iran and deeper commercial relations to understand the difference. 

Now, we may agree that there are some pretty fundamental differences with the world’s largest democracy, how it has treated nuclear technology, facts on the ground, all of these things that I 

think even people who do not agree with what the Administration 

has proposed understand it, but the issue here appears to be how 

we compel a China or a Russia that has a different relationship 

with Iran to understand how it is okay for us to draw these distinctions with India, but it is not okay for them. 

Ambassador BURNS. Congressman, thank you very much. May I 

just say on your first comment we will get to the Congress, to this 

Committee, written suggestions as to the provisions of H.R. 282. 

I would just say this. I know that it is Secretary Rice’s strongly 

held view that we need to proceed carefully on the question of sanctions. We do want to increase the pressure on the regime, on supporters of the regime. We certainly want to limit and prevent investment in any way that would help the Iranians to construct a 

nuclear device, but we are very concerned about the dangers of a 

blunt sanctions regime——

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Right. 

Ambassador BURNS [continuing]. That would hurt average Iranians who otherwise would have a very favorable view of the 

United States. We want to make a distinction between the regime 

and the Iranian people. There is a great distinction politically in 

terms of their motivation. 

On the question concerning India and Iran, in our judgment, and 

we reflected very carefully on this before the President agreed to 

the civil nuclear energy deal with India. Our policy toward India 

and this new initiative will not have a negative impact on our ability to prosecute an effective international response to counter Iran, 

and for the following reason. 

India, of course, has a very complicated history over the last 30 

years with the international nonproliferation regime, but India has 

not diverted its nuclear technology. It was not India, like Iran, that 

joined the NPT and then violated it. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Right. 

Ambassador BURNS. That is a crucial distinction. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. If I may, Mr. Ambassador, I appreciate that, 

and I attempted to preface that. 

The thrust of my question is how we persuade others so that we 

can distinguish vis-a-vis the United States, India and the interVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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national regime and so we set up a different set of standards for 

India. 

My point was that you are relying on China and Russia and 

other countries, but those two in particular, that have a different 

view of this regime and have a different relationship with this regime and how we would somehow persuade them that they should 

not be able to make the distinctions as we have done with India. 

This seems to me to be even if I grant everything you said, and 

I am sympathetic to the differences, it seems to me to be something 

that puts us in a really difficult position to try and implement what 

you are talking about. 

Ambassador BURNS. I understand your question, and let me just 

try and respond to it directly. 

There are current international restrictions that prevent any 

country in the world from providing assistance to India’s civil nuclear sector, restrictions of a nuclear suppliers’ group. They can 

only be altered by consensus. 

We believe that there can be a persuasive case made to the NSG 

that those restrictions should be altered as on an exceptional basis 

only for India. I do not think that if any other member of the NSG 

put up another country with a less satisfactory record than India 

you would find that kind of basis for a consensual change. 

Therefore, India is an exception. We do not think that any other 

country will put up other countries for that type of exceptional 

treatment or that a persuasive case could be made perhaps for any 

country but India at the present time. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I would work on that answer, with all due respect. You are good, but we have——

Ambassador BURNS. We will look forward to further discussion 

with you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher of California? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just note I am somewhat favorable to this proposal that 

we join with the Indians to try to develop their energy resources. 

My Subcommittee, with Chairman Hyde’s permission, will soon 

be holding a hearing on a new technological breakthrough by General Atomics which has a reactor, a nuclear reactor, that will 

produce all the electricity someone needs or any country needs 

without any production of plutonium and with no possibility that 

in the end what we have left over can be made into a nuclear 

bomb. I would suggest that that new technology will revolutionize 

the whole concept of nuclear energy and get beyond some of the 

issues we are talking about today. 

I also might add that General Atomics is in a partnership with 

Russia in this reactor, and a reactor is already in operation in 

Japan so this is not theory. We have a technological alternative. I 

would hope the State Department pays attention. We will have a 

hearing of my Subcommittee on that issue. 

Let me state for the record that while Iran is being run by radicals and extremists, it is totally responsible to prevent Iran from 

coming to the point that they are in possession of a nuclear weapon. It is irresponsible not to do everything we can to prevent radicals and extremists like those people who run Iran from having a 

nuclear weapon at their disposal. 

44

We must ask ourselves is Iran’s goal, which I see them marching 

in the street saying we deserve to have nuclear power to produce 

electricity. Is their goal the production of electricity, or is their goal 

the production of a nuclear weapon? 

That is a no-brainer, and I wish that the leadership of Iran 

would not keep insulting us and insulting the world by suggesting 

that they are doing this for power, electric power, and not to possess a weapon of mass destruction that could murder millions of 

people with the push of one button. 

The mullahs in Iran should cut the obfuscation, cut the lies. Let 

us discuss it with truth. In terms of our own policy, we should also 

quit playing games. Although we recognize that your actions and 

the actions of the Administration are governed by the 1979 Export 

Administration Act as amended, and you seem to be moving forward with that and very cautiously I might add, let me suggest to 

you that the Administration has been too cautious. 

I appreciate that you mentioned in your answer that we have to 

make sure that the people of Iran are not hurt while we are trying 

to get at their government, but I think that you have been too cautious, and the people of Iran will understand totally because they 

are under the heel of these manics. They will understand totally 

our not cautious movement forward, but our aggressive moving forward with sanctions in order to pressure their government not to 

waste their money and not to make Iran a nuclear target. 

The people of Iran will understand that, so let us not be cautious. 

Let us be aggressive. While moving forward with those sanctions 

we can at the same time reach out to the people of Iran by again 

a more aggressive policy than this Administration has in trying to 

organize the democratic elements. Not organize, but working to 

help those democratic elements in Iran who are trying to bring 

honest government and a peaceful oriented government to the control of that country. 

Ambassador Burns, you might want to comment on that. Again, 

I think you have been too cautious. 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you, Congressman. We think that our 

policy is the right policy, and we think that this creation of the 

international coalition that we discussed this morning is the right 

way to go because we find so much more strength if we have other 

countries working with us than if we operated alone. 

I would address your question directly, and thank you for your 

comments. It is a complicated situation inside Iran. As best as we 

can determine by the various polling that has been done, the issue 

of nuclear power has become a nationalist issue within Iran itself, 

and most of the polls show that the Iranian people take great pride 

in civil nuclear power. 

What we would like to do is suggest, as the President has done, 

that Iranians have the right to peaceful civil nuclear power, but 

that they do not have the right to nuclear weapons. We would like 

to try to divide the question on that basis. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. My red light is on. I would hope then 

that the Administration pays very close attention to this technological breakthrough that I just mentioned. It permits the construction of nuclear reactors without any byproduct that can be used for 

weapons. 

45

The Russians are already involved in this project in a big way, 

so that gives us an out. I hope somebody pays attention to that. 

We will hold a hearing on that later. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Chandler of Kentucky? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to first pay my respects, my personal respects, to the 

hostages who are here, the former hostages. I was in college when 

you were undergoing your ordeal, and I can tell you that it had 

quite a profound effect on how I viewed and view our country’s role 

in the world. 

I cannot imagine the ordeal that you were involved in. To me, 

you are real heroes to our country, and we will never forget. We 

will never forget what happened to you and what happened to our 

country. 

I want to agree with the statement, your statements, Mr. Ambassador and Mr. Under Secretary, that this problem with Iran is in 

fact our most difficult problem, international problem, that we face 

today. It concerns me deeply 

What I do not understand though, and I would like for you to 

comment on this, is how our policy in Iraq could possibly be aiding 

our efforts in the future to deal with Iran. 

It seems to me that our adventure in Iraq has expended enormous resources that could otherwise be used to deal with these 

problems that we face in Iran. Our adventure in Iraq has alienated 

many of our allies throughout the world, caused increasing difficulties in any efforts we might want to form coalitions to deal with 

this problem in Iran. 

It has also, in my view, potentially created a situation in Iraq 

where we may be creating a future ally for Iran in a powerful and 

dominant Shi’a leadership in Iraq. 

If you could, just give me some idea as to how you believe that 

our adventure in Iraq has done anything other than weaken our 

hand in dealing with Iran. Also, I would like if you could, and 

maybe this could be part of the answer to that same question. 

Could you give me some idea about the relationship between the 

Iranian mullahs and the clerics, the Shi’ite clerics in Iraq? How 

close are those relationships, and where will all of this lead us? 

Thank you. 

Ambassador BURNS. Mr. Chandler, I thank you very much. Analytically what has happened over the last 5 years is that Iran has 

felt pressured by the fact that the United States military forces are 

in Afghanistan on the Iranian border and also in Iraq, and that is 

a good thing. 

We are concerned about an expansion of Iranian influence in the 

Middle East region, which we would find to be negative. We believe 

that is the ambition of the Ahmadi-Nejad government and so the 

fact that Iran feels pressured by the disposition of American military forces on two of its borders is to our strategic advantage. 

There is no question that Iran is seeking opportunity in Iraq, but 

our sense is that any future Iraqi Government is going to have a 

balanced set of interests as well as relationships. 

The Iraqi Shi’a, in our judgment, while they have historical and 

sometimes ‘‘personal’’ ties to members of the Iranian religious leadVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ership and some of them were helped by the Iranians during their 

period in exile during the Saddam era, the Iraqi Shi’a and certainly 

the Sunni and Kurd leaderships of Iraq want to see an independent 

Iraq maintained. They do not want to see Iraq dominated by Iran. 

Our policy in part has to be designed to blunt the potential role 

of Iran in Iraq, and that is the job of Ambassador Khalilzad, and 

he does it very well, but it is also to recognize the longer term interest that Iraqis have. 

While some of them may feel that it is to their advantage to have 

economic relations with Iran, clerical relations, we do not believe 

there is a dominant force that wants to tie the future of Iraq in 

a subjugated way to Iran itself. That is how I would answer your 

question. 

Mr. CHANDLER. So you believe that we have in fact strengthened 

our hand vis-a-vis Iran by going into Iraq rather than weakened 

our hand? 

Ambassador BURNS. The Iranians are not 10 feet tall the way 

they sometimes like to portray themselves. They have a great deal 

of opposition to the expansion of Iranian influence on the part of 

the Arab states, the secular Arab states, moderate Arab states I 

should say in the Gulf region. 

The Afghans do not want to see a dominant Iran in the region, 

and the Iraqis do not either, so if you look at it from a certain perspective the deployment of American forces to Afghanistan and 

Iraq have been a strategic advantage to us in our long-term struggle to reduce Iranian influence in the Middle East. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Royce of California? 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Joseph, going to a point you made earlier about a debate that we avoided, maybe it is a debate we should have had. 

We had a hearing last week of the Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee that I chair, and we were looking at countries’ 

rights as some people call them under Article IV of the Nuclear 

Nonproliferation Treaty to develop the full cycle as Iran is attempting to do right now. As you know, enrichment capacity leaves countries only a few steps away from developing nuclear weapons. 

Now, when we get to our position on this, and it is a little cloudy, 

but, as I understand it, our opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, 

at least legally speaking, is based upon the fact that it hid its activity for two decades and has refused to be transparent through the 

IAEA. It is not based on the idea that it is undertaking enrichment 

per se. 

Now, several of our witnesses before the Committee criticized, 

and I think rightly so, the interpretation of the NPT that says that 

this activity is permissible. Common sense suggests that a nonproliferation treaty should not give countries cover to take every 

step just short of weaponizing their nuclear material. 

As I said at the hearing, my concern is that over time—maybe 

not that far in the future—Iran could come clean with the IAEA, 

win international support and successfully assert this right to develop its nuclear industry, including producing nuclear fuel. 

What I would like to know is how we got ourselves into this box 

on conceding this so-called right to Iran and other countries if inVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
47

deed that is our position, and what did we do last year at the NPT 

review conference to begin to push back on this interpretation? 

I do not have to tell you that eventually a world with many countries producing nuclear fuel is going to be a very dangerous world. 

Mr. JOSEPH. Congressman, I certainly agree with your assessment. Let me just say that for Iran this has not been about energy. 

This is about nuclear weapons. 

The EU–3 in August of last year put forth a very attractive package. It was tens of pages of incentives, including——

Mr. ROYCE. Yes. 

Mr. JOSEPH. Including nuclear energy incentives, and Iran just 

considered it to be, in their words, an——

Mr. ROYCE. And I think you have made that point, Secretary Joseph. I certainly concur with that point. I was just trying to get you 

to engage on this point. If you do not want to I understand, but 

I——

Mr. JOSEPH. No. I would like to. 

Mr. ROYCE. All right. 

Mr. JOSEPH. I would like to, sir. We have not tried to reinterpret 

the NPT, Article IV or any other article. We do not think that that 

would be a productive exercise. In fact, we think that it could be 

counterproductive to try to do that. 

What the President has laid out is a new path whereby we would 

look at, in practice, a restructuring of the fundamental deal that 

is reflected in the NPT as it was written back in the late 1960s. 

What the President laid out in a speech at the National Defense 

University in February 2004 was a different deal whereby we 

would encourage all countries who have the ability to export technology associated with enrichment and reprocessing not to spread 

that technology any further, any further than those countries that 

currently have that capability. 

Mr. ROYCE. Right. 

Mr. JOSEPH. And to make this attractive to other countries who 

did not have enrichment and reprocessing, the President put forth 

the idea that we would come up with fuel assurances so that these 

countries would not need to invest in these very expensive technologies and proliferation risky technologies. We are working very 

hard on that. 

I think that resolution after resolution has indicated that the 

majority, the vast majority, of the IAEA does not want Iran to go 

down this path without getting into——

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. 

Mr. JOSEPH [continuing]. The issue of whether or not it is a legal 

right. 

Mr. ROYCE. Let me go then to Ambassador Burns. A very quick 

question. 

I was glad to see the Administration’s supplemental request to 

broadcast into Iran. I understand the concept here of doing the cultural content. Women cannot, under the mullahs, listen to women 

sing in Iran and so when we broadcast in they listen to the programming, but with all of the additional oppression going on in the 

country is it perhaps time to look at more hard news and information, and we know it worked with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 

in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia. 

48

We know that it was a certain type of information that built a 

basis of understanding of what was actually going on in those countries in terms of oppression, the news around the rest of the world 

and then sort of a new way to process that information so people 

could understand how they could help engineer their own liberty 

in eastern Europe. 

What I am questioning is why we do not use that template. Why 

do we not bring back the engineers of that policy because before we 

recruited the right people to do that type of work. We did not have 

the pulse there. It was not working. 

Under the Reagan Administration that was turned around. We 

found something that according to Baklov Havlov and Lech Walesa 

worked to change those societies. I think we have a little bit to 

learn from them about how to go forward with Radio Farda. 

Ambassador Burns? 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you, Congressman. I do not think we 

disagree at all. You know, we do not have a perfectly constructed 

path forward. We are looking at a variety of ways to get information into Iran. 

Radio Farda, if you will, and the Farsi language TV are the inheritors of that brilliant mantle of VOA and Radio Free Europe of 

the 1970s and 1980s. The problem in Iran is not lack of information. The Iranians are wired. There are all sorts—hundreds, if not 

thousands—of blogs that are being produced in Iran. The problem 

is accurate information and full information about how the world 

works. 

We think that U.S. Government radio and TV has a big role to 

play, but it should not be exclusive. We would like to help some of 

the private American TV and radio stations that also can play a 

role, but it has to be based——

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Wexler? 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am a little bit confused, and I was hoping that Secretary Burns 

could help me out here. As an aside also, I saw an interview you 

gave I watched on PBS I think it was last night or the night before. 

I thought you were excellent, as you always are. 

I think you do a phenomenally good job in presenting the Administration’s, the State Department’s and America’s best face forward 

on foreign policy, and I congratulate you for that. I think all Americans owe you a debt of gratitude. 

I watched what the President did in India, and I believe I support it in terms of the expanded nuclear cooperation. I think it is 

a bold, dramatic, positive step forward, and I applaud the President for doing it. 

You rightfully mentioned at least once, maybe more, that India 

voted twice with us in the context of Iran, and I think that should 

be more than noted because that is both a terrific statement about 

India, a terrific statement about American-Indian relations, and I 

think it also reflects extremely well on you and in your department 

for managing the diplomacy that it undoubtedly took to reach the 

conclusion where India chose to vote in the manner in which it did, 

and I congratulate you for that. 

49

My confusion is this. Given what we are attempting to do with 

Iran, given that the President went to India and has embarked 

upon this very bold, new expanded nuclear cooperation, why would 

the President of the United States, when you and your department 

are engaging in this extraordinary diplomatic effort to isolate Iran, 

why would the President of the United States go and give his blessing to a natural gas pipeline that goes from Iran to India? 

How do we argue with a straight face—we meaning the United 

States of America argue with a straight face—that we are trying 

to isolate Iran and we just said go ahead, build a pipeline. If I understand it correctly, it is a $6 billion deal that would have fairly 

substantial cashflows going to Iran. 

To put it in the broader question, how do we mirror what would 

seem to be a totally contradictory decision? How do we then ask all 

of the players in Europe, the Russias of the world, the Chinas of 

the world? How do we ask them to curtail their commercial relationships and we appear to have just blessed this commercial relationship? How do we fit them all into a coherent policy? Please? 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you very much, Congressman 

Wexler. I was in India and Pakistan with President Bush last 

week, and I was at the press conference in Islamabad last Saturday afternoon when the President answered that question. I just 

think there has been a misunderstanding about it. 

The President spoke to some of the congressional leaders yesterday when he reported on his trip to South Asia and said very clearly that it is the policy of our Government that Iran is an unreliable 

business partner and oil pipeline partner for countries in the region, and it has been our advice, and Secretary Rice and I have 

both given this advice to the Indian and Pakistani Governments, 

that they ought not enter into long-term oil and gas contracts or 

pipeline contracts with Iran because of the basic unreliability of the 

country. 

The President got a specific question, and it pertained to Iran’s 

nuclear power. I think the way he answered he just said look, it 

is not about this. I do not want to comment about this. I want to 

comment about the nuclear program. 

I think that was just misunderstood, and I know that it was 

cleared up immediately, and I know that he spoke yesterday on 

this issue. Our policy is quite clear. Furthermore, when Secretary 

Rice made her first trip to India and Pakistan back about 12 

months ago, I remember she spoke out against this deal, and we 

have been doing it since then. This pipeline deal. 

Mr. WEXLER. So we do not support, and this is not a trick question by any means. If it is an easy question, I would like it to be 

an easy question. So it is the answer that we do not support that 

pipeline deal? 

Ambassador BURNS. Correct. The United States does not support 

that pipeline deal. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Leach of Iowa. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to comment about 

some implications of prior statements on the panel and in response. 

Friends and foes of this Administration would agree that this is 

a government that is fairly muscular. It has a proclivity to muscuVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
50

larity and so if there is an implication that the Congress should 

play a good cop/bad cop role, meaning you are the good cop and we 

are the bad cop, that means Congress is attempting to out-macho 

a fairly macho Administration. 

I would suggest to my colleagues that I think this is very dangerous. When the Assistant Secretary of State asserts that the Secretary of State is going to make an appeal to this Committee to 

modify legislation to make it less macho, we are preposterously 

foolish not to concur. 

I want to be very clear on that. I mean, what there is unanimity 

about is concern about this country getting nuclear weapons. What 

there is no unanimity about is because all options are bad—I do 

not know a single option that is not pretty awesomely awkward—

is that tactics matter. 

