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80–364PDF 2013

BREAKING THE IRAN, NORTH KOREA,

AND SYRIA NEXUS

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, 

NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 11, 2013

Serial No. 113–12

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Chairman 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

AMI BERA, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

TED POE, Texas, Chairman 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable R. James Woolsey, chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency) ...................... 7

Mr. Henry D. Sokolski, executive director, Nonproliferation Policy Education 

Center (former Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy, U.S. Department of 

Defense) ................................................................................................................ 22

Mr. David Albright, founder and president, Institute for Science and International Security .................................................................................................. 31

Ray Takeyh, Ph.D., senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on 

Foreign Relations ................................................................................................. 39

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable R. James Woolsey: Prepared statement ....................................... 9

Mr. Henry D. Sokolski: Prepared statement ......................................................... 24

Mr. David Albright: Prepared statement ............................................................... 33

Ray Takeyh, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................... 41

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 74

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 75

The Honorable Bradley S. Schneider, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Illinois: Prepared statement ........................................................... 77

Mr. Henry D. Sokolski: Material submitted for the record .................................. 79

(1)

BREAKING THE IRAN, NORTH KOREA, AND 

SYRIA NEXUS 

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2013

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, AND

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 

(chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa) presiding. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. The subcommittee will come to order. After 

recognizing myself, then Chairman Chabot, Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Deutch, Ranking Member Faleomavaega, and Ranking 

Member Sherman will each be recognized for 4 minutes for their 

opening statements. We will then hear from our distinguished 

panel of witnesses, and without objection the witnesses prepared 

statements will be made a part of the record, and members may 

have 5 days to insert statements and questions for the record subject to the length limitation and the rules. 

The Chair now recognizes herself for 4 minutes. As we assess the 

growing threats emanating from Iran, Syria, and North Korea, this 

timely hearing will examine the options available to confront these 

regimes. We know Assad has a chemical weapon stockpile and we 

know that it once had a nuclear reactor built with the assistance 

of North Korea until it was destroyed supposedly by an Israeli airstrike. The future of Assad may be uncertain, but what is assured 

is that we must not allow his chemical weapons to fall into the 

wrong hands. Syria’s future is of vital U.S. national security interest, but those interests are undermined when reports surface that 

Iran has been sending weapons and fighters to aid Assad in this 

battle. 

Iran’s Quds Force and Hezbollah operatives are working to ensure that Assad remains in power which iterates our need to take 

a strong position against the Iranian regime. The latest round of 

P5+1 negotiations failed to put a halt on Iran’s nuclear program as 

Iran announced several new nuclear related projects. It is almost 

as if we refuse to learn from our mistakes. 

In North Korea, Pyongyang has written the playbook on how to 

proceed with a nuclear program while still gaining concessions 

2

from the United States. In 2008, the Bush administration erred in 

taking North Korea off the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. This 

mistake must be corrected by relisting North Korea for its December 2012 launch of a long-range rocket followed up with 

Pyongyang’s third successful nuclear detonation this past February. Since then, Kim Jong-un has ramped up the rhetoric and 

threatened to pull out of the 1953 armistice agreement with South 

Korea, destroy U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam, and launch 

nuclear war against the United States and our ally South Korea. 

The U.S. must demand that Iran, Syria, and North Korea allow 

IAEA inspectors to immediately inspect and have access to all nuclear facilities and stockpiles to ensure their safety. If these three 

rogue regimes, this triangle of proliferation, are allowed to continue 

on their current paths, it will lead to a global nuclear arms race. 

To counter this threat I have introduced, along with my colleague 

Congressman Brad Sherman, H.R. 893, the Iran, North Korea, and 

Syria Nonproliferation Accountability Act. This bill expands on Iranian sanctions from last year and makes them applicable to North 

Korea and Syria while also enhancing them. Cutting off the economic lifeline to these regimes is imperative, but we must also 

counter their efforts to proliferate technology and scientific knowledge to advance their WMD ambitions. Our bill prohibits U.S. assistance to any foreign government that provides assistance to 

Iran, North Korea, and Syria, and will increase sanctions on any 

person or entity transferring goods, services or technology for the 

chemical, biological, or advanced conventional weapons program of 

Iran, North Korea, and Syria. 

History has proven that diplomatic negotiations with these regimes have been a waste of time. The administration must fully 

and vigorously enforce sanctions against this triangle of proliferation and have a coherent and coordinated strategy to counter these 

threats. Thank you. 

And with that I’m proud to yield to our ranking member, Congressman Ted Deutch. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thanks to our 

witnesses for joining us today. As Iran continues to grow further 

isolated from the international community, it should be no surprise 

that this regime has sought to pursue even closer relations with 

fellow rogue regimes, Syria and North Korea. The mutually beneficial Iran-North Korea relationship is driven largely by Iran’s desire for North Korean enrichment technology and North Korea’s 

need for Iranian missile expertise. 

But there remains a stark difference in the foreign policy agenda 

of these two regimes. North Korea’s leadership has seemingly accepted its international isolation and uses this lack of transparency 

to brutally control its own people. And Iran wants international 

recognition, participates in multilateral organizations, and seeks 

influence over its neighbors and any like-minded leaders it can find 

around the world. So while Iran’s relationship with North Korea 

appears to be pragmatic, Iran’s relationship with Syria is strategic. 

In keeping Iran’s regional aspirations in mind, it is clear that the 

regime’s chief foreign policy objective lies in saving the Assad regime or at least some version of a Shi’ite controlled territory. The 

removal of Assad would deal a devastating blow to the Iranian reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
3

gime’s ability to get heavy weaponry into Lebanon and into Gaza. 

It has been reported that through the end of 2012 Iran had given 

Assad $10 billion in support. In March 2011, a weapon shipment 

from Iran to Syria was intercepted in Turkey, and according to one 