This Administration has attempted, despite all the criticisms 

that it is unilateral in too many instances, to take a multilateral 

approach and to work with our allies and to work with the countries that matter to try to develop a consensus approach on Iran. 

This Committee is about to put forth legislation that will undercut those negotiations. Is that not something this Committee ought 

not take fairly seriously, and is there not a time and place that we 

should not defer to the Executive Branch, particularly when we as 

a Congress are objecting to an Executive Branch discretion that is 

too macho in an increasing degree? 

I also would like to stress that you have two issues with Iran 

that have some places for which there can be consensus. One is 

with the international community. One is with many people in 

Iran. If the Congress, which symbolizes people-to-people relations, 

wants to take a very confrontational approach to Iran that implies 

people-to-people confrontation, that is difficult too. 

If anything, this Congress ought to be suggesting to the Iranian 

people, we identify with your plight. We think your government is 

out of step. We want to express this in as many ways as we can, 

one of which might be the new radio. 

By the way, I believe culture is far stronger than hard words, 

and I think anything that expresses the culture of the West is a 

very real positive without necessarily overinundating with what 

might be described as propaganda, meaning a perspective of ours, 

although that can be part of something, especially if it is straightforward and honest. 

I just would like an assessment on your part. You are coming 

from a State Department that has lost a little moral suasion with 

this body for the precise reason that has been raised that you are 

not advising as legislation developed to a very significant extent 

over the past half decade. 

This is something that I think is very serious because this Congress is bringing bills to the Floor without Executive Branch input 

and sometimes bringing bills to the Floor without Committee input, 

only a few Members’ input. I think the State Department ought to 

be working closer with us. 

Here I will tell you as an individual Member of this Committee 

it is my sense that this is a timeframe that we ought to be working 

with the Executive Branch when they are throwing out a negotiating approach and the Congress is suggesting a more macho apVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
51

proach. This may be the one time and place that there should be 

a little deference to that Executive Branch. 

Would you care to comment on that? 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you, Congressman Leach. I would 

just make a brief comment. 

We do owe you our considered formal views on H.R. 282, and I 

apologized to Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen before that we had 

been late in getting that to you. I think you are right. This is an 

important bill, and these are very difficult policy choices. Part of 

the explanation for the delay on our side is we have been wrestling 

with these policy choices having to do with tactics, but we have 

come to the view that we think a re-authorization of ILSA would 

be an effective instrument for the United States. 

However, in our response to you we will suggest that some flexibility for the Administration, particularly on the impact it will have 

on our allies, is going to be important for the following reason. I 

do not want to beat a dead horse, but it is important to say it. The 

most significant diplomatic achievement I think of the past year 

has been the emergence of this international coalition to isolate 

Iran. 

We would not want to—and we know Congress would not either—by a bill that was structured in a certain way, we would not 

want to blow that coalition apart. We want to keep it together because we believe that is the best way to roll back Iran’s nuclear 

weapons program. 

Mr. LEACH. Fair enough. I just want to conclude with one brief 

statement, Mr. Chairman. 

There are few things worse in this world than the spread of 

weapons of mass destruction, but that worseness can be compounded if we give reasons for people to use these weapons against 

us. 

Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that actions of the United 

States of one kind can precipitate responses that are increasingly 

going to be of concern to the American people as this globe gets to 

be small in the way it has. 

As we approach things, the greater the extent to which we can 

advance the unanimity of the world community and operate under 

law itself, I think the better off this country is going to be. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. I thank the gentleman. 

We are down to two Members. The Administration witnesses 

have been here for 3 hours. I am going to appeal to Mr. Engel and 

Mr. Sherman to be brief, maybe hold their questioning down to 21⁄2

minutes so we can get to the next panel, which has been waiting 

equally as long, and we can finish the hearing, so may I have the 

cooperation of Mr. Engel? 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ambassador, Mr. 

Secretary. 

I believe that we need to take a hard line with Iran. I believe 

that Iran has to be stopped from having nuclear weapons at all 

costs, but my fear is that we are so bogged down in Iraq so we cannot be as strong as we need to be in Iran. 

There is a limit to how thin we could be stretched, and the Iranians know it. I think that is why we are hearing so much of their 

52

bellicosity. Tell me I am wrong. That is a big fear I have. Tell me 

I am wrong. 

Ambassador BURNS. Congressman Engel, we agree that we 

should take a hard line in Iran, and I think that the way that we 

have laid out our policy I would hope you would agree it is sufficiently tough as it should be. 

We have a tremendous diplomatic establishment in the American 

Foreign Service. We have a brilliant leader in Secretary Rice. We 

can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can continue to have 

a focused, aggressive policy to succeed in Iraq, and we certainly can 

devote an extraordinary amount of time and attention to the Iran 

problem. 

As Under Secretary Joseph and I both work closely with Secretary Rice, she is focused on both. She is spending the right 

amount of time on both. We have lots of different people who are 

focused solely on Iraq, others focused solely on Iran. We have the 

diplomatic strength, and we certainly have the political will to 

treat the Iran problem as one of the great foreign policy challenges 

of our generation. It certainly is. 

I think that our Administration has done very well over the last 

12 months to create this international coalition. We have essentially isolated the Iranians. We have now got them in the Security 

Council starting early next week. That is a considerable achievement. 

It does not mean we have succeeded in the ultimate goal, which 

is to deny them a nuclear weapons capability and to roll back their 

terrorist machine, but it is a good start, and I am supremely confident that we can focus on both of these problems. 

Mr. ENGEL. Can I ask you? We have heard lots of estimates 

about when Iran is capable of having the nuclear bomb. On August 

2 of last year, the Washington Post reported that the most recent 

national intelligence estimate in Iran judged them to be about a 

decade away from manufacturing enough highly-enriched uranium 

to make a nuclear weapon. 

We have heard 6 months. We have heard a year. What is our 

real estimate about how far Iran is from developing a nuclear 

weapon? 

Mr. JOSEPH. Sir, the intelligence community assessment has 

been that Iran is approximately 5 to 10 years away from a nuclear 

weapons capability. 

There are many unknowns, and the intelligence community is 

the first to acknowledge that there are many unknowns that go 

into that assessment, and there are many wildcards that could accelerate that timeline, including, as we had mentioned before, assistance from outside or the acquisition of fissile material from external sources. 

Some individuals and some countries have talked about the point 

of no return, which is not necessarily the point at which Iran has 

a weapon, but the point at which Iran will have the capability to 

move forward with enrichment and produce the fissile material 

that is necessary for a bomb. That is the long pole in the tent. 

Mr. ENGEL. And what is our estimate of the point of no return? 

Do we have an estimate of that? 

53

Mr. JOSEPH. Again, I have seen many different estimates from 

months to a short number of years, but many unknowns. 

Mr. ENGEL. One final question. Ahmadi-Nejad is a lunatic, and 

the things that he says are really, really frightening. Who makes 

the decisions in Tehran? Is it the mullahs, or is it Ahmadi-Nejad? 

We always hear that the Iranian people like all things American, 

blue jeans. They really do not like the control of the mullahs. We 

are having, Secretary Rice told us, the $75 million which I support 

wholeheartedly. I would double and triple it if we could. 

What about the Iranian people? The reformers had always had 

the upper hand in elections. They were eliminated, many of them, 

from running for re-election so we have Ahmadi-Nejad. 

What do the people really think in Iran of their leadership, and 

what does our intelligence tell us? Is it the mullahs or AhmadiNejad who really controls the power? 

Ambassador BURNS. Congressman Engel, we could probably devote a full hearing to both of your questions. They are very good 

and serious questions, and thank you for asking them. I will just 

try to give very brief answers. 

On the decision making process, it is, as far as we can understand it, a fairly complex government with lots of different factions 

vying for power and influence against each other. The position of 

the Supreme Leader, of course, is as it says, supreme in the Iranian governmental structure, but there is no question in our mind 

that Ahmadi-Nejad has a great deal of influence. 

What he has done, in contrast to his predecessor, is to strike out 

on a very radical course both in internal policy in repressing dissent and repressing liberal behavior—listening to classical music is 

defined as liberal behavior—firing 40 so-called overly reformistminded Ambassadors of Iran in European countries, and he has 

also adopted a very hard line in terms of Iranian foreign policy. 

A lot of our friends in the region in the Arab world and in South 

Asia talk about an Iranian policy that seeks to intimidate through 

the use of oil and gas, but ultimately this regime, this clerical regime that has been in power for 26 years, is uniformly repressive. 

We have to judge it by what it has done to us. They have financed the terrorist groups that killed Americans in Lebanon and 

that killed Americans in Saudi Arabia and the terrorist groups that 

now are striking at the democrats in Lebanon, at the moderate Palestinians and at Israel, and we have to take that seriously, as well 

as what we have talked about this morning in large part, their 

seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Whatever the internal differences are, we judge the State of Iran, the Government of Iran, 

based on its actions. 

Finally, on the Iranian people, it is a very great country. It is one 

of the great civilizations in world history. We tend to see the Iranian people as victims of the clerical regime of the last 26 years. 

This is not a democracy. That was not a free and fair Presidential 

election in August. There were 1,112 people who wanted to run for 

President, and a little over 1,000 were not allowed to run for President. 

In the elections of the previous February, all sorts of people who 

were elected had their elections annulled because the clerical regime did not like the people for whom the Iranian people voted, the 

54

politicians for whom they voted, so we see the Iranian people desiring the kind of freedom and tolerant society and open and liberal 

society that exists in many other countries of the world, including 

in that region. What we are trying to do with the $75 million request is to begin 

a longer term effort to reach out to the people, as opposed to the 

regime. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Sherman? 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. I have so many questions I will ask 

you to respond for the record. I want to associate myself with Mr. 

Royce and Mr. Wexler’s questions. As to Mr. Leach’s, I wish he 

were here. 

I think our policy toward Iraq has overflowed with so much surplus testosterone that it has hidden the fact that when it comes to 

our using economic power to prevent Iran from developing nuclear 

weapons and even hinting to China that our economic power and 

our trade with them is dependent on their cooperation, our policy 

toward Iran can only be called ‘‘no muy macho.’’

This has been up until the last few months a continuation of the 

feckless policy of the Clinton Administration, and while I hope that 

we are broadcasting Mozart and Beethoven into Iran with soprano 

voices, I hope that we are also able to broadcast an explanation to 

the Iranian people that their economy will suffer if their government develops or continues to develop nuclear weapons and will 

prosper if it does the opposite. 

Speaking of radio, Ambassador Burns, I am glad that you are 

talking about funding the private broadcasters. That is a very low 

cost-per-broadcast hour. The shows already exist. The satellite time 

is like a couple hundred bucks or less an hour, and I hope that we 

allow 1,000 flowers to bloom. 

I should point out that the Iranians today in Vienna threatened 

America with harm and pain, and with them being the number one 

state sponsor of terrorism perhaps we should take that seriously. 

For nearly 5 years, the Administration has continued the Clinton 

Administration policy when it comes to economics in Iran. We have 

allowed the World Bank to make loans to Iran. We continue to import goods from Iran. United States corporations do business with 

Iran through their foreign subsidiaries. 

I was dumbfounded as to why all this was happening, and then 

Ambassador Burns said that we are for strong sanctions on Iran 

as long as they do not adversely affect the Iranian people, which 

translates into the fact that we are for economic sanctions as long 

as they do not affect the Iranian economy. 

I think we will just have to agree to disagree as to how strong 

our economic efforts should be, but there is one place where we 

should not disagree, and that is the rule of law. The Iran-Libya 

Sanctions Act is law. You have explained why you think it might 

be a bad law, why it might put an onus on our allies, but what 

bothers me is we are telling other countries about the benefits of 

the rule of law. 

When it comes to the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act I would like to 

add to the record of this hearing—I hope there is no objection—a 

list of over a dozen instances where the State Department has a 

very interesting approach to the rule of law, and that is to say well, 

55

if no one told us officially that these investments were being made 

in the Iranian oil fields, then we get to ignore them. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. SHERMAN. This is like a police officer who disagrees with a 

statute so he begins his shift with a blindfold on. The rule of law 

means nothing if the Executive Branch is going to ignore the official reports to shareholders of Japanese oil companies where they 

say they are making investments in Iranian oil fields. 


26438a.eps
56

There is one area where I think that the State Department has 

been slavishly dedicated to a particular treaty, and that is the Algiers Accords. This is a document that should be viewed as void ab 

initio. There were guns pointed to the heads of the heroes that are 

in this room when that document was signed. 

More important or just as importantly, is it not an insult to the 

many Americans who have been killed by terrorist acts planned, 

plotted and financed by the Iranian regime after 1980 that we have 

not officially announced the Algiers Accords have been shredded by 

those bloody acts? 

If we continue to adhere officially to this Algiers Accord after 

Beruit, after Saudi Arabia, after so many dead Americans, what 

does it take to void a treaty of ours or that we have entered into, 

and in this case——

[Applause.] 

Mr. SHERMAN [continuing]. A treaty that was void ab initio I believe. 

I have asked the State Department to lay out a road map for the 

MEK as to how to get off the terrorist list. Now, I realize that that 

is an organization that engaged in terrible tactics in times past, 

but the response from the State Department I received was basically hey, we do not want to do that. 

There should at least be some acknowledgement from this Administration that the MEK told the world about Iran’s nuclear program and that if it had not been for their actions we would not be 

in this hearing room today. 

For us to say that we will not even talk about what the MEK 

could do in order to get off the terrorist list is particularly peculiar 

given the fact that the PLO and the IRA have been removed from 

that list, and they did not perform that same level of service to the 

world. 

Finally, I think it is important, and I mentioned this before, that 

we gain the support of China for what needs to be done at the Security Council and that we at least be willing to hint to China that 

their continued access to United States markets cannot be assured 

if they feel that their anticipated $70 billion investment in the Iranian oil fields is more important to them than a world without Iranian nuclear weapons. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to put these questions 

to the panel. 

Mr. LEACH [presiding]. The Chair would note you went almost 

double your time. I would ask the panel to respond briefly if you 

could, please. 

Ambassador BURNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Congressman Sherman, we have had a chance to talk privately 

about some of these issues, and I have enjoyed those opportunities. 

I must tell you how much I disagree with your major point. 

To somehow insinuate that our Administration or the previous 

Administration under President Clinton has not had as a first 

order of national importance opposing the Iranian regime I think 

is unfair and I think is inaccurate. 

Our Administration has led the international effort over the past 

12 months to mount a united coalition against Iran on its nuclear 

policy and on its practice of terrorism. We have been the leading 

57

voice calling attention to human rights violations within Iran itself. 

I think to suggest otherwise is simply wrong and is not balanced. 

We have protected the sanctions regime that has been in place. 

I suggested in my formal testimony and in answer to some of the 

other questions this morning, we are looking at additional targeted 

sanctions, but I would respectfully say we need to be smart about 

how those additional sanctions are put into place. 

Do we really want to alienate the great majority of Iranians who 

we believe should change their own government and form a democratic government in the future, or do we want to put our emphasis 

in targeting the regime, which is the evil part of this equation? So 

I enjoy the give and take, but I think you have been unfair in the 

way you have characterized what President Bush and Secretary 

Rice and the rest of us have been doing. 

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I hope we will put in the record this 

list of over $100 billion of investments. CRS compiled this list, and 

the State Department’s official position is that none of this exists. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LEACH. Without objection. The list will be put in the record, 

and without objection I do think the State Department is implicitly 

required to answer the gentleman’s question about the legality of 

these investments. Will you do that in writing to us? 

Ambassador BURNS. Mr. Chairman, I think we should answer 

two questions. One would be we would be happy to answer that 

question. 

I am also going to be meeting with the former hostages this 

afternoon, and I want to listen to their concerns about the Algiers 

Accord and how it has had a negative impact on them. 

All Administrations since President Reagan’s have carried out 

the letter of those accords, but we certainly want to give a fair 

hearing to the former hostages. They are our people. They came 

from the United States Government, and we want to be fair to 

them. 

Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that, and we all recognize them as heroes to their service to this country. 

I want to thank both of you. I believe every Member has had a 

chance to ask questions. We will now turn to the second panel. 

Thank you, Ambassador Burns and Secretary Joseph. 

We will now hear from our private witnesses, all of whom are experts on Iran and were kind enough to appear and offer their views 

today. I will introduce them in alphabetical order and call on them 

in the same order. 

I ask unanimous consent that all of your statements be made 

part of the record in full and ask that you present them in about 

5 minutes after which Members will be recognized to ask questions. 

Our first witness on this panel will be John C. Hulsman, who is 

a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. At Heritage, 

Dr. Hulsman examines European security and NATO affairs, the 

European Union, United States-European trade and economics relations, economic relations in war and terror, Iraq, Iran and the 

Middle East peace process. 

Dr. Hulsman was involved, as he notes in his prepared statement, in a Track II effort to find a common ground between the 

United States and the European powers and what to do about Iran. 

58

Michael Ledeen is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and a current 

Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His research areas include state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, the Middle 

East, Europe, United States-China relations, intelligence and Africa. 

A former consultant to the National Security Council and to the 

U.S. State and Defense Departments, he has published several 

books and countless articles on foreign policy. 

Gary Milhollin is the Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. The project carries out research and public 

education designed to inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons. It operates in Washington, DC, under the auspices of the University of 

Wisconsin where Professor Milhollin has been a member of the law 

faculty since 1976. 

Our final witness will be Dr. Abbas William Samii, who is Regional Analyst and Coordinator at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Dr. Samii is a veteran of the United States Army’s Special 

Forces. 

At Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty his primary task is writing 

the weekly RFE/RL Iran report and contributing to the RFE/RL 

newsline, both based on open sources. Dr. Samii is recognized as 

one of the nation’s top analysts of Iranian domestic politics. 

Dr. Hulsman, we will begin with you. Please proceed. All of your 

statements, as previously noted, will be placed fully in the record. 

Please, Dr. Hulsman. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. HULSMAN, PH.D., THE HERITAGE 

FOUNDATION 

Mr. HULSMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As you 

said, I have a much fuller statement. This is an incredibly complicated issue, and the first thing we have to do is not to make it 

simple and not to look for silver bullets. 

I agree with almost everything Ambassador Burns said, but I do 

not find looking at the internal Iranian regime a parlor game. I 

look at it as fundamentally important because if we do not look at 

things, if we see everything as broadly as the same—he brought up 

George Kennan and the Riga thing. Mr. Kennan said an interesting thing after all those years of looking at the Soviet Union, by 

the way, calling the split between China and Russia. 

He said there seems to be a curious American tendency to search 

at all times for a single external center of evil to which all our troubles can be attributed rather than to recognize that there might be 

multiple sources of resistance to our purposes and undertakings 

and that these sources might be relatively independent of one another, which is not something we have been very good at of late, 

I might add. 

One of the things is if we see this all as a repository of evil and 

do not look at it as people talk about Islama fascism and not noticing the differences between a Bathist reality that is pan-socialist 

to pan-secular and pan-Arab versus Persian Nationalists versus 

people wanting to have a caliphate. While they may agree in certain circumstances they disagree about more than they agree 

about. 

59

It is the equivalent of suggesting that in the Europe of the past 

Communism, Catholic conservatism, fascism and Russian Czarism 

are all basically part of the same movement because they were all 

part of liberal democracy, a suggestion that would render most of 

modern European history completely incomprehensible if you took 

that approach. 

Somehow we do not think about Czar Nicholas II facing a Communist firing squad, was this is so unfair; actually I have always 

agreed with Lenin. Any Arab scholar who suggested this as a theory of European history would be laughed and scorned by Western 

historians. Let us be very careful not to do the same thing to their 

region. 

Starting with that moment of caution, I would like to now move 

to the questions that I asked and try to actually answer them I 

know not in the spirit always of hearings, but try to answer them. 

First, were the EU–3 talks a waste of time? I am going to answer 

that last because I think that is the key point, and should the Administration have supported it. 

The big question I was asked was if the UN Security Council 

cannot reach a consensus on effective sanctions, which at the moment I think we have to say it is unlikely to do. The Chinese signing a $100 billion possible gas deal, the timing on that I found 

somewhat suspicious. Let us put it that way. 

The Russians? Goodness knows what they do, but do not assume 

the Chinese, as someone mentioned this morning, might not reverse their record and actually veto. They have never done that on 

their own before. Do not assume that the $100 billion and the access to natural gas and oil will not change that. That is lazy thinking. I think we have to at least prepare for a Chinese veto. 

If there is a veto, can we impose effective sanctions if Russia and 

China continue? First, I am all for a humpty-dumpty kind of 

Brechtian approach here. I want the Chinese and the Russians to 

go on record in open session saying with a straight face Iran is not 

a problem because by doing that we will get all the other serious 

people in the world and their allegiance to begin to work together, 

particularly the Europeans who are the only way that effective 

sanctions can be managed. 

A point not mentioned this morning is the huge demographic 

bulge within Iran. Most of the Iranian population does not remember the Shah. Very young median ages, 24 and 23 for Iranians. 

They have to create some incredible number of jobs per year to 

make things go. That is whoever is in charge. 

Again, that does not relate to anything else, and I think that is 

a very important point. Where are they going to create these jobs? 

Well, they need investment. Who is likely to give them investment? 

We will turn to it, but particularly Germany, which is who I have 

worked on my Track II approach for, seeing that that would be a 

very important country, although not a nuclear country, economically the largest power in Europe, still the third largest economy 

in the world and one that would like to do a lot more investment 

with Iran than it currently is and a huge trading source for Iran. 

You have to hit people where they live if you are going to do it, 

so I think the UN has to be shown not to work. I do not think that 

means the United States has failed. I think we have made a good 

60

faith effort, and sometimes you are going to disagree in the UN 

and quite often you are going to disagree in the UN. By going the 

extra mile, you actually gather allies to do the sanctions regime 

that is absolutely necessary. 

In line with our Track II plan, we started assuming a UN no 

vote, and we talked to the Germans who are now in the coalition 

on both sides, the SPD as well as the CDU/CSU people, and we 

had a broadbased bipartisan group in America. Our point basically 

was if this goes to a no you do not get to take your ball and go 

home. You do not get to say well, the diplomatic approach has been 

tried and found wanting, and now we are going to move on. They 

have to go to the EU level. 

If that does not work, the EU–3 plus Italy, the economic 

powerhouses—France, Germany, the U.K. and Italy. If you add all 

those together that would make a significant dent, indeed, in what 

is going on there. 

Would that change Iranian opinion? Perhaps no. Perhaps yes. In 

line with boiling the frog, with racheting up diplomatic pressure, 

you want to have as much flexibility as you possibly can. You do 

not just turn it to scalding. You move this along. You start with 

these smarter sanctions that are mentioned that inconvenience the 

Iranian regime. Then you move on to broader sections. You do 

things with PSI as the Ambassador suggested. 

You work on that strategy. You see if that makes any difference, 

and if it does not you leave the option on the table for military 

force, and in this case that would involve air strikes and not 

ground troops, of which we can talk more later. I think we have 

to be very straight up about what we are talking about. 

This is the Cuban missile crisis. There are not good options, as 

I think you yourself, Mr. Chairman, mentioned. Doing nothing will 

cause great damage. One thing, an arms race in the Middle East. 

It does not strike me as Israel’s style to sit there and say gee, I 

am going to trust the international community to trust the balance 

of terror to make my life okay. I think that that is a factor. Egypt, 

Turkey, Saudi Arabia would all be candidates for a nuclear weapon. There is no doubt. 

If we do things, we have to remember there will be a price too. 

Any hope at democratization in the region I think goes out the window, and the seemingly pro-Western regimes, the King of Jordan, 

the King of Omam, the King of Morocco, if you look at what happens we could get at worse Wahabis running Saudi Arabia. We 

could get A.Q. Kahn or bin Laden’s people running Pakistan. We 

have to keep that in mind. There are not good options, but this 

calls for seriousness. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hulsman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN C. HULSMAN, PH.D., THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

INTRODUCTION: COMPETING NIGHTMARES

For the past several years, two compelling and equally haunting narratives have 

dominated thinking about the endgame of the Iranian nuclear crisis. As with the 

Cuban missile crisis, both options seem fraught with peril. 

Having learned from the Israeli air strike on the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak 

in the 1980s, the Iranians have dispersed their nuclear sites to approximately 200 

facilities (and our intelligence is bound to be less than perfect), buried many of them 

underground, duplicated sites, and shielded others by placing them in high-density 

61

1Golnaz Esfandiari, ‘‘Iran: Public Offers Mixed Feelings On Nuclear Issues (Part 4),’’ Radio 

Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 23, 2004. 

urban areas, ruthlessly using their own people as human shields. As such, it is 

highly unlikely an American or Israeli air strike could take out the program neatly, 

cleanly, or in its entirety. It could certainly set Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear 

weapons back, but at a possibly calamitous price. With American ground troops not 

an option (given the size of Iran, the overstretched army and national guard and 

its likely overwhelming support for repelling American ground forces), from a military point of view it has become either advocating bombing or eschewing the military card altogether. 

In terms of public diplomacy the likely significant casualties, broadcast continually over the global 24-hour news cycle, would gravely further harm America’s 

image in the rest of the world. For example, it is hard to see how Administrationled efforts to democratize the Middle East could survive a bombing campaign. Given 

Iran’s strong ties to the dominant Shia factions in Iraq (for example to anti-American firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr), there is a strong possibility that unrest in southern Iraq would get entirely out of control; at a minimum it would rival the unrest 

in the central Sunni triangle. 

Another price of the bombing campaign would be Iran’s likely efforts to make the 

West pay a significant economic price, either through merely threatening to withhold oil from the market (causing a spike in the price), or in endeavoring to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, if only for a brief time. As Europe is entirely dependent 

on oil from the Persian Gulf (and as America is entirely dependent on European foreign direct investment), Iran could make the West pay a fearful economic price for 

such a campaign. Worse still, the rage on the streets of the Middle East would put 

the pro-American regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Pakistan in peril, a 

state of affairs that could only benefit America’s number one strategic foe—alQaeda. And all this for a military option unlikely to do more than retard Iran’s nuclear program. 

But nor does doing nothing, or even containing Iran, seem a policy that comes 

without cost. Any hope that the Nonproliferation regime (the NPT) still had significance for stopping states from going nuclear would be gone. In terms of nuclear 

weapons we really would be living in the jungle, with no norms and no mechanism 

to pressure states into settling for non-nuclear outcomes. In addition, the U.S., the 

guarantor of global order of last resort, would be seen to be hapless to stop a state 

becoming nuclear—surely a significant proliferation of nuclear states around the 

world could not be very far away. For example, in the Middle East, Turkey, Saudi 

Arabia, and Egypt are all candidates for quickly developing a nuclear weapons program after Iran crosses the threshold. It is unlikely Israel would accept such an outcome with equanimity, especially as these new members of the nuclear club would 

have untried command and control regimes; many such states are allies with millennial terrorist groups who desire the destruction of Israel. There is thus the very real 

possibility of a regional conflict between countries with nuclear weapons being highly likely in the medium term. 

Such terrible choices could only be avoided by effective Western diplomacy, and 

even here at best we must accept the Iranian leadership, and not the United States, 

will make the final decision as to whether to proceed with efforts to build a nuclear 

weapon. Certainly the U.S. can change the calculations the Iranian leadership will 

make, but not the fact that they will make the ultimate decision. The problem is 

that this is not a democracy issue: according to polling in October 2004 by Iran’s 

semi-official Mehr news agency, around 80 percent of those polled said they were 

opposed to halting nuclear activities. More than 65 percent of respondents said Iran 

should continue its nuclear pursuits under any circumstances.1 Nor are the mullahs 

and their supporters the only adherents of this position—the dirty little secret in 

Iranian politics is that the modernizers who oppose the mullahs want the bomb as 

much as their political rivals. The primary issue is Persian nationalism; regime 

change does not make this problem go away. 

From an Iranian point of view the reasons for desiring nuclear weapons are clear. 

On the plus side, with the demise of Saddam, they have unwittingly become the 

dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Possession of a nuclear weapon symbolizes and 

solidifies this growing power. Second, Iran is a proud 4,000-year old civilization. 

Many in Tehran feel that if upstart states like North Korea and Pakistan have such 

a weapon, there is absolutely no reason the should not possess something similar. 

On the negative side, Iran is aware that the United States considers it an international outlaw, with the President declaring it a member of the ‘Axis of Evil.’ The 

sad lesson of the 1990s is that countries that possess nuclear weapons can do pretty 

much as they please, despite American displeasure, while leaders of states that do 

62

not, are in peril. Saddam ended up in the dock, while Kim Jong-Il has yet to make 

it there. In this case, nuclear weapons are viewed as an insurance policy for outlaw 

regimes. Also, Iran is bounded by what it views as two American satrapies in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. One does not have to be paranoid to understand that the ‘Great 

Satan’ perched on its doorstep (twice) is a wonderful argument for the Mullahs to 

acquire weapons of mass destruction. After all, Tehran has long used American perfidy as a rationale for seemingly aggressive moves that contain an element of selfdefense. 

This is not to say the above arguments should justify Iran acquiring a nuclear 

weapon. But the first rule of foreign policy analysis should be efforts to understand 

the logic (flawed or otherwise) of one’s opponents, rather than merely climbing on 

the most convenient moral soapbox. It is clear form the above assessment that the 

reasoning behind Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons is obvious and powerful, 

cutting across elements of Iranian society. So the task to change the minds of Iran’s 

ruling elite is daunting. It was initially made worse by transatlantic efforts that 

seemed to have the United States and European allies behaving at their worst; here 

both sides actually approximated the cartoon versions each had of the other, enshrined by the diplomatic controversies over Iraq. 

COMPETING CARTOONS

Initially, the European allies were doing a pretty good impersonation of Neville 

Chamberlain; having wholly divorced diplomacy from the vital notion that power 

must back it up in order to be successful. America, on the other hand, having determined the mullahs in Iran were evil, disdained to engage them. But we cannot only 

conduct diplomatic relations with Canada; I have always naively thought a major 

reason for diplomacy was talking to those one didn’t agree with, in an effort to modify their behavior to suit one’s own national interests. These dueling efforts at futility, with Europeans unwilling to put forward sticks to stop Tehran, and with America allergic to all carrots, could lead only to the competing nightmares outlined 

above. Worse still, I am entirely convinced that another uncoordinated effort over 

seminal questions of geopolitical interests would spell the death-knell of the transatlantic relationship as we have known it; after Iraq it would not take much to decimate what was left of the alliance. With Europe living in a post-historical sandbox 

and America recoiling from engaging those we disliked, we risked fiddling while 

Rome burned. 

Instead, our only diplomatic hope has been for Europeans to proffer sticks and 

Americans carrots, if internal Iranian calculations are to be significantly altered. 

Iran’s domestic political scene is as diffuse as it is opaque. While there is certainly 

no hope that the President of Iran can be swayed, he is not the ultimate decisionmaker. Instead, the country’s spiritual guide, Ayatollah Khamenei, is the final arbiter of Iran’s nuclear policy. Also, another political figure looms large, former President Rafsanjani, now head of the Expediency Council, a group of senior clerics 

Khamenei has given power to oversee the executive, in some unsubstantiated manner. President Ahmadinejad is a diplomatic blessing in disguise for transatlantic relations—after one of his hate-filled utterances against Israel all our differences melt 

away; no westerner living wants him to be anywhere near a nuclear weapon. Instead it is to Khamenei and Rafsanjani that we must turn our coordinated diplomatic efforts. 

It must be strongly emphasized that this does not mean that those of us who have 

traveled down the diplomatic road for the past several years were either naı ̈ve or 

stupid about the likelihood that our best efforts would still not be able to head off 

an ultimate crisis. But nor does that mean, that somehow this has made them not 

worth the effort. Our thinking has always been this—if I am wrong and Rafsanjani 

and Khamenei can be moved to curtail the program, we should all get promotions. 

If am correct and the Iranians continue to cheat and drive toward acquiring nuclear 

weapons, unlike over Iraq, potential allies in the transatlantic community will see 

that the United States went the extra mile for peace. This would give the Bush Administration more leverage for dealing with the Mullahs, however dicey the crisis 

became. Unlike Iraq, the focus must remain on the outlaw’s behavior, rather than 

on American behavior. 

A COMMON PLAN

Thus, around two years ago we decided to promote a Track II initiative to devise 

a common plan that would be acceptable to broad constituencies on both sides of 

the Atlantic. We chose to focus on the Germans, given their significant investment 

stake in Iran. With the Islamic Republic experiencing a demographic bulge requiring ever more European investment, this was a significant economic stick that just 

63

2Mark Beunderman, ‘‘Russian move on Iran challenges EU unity,’’ EU Observer.com, March 

7, 2006. 

might cause the Iranian government to think again about acquiring nuclear weapons. Even if that did not diplomatically come to pass, Germany, which, Iraq aside, 

traditionally sided with Washington in times of crisis, seemed ripe to return to the 

fold, but only if the U.S. made a good faith effort to diplomatically resolve the crisis. 

Thus, we decided to form a true coalition of the willing. Our German interlocutors 

represent the major political parties of the center-left and the center-right (CDU/

CSU, SPD), and involve such notable German opinion-formers and parliamentarians 

as General Klaus Naumann, former Deputy SACEUR of NATO, Rolf Mutzenich and 

Dietmar Nietan (SPD parliamentarians), and Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU 

Parliamentarian). Our American opinion-formers also spanned the entirety of the 

political spectrum, from Ambassador James Dobbins and Dr. F. Stephen Larrabee, 

Mr. David Albright, of the Institute for Science and National Security, and Dr. Michael Haltzel, now of Piper Rudnik Gray and Cary LLP, to Mr. William Schirano 

of the Heritage Foundation. All made invaluable contributions to the process. 

After half a year of arduous discussion, the outline of a deal was reached. Its key 

points are these: 1) Iran must agree to permanently terminate its pursuit of a full 

nuclear fuel cycle in a manner that can be independently confirmed by real-time 

monitoring. 2) Should Iran comply, transatlantic security guarantees, and negotiations aiming toward a resumption of U.S.-Iranian diplomatic relations, plus talks 

aiming toward a resumption of trade relations between the U.S. and Iran would 

ensue. 3) If Iran refuses to heed the will of the U.S. and the broader international 

community, the U.S. and the EU–3 (Germany, France, and the UK) would support 

the referral of the Iranian nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council. If 

this process is stalemated due to either a Russian or Chinese veto (and yesterday’s 

Russian offer to allow the Iranians to continue small-scale nuclear enrichment on 

its own soil does not bode well) 2—the EU–3 would adopt a policy of gradually tightening sanctions against Iran regardless of the U.N.’s failure. At the same time the 

U.S. would reserve the right to act in a manner appropriate to the situation. This 

plan, with the Europeans offering genuine sticks to go alongside American carrots, 

seemed to us then, as well as now, the last, best, chance for peace. 

Our colleagues in Germany unveiled our plan to President Bush during his visit 

to Mainz, Germany. The American side has followed up with both congressional and 

executive briefings. Since then, the notion of coordinating carrots and sticks between 

the EU–3 and the Bush Administration has moved forward, as when the White 

House suggested it would not stand in the way of eventual Iranian membership in 

the WTO and might allow Tehran to buy scarce airplane parts, as part of a more 

comprehensive deal. For this coordination, both sides genuinely deserve plaudits. 

Indeed, despite constant efforts by the Iranians to divide the coalition, the EU–

3 have so far stoutly resisted. In fact, the EU–3 suspended talks with Iran when 

it restarted its enrichment program. The entire transatlantic situation improved 

with the establishment of the more pro-American Merkel Grand Coalition in Germany, where both CDU/CSU and SPD interlocutors have briefed German politicians 

at the highest levels about our Track II efforts. But the EU–3 must continue to 

hang together with America, or in the words of Benjamin Franklin, we will all hang 

separately. 

Several general comments about this process are in order before briefly looking 

at individual European responses. First, both sides have little doubt the plan’s best 

feature was to put the focus on a clearly defined and agreed upon common position, 

namely that Iran must agree to permanently terminate its pursuit of a full nuclear 

fuel cycle in a manner that could be independently confirmed by real time monitoring. Any vagueness could lead to differing interpretations along the lines of the 

Iraq diplomatic debacle. This time around, no one so far has expressed any doubt 

that the Iranians remain in breach of our clearly defined yardstick. While it is vital 

that carrots remain on the table in the event Iran does a diplomatic about-face, no 

one doubts that we are now jointly talking about coordinating sticks. 

Second, this clarity was achieved only by separating the nuclear issue from the 

long laundry list of disagreements held by both sides. For it was apparent to all that 

if we attempted some sort of ‘Grand Bargain’, an effort to solve all outstanding U.S.-

Iranian issues, we were destined to fail, given both the entrenched nature of both 

sides’ positions and the time constraint. While certainly agreeing that Iran ought 

to recognize Israel, should stop funding Hizbollah and other terrorist groups, should 

transform itself over time into a democratic state, and while accepting that Iran 

would wish to talk about its legitimate security concerns in the region, discuss enhancing economic ties with both the EU–3 and the U.S., and that both sides would 

wish to discuss human rights, all these daunting issues pale in comparison to adVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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3 ‘‘Blair warning to Iran on weapons,’’ BBC News, February 7, 2006. 4Simon Sarkar, ‘‘British Public Weighs In on Blair and Bush,’’ The Gallup Organization, June 

8, 2004. 5 ‘‘Key nations’ stances on Iran,’’ BBC News, January 31, 2006. 

dressing the nuclear issue. To cut the Gordian Knot, priorities had to be established, 

even among worthy policy outcomes. For that is the business of serious people. 

INDIVIDUAL EUROPEAN RESPONSES TO IRANIAN RECALCITRANCE

While the adage, ‘so far, so good’ sums up transatlantic cooperation up until now, 

given Iranian recalcitrance the genuine tests lie ahead. What does previous EU–3 

behavior tell us about likely outcomes? 

United Kingdom—While the Blair government has supported the EU–3’s efforts 

to negotiate with Iran, it has been far less engaged in the diplomatic process than 

in the run-up the Iraq war. Britain has been content to let Paris and Berlin make 

far more of the diplomatic running. While it is likely Britain would go along with 

some sort of sanctions regime if Iran continues its dash for the bomb, it is highly 

unlikely Britain would join the U.S. in some sort of military action this time around. 

Foreign Minister Straw has clearly ruled force to resolve the Iranian crisis as out 

of the question. The Prime Minister has concurred, saying simply, ‘‘Iran is not 

Iraq.’’ 3

But there is more going on here. It is clear that most in Washington do not understand the extent of the political price Prime Minister Blair pays for having militarily 

fought with the U.S. in Iraq. In the recent general election, New Labour lost 101 

seats against its majority, largely because of the Iraq war’s abiding unpopularity in 

the UK. Personally, the Prime Minister’s long run of personal popularity, unparalleled in modern British political history, also came to an end. In addition, many in 

the UK view America highly unfavorably, with positive ratings for the U.S. hovering 

in the low 20 percent range.4 This reticence on the part of our closest ally about 

Iran is the part of the political price the Administration has had to pay due to Iraq. 

It would be wise not to expect too much from London. 

France—There is better news in Paris. Unlike over Iraq, where France led the 

diplomatic charge against America, the Iranian crisis finds the two erstwhile allies 

in much closer diplomatic step. France has long thought Iran must be referred to 

the Security Council; like the UK it is also likely to favor the imposition of some 

form of sanctions. Given its own Gaullist belief that part of France’s grandeur is 

tied up in its possession of nuclear weapons, the Chirac government (and he sees 

himself as the direct heir of De Gaulle) does not want its own nuclear currency devalued. Also, given France’s historically important role as an advocate of Arab 

states, Paris does not want to look weak or peripheral to what is going on in this 

vital region. For its own unique reasons, France is likely to side with all American 

actions short of military force. 

Germany—As the largest exporter of goods to Iran and a likely source of much 

needed future investment (in 2004 German companies exported goods worth 3.6 billion euros to Iran, while in 2005 this number rose to around 4 billion euros),5 Germany is vital to the offering of both economic carrots and sticks, depending on Iranian behavior. Given the efforts made to cultivate it and the pro-American tilt of 

the new Merkel government, Berlin is likely to support the imposition of sanctions 

as well as continued transatlantic diplomatic efforts; it would not have the military 

capability to assist the U.S. directly in any form of joint military strike against Iran, 

even if it had the inclination (which it assuredly does not). 

To sum up, the Europeans will almost certainly go along with sanctions, even relatively tough escalating ones, in the future. They are likely to be helpful in setting 

up some sort of interdiction regime (including involving some shared intelligence assets and information) to see that Tehran does not export nuclear material out of the 

country. They will remain diplomatically behind us if we pursue this course. None 

of them will join us in military action of any kind. It remains an open question as 

to how much diplomatic support we could count on, if we commenced air strikes 

against Iran, or in combination with the Israelis. 

CONCLUSION: ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS

In a spirit of goodwill, and one wholly out of tradition with giving Congressional 

testimony, I will end by actually attempting to answer the questions Chairman 

Hyde has put to me. 

Were the EU–3 talks a waste of time? No, because they convinced both European publics and elites that it is Iran, and not the U.S., which is at the root of the 

controversy. 

65

Was it a mistake for the Administration to support them? Even more so no, 

as it has led to far closer coordination with the Europeans if we decide to go the 

sanctions route, while at the same time not limiting any of our ultimate options. 

If the UN Security Council cannot reach a consensus on effective sanctions, can we assemble a ‘‘coalition of the willing’’ to impose effective sanctions even if Russia and China continue with business as usual? I’m all for 

humpty-dumpty falling down, its better to be Brechtian about the UN vote on Iraq; 

I want the Russians and the Chinese to stand there with straight faces and tell the 

world Iran is not a threat—this greed-induced irresponsibility can only help us with 

the Europeans. A ‘no’ from the UN will show it for what it is—a badly divided and 

impotent organization. Then, in line with our Track II plan, the Administration must 

put pressure on the Europeans (through the whole EU) to adopt a series of gradually 

escalating sanctions. The advantage to (in the words of my colleague David Albright) 

‘boiling a frog slowly’ is that it gives the Iranian leadership time to change its mind 

and reverse its course of nuclear adventurism, while the carrots that could then be 

offered providing the leadership in Tehran a face-saving way out, a la the Cuban 

missile crisis. At the same time, the increasing burden on Iranian society, starting 

with their leadership and spreading, in terms of lost European exports and investment, create an ever-increasing pressure on the Mullahs. Even if the EU as a whole 

does not endorse such a strategy, the EU–3 plus Italy (which has significant economic ties to Iran) would carry enough economic weight to put real pressure on the 

regime, regardless of whatever Russia (whose economy is the size of that of the Netherlands) or China do. 

What are my views on H.R. 282, legislation intended to tighten United 

States sanctions against Iran and against countries and entities that invest 

in Iran. Given the nonprofit nature of the Heritage Foundation, I am legally prohibited from discussing specific pieces of legislation, so let me speak generally. Congress 

and this Committee is ahead of the curve in trying to come grips with the economic 

tools that must be used to try to alter the mindset of the leadership in Iran. But the 

effect of additional sanctions by the U.S. on Iran will amount to little; there is precious little leverage we have on this point, given the fairly comprehensive nature of 

our sanctions up to now. As to other countries, as my adherence to an escalated series 

of sanctions indicates, timing is everything. Now is not the best moment to limit the 

possibilities of revving a sanctions regime up—as such I’m generally against blanket 

efforts to curtail the very European sanctions that will have a far more important 

role to play as a stick as the crisis unfolds. There may come a time, and not in the 

distant future, when such a piece of legislation is necessary, if the Europeans prove 

recalcitrant. But, as I’ve outlined, so far they deserve nothing but praise for their efforts, and are likely to support a coordinated sanctions effort, especially as many 

would see that as the primary means to avoid military action. We are entering dangerous times, Mr. Chairman, they call for a new creativity and coordination, if we 

are to avoid a re-run of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Thank You.

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Dr. Hulsman, for a very precise statement in a timeframe that was very well received. 

Dr. Ledeen? 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. LEDEEN, PH.D., THE AMERICAN 

ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH 

Mr. LEDEEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that future historians will be baffled at the intensity and tenacity with which successive American Administrations have refused to deal seriously 

with the obvious and explicit threat from the Islamic Republic of 

Iran. 

From the first hours of the fanatical regime of Ayatollah 

Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran declared war on us in language 

that seems impossible to misunderstand. We are the great Satan. 

They are the representatives of the one true faith, sworn to combat 

satanic influence on earth. 

They have waged unholy war against us ever since. They created 

Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Created them, not support them, as 

we heard earlier this morning. They support almost all the others 

66

from Hamas and al-Qaeda to the Popular Front for the Liberation 

of Palestine General Command. Iran’s proxies range from Shi’ites 

to Sunnis to Marxists, all cannon fodder for the overriding objective 

about which they make no secret to dominate or destroy us. 

Iran tops the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and we know that Abu Musba al-Zarqawi, the titular head 

of al-Qaeda in Iraq, created a European-wide terrorist network in 

the latter years of the last century from his stronghold in Tehran. 

We know this from public sources, from documentation presented 

by the German and Italian Governments in public trials against 

terrorists arrested in their countries. The evidence presents and included intercepts of phone conversations between terrorists in Europe and Zarqawi in Tehran. 

We also know from abundant battlefield evidence of the intimate 

working relationships between terrorists in Iraq and the regimes in 

Tehran and Damascus. Just the day before yesterday ABC News 

broadcast a story about the discovery of very powerful bombs being 

sent from Iran into Iraq, and on that broadcast Richard Clark said, 

‘‘I think it is very hard to escape the conclusion that the Iranian 

Government is knowingly killing U.S. troops.’’

Invariably there are still those who believe that somehow our differences can be reconciled, and we can yet reach a modus vivendi 

with the Islamic Republic. The Iranians’ behavior proves otherwise. 

This is a war we can either win or lose, and no combination of diplomatic demarches, economic sanctions and earnest negotiations 

can change that fatal equation. 

The nuclear question now dominates all discussion of Iran as if 

nothing else mattered. Numerous Iranian leaders have said that 

they intend to use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, and we 

should take such statements at face value. A nuclear Iran, as was 

said earlier, would indeed be a more influential regional force, and 

its missiles would directly menace the West. Indeed, nuclear devices could be provided to terrorists or even launched on missiles 

from the soil of Iran’s new strategic allies, Castro, Chaves and Morales. 

But they do not need atomic bombs to kill large numbers of 

Americans. Hardly a day goes by without chest-pounding speeches 

from the mullahs warning us about the wave of suicide bombers 

headed our way. 

The obsession with the nuclear question often obscures the central issue that the Islamic Republic has waged war against us for 

many years and is killing Americans every week, nukes or no 

nukes. They will continue to do that even if their nuclear program 

is shut down, and they will do it because it is their essence to do 

it. It is what they are. 

So the nuclear threat is inseparable from the nature of the regime. If there were a freely elected democratic government in 

Tehran instead of the self-selecting tyranny of the mullahs we 

would not feel such a sense of urgency about the nuclear program. 

I believe that the most important thing is to support democratic 

revolution in Iran. The demographics certainly favor radical 

change. About 70 percent of Iranians are 29 years old or less. We 

know from the regime’s own public opinion surveys that upwards 

of 73 percent of the people want a freer society and a more demoVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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cratic government, and they constantly demonstrate their hatred of 

the regime in public protests, in the blogosphere in both Farsi and 

English, in strikes, the most recent of which is the ongoing action 

by the Tehran bus drivers union, and from time to time in violent 

acts against officials on the ground. 

In response to recent demonstrations in oil-rich Khuzestan, the 

regime sent in members of the Badr Brigade from Iraq and of Lebanese Hezbollah, which suggests to me at least a lack of confidence 

in the more traditional security organizations. 

Yet many gainsay the possibility of successful revolution, a pessimism that I find as bizarre as it is discouraging. We empowered 

a successful democratic revolution in the Soviet empire with the active support of a very small percentage of the population. How hard 

can it be for a revolution to succeed in Iran where more than 70 

percent of the people want it? 

The mullahcracy is not likely to go away on its own. Most revolutions, including our own, required external support in order to succeed, and there is a widespread belief among Iranians that democratic revolution cannot defeat the mullahs unless it is supported 

by the United States. They have been waiting. They are still waiting for concrete signs of our support. 

Support means, above all, a constant critique by our leaders of 

the regime’s murderous actions and constant encouragement of 

freedom, freedom fighters and democracy. The Iranians need to see 

that we want an end to the Islamic Republic. We need to tell them 

that we want, and show them that we will support, nonviolent regime change in their country. 

We also need to talk to them very specifically about how such 

revolutions succeed. We should greatly expand our support for private radio and television broadcasters, and we need to get serious 

about using our own broadcasts as revolutionary instruments. 

We are not competing for market share, and we are not in the 

entertainment business. We should be broadcasting interviews with 

successful revolutionaries from other countries, and we should 

present conversations with experts on nonviolent revolution. The 

Iranians need to see and hear in detail what works and what does 

not. They need to see and hear the experiences of their revolutionary comrades. 

Finally, we must provide them with the wherewithal for two vitally important revolutionary actions: Build resources for a strike 

fund and get the modern communications instruments. Workers 

need to be able to walk off the job and know they will be able to 

feed their families for several weeks. Democracy advocates need 

modern tools to communicate between cities, which is very difficult 

and dangerous today. 

There is a lot that is praiseworthy in the Iran Freedom Support 

Act, Mr. Chairman. I think it could be improved by openly embracing a policy of regime change in Iran and allocating an adequate 

budget to demonstrate our seriousness in this endeavor. It is what 

the Act says anyway. People are just afraid of coming out and 

using the language. You cannot have freedom in Iran without 

bringing down the mullahs, so what are we talking about? 

I heartily endorse the suggestion that the President appoint 

someone responsible for our Iran policy and who will advise the 

68

President and report to the Congress. The choice of that person 

would be very important because the Iranians will be encouraged 

by someone who they believe to be firmly on their side, and they 

will be discouraged by someone who has participated in the failed 

efforts to formulate a serious Iran policy. 

I hope these thoughts will be useful to you and your colleagues, 

Mr. Chairman. I believe this is the most important question we 

face in the Middle East and in the war against terror, and I wish 

you wisdom, patience and good humor in your labors. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ledeen follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. LEDEEN, PH.D., THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE

INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH

I am delighted and honored by your invitation to discuss American policy toward 

Iran, but before I do that, I hope I will be permitted a few personal words in appreciation of the welcome contribution that you, Chairman Hyde, have made to our 

country and to the tenor of life in Washington. 

Our national political debate has long been very fractious, and this moment is especially nasty. But you are a rare man, Mr. Chairman. You have never forgotten 

that our elected representatives are sworn to advance the national interest, whatever the transient demands of party or faction. You have done that with rare grace 

and humor, through some terrible personal tragedies and despite some particularly 

insensitive slanders. After nearly thirty years in Washington, I cherish many memories of your ability to defuse a tense situation with an urbane chuckle, all the while 

reminding your colleagues of their responsibilities to the American people. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that your years ahead are full of satisfaction and fulfillment. 

Future historians will be baffled at the intensity and tenacity with which successive American administrations have refused to deal seriously with the obvious and 

explicit threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran. From the first hours of the fanatical regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran declared war on us 

in language it seems impossible to misunderstand. We are the great Satan, while 

they are the representatives of the one true faith, sworn to combat satanic influence 

on earth. Hassan Abassi, the chief strategic adviser to President Ahmadi-Nezhad, 

recently put it this way: ‘‘America means enemy, and enemy means Satan.’’

They have waged unholy war against us ever since. They created Hizbollah and 

Islamic Jihad, and they support most all the others, from Hamas and al Qaeda to 

the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command. Iran’s proxies 

range from Shiites to Sunnis to Marxists, all cannon fodder for the overriding objective to dominate or destroy us. 

A lot of nonsense has been written about the theoretically unbridgeable divide between Sunnis and Shiites, and we should remind ourselves that the tyrants of the 

Islamic Republic do not share these theories. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards as 

Shiite as they come were trained, beginning in the early 1970s, by Asser Arafat’s 

Fatah Sunnis one and all. Arafat was the first foreign leader to be invited to Tehran 

after the overthrow of the shah, proving that when it comes to killing infidels, theological disagreements are secondary to the jihad. Yet even today, we hear that it 

is quite impossible that the mullahs have supported al Qaeda, because bin Laden, 

Zawahiri and Zarqawi are famously Sunni. 

The Iranian war against us is now twenty-seven years old, and we have yet to 

fight back. In those twenty-seven years thousands of innocent people have died at 

the hands of the mullahs’ terror state, inside Iran and around the world. Many 

Americans have been killed, in Lebanon twenty years ago and in Iraq today, by terrorists armed, trained and funded by the Islamic Republic. Iran is invariably atop 

the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and we know that Abu 

Musab al-Zarqawi created a European-wide terrorist network in the latter years of 

the last century from a stronghold in Tehran. We know this from public sources—

from copious documentation presented by the German and Italian Governments in 

public trials against terrorists arrested in their countries. Among the evidence introduced by the prosecution were intercepts of phone conversations between terrorists 

in Europe and Zarqawi in Tehran. 

We also know from abundant evidence ranging from documents to photographs 

captured by American forces in both Fallujah and Hilla of the intimate working relationships between terrorists in Iraq and the regimes in Tehran and Damascus. Indeed, the terror war in Iraq is a replay of the strategy that the Iranians and the 

69

Syrians used in the 1980s to drive us and our French allies out of Lebanon. Those 

Americans who believed it was possible to wage the war against terrorism one country at a time, and that we could therefore achieve a relatively peaceful transition 

from Saddam’s dictatorship to an elected democracy, did not listen to the many public statements from Tehran and its sister city in jihad, Damascus, announcing in 

advance that Iraq was about to become the ‘‘new Lebanon.’’

They have made good on their threats. On Monday, ABC News broadcast a story 

about the discovery of very powerful bombs—the so-called IEDs—sent from Iran into 

Iraq.

‘‘I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these 

IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they 

are killing U.S. troops once they get there,’’ said Richard Clarke, former White 

House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. ‘‘I think it’s very 

hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government 

is knowingly killing U.S. troops.’’

Inevitably, there are still those who believe that somehow our differences can be 

reconciled, and we can yet reach a modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic. I wish 

they were right, but the Iranians’ behavior proves otherwise. Religious fanatics of 

the sort that rule Iran do not want a deal with the devil. They want us dominated 

or dead. There is no escape from their hatred, or from the war they have waged 

against us. We can either win or lose, but no combination of diplomatic demarches, 

economic sanctions, and earnest negotiations, can change that fatal equation. They 

will either defeat us, or perish. And that is their decision, not ours. We have yet 

to engage. 

THE NUCLEAR QUESTION

A few months ago, the CIA concluded that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons in less than a decade, but that timeline seems to have significantly contracted. 

Some Russian experts reportedly think it could be a matter of months, and they 

probably have better information than we do. In any event, the nuclear question has 

been elevated to the center of the policy debate, as if nothing else mattered. 

The nuclear question is certainly serious. Numerous Iranian leaders have said 

that they intend to use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, and contemporary history 

suggests that one should take such statements at face value. A nuclear Iran would 

be a more influential regional force, and since its missiles now reach deep into Europe, it would directly menace the West. Moreover, once Iran manages to put nuclear warheads on their intermediate range missiles, they might even be able to direct them against American territory from one or more of the Latin American countries with which the mullahs are establishing strategic alliances. The mullahs make 

no secret of their strategy; just a couple of weeks ago, when the leader of Hamas 

was received in honor in Tehran, a photograph of the event was released, in which 

there was a colorful poster of President Ahmadi-Nezhad and Supreme Leader 

Khamenei along with Castro, Morales and Chavez. The mullahs would be pleased 

to nuke Israel, and they would be thrilled to kill millions of Americans. 

But they don’t need atomic bombs to kill large numbers of Americans; they have 

long worked on other weapons of mass destruction, and they doubtless have moved 

plenty of terrorists all over the Western world. Hardly a day goes by without chestpounding speeches from the mullahs warning us about the wave of suicide bombers 

headed our way. I am afraid that the obsession with the nuclear question often obscures the central policy issue: that the Islamic Republic has waged war against us 

for many years and is killing Americans every week. They would do that even if 

they had no chance of developing atomic bombs, and they will do that even if, by 

some miracle, the feckless and endlessly self-deluding governments of the West 

manage to dismantle the secret facilities and impose an effective inspection program. The mullahs will do that because it is their essence. It is what they are. 

The nuclear threat is inseparable from the nature of the regime. If there were a 

freely elected, democratic government in Tehran, instead of the self-selecting tyranny of the mullahs, we would not feel such a sense of urgency about the nuclear 

program, or about an effective American policy toward Iran. 

And still we debate how to respond. Some even wonder if we should respond at 

all. That is why we are here today. 

WHAT TO DO?

The first step in crafting a suitable policy toward Iran is to abandon the pretense 

that we can arrive at a negotiated settlement. It can’t be done. The Iranians view 

negotiations as merely tactical enterprises in support of their strategic objectives. 

70

Just look at the news from this past Sunday. According to the London Sunday Telegraph:

Iran duped European Union negotiators into thinking it had halted efforts to 

make nuclear fuel while it continued to install equipment to process 

yellowcake—a key stage in the nuclear-fuel process, a top Iranian negotiator 

boasted in a recent speech to leading Muslim clerics.

That bit of incautious self-congratulation came from Hassan Rowhani, the mullah 

in charge of negotiations with the French, British and Germans. He thoughtfully 

tells us that the Iranians used the negotiations to buy time for their nuclear program. They never intended to ‘‘negotiate in good faith.’’ As Colin Powell said in midJanuary, Iran cannot be trusted to tell the truth about its nuclear program. 

Nor is there any reason to believe that we can count on the United Nations to 

impose the rules of civilized behavior on the mullahs, either on nuclear issues or 

terrorism. 

That leaves us with three courses of action, none of which is automatically exclusive of the others: sanctions, military strikes, and support for democratic revolution. 

I am opposed to sanctions, I am generally opposed to military strikes, and I fully 

endorse support for revolution. 

SANCTIONS

I do not know of a case in which sanctions have produced a change in behavior 

by a regime that considered us its enemy. The two possible exceptions are regimes 

that thought of themselves as friends of the United States, and wanted to be embraced by us: Chile and apartheid South Africa. But enemy regimes don’t respond 

to sanctions, whether it be Castro’s Cuba or Qadaffi’s Libya or the Soviet Empire. 

Indeed, sanctions aimed against the national economy are misconceived, because 

they harm the people who are not our enemies and may be our best weapon against 

the tyrants while leaving the tyrannical and oppressive elite largely untouched. 

The basic rule for dealing with our tyrannical enemies is to punish the regime 

and help the people. Big-time economic sanctions or embargoes cannot do that, but 

very limited sanctions and other economic and financial actions can. I am very much 

in favor of seizing the assets of the Iranian leaders, because while the mullahs have 

ruined the lives of most Iranians, they have greatly enriched themselves at the people’s expense, and a good deal of that money has been squirreled away in foreign 

bank accounts. My favorite example of the greed of the Iranian ruling class is a 

transaction tax, roughly worth 5% of the purchase price, all of which goes into the 

personal fund of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. 

That money properly belongs to the Iranian people, whose misery grows from day 

to day. We should hold it for them, and return it to a freely elected government 

after we have helped them overthrow their oppressors. 

I also agree that a travel ban on the top leaders would be useful, if for no other 

reason than its symbolic value. It tells the Iranian people that we consider the 

mullahs unworthy of acceptance in the civilized world. The Iranians know it, far 

better than we. But they need to see that we have taken sides, and the travel ban 

is one good way to do that. 

MILITARY ACTION

Nobody is talking about an invasion of Iran, but there is considerable speculation 

about limited strikes against nuclear facilities. I do not know enough about our information to be able to offer an informed opinion on this matter. I would only point 

out that our intelligence about Iran has been bad since before the revolution of 

1979, and one would have to be very optimistic to base a military plan on our current intelligence product. Iranians are skilled at deceit, and have been hiding their 

nuclear projects from us for a long time. 

Military action carries enormous risks, because of the many unforeseeable consequences. Some number of Iranians would likely be inclined to rally to the national 

defense, even if they hate the regime. It’s impossible to estimate how many of them 

would take this path. Moreover, there would inevitably be innocent victims, and our 

strategy should aim at saving innocents, not killing them. Add to that the virtual 

certainty that Iran would respond with a wave of terrorism, from Iraq to Europe 

to the homeland. 

That said, our failure to design and conduct a serious Iran policy for so long has 

narrowed out options, and we may be faced with a choice among various unattractive actions. If we and our allies decide that Iranian nuclear facilities must be taken 

out, we should first make clear to the Iranian people that we have come slowly and 

reluctantly to this position, that the regime could have avoided this terrible situaVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
71

tion by negotiating in good faith, and that we would never dream of doing such a 

thing if Iran were governed by reasonable people. 

In fact, whatever policy we adopt, it is very important for us to talk a lot to the 

Iranian people. 

REVOLUTION

Iran had three revolutions in the twentieth century, and boasts a long tradition 

of self-government. The Iranian Constitution of 1906 might well serve as a model 

for the entire region, and prior to Khomeini’s seizure of power, Iran was by far the 

most progressive Muslim country in the Middle East, providing considerable opportunity for women and a generally tolerant attitude toward minority religious groups, 

including Jews, Christians and Baha’i. 

The demographics certainly seem to favor radical change: roughly 70% of Iranians 

are twenty-nine years old or less. We know from the regime’s own public opinion 

surveys that upwards of 73% of the people would like a freer society and a more 

democratic government, and they constantly demonstrate their hatred of the regime 

in public protests, in the blogosphere in both Farsi (the internet’s fourth most popular language) and English, in strikes (the most recent of which is the ongoing action by the Tehran bus drivers’ union), and from time to time in violent acts against 

officials on the ground. The regime’s reaction is violent and ruthless, but the protests continue, and there is good reason to believe that the mullahs are extremely 

worried. In response to recent demonstrations in Khuzestan, the oil-producing region in the south, the regime sent in members of the Badr Brigade (the Iraniantrained militia in Iraq) and of (Lebanese) Hizbollah. This suggests a lack of confidence in the more traditional security organizations: the regular Army, the Revolutionary Guards, and the thuggish Basij, generally described as fanatically loyal to 

the Islamic ideals of the mullahcracy. 

Yet there is a vast cottage industry that gainsays the possibility of successful 

democratic revolution in Iran. The pessimists say many things, including the lack 

of a charismatic leader, the viciousness of the regime, and, with the urgency provided by the nuclear program, a shortage of time, arguing that revolutions take a 

long time to gather critical mass. 

The pessimism is as bizarre as it is discouraging. We empowered a successful revolution in the Soviet Empire with the active support of a very small percentage of 

the population. How hard can it be for a revolution to succeed in Iran, where more 

than 70% of the people want it? Our experience with Soviet Communism suggests 

that revolution can triumph under harsh repression, and that there are often dynamic democratic revolutionaries even if we cannot always see them. Indeed, I suspect that in Iran there are many potential leaders, some of whom are in prison 

while others are underground. I also suspect that there has been a lot of planning, 

both for the revolution itself, and for the shape of the free society thereafter. This 

was the case in many of the Soviet satellites—Poland and Czechoslovakia being 

prime examples—and is certainly ongoing in the Iranian diaspora, whether in the 

United States or in Europe. It would be surprising if Iranian democrats were not 

doing the same. 

The regime is famously vicious, as the mounting numbers of executions and the 

ongoing torture in Iran’s prisons unfortunately demonstrate. But tyranny is the 

most unstable form of government, and democratic revolution invariably surprises 

us. If anyone had forecast a successful democratic revolution in the Ukraine, even 

three months before it occurred, most of us would have considered it a fantasy. 

Nobody knows with certainty whether revolution can succeed in Iran, or, if it can, 

how long it will take. But tyrannies often fall with unexpected speed, and in recent 

years a surprising number of revolutions have toppled tyrants all over the world. 

Most of them got help from us. Most revolutions, including our own, required external support in order to succeed, and there is a widespread belief in Iran that a 

democratic revolution cannot defeat the mullahs unless it is supported by the 

United States. They are waiting for concrete signs of our support. 

Support means, above all, a constant critique by our leaders of the regime’s murderous actions, and constant encouragement of freedom and democracy. Too many 

of us have forgotten the enormous impact of Ronald Reagan’s denunciation of the 

Soviet Union as an ‘‘evil empire.’’ The intellectual elite of this country condemned 

that speech as stupid and dangerous, yet the Soviet dissidents later told us that 

they considered it enormously important, because it showed that we understood the 

nature of the Soviet regime, and were committed to its defeat. In like manner, the 

Iranians need to see that we want an end to the Islamic Republic. We need to tell 

them that we want, and show them that we will support, regime change in their 

72

country, peaceful, non-violent regime change, not revolution from the barrel of a 

gun. 

We also need to talk to them very specifically about how such revolutions succeed. 

We should greatly expand our support for private radio and television broadcasters, 

both here and in Europe, and we need to get serious about using our own broadcasts 

as revolutionary instruments. We are not competing for market share, and we are 

not in the entertainment business; we should be broadcasting interviews with successful revolutionaries from other countries, and we should be broadcasting conversations with experts on non-violent revolution. The Iranians need to see, in detail, what works and what does not. They need to see and hear the experiences of 

their revolutionary comrades. 

We also need to provide them with the wherewithal for two vitally important revolutionary actions: build resources for a strike fund, and get them modern instruments of communication. The strike fund speaks for itself: workers need to be able 

to walk off the job, above all the oil fields and the textile and transportation sectors, 

and know they will be able to feed their families for several weeks. 

The instruments of communication include servers, laptops, satellite and cell 

phones and phone cards. The regime has been more effective in identifying and repressing nation-wide communications among dissidents. They have been less effective quashing local networks. We should accordingly provide the local networks advanced technology in order for them to better communicate between cities and regions. 

LEADERSHIP IN WASHINGTON

There is much that is praiseworthy in the Iran Freedom Support Act. I think it 

can be improved by more openly embracing a policy of regime change in Iran, and 

allocating an adequate budget to demonstrate our seriousness in this endeavor. I 

know some members would prefer to dance around the explicit declaration of regime 

change as the policy of this country, but anyone looking closely at the language and 

content of the Iran Freedom Support Act, and its close relative in the Senate, can 

clearly see that that is in fact the essence of the matter. You can’t have freedom 

in Iran without bringing down the mullahs. 

I heartily endorse the suggestion that the President appoint someone responsible 

for our Iran policy, and who will advise the president and report to the Congress. 

The choice of that person is important, because the Iranians will be encouraged by 

someone who they believe to be firmly on their side, while they will be discouraged 

by someone who has participated in the failed efforts to formulate a serious Iran 

policy. 

Mr. Chairman, I hope these thoughts will be useful to you and your colleagues 

in your deliberations. I believe this is the most important question we face in the 

Middle East, and in the war against terror. I wish you wisdom, patience, and good 

humor in your labors.

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Dr. Ledeen. 

Mr. Milhollin? 

STATEMENT OF MR. GARY MILHOLLIN, WISCONSIN PROJECT 

ON NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL 

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Thank you very much. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss today the steps that we, the United States, 

might take next to deal with Iran’s nuclear efforts. 

As the Committee knows, the dispute with Iran has now reached 

a turning point. The Iranians have resumed research that will enable Iran eventually to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, and Iran 

has also announced that it will start installing a cascade of 3,000 

machines late this year. 

That many machines operating successfully will produce or could 

produce enough enriched uranium for one or two bombs per year—

actually two or three bombs per year according to my calculations—so we are looking at a ticking clock. 

It is very important for us to formulate a policy that is going to 

have some beneficial effect within the time we have remaining. 

That means that we have to start acting as if stopping the bomb 

73

in Iran is truly at the top of our priority list, which I do not think 

we are doing at this time. 

Putting Iran first would mean a number of things. It would mean 

first that we would have to start figuring out how to get sanctions 

in place at the UN in time for them to work in the time we have 

remaining. 

Second, it would mean putting on hold this strategic partnership 

with India that is now being considered until the Iran crisis is 

over, or at least that long. 

Third, it would mean telling the Government of Dubai that it 

must stop serving as a smuggling hub for Iran and Pakistan if it 

wants to operate an American port. 

These questions are all being treated separately by the media, 

but in fact they are all related. First let us look at sanctions. I 

think we are looking at a 4- or 5-year timeframe for an Iranian nuclear weapon. We are also looking at an incremental process at the 

UN planned by our Government that is going to consist of first exhortations, then deadlines, then debates on what to do when the 

deadlines expire. 

This is a sound strategy, but it cannot drag on long enough so 

that the Iranians have time to get most of the way to the bomb before sanctions are actually adopted. 

If we adopt sanctions, what kind of sanctions should we ask for 

first? The simplest and perhaps most effective sanction to ask for 

first would be to suspend the sale of any nuclear item, including 

dual-use items, to Iran and to suspend the sale of any military or 

military dual-use item to Iran. 

Iran is now in violation of its obligations. It is up to the world. 

The world, it seems to me, has an obligation not to facilitate Iran’s 

nuclear missile, chemical, biological efforts, and that should be a 

position taken as soon as possible. It would stop Russian aid to the 

Bushehr reactor. It would stop the kind of dual-use equipment 

being imported that the IAEA is still looking for in Iran and that 

Iran has not really accounted for. 

Unfortunately, to get this kind of a sanction in place there is a 

hitch. These sensitive items are exactly what the United States 

now wants to sell to India under the new India deal, so in order 

to cut off these exports to Iran our diplomats are going to have to 

convince the rest of the world that we should, at the same time, 

be allowed to sell the same things to India. 

I think this is going to be a difficult task, and it is one that we 

do not need to put on ourselves, so rather than face the prospect 

that India and China can then ask us basically for the same kind 

of treatment for Iran that we are asking the rest of the world for 

for India, we should just shelve this deal. 

There is another downside to the India deal, and that is that it 

bolsters hardliners in Iran who favor nuclear weapons. This group 

believes that such weapons are in the country’s interest and that 

developing them will bring only limited short-term penalties. They 

can argue now, in light of the India deal, that they are proved 

right. 

Once a country succeeds in getting the bomb, the lesson is that 

the United States will give up on sanctions and pursue its interest 

74

in trade. That is exactly what we are trying to get China and Russia not to do with respect to Iran. 

Sanctions also need to be implemented. If there are countries 

willing to flout sanctions in the world, it does not matter whether 

we have sanctions or not. These countries include not only those 

whose firms are supplying Iran directly, but countries who are 

serving as retransfer points, which brings us to Dubai. 

For decades Dubai has served as one of the main, if not the 

main, nuclear smuggling hub in the world. India, Pakistan and 

Iran have all fueled their nuclear programs through Dubai, and 

this activity did not cease after September 11. 

In October 2003, Emirates Customs officials, over United States 

protests, allowed 66 high-speed electrical switches ideal for detonating nuclear weapons to go to a Pakistani businessman with ties 

to the Pakistani military. I have an affidavit signed by a United 

States official in the Commerce Department, our Commerce Department, which shows that the Director of Customs in Dubai or 

in the Emirates refused to detain the shipment even despite a specific request by a U.S. Customs agent. 

So when we think about the Dubai ports issue we may be focusing on the wrong aspect. I would say that the biggest threat to our 

security is not what might come through a United States port managed by a Dubai company. The real threat is what is flowing 

through Dubai’s ports to countries that are making nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles. 

Once these countries or even a terrorist organization can get 

what it needs to Dubai and make a bomb with it, it is going to be 

too late to stop the bomb at our borders. The time to stop the bomb 

is before somebody can make it into a successful device that can 

be put into a container. 

I would say that Dubai is a present security risk to the United 

States and that it will not be possible to curb the Iranian program 

even with sanctions unless Dubai cleans up its act. We need to tell 

the Government of Dubai that if it wants to be considered for important contracts in this country that it needs to stop being a hub 

for nuclear smugglers. 

I would recommend to this Committee that it ask the State Department formally for a statement whether Dubai has an export 

record that we would expect a good United States ally to have. 

That is the question. Does Dubai’s export so far justify confidence 

in that government as a good United States ally and a government 

we can trust? 

The Russian deal has already been discussed. It is in my testimony. I will not go through it. 

I would just like to conclude by saying that the overall goal of 

our policy has to be to persuade Iran that it would be better off 

without nuclear weapons than with them. 

A number of other countries have come to that conclusion recently, so this is not an impossible task. Argentina, Brazil, Libya, 

Kazakhstan, South Africa, Ukraine and Belarus all decided that 

they would be better off without the bomb than with it. They decided that their relations with the rest of the world were more beneficial than the costs that they would incur by getting a nuclear 

weapon. 

75

Everybody wants Iran to make the same decision, but that will 

not happen unless the cost to Iran is high. So how do we make it 

high? The answer is not just the United States, but lots of other 

countries are going to have to make sacrifices. 

China and Russia in particular have large trade interests in 

Iran. We do not want to see higher oil prices throughout the world, 

but we can at least predict what the cost of such events would be. 

That is, we can predict to some extent at least the cost of these 

sanctions. 

But who can predict or quantify the cost of an Iranian bomb? 

Who can tell whether a conflict between Iran and some other country might cause nuclear weapons and nuclear threats to fly back 

and forth? Who can tell whether Iran might supply a bomb to terrorists or help other countries make one, and who can tell what 

will happen to the Iranian arsenal if its unpopular government 

falls, as it probably will some day? 

We seem to be faced with a choice between threats we think we 

can live with and ones we cannot, so if you look at it in this light 

I would say that sanctions, though expensive, appear to be our best 

alternative and that we should work hard to get them in place as 

soon as we can. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Milhollin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. GARY MILHOLLIN, WISCONSIN PROJECT ON NUCLEAR

ARMS CONTROL

I am grateful for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the steps the United 

States might take next to deal with Iran’s nuclear violations. 

As the committee knows, the Iranian nuclear dispute has reached a turning point. 

Iran has rejected efforts by Britain, France and Germany to resolve things diplomatically. It has not accepted Russia’s offer to shift Iran’s nuclear enrichment 

work to Russian soil. And it has rejected repeated calls by these four countries, by 

China, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend work on uranium 

enrichment. Instead, Iran resumed research in January that will enable it eventually to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Iran also announced that it will start installing a cascade of 3,000 centrifuge machines at its commercial enrichment plant 

late this year. Once that many machines are operating successfully, Iran could enrich enough uranium for two or three bombs per year. 

This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board is debating 

Iran’s nuclear violations once again. Barring a last minute concession by Tehran, 

the meeting will end with a transfer of Iran’s nuclear dossier to the U.N. Security 

Council. The board has already found Iran in ‘‘non-compliance’’ with its obligations. 

It is too early to know what the Council will do, but it is not too early to recommend 

what the United States should do. 

I believe that the United States should start acting as if stopping the Iranian 

bomb were truly at the top of its foreign policy priority list. Putting Iran first would 

mean moving quickly to start the sanctions process at the United Nations; it would 

mean shelving the ‘‘strategic partnership’’ deal with India at least until the crisis 

with Iran is over; and it would mean telling the government of Dubai that it must 

stop allowing dangerous exports to go to countries like Iran and Pakistan if it wants 

to operate an American port. 

Sanctions require time to work. As we look at a four- or five-year time frame for 

Iran to achieve weapon capability—which is what many estimates now conclude—

sanctions must begin soon in order to have a chance. The process at the Security 

Council will be incremental. First, exhortations, then deadlines, then debates on 

what to do when the deadlines are not met. The United States hopes to close the 

circle in which Iran can move, and to do it slowly, inch by inch, making it tighter 

and tighter without losing international support, until a mood is created that will 

support tough sanctions. It will be necessary to show that all steps short of such 

sanctions have failed before the Council will impose them. This is a sound strategy, 

but the process must not drag out to the point where Iran is most of the way to 

the bomb before sanctions can begin to bite. 

76

What sanctions should we ask for? Because Iran is in present violation of its treaty obligations concerning the peaceful use of nuclear energy—meaning that there is 

no assurance it is not seeking nuclear weapons—it is fair to ask all countries to suspend the sale of any nuclear item, including nuclear dual-use items, to Iran. This 

would reduce the chance that Iran could continue to fuel with imports what is now 

seen as an illicit weapon effort. It is also fair to ask all countries to suspend the 

sale of any military item, including military dual-use items, as well as any item that 

can be used to make chemical weapons, biological weapons, or missiles. These steps 

would be simple to implement. There is a direct precedent in the Council’s dealings 

with Iraq. The Council adopted a ‘‘trigger list’’ of military and dual-use items that 

were controlled for sale to Iraq because of Iraq’s treaty violations. That same list 

could be adopted for Iran. It still exists and can be found on any number of web 

sites, including my organization’s www.IraqWatch.org. 

This sanction would stall progress on Iran’s Bushehr reactor by cutting off the 

training and assistance that Russia is now providing, and would stop shipments of 

Russian fuel to the reactor, which are planned for later this year. It would also cut 

off further imports of sensitive dual-use items needed to make nuclear weapons—

such as those the International Atomic Energy Agency is still trying to track down 

in Iran. The Agency is asking what Iran did with high-vacuum equipment, electronic drive equipment, power supply equipment, laser equipment, balancing machines, mass spectrometers and fluorine handling equipment. All of these dual-use 

imports came from other members of the United Nations. All can be used to make 

nuclear weapons. Under this sanction, it would be illegal to sell such things, and 

the lack of them would slow down Iran’s nuclear progress. It would also stymie 

Iran’s general technological advance. Iran’s officials would learn that the bomb has 

a real cost in valuable infrastructure. The sanction would send a strong signal, and 

would target what is of greatest concern: Iran’s weapon effort. 

But there is a hitch. These sensitive nuclear items are exactly what we, the 

United States, are hoping to sell India under our new nuclear agreement with New 

Delhi. Yes, strange as it may sound, in order to cut off further nuclear exports to 

Iran, our diplomats will have to convince the rest of the world to ignore the fact 

that the United States wants to sell the same things to India, a country that rejected the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and developed nuclear weapons secretly 

under the guise of a civilian energy program. The details of how the India deal will 

affect Iran are contained in the findings of a roundtable that my organization conducted recently, which are available on www.IranWatch.org. I would ask that these 

findings be included in the record of the hearing. 

In effect, the United States is asking other exporting countries to bend export 

rules that the United States sponsored, and that it has followed for decades, to 

make a special exception for a country—India—that America has now declared to 

be its friend. Other countries, like Russia and China, can easily ask the same treatment for Iran, which is their friend, and which is supplying them money, gas and 

oil. Even without the India deal it would have been a stiff challenge to get Russia 

and China to support meaningful sanctions. With it, the odds are reduced. 

The U.S.-India deal also bolsters hardliners in Iran who favor nuclear weapons. 

This group believes that such weapons are in the country’s interest, and that developing them would bring only limited, short-term penalties. They can argue now that 

the India deal proves them right. Once a country succeeds in getting the bomb, as 

India has done, the United States will give up on sanctions and pursue its interest 

in trade. This preference for trade over punishment is what Russia and China are 

now showing for Iran, and what the United States is trying to get these countries 

to change. The U.S. posture on India makes this task more difficult. 

Thus, if stopping Iran is our first priority, we should shelve the India deal at least 

until the Iranian nuclear crisis is over. Iranian officials are citing the deal almost 

every day to argue that the United States cares less about proliferation than about 

using proliferation rules to support its friends and punish its adversaries. Shelving 

the deal would prove that this is not true. 

I have said above that sanctions need time to work. But they also need to be implemented. If there are countries willing to flout them, it does not matter whether 

they are adopted or not. Such countries include not only those whose firms have 

supplied Iran directly, but those that serve as retransfer points. 

For the past two decades, Dubai and other points in the United Arab Emirates 

have been the main hubs in the world for nuclear smuggling. In the 1980’s, several 

shipments of heavy water, a nuclear reactor component, were smuggled from China, 

Norway and the Soviet Union through Dubai to India, so India could use its energyproducing reactors to create plutonium for nuclear weapons. In the 1990’s, companies in Dubai willingly coordinated the notorious smuggling network of Pakistani 

scientist A. Q. Khan. Through Dubai to Iran were shipped two containers of gas cenVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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trifuge parts from Mr. Khan’s laboratories for about three million dollars worth of 

U.A.E. currency. Also in the 1990’s, a Dubai company attempted to violate U.S. export control laws by shipping Iran a material useful for manufacturing ingredients 

for nerve gas, and the German government listed six firms in Dubai as front companies for Iranian efforts to import arms and nuclear technology. 

This activity did not cease after September 11, 2001. In October 2003, Emirates 

customs officials, over U.S. protests, allowed 66 high-speed electrical switches ideal 

for detonating nuclear weapons to be sent to a Pakistani businessman with ties to 

the Pakistani military. An affidavit, signed by an official in the U.S. Department 

of Commerce, shows that the director of customs in the Emirates refused to detain 

the shipment despite a specific request by one of the Department’s agents. 

Dubai’s export behavior reveals an important fact: we may be debating the wrong 

issue in the Dubai Ports World dispute. The biggest threat to our security is not 

what might come through a U.S. port managed by a Dubai company. The real threat 

is in what is flowing through Dubai’s ports to countries that are making nuclear 

and other weapons of mass destruction. Once these countries, or even a terrorist organization, get what they need through Dubai and are able to make bombs, it will 

be too late to stop the bombs at our ports regardless of who is in charge. The time 

to stop the bomb is well before the point where someone can put it into a container. 

Thus, Dubai is a security risk. Iran imports large quantities of goods through 

Dubai and Dubai is a revolving door. It will not be possible to curb Iran’s nuclear 

imports unless Dubai cleans up its act. To encourage it to do so, its government 

should be told that before being allowed to manage an American port terminal, it 

needs to have effective export controls. I recommend that this committee request 

that Dubai’s export control record be made part of the 45-day review, and I also recommend that the committee ask the U.S. State Department to state formally whether Dubai’s export control record thus far has been satisfactory. 

In addition to these points, it is worthwhile to say a few words about the latest 

Russian offer, which is to enrich uranium for Iran on Russian soil. The offer is stirring up debate this week in Vienna, and it is seen by some as a way out of the 

crisis. The key question about the offer is what it would allow Iran to do at home, 

not what it would allow Russia to do in Russia. 

Under the deal, Russia would enrich in Russia all the uranium Iran will need for 

reactor fuel. Thus, Iran would not have to build a large uranium enrichment plant, 

which many fear could be converted to large-scale bomb making. Iran has insisted, 

however, that it be allowed to continue its nuclear ‘‘research.’’ That research, which 

includes uranium enrichment on a small scale, will confer one day the ability to 

make a handful of nuclear weapons. 

The Russians were saying ‘‘no’’ to the research until a few days ago, when they 

apparently decided to try at the last minute to rescue Iran from the Security Council. Now the Russians would allow Iran to continue the research, a cave-in that the 

United States opposes. Britain, France and Germany oppose it too. Waffling of this 

sort by Russia could shatter the coalition of states that is finally working together 

to restrain Iran. Countries are torn between the desire to escape a confrontation, 

and the fear that Iran would not be adequately contained. 

The United States must hold out for a solution as near as possible to the one 

Libya accepted in 2003. Libya allowed everything useful for enriching uranium to 

be boxed up and carted out of the country. It also answered all questions about its 

nuclear past and revealed the names of its shady suppliers, allowing the West to 

counter the nuclear smuggling network run by A. Q. Khan. Only great pressure 

from the Security Council is likely to force Iran to accept a similar agreement. 

The overall goal of our policy must be to persuade Iran that it will be better off 

without nuclear weapons than it will be with them. That is, that the cost of a weapon is greater than the benefit. A number of other countries have been so persuaded. 

They include, most recently, Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Kazakhstan, South Africa, 

Ukraine and Belarus. All of these countries decided that the cost to them in their 

relations with the rest of the world was greater than any benefit the bomb could 

confer. We want—virtually the whole world wants—Iran to make the same decision. 

But that won’t happen unless the cost to Iran is made sufficiently high. 

To make it high, other countries too will have to suffer. China is on the brink 

of signing an oil and natural gas deal with Iran worth tens of billions of dollars. 

Russia just agreed to sell Iran $700 million worth of surface-to-air missiles, which 

Iran says will protect its nuclear sites. This arms deal is in addition to Russia’s 

work on the Bushehr reactor, now valued at $1 billion. When China and Russia vote 

on Iran sanctions, these economic stakes will weigh in the balance. 

There is no doubt that sanctions will be costly. The entire world could see higher 

energy prices. But at least we can make a rough prediction of what the cost could 

be. Who, however, can quantify the cost of an Iranian bomb? Who can tell if a conVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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flict between Iran and some other country might cause nuclear threats—or even nuclear weapons—to fly back and forth? Who can tell whether Iran might supply a 

bomb or the means to make one to a terrorist group? And who can tell what would 

happen to Iran’s arsenal if its unpopular government falls, as it surely will one day? 

We seem to be faced with a choice between the threats that we think we can live 

with, and the ones we think we can’t. Seen in this light, sanctions, though expensive, appear to be the best alternative.

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Milhollin. 

Dr. Samii? 

STATEMENT OF ABBAS WILLIAM SAMII, PH.D., RADIO FREE 

EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY 

Mr. SAMII. Thank you, sir, for giving me this opportunity to 

speak today. The views I express today are solely my own and not 

those of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

Coming after younger Iranian, hardliners dominated the 2003 

municipal council elections and the 2004 Parliamentary contest. 

The victory of Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad in the 2005 Presidential 

race represented a seemingly unstoppable political juggernaut, yet 

within weeks of Ahmadi-Nejad’s inauguration the legislature demonstrated that it would not be a rubberstamp by rejecting four of 

his cabinet nominees. 

In the following months, the legislature expressed its dissatisfaction with many of Ahmadi-Nejad’s personnel appointments, his economic measures and his annual budget. Meanwhile, Tehran also 

finds itself dealing with ethnic disturbances in the northwest, the 

southwest and the southeast. 

Ahmadi-Nejad’s international political initiatives—his call for the 

destruction of Israel and the United States, his denial of the Holocaust and his administration’s obstinency on the nuclear issue—

also earned a great deal of criticism at home. These aspects of Iranian politics have implications that are relevant to our discussion 

today about United States policy, and they shed light on cleavages 

in the Iranian body politic that are open to exploitation. 

Now, early on last summer Iranian officials held a meeting at 

which they tried to indicate that, regardless of who the President 

is, who is elected, they are all united on their nuclear policy, but 

the President’s diplomatic gaffes have already caused concern at 

home, and as Iran faces isolation over the nuclear issue, some officials are suggesting that it is time to engage with the United 

States. 

Iran’s leading officials and political figures are united in the desire to master the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but there is much 

less unity over Tehran’s diplomatic efforts. After the IAEA governing board voted to report Iran to the UN Security Council in 

early February, the Iranian Government issued an advisory saying 

the media must not portray it as unsuccessful or say that the country suffered a loss. 

Warning against discouraging the Iranian people, the advisory 

called for stories that avoid stirring fear or worry and that in no 

way suggest diplomatic efforts had reached a dead end. That advisory was not very effective, and soon thereafter officials stepped up 

their criticism of the government’s diplomatic efforts. 

By early March, as the nuclear crisis worsened and negotiations 

with Russia and Europe fell through, more voices suggested that 

79

it is time to engage directly with the United States. One member 

of Parliament said that Iran may as well get rid of the middlemen, 

i.e. the Europeans and Russia, and speak directly with Washington. He also explained that the Europeans and Russians are 

just exploiting the lack of negotiating alternatives. 

Another member of the legislature, using the terminology that 

we are all quite familiar with, said, ‘‘It is better to negotiate with 

the great Satan than with little Satans.’’ He explained that Moscow 

is acting as Washington’s proxy anyway, so we may as well deal 

directly with Washington. 

Now, there are a number of internal Iranian disputes taking 

place as well, and these also show the weaknesses that AhmadiNejad has encountered. His new cabinet members had a great deal 

of trouble getting confirmed. His appointment of provincial officials 

has met opposition from the legislature and from local officials. His 

annual budget has met resistance for a variety of reasons, and then 

there are the ethnic cleavages and ethnic clashes that I mentioned 

earlier. 

We are familiar with the bombings in southwestern Iran where 

most of the oil comes from. Ethnic groups there are demanding 

their constitutionally specified rights. Kurdish activists in the 

northwest have been rounded up and executed by the government. 

Others have been imprisoned. Demonstrators have been shot down 

by the security forces. These have led to complaints from actual 

members of Parliament who are Kurds asking President AhmadiNejad to do something and provide answers. 

Obviously there has been a lack of unity in the Iranian Government on the wisdom of engaging with the United States, and at 

times this issue has been used against people in sort of continuing 

political disputes. 

Contact with the United States continues to be a sensitive topic. 

As Mr. Burns said earlier, there are channels for interaction—the 

Swiss channel, the Algerian channel—and then on country-specific 

issues the Embassies in Baghdad and Afghanistan. 

Anything but the most overt hostility can create a backlash. I believe that if the current trend continues though with Iran’s isolation increasing and with Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad’s political position 

weakening, it may be Tehran that initiates the negotiations. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Samii follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ABBAS WILLIAM SAMII, PH.D., RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO

LIBERTY

IRANIANS CONSIDER REACHING OUT TO U.S. 

Coming after younger Iranian hardliners dominated the 2003 municipal council 

elections and the 2004 parliamentary contest, the victory of Mahmud Ahmadinejad 

in the 2005 presidential race represented a seemingly unstoppable political juggernaut. Yet within weeks of Ahmadinejad’s inauguration, the legislature demonstrated that it would not be a rubberstamp by rejecting four of his cabinet nominees. In the following months, the legislature expressed its dissatisfaction with 

many of Ahmadinejad’s personnel appointments, his economic measures, and his annual budget. Tehran also finds itself dealing with ethnic disturbances in the northwest and southwest. Ahmadinejad’s international political initiatives—his call for 

the destruction of Israel and the United States, his denial of the Holocaust, and his 

administration’s obstinacy on the nuclear issue—also earned a great deal of criticism at home. These aspects of Iranian politics have implications that are relevant 

80

to our discussion today about U.S. policy, and they shed light on cleavages in the 

Iranian body politic. 

A lack of diplomatic unity 

Shortly before Ahmadinejad’s inauguration, state news agencies made much of a 

meeting between the president-elect and his predecessors—Mohammad Khatami, 

Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ali Khamenei, and Prime Minister Mir-Hussein 

Musavi—to discuss nuclear policy (Sharq, 27 July 2005). The purpose of this was 

to show that regardless of elections, the country remains united on this issue. In 

practical terms, furthermore, nuclear decision-making in Iran is a consensual matter with input from the regime’s top officials, so the president cannot change policy 

unilaterally. 

The president’s diplomatic gaffes, however, have caused concern at home. And as 

Iran faces isolation over the nuclear issue, some officials are suggesting that it is 

time to engage with the United States. The chairman of the Expediency Council, 

Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, said Iran should talk with its opponents—

which he identified as ‘‘America, Europe, and others’’—and achieve trust (Iranian 

state radio, 30 September 2005). ‘‘I would like to let the [Iranian] managers in this 

sector know that here you need diplomacy and not slogans,’’ he said. HashemiRafsanjani called for prudence, patience, and wisdom, while avoiding provocations. 

He said this issue must be resolved while protecting Iran’s rights. The legislature’s 

reformist minority met with Hashemi-Rafsanjani in late January and urged him to 

step in (Sharq, 1 February 2006). 

Reformist legislator Mohammad Reza Tabesh said the Ahmadinejad government 

has failed to adequately conduct talks with the EU–3 (France, Germany, and the 

United Kingdom), and he urged the return of Iran’s former negotiators (Radio 

Farda, 10 October 2005). Referring to the personnel brought in by Ahmadinejad, legislator Hussein Afarideh spoke out against the ‘‘mistaken measure’’ of a ‘‘hasty’’ reshuffle of the negotiating team (Radio Farda, 10 October 2005). The reformist Sharq

newspaper commented that Ahmadinejad’s eastward-oriented foreign policy has 

proven to be ineffective, and it recommended the creation of a ‘‘crisis-diplomacy 

team’’ (2 October 2005). The hardline Resalat daily called for the creation of a foreign-policy think tank to find a way out for Iran (29 September 2005). 

Or a diplomatic crisis? 

Iran’s leading officials and political figures are united in the desire to master the 

peaceful use of nuclear energy, but there is much less unity over Tehran’s diplomatic efforts. After the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board voted 

to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council in early February, the Iranian 

government issued an advisory saying the media must not portray it as unsuccessful 

or say that the country suffered a loss. Warning against discouraging the Iranian 

people, the advisory called for stories that avoid stirring fear or worry, and that in 

no way suggest diplomatic efforts had reached a dead end. The advisory did not 

have much of an effect. 

Hojatoleslam Hassan Rohani, who was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for 16 years and who still serves on the council as a representative of 

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was for some time Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. He made it clear at a speech in Tehran that he is unimpressed. ‘‘Shouting 

alone will not help us to achieve our goals,’’ he said (Iranian Students News Agency, 

9 February 2006). ‘‘To stand up to our enemies, we need a multidimensional, 

proactive and dynamic strategy.’’ Rohani recommended widening Iran’s ‘‘circle of 

consultants’’—in other words, bringing in people with better experience, diplomatic 

skills, and negotiating abilities. 

An earlier speech by Rohani to a governmental body, in which he described the 

nuclear program and related negotiations in great detail, recently has been interpreted by some experts as a questioning of the value of the nuclear program 

(Rahbord, 30 September 2005). In light of Rohani’s close and lengthy involvement 

with the issue and the forum in which the speech was made, as well as the content 

of the actual speech, this seems unlikely. 

Other commentators recommended the involvement of seasoned politicians who 

inspire greater confidence internationally, such as Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Khatami, 

Rohani, and former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karrubi. 

By early March, as the nuclear crisis worsened and negotiations with Russia and 

Europe fell through, more voices suggested that it is time to engage directly with 

the United States. Kazem Jalali, rapporteur of the legislature’s National Security 

and Foreign Policy Committee, said Iran might as well eliminate the intermediaries 

and negotiate directly with the U.S. (Aftab-i Yazd, 2 March 2006). He explained that 

both the Europeans and the Russians appear to be acting in line with U.S. desires, 

81

and furthermore, they are taking advantage of the lack of alternatives to improve 

their negotiating position. 

‘‘It is better to negotiate with the Great Satan than with little Satans,’’ National 

Security and Foreign Policy Committee member Ali Zadsar said (Aftab-i Yazd, 5 

March 2006). He explained that Moscow is acting as Washington’s proxy, and history has proven that the Russians are more treacherous than the Americans. 

Creating a new elite 

Internal Iranian disputes over the conduct of foreign affairs see little exposure in 

the West. Instead, one hears the rhetoric of angry clerics and enraged politicians 

as they fume about imagined Western efforts to retard the country’s development 

and deny them their rights. The Iranian government strives to portray a united facade on all issues. In reality, President Ahmadinejad was in office for less than a 

month when he ran into his first serious roadblock, and the pressure has never really subsided. 

Ahmadinejad chaired the first session of his new cabinet in the northeastern city 

of Mashhad at the shrine of Imam Reza, saying ‘‘We have come to such a holy place 

to be inspired before rendering services to the nation’’ (Islamic Republic News Agency, 25 August 2005). It seemed a good time for inspiration, because one day earlier 

the legislature had rejected four of the 21 people he had nominated for cabinet 

seats. 

During his campaign Ahmadinejad promised to bring new faces into the country’s 

leadership, and it was obvious when he introduced his cabinet that a new generation of Iranians was taking the reins. Ahmadinejad was 48, and the average age 

of the proposed ministers was 48 1/2. Moreover, five ministers served with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, and several others were veterans of the 1980–88 

Iran-Iraq War. The clerics in his cabinet had extremely hardline backgrounds. 

Yet conflicts over the cabinet choices surfaced among the conservative political 

parties even before the early-August inauguration. The initial conflicts related 

mainly to younger and more radical conservatives versus older and more traditional 

ones, and the direction they believed the government should take. There also were 

disputes within the group that backed Ahmadinejad’s presidential bid, and these 

mainly related to the desire for cabinet positions. When the nominees were debated, 

legislators expressed concern over their lack of qualifications, and even among those 

who were approved there were objections to their backgrounds in security institutions. Three ministers were approved the next month, but it was not until December 

that the petroleum ministry nominee was approved. 

Ahmadinejad also vowed to decentralize government operations and give greater 

power to the provinces, and he pledged to appoint provincial officials only after consulting with legislators and local Friday Prayer leaders. It later became clear that 

such consultations were only token efforts, and he mostly appointed individuals with 

backgrounds in the intelligence and security institutions. Other appointees were 

presidential cronies with shared professional links or an affinity for unorthodox religious beliefs. Several legislators submitted their resignations over this matter in 

September, and there was renewed controversy in February, when it was announced 

that all but one of the country’s provincial governors-general had been replaced. 

Political calculation and strategy has as much to do with these appointments as 

cronyism does. The new officials could stay in place for at least eight years—the 

length of two presidential terms. The new officials could have a profound influence 

on voting for members of the Assembly of Experts (2006 and 2014), legislature (2008 

and 2012), executive branch (2009 and 2013), and municipal councils (2007 and 

2011). Moreover, officials with a background in the Revolutionary Guards are more 

likely to use force to deal with civil unrest, and they would be more willing to implement martial law should there be a crisis. Another implication is that the appointments are a payoff for the support the Guards Corp and the Basij militia gave 

Ahmadinejad during the election. 

The annual budget—which was introduced in mid-January—is another area in 

which Ahmadinejad has encountered resistance from right-wing and left-wing parliamentarians. They are critical of the attention given to religious institutions that 

fit the president’s conservative preferences. Another concern relates to excessive dependence on oil as the only source of revenue—something that they say could have 

an inflationary effect. Some also argue that the government is basing its figures on 

an unreasonably high price for oil—$40 a barrel. This latter figure was adjusted 

downward, and on 2 March the general outline of the budget won approval 

When he introduced the budget, Ahmadinejad said spending in the provinces 

would increase by 180 percent, adding that he is trying to move jobs from the center 

to the periphery, and he emphasized rural development. However, several parliamentarians complained about inattention to real needs, such as poverty-reduction 

82

projects and infrastructure, and more than 100 parliamentarians threatened to hold 

a sit-in (Sharq, 18 January 2006). A legislator from Gilan Province in the north 

complained that insufficient funds have been allocated to build dams and water-supply projects, and 6,000 families do not have access to running water, electricity, or 

good roads (Iraj Nadimi, cited by Gilan-i Imruz, 21 January 2006). 

Ethnic cleavages 

Iran’s population of roughly 69 million people includes sizable minority groups—

Azeris (24 percent), Kurds (7 percent), Arabs (3 percent), Baluchis (2 percent), and 

Turkmen (2 percent). There are almost 100 independent tribes throughout the country, according to a 1987 census, and a 1998 census says there are 1.3 million tribesmen. There is greater religious homogeneity—the state religion is Shia Islam and 

is practiced by 89 percent of the population, 9 percent of the population practices 

Sunni Islam, and the remaining 2 percent of the population is Bahai, Christian, 

Jewish, and Zoroastrian. There is some overlap between ethnic and religious minority status. Iran’s northwestern provinces are heavily populated by Kurds, 75 percent 

of whom are Sunni, and the southeast is heavily populated by Baluchis, most of 

whom are Sunni. 

In the last year there have been numerous ethnic clashes. None of these incidents 

threaten the unity of the state or Iran’s territorial integrity, and for the most part, 

ethnic activists mostly call for the realization of constitutionally guaranteed rights 

rather than separatism. Nevertheless, they are a continuing irritant to the regime. 

There have been several bombings in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province in the 

southwest. Tehran has pinned the blame on the United Kingdom, and on 2 March 

2006 two alleged bombers were executed after their confessions were broadcast on 

state television. Ethnic Arabs cited by local newspapers often complain that although much of the country’s oil wealth comes from this area, they do not benefit 

from it, and they note underdevelopment, discrimination in securing jobs, and poor 

educational opportunities 

Kurdish activists in the northwest reportedly have encountered greater difficulties. Two were executed in September, three Kurdish journalists were imprisoned 

in October, and the killing of a young Kurd in Mahabad in November led to a riot 

(Radio Farda, 6 September 2005; ILNA, 3 October 2005; Radio Farda, 20 November 

2005). Security forces killed some eight people when they shot at Kurdish demonstrators in Maku in February, prompting a demonstration in Tehran (ILNA, 21 

February 2006). Nine Kurdish parliamentarians protested to President Mahmud 

Ahmadinejad about this last incident (ILNA, 4 March 2006). The legislators’ letter 

said vigilantes attacked the demonstrators, killing and injuring 35 of them. Many 

others were arrested and are imprisoned. Who is responsible for ‘‘these crimes,’’ the 

letter asked, and what government agency authorized such actions? ‘‘Why must 

some people use government resources and equipment to settle ethnic scores and 

to subject the Kurdish inhabitants of the town to such a merciless killing?’’

An opening borne of weakness 

There has long been an absence of unity in government circles regarding relations 

with the U.S. In 1979, there were disagreements pitting revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamist entourage against secular nationalists 

connected with the National Front and the Liberation Movement of Iran. Contacts 

with the U.S., however, led to the downfall of the Provisional Government of Mehdi 

Bazargan. The Islamists and the student activists who seized the U.S. Embassy in 

1979, furthermore, used evidence of such contacts against their political adversaries. 

Contacts with the U.S. continue to be a sensitive topic in Iranian politics. Such 

contacts start out in secret, but with some inevitability they see the light of day and 

are then wielded as a weapon against one’s opponents. The exposure of secret IranU.S. contacts led to the Iran-Contra affair in the late 1980s, for example, and in 

the early part of this decade alleged contacts between Iranian and American representatives on Cyprus led to a political uproar. 

Anything but the most overt hostility can engender a backlash. When then-President Mohammad Khatami expressed regret over the hostage crisis and invited 

Americans for cultural and educational exchanges in January 1998, the hardline 

media criticized him heavily. It is fairly certain that Khatami would not have made 

such comments without the Supreme Leader’s approval beforehand, but Khamenei 

was forced to say that he still sees the U.S. as ‘‘the enemy of the Islamic Republic.’’

This may explain the statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza 

Assefi two days ago, when he described the circumstances under which Iran will 

consider negotiations with the U.S. He said, ‘‘What we are saying is that if America 

abandons its threats and creates a positive atmosphere in which it does not seek 

83

to influence the process of negotiations by imposing preconditions, then there will 

be no impediment to negotiations’’ (Farhang-i Ashti, 6 March 2006). 

If current trends continue, with Iran’s isolation increasing and with its hardline 

president getting weaker, it may be Tehran that initiates the negotiations.

Mr. LEACH. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Hyde, do you wish to speak or ask any questions? 

[No response.] 

Mr. LEACH. Okay. Mr. Royce? 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. I would like to ask a question, Dr. Samii, 

of you and of Dr. Ledeen. 

What it goes to is the fact that after the Cold War was over 

many of us were interested in how people were weaned off of a belief in a totalitarian system and brought to the belief that democracy and freedom represented an answer. 

In listening to speeches by Baklov Havlov and Lech Walesa, they 

laid out how this happened in Eastern Europe. By debriefing 

former enthusiasts for a totalitarian system, we found out the 

thought process that went through their minds as they listened to 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about what was actually going on 

inside their country, about the repression, but then as they were 

also introduced to concepts foreign alien maybe to the teachings of 

their youth—tolerance, political pluralism, the very concepts of 

freedom, market economy—I wonder how much of this kind of education goes on in Iran. 

Given the fact that upwards of 70 some percent of the youth already seem to feel the oppressiveness of being under the control of 

the mullahs and not having the freedom, not even having the opportunity, and I think this is key, the opportunity to go out and 

find gainful employment because of the command/control economy, 

because of the nature in which the licensing is all done through 

those who are well connected. There is not a market there that 

gives people the ability. 

If we were to look at the lessons learned in Russia and in the 

East Bloc, what type of programming would we be doing, and what 

types of support would we be giving? You say the ingenious ways 

in which the Reagan Administration was able to give support in 

the East Bloc to groups that wanted freedom from solidarity 

throughout. How would we be going about this, if I could ask you 

both? 

Mr. SAMII. I have to be sort of careful what I say about broadcast 

activities per se, but——

Mr. ROYCE. If you would like to defer on that point I could have 

Dr. Ledeen or others answer that. 

Mr. SAMII. No. I can go to it. First of all, the regime controls 

most of the educational system, and there is no private media in 

Iran. 

The Iranian people do not buy everything the regime tells them. 

They therefore go to the Internet. The listen to radio. Radio Farda 

is very popular. It is one of the most trusted news sources for Iranians, and of course there is the popularity of satellite TV. These 

are venues that can be used, should be used, and it is things that 

people trust and listen to. 

Clearly they do not buy everything the regime tells them, but 

when the regime is able to monopolize to a great extent the inforVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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mation sources it will continue to hold a great sway over public attitudes. 

Mr. ROYCE. Dr. Ledeen? 

Mr. LEDEEN. Thank you, Congressman Royce. In terms of what 

kind of support we need to get to them, I tried to indicate that in 

my summary. It is at somewhat greater length in my prepared testimony. 

I like very much your model of the Cold War. I view Iran in that 

context. I was involved in designing policy for getting help to dissident groups in the Soviet empire during the Cold War. It turned 

out to be much easier than anybody thought it would be, as it 

turned out to be much easier than anybody thought it would be to 

bring down that regime. 

I mean, we need to remind ourselves constantly. People are unduly pessimistic about the great revolutionary force of the American example and of American action. When America moves, the 

entire world shakes. What is important is that we move successfully and rationally and that we time our motions to our policies. 

In terms of broadcasting, I think that in many ways Farda has 

been an improvement from what we had before. Iranians do tend 

to like it. It is still not clear to me how many of them actually get 

to listen to it. 

I am alarmed when I hear stories from time to time that people 

want to do more television and less radio because I think to watch 

television is dangerous for an Iranian, whereas to listen to the 

radio is easy. You can have a portable radio with you almost any 

place. To get satellite television you have to put a dish on your 

roof, and they will know it and they can come after you. 

I think basically Iran is a place where the revolution of the spirit 

against this kind of theocratic fascism has already taken place. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. 

Mr. LEDEEN. They do not like it. They want to be free. It is a 

country which has a long tradition of self-government and constitution writing and a long tradition of revolutions. They had three revolutions in the 20th century alone. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Dr. Ledeen. Thank you, Dr. Samii. 

Thank you, panel. 

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Berman? 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Ledeen, am I correct in assuming that your analysis of Iran 

and the Islamic Republic of Iran would have been the same if 

Khatami were still the President in terms of its resolve to take on 

the United States, the West? 

The change in the office of President is not what has forced or 

compelled your analysis? 

Mr. LEDEEN. Right. I think it has been like this for 27 years with 

whatever President. 

Mr. BERMAN. Right. I mean, I am struck by your notion that 

sanctions, all this other stuff, is less important than focusing on 

fundamentally inspiring, in your words, a nonviolent democratic 

revolution in Iran, and part of your central argument for why that 

can work is look what happened to the Soviet Union. 

There is something about what happened in the Soviet Union, 

and not anybody except maybe Daniel Moynahan and you predicted 

85

it, but what happened in the Soviet Union was a country whose 

leaders had a certain level of rationality. While Marxism may have 

been a religion, it did not lead to suicide bombings and sort of what 

matters in this life is not that important. 

It had a change of leaders that opened up the space a little more. 

It had people who stood on tanks and sort of kept the military from 

using its force to keep the old guard in power. 

Why is it going to happen like that in Iran? I hear about 

Ahmadi-Nejad and the Republic Guard. We know about the sort of 

religious nature of how they see the United States in the west. 

Why is the brute force of an authoritarian state not going to come 

down on the forces that would create this democratic revolution so 

viciously that it will be aborted in its tracks? 

Before my time expires, I am curious. After you answer that, Dr. 

Hulsman spun out how every option was bad, but he did not address your option particularly as opposed to the option that involves force or strikes and all that would happen in terms of democracy promotion, potential toppling of neighboring regimes, the 

total mess and chaos that might follow from that. You did not address this focus on internal democratic nonviolent revolution and 

how that would play in the larger area. 

Thank you both. Dr. Ledeen? 

Mr. LEDEEN. Thank you, Congressman. Obviously we could 

spend days discussing your question. It is not an easy question and 

the answer may be complicated, but I think it can be reduced to 

a very short answer and that is that at the end of the day if you 

put a million Iranians in the public square of Tehran, Ifsahan, 

Tapris and Shiraz chanting out, out, out, the revolutionary guards 

and the regular army are not going to open fire on a million of 

their own sisters and brothers. 

The regime knows that, and we can prove that by looking at the 

way the regime behaves. Look at what they did in Husistan. There 

are many other cases. They are afraid because they do not trust 

even the revolutionary guards who are supposed to be the most fanatic and the most loyal or even the besiege, for example. They do 

not use them. They use them less and less for these purposes, and 

that is because they do not trust them. 

They know that every time some normal citizen walks down the 

main street in Tehran and looks up at a lamppost they are asking 

themselves how many mullahs could I hang from this lamppost. 

They know that people with turbans in the streets of the major cities, in order to get a taxicab, have to take off their religious garments and pretend to be a normal person because otherwise the 

taxi is not going to pick them up. They know their people hate 

them. They know the clock is ticking. That is why they are shipping out all these billions of dollars. 

There is Dubai again. If you want to see just how insecure that 

regime is just ask our friends in Dubai how much money has come 

in in the last couple years. They know they are coming down. In 

many ways I think some of them are surprised they are still there. 

It is the same sort of thing. They know they are illegitimate. 

They know their people have contempt for them, and that at the 

end of the day is what brought down the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union was catalyzed by a great Western leader, by many great 

86

Western leaders, who spoke to them and said do not be afraid. 

Bring it down. 

We have not said that to the Iranians. If you were listening to 

Secretary Burns and Joseph this morning you will notice that they 

get right up to it, and they say well, you know, we want the Iranian people to be free. Why do you not just say we want regime 

change in Iran? 

Why are they so afraid to say it? Why is it that for all these 

years, all these years people have been afraid to come to grips with 

Iran, which has been all along the central issue in the Middle East. 

You cannot get at any of the so-called important questions in the 

Middle East today without going through Iran. 

You cannot solve the Israeli Arab question without going through 

Iran because Iran runs the terrorists. You cannot deal with the security of Iraq. We can never win a defensive war in Iraq as long 

as the mullahs are in power in Tehran. They cannot let it. They 

cannot permit that. They have to go all out to drive us out. 

Anyway, I do not want to have the multi-day discussion. This is 

not the right format, but I thank you for your terrific question, and 

I hope that helps. 

Mr. HULSMAN. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Berman. I am writing a book with Anatol Lieven about your one question, and Random House will be delighted that you picked it up. I will send you 

a copy, but I will get into this on democracy. 

I am dubious of all silver bullets. I am dubious of all forms of 

utopianism. This is what this is to believe this. Russeau ended up 

in an insane asylum for a reason. I am dubious of the French Revolution which led to Robespierre and the Russian one. 

One size does not fit all. Finding one mode of force of history, 

which surely democracy is, does not mean you solved all the other 

problems that go with it, and Iran is a great example. 

Let me try to go into this. I was listening too to Ambassador 

Burns and kept wondering if maybe he was going to mention that 

Iranian polling is totally imprecise. You can find a poll of what you 

want. You know, let us be honest about that, but they do like their 

nuclear program. 

There is no doubt that in all semi-official polls around 60 to 65 

percent of the people favor a nuclear program. Does that mean nuclear weapons? It is not clear, but they surely believe around 80 

percent of those polled say they were opposed to halting nuclear activities even if the West or the international community did so, and 

they still hate the regime. 

Mr. BERMAN. But is Iran with a new regime India? 

Mr. HULSMAN. They see that, and the comment made by Mr. 

Milhollin is right to the extent that the Iranians I meet in Europe 

when I have been doing this Track II thing say we will be India. 

You will come around. We will have a bad decade, but we will get 

there in the end. We are a major country. We are a 4,000-year-old 

civilization. 

I have a Classics degree, and people say Themosticles, John, the 

Athenians. That was us. We will be here, and you will change your 

mind. I think that is a very important point. 

Your democratic point, the primary issue is Persian Nationalism. 

They are a great power. They are surrounded by American satraVerDate Mar 21 2002 12:49 Aug 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\030806\26438.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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pies from their point of view. They are surrounded, and I thought 

Ambassador Burns did a very good job in 3 hours of testimony, but 

there was one thing he said that was I think patently wrong. Iraq 

and Afghanistan, if you are a Persian National, are a problem. 

You are surrounded by American satrapies. America has made 

you the dominant power in the Gulf. That was not our intention. 

Undoubtedly Iran is the dominant power in the Gulf. The Saudis, 

there are not enough of them. They have their own problems internally. We know the problems with Iraq. 

Indeed, who is running Iraq? Jafari, who probably will be the 

new prime minister, though he is wobbling? Why did he win the 

Shi’a vote block by one vote? Who put him over the top? The followers of Muqtada Sadr. That is not victory. That is not a democratic outcome I am happy with in any kind of way. 

To assume that this is simple, this is easy, one more push and 

we are there, given what just has happened when Chalabi went 

around town fooling everyone when he was last in Iraq when the 

Dodgers played baseball in Brooklyn. I think we have to be a little 

bit more cunning about this. It is 4,000 years old, and Iranians say, 

if upstarts like North Korea and Pakistan can have a bomb, why 

can we not as a significant civilization? 

They know that they are part of the axis of evil. They know that 

we talk that way about them. They know they are on the list, and 

they are surrounded by American satrapies. You do not have to be 

a mullah to rationally say, ‘‘Gee, if I have a nuclear weapon like 

Russia you can lecture us and we can do what we want. On the 

other hand, if you are Saddam, if you are Milosevic, you go to The 

Hague.’’ That is the lesson of the 1990s. That is a nondemocratic 

answer to what goes on. 

I am not saying democracy promotion does not matter, but it 

takes longer. It is more complicated than what goes on, and we 

need to have a tiny bit of humility. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you. That was an extraordinary question and 

extraordinary answers. 

Mr. Delahunt? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. It was an extraordinary answer, and I have to 

say to Dr. Hulsman I thought it was brilliant and I agree with him. 

Maybe that is why I think it is brilliant because there is no silver 

bullet. You expressed in your statement the concerns that I have. 

Have any of you been to Iran or Tehran? Just you, Dr. Samii? 

Mr. SAMII. I lived there for a year when I was a little boy. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. The three of you have been there in the last decade? 

You know, when I travel and go to a nation, one that particularly 

has strained relations with the United States, what I hear here 

and what I see there are just so disparate. It is really good to kick 

the bricks occasionally. 

Dr. Ledeen, I have great respect for you. I am aware of your reputation. I wish it was that easy. 

I just think that, Dr. Hulsman, you are correct. I have grave concerns. 

Dr. Samii, I really appreciate your testimony. I mean, I was unaware that there is at least some dissent in Iran within the official 

88

organs of that state that there is some unhappiness, if you will, 

with this President. 

I thought what was interesting, and you might have heard what 

I said earlier on the CRS. You know, the Supreme Leader said it 

just kind of reeks, that they are getting concerned with this guy. 

They think he is a wacko out there running around the world, 

causing them problems. Clearly he has within Iran some support, 

and I presume his base is very strong and very disciplined. 

What I do not want to do here in this Congress is I do not want 

to unify them because of that Persian nationalism that you refer 

to. I would like to try to take advantage of the differences that in 

reality exist within Iran and see our Government design a policy 

that is not a parlor game. 

I do not think that the Secretary was just dismissing it. I am 

hoping that something is going on where there is considerable 

thought going through to a strategy that utilizes the kind of distinctions and the realities that you point out, Dr. Samii. 

The last thing we need is another Chalabi leading us down the 

road. You know, a colleague of mine on this side of the aisle said 

we ought to be grateful to the MEK. I mean, I am reading our own 

State Department review of this terrorist organization. It mixes 

Marxism and Islam. It conducted anti-Western attacks prior to the 

Islamic regime. They supported the takeover. 

I mean, there is nothing there that tells me it is anything more 

than a cult. I mean, we really have to be careful who we get into 

bed with. The reality is that there is a growing anti-American sentiment. We have all referred, and I think it was you, Mr. Milhollin, 

about India and Iran. It appears to the rest of the world that we 

are being hypocritical. 

We go into Iraq, and I voted against that because I think it was 

a significant mistake, but then we end up in bed with Islam 

Karimov from Uzbekistan and Turkmenbashi from Turkmenistan. 

You know, how do you reconcile all that in terms of how we generally want to bring the benefits of freedom and liberty and democracy to the rest of the world. 

We just send out these messages, and we wonder why the polling 

data not just in the Middle East, but Latin America and elsewhere, 

is disturbingly, profoundly disturbingly, bad when it comes to antiAmerican sentiment that impacts us whether we believe it or not. 

Anyone care to comment on my observations? 

Mr. LEDEEN. I would like to just say one thing about the notion 

that I am advocating a silver bullet. I must say that I am profoundly disturbed to hear so many people declare democratic revolution, which is the process by which this country came into existence, and the central instrument of American success in the world 

in the 20th century as some kind of lunatic strategy. 

That is in essence what you are saying, sir, and it is in essence 

what Dr. Hulsman is saying. It is suggesting that people who advocate it have oversimplified a complicated world and are suggesting 

a simple solution to complicated questions that cannot be resolved 

that way. 

That is just what you said, Dr. Hulsman. I think those were your 

words. 

89

I believe in human complexity as much as the next person. I also 

believe I am an historian, and there are certain moments where 

certain strategies work and moments where they do not work. I 

think we are still living through a moment of global democratic 

revolution where this strategy has been proven exceedingly effective on almost every continent in the world. 

It also bothers me morally that we seem very happy to advocate 

the support for democratic revolutions in countries from 

Kazakhstan to Georgia to the Ukraine to Lebanon to the Ivory 

Coast and yet not in Iran where somehow it seems singularly inappropriate and yet in all those countries Iran is the one where empirically you can show the greatest force for it, people ready for it. 

Furthermore, the various problems, real problems about the 

vents of democracy in countries that have never had it, have not 

experienced it, lack centuries of self-government, Iran is different. 

Iran has centuries of self-government. Iran has an exemplary constitution from the beginning of the 20th century. Iran does have experience in revolutionary change. 

It just seems to me I do not get it. I do not understand it, plus 

I really do not see what Ahmed Chalabi has to do with any of this. 

I mean, he is not Iranian. He is not involved. Maybe he played for 

the Brooklyn Dodgers. I do not know. I mean, nobody is holding up 

any person as the solution to this kind of thing. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No. I am not talking about him as a solution, although he has had ties with the Iranian regime. According to newspaper reports, there was a question about whether he was providing the Iranians with information that had the potential to impact American military in Iraq. I do not know whatever happened 

to that, but it was reported. 

Mr. LEDEEN. Well, it was false, so that is why you did not hear 

any more. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. 

Mr. LEACH. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Mr. Delahunt, I have a comment if you would 

like to hear it, but if not that is okay. 

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Milhollin, if you can do it in 1 minute. We have 

a problem. Another hearing was to begin 7 minutes ago here, so 

if we could go quickly that would be fine. 

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Yes. I just have one point to make and that is 

you asked about silver bullets, international support and that sort 

of thing. 

I think that we have to present to the rest of the world an image 

of a country that knows what it is doing and has a consistent, coherent overall strategy. We have not done that, and I do not think 

we are doing it now so that is why I think that we have to see the 

limits on Iran’s programs through export control. We have to deal 

with India as a detriment to that, and we have to be willing to suffer ourselves from losing sales. We have to ask other people to do 

that. 

There is no way to exert economic or political pressure on Iran 

without collateral damage to the population. We have to take that 

risk. We seem not to be able to make a decision on these things, 

and we present an image of a country that is confused and is stumbling around. 

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As I said before, I think the clock is ticking. The Iranians are 

closer probably than we think. There is a lot we do not know about 

their program and so I just hope that we become focused and effective in the time we have remaining. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Royce? 

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief, but this is just 

to answer one question. 

There is one major United States polling firm that has done an 

exhaustive poll inside Iran, plus or minus 3.6 on the margin of 

error. A plurality of adults, 42 percent, says that the Islamic Republic’s access to nuclear weapons would add to their anxiety. Only 

37 percent of adults indicated that it would not. The rest were unsure or would not respond. 

Anxiety over nuclear weapons in the hands of the Islamic Republic increases among younger adults going to 50 percent among 16- 

to 24-year-olds. It seems to me that if we could effectively communicate one message with public diplomacy it would be to sell the 

Iranian people on why developing a full nuclear cycle and nuclear 

weapons is a bad idea. It is expensive, takes away from education 

dollars. 

It is rejected by the world. It would set off a regional arms race. 

It is environmentally dangerous. Like South Africa is giving it up, 

it goes against the grain of history. There are themes here. 

Lastly, in the poll they asked, as you know, since September 11 

the international community has been very worried about the prospects of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Do you 

feel that worry is real? Sixty percent of Iranians say, ‘‘Yes, it is.’’

Those are some of the objective polling data that I just thought 

I would share, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that very much. 

Mr. Hyde, do you want to make any concluding comments? 

Chairman HYDE. I want to thank the panel for their endurance, 

their patience, but mostly for their scholarship. They have made a 

serious contribution to a terribly serious problem, and we are just 

beginning to plunge into it. 

I am very grateful for your assistance. Unfortunately for you, we 

shall meet again. Thank you. 

Mr. LEACH. I want to second Mr. Hyde’s concluding remarks and 

simply say as someone who is an advocate of the power of culture, 

I take quite seriously several of your comments about the need for 

certain clarity of a purpose as well, and I think they are compelling 

observations. 

Thank you all very much. This has been a very enlightening 

panel. Thank you. 

The hearing is adjourned. In several minutes we will convene a 

Subcommittee. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:13 p.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAN BURTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE

WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this important and timely hearing to 

highlight the ever growing danger posed by the Islamic extremist regime in Iran. 

The actions and policies of the Iranian regime, including its support for international terrorism, its efforts to undermine Middle East peace, and its nuclear ambitions, continue to pose a dangerous and immediate threat to the region as well 

as to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. Even 

as alarming, in a statement meant for delivery at the International Atomic Energy 

Agency’s (IAEA) meeting this week, Iran stated ‘‘. . . the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, 

let the ball roll.’’

As we already know, Tehran historically has been emboldened in its efforts to assert its political and military influence with the clear objective to destabilize the 

Persian Gulf and export Islamic extremism around the world. The mullahs have 

sought to do this before the democratic forces within Iran, inspired by the example 

of a free and democratic Iraq, move to liberate themselves from their dictatorship. 

So that the Iranian citizens can empower themselves in the pursuits of political liberty, freedom of speech, respect for human rights, and economic well-being, the U.S. 

State Department has invested more than $4 million in Iran. It is important that 

Iranian political dissidents, human rights activists, and reformers have a forum and 

network of support to promote their unalienable rights; along with international 

NGOs, our Department of State is working on developing that network—a network 

for the free exchange of ideas. 

With time running out, pressured by both internal and external factors, Iran’s regime has sharpened its confrontational posture towards its neighbors and the West. 

Iran is significantly involved in the funding of groups whose main goals are to undermine the Middle East peace process and ultimately threaten violent opposition 

to Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran has also sought to use covert action to undermine the emerging democracy in Iraq. Furthermore, besides funding the Palestinian 

Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, Iran has been linked to al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups dedicated to the disruption of democracy throughout the Middle East 

and elsewhere. 

Furthermore, as Chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, I closely 

monitored the recent visit of an Iranian delegation to our hemisphere. I am deeply 

concerned by the prospect of an alliance comprised of Venezuela, Cuba and a nuclear Iran. Together those countries have only one thing in common: their pure, unadulterated hatred of the United States and the freedom that we represent. An Iran 

armed with nuclear weapons cozying up to the enemies in our own backyard is indeed a frightening prospect; one which I think is unacceptable. 

Under normal circumstances, these aggressive actions by Iran would be disturbing, but in light of Iran’s accelerated development of its nuclear capability, in 

addition to the WMDs it already possesses, these developments should be viewed 

by the entire international community with extreme alarm. 

With seven percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and the second largest natural gas reserves on the planet, Iran has absolutely no need for civilian nuclear 

power. The only reason to pursue civilian nuclear power is to use it as a shield for 

an illicit nuclear weapons program. And, as the IAEA discovered, over the last 19 

years the Iranian regime has been pursuing just that. 

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The mullahs in Iran need to think very, very strongly about what they are doing. 

Besides developing weapons of mass destruction, Iran engages in torture, capital 

punishment for political and religious crimes, and myriad other systematic violations of the fundamental standards of human rights. The civilized world must not 

and will not allow a terrorist state like Iran to continue with their nuclear weapons 

programs, and we need to do whatever is necessary to stop them. In order to work 

out a successful negotiated solution, Iran has to live up to its international obligations and be in compliance with the NPT. We must send a clear message to Iran, 

and to all other potential proliferators and exporters of terror, that we will not tolerate this behavior, and we will not sit idly by as Iran threatens our Nation, our 

Allies, our interests, and global security. 

As we know, there is no easy way out of the Iranian nuclear dilemma. As we witnessed this past Friday, the EU-led diplomacy has failed once again to persuade 

Iran to forego its nuclear fuel cycle ambitions; I am hopeful that—within the coming 

days—the IAEA’s 35-nation board will come to a decision that addresses the Iran’s 

ambitions. Terrorist regimes cannot be appeased, so they must be confronted. Congress and the Administration must work together in a spirit of bipartisanship to 

bring Iran into compliance. It should be the firm policy of the United States, and 

the world, to restore freedom to the Iranian people. 

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you convening this hearing, and I look 

forward to hearing the thoughts and suggestions of our distinguished witnesses. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

I would like to start by expressing support for the Administration’s policy of providing assistance to human rights dissidents and pro-democracy advocates in Iran. 

However, merely providing assistance without also taking steps to weaken the regime will fail in achieving U.S. goals of democratic change in Iran. 

This means we must undertake the necessary steps to deny the regime the technological, political and economic resources to pursue its threatening policies. 

We have seen the consequences of inaction and the results of following a course 

that relies solely on diplomatic overtures. 

Recently, Jane’s Defense Weekly reports that Iran, with assistance from North 

Korea, has been pursuing a clandestine program costing hundreds of millions of dollars, to construct underground tunnels to conceal and protect elements of its nuclear 

program. 

Just in the last few months, Iran:

• resumed its nuclear efforts, removing the IAEA seals on uranium conversion 

plants;

• announced it could successfully use biotechnology for its nuclear program, 

thereby improving its capacity to build nuclear weapons;

• announced it would provide nuclear technology to other Islamic states;

• called for Israel to be wiped off the map; and

• its Defense Minister said that it is ‘‘Iran’s absolute right to have access to nuclear arms . . .’’

Just this week, in a speech to a meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, 

Iran’s former nuclear negotiator boasted:

‘‘When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site . . . In reality, by creating 

a same situation, we could finish Isfahan.’’

Yet, our policy does not clearly require Iran to permanently and verifiably dismantle and disarm its unconventional weapons program—not just its nuclear pursuits but its biological and chemical weapons efforts as well. 

I would like to turn to Iran’s state-sponsorship of terror. 

This is not a new reality. 

It is not limited to recent reports that Iranian-backed terrorists and Iranianbacked weapons are coming into Iraq to kill Americans. General Pace, Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed yesterday: ‘‘There have been some improvised explosive devices and some weapons that are traceable back to Iran.’’

Iranian attacks against Americans and U.S. interests began over 25 years ago 

when radicals stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, took Americans hostage and 

held them for 444 days. 

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Some of these brave Americans are in the audience today and I would like to have 

them stand to be recognized for their courage. 

Yet, to this day, Iran has not paid for this crime. 

Failure to do so only served to embolden the enemy to continue its destructive 

path. We are facing a similar situation with Iran’s nuclear pursuits. 

It is time to hold Iran accountable for policies that threaten U.S. national security, our interests and our allies. 

The legislation I introduced with the distinguished Ranking Member of the Committee, Tom Lantos, and which currently enjoys the support of 345 Members of the 

House, including over 3/4 of the Members of this Committee seeks to address all 

of the issues I have mentioned. 

I look forward to having it brought before the Committee next Thursday, March 

16th, for mark-up and ask for the Administration’s cooperation in this endeavor. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL MCCAUL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

There is no greater regional or global threat today that the Iranian Nuclear Program. Iran’s hard line government has openly defied the international community 

and moved ahead with its nuclear program. Nuclear non-proliferation is essential 

to the safety and security of the entire world, and it is especially important to keep 

nuclear weapons out of the hands of those people that are not afraid to use them. 

Since taking office last year, Iran’s president has denied that the holocaust ever 

happened, has sworn to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and promised to attack 

American citizens all over the world. Iran has continued to improve its ballistic missile program. They have now successfully tested a new generation of the Shihab 

missile capable of reaching half of Europe. We should not believe that because we 

are outside the range of Iranian missiles that an Iranian nuclear bomb is not a 

threat to U.S. soil. 

Since the fundamentalist Islamic takeover of Iran, their government has been 

supporting and building a vast worldwide terrorist network. They have funded the 

expansion of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who do not only operate in the Middle East, but also in South America, Central America, and there are even agents 

within the United States. 

In this day and age, when technology exists that can put a bomb in a suitcase; 

we must be ever more vigilant to protect ourselves from rogue regimes such as Iran. 

We will use every option available to us at the international level to ensure that 

the Iranian Mullahs do not complete a nuclear weapon. 

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RESPONSES FROM THE HONORABLE NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLIT- ICAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE

RECORD BY THE HONORABLE THOMAS G. TANCREDO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CON- GRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

Question: 

The Congress appropriated $75 million in the FY 2006 supplemental to help support pro-Democracy groups both within Iran and those in exile. It is my understanding that the administration is asking for an additional $10 million in FY 2007 

for the same purposes. 

It is obvious from your testimony before the committee today that given our appropriate lack of diplomatic representation, the United States has few assets in Iran that 

can accurately report on the activities of the regime. 

Therefore, given the fact that we have appropriated a fair amount of money in the 

support of Iranian exile groups, I am curious to know as to whether or not the administration is using these groups to our advantage? 

As you may know, I have been a vocal supporter of removing the Mujahedin-e 

Khalq from the State Department’s FTO list for the purposes of using the group to 

help destabilize the Iranian regime. Mr. Secretary, fact of the matter is, it does not 

matter to me which exile groups that we assist as long as they are working to help 

the Iranian people and they are friendly to American interests. So again, my question, are we using the various groups to our advantage and of those groups which 

ones would you consider to be viable alternatives to the current Iranian regime? 

Response: 

The U.S. government is prohibited by law from having dealings with any group 

designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is 

a designated FTO. Further, we do not view the MEK as a viable opposition movement: it is despised in Iran, and its cult-like organizational structure belies its claim 

to be a vehicle for democratic change. As the Secretary publicly stated in mid-February, there are opposition groups and individuals in Iran that are not associated 

with terrorism, and ‘‘we have an obligation to give voice to that opposition.’’ To that end, we plan to use the $10 million in funds that Congress has already appropriated—and $75 million additional from the supplemental, if approved—to 

empower Iranian democracy, civil society, and human rights activists. Our programs 

are intended to support and strengthen civil society, help Iranians acquire the skills 

of citizenry and advocacy, support alternative political centers of gravity, improve 

justice and accountability, further human rights, and increase tolerance and freedom of speech, assembly, and other basic rights for the Iranian people. These are 

conditions that we judge are necessary to support the growth of a democracy movement in Iran. 

Our projects focus on supporting influential democratic actors and groups, including labor, women, and students. The Middle East Partnership Initiative and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor are accepting concept papers for over 

$10 million in grants to accelerate the work of Iranian reformers and human rights 

and democracy activists. 

THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS WERE SUBMITTED BY THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS TO THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT. AS OF THE TIME OF PRINTING, NO RE- SPONSES HAD BEEN RECEIVED BY THE COMMITTEE

1. Coalition talks aimed at getting Iran to renounce its nuclear program have failed. 

Iran has openly begun uranium enrichment, despite international warnings that 

doing so would lead to Security Council action. The IAEA has declared Iran in 

breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory.

(Submitted by Representative McCaul to Ambassador Burns & Mr. Joseph) 

2. The process of moving this issue to the United Nations Security Council seems 

to be moving forward at a painfully slow pace. Why is this not moving faster? 

When do you think it will be too late? What actions can the Security Council 

take, and which action do you see as being most effective? 

(Submitted by Representative McCaul to Ambassador Burns & Mr. Joseph)

3. We are often told that the Iranian Public is not only more moderate than the 

government, but actually pro-America. Money has been appropriated to support 

democratic movements in Iran. Has this money been effective? How likely is it 

that the Iranian public will force an internal regime change? What could the 

global community do to encourage the democratic reform movement in Iran? 

(Submitted by Representative McCaul to Ambassador Burns & Mr. Joseph)

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4. What is the current status for the Iranian Nuclear Program? (If this information 

is classified and a briefing is possible Congressman McCaul would be interested 

in such a meeting.) 

(Submitted by Representative McCaul to Ambassador Burns & Mr. Joseph)

5. If UN sanctions fail, whether due to Russian or Chinese opposition, what other 

international groups have mechanisms through which we can impose sanctions? 

NATO? Joint US/EU sanctions? What position is India in to affect such sanctions? What would a coalition like the one Mr. Hulsman suggested in his testimony look like? 

(Submitted by Representative McCaul to Ambassador Burns & Mr. Joseph)

6. The State Department’s 2004 Human Rights Report for Iran described significant 

harassment of internet users. Are American companies directly or indirectly involved in any internet censorship activities in Iran, or in selling surveillance or 

blocking equipment to the government of Iran? 

(Submitted by Representative Smith of NJ to Ambassador Nick Burns)

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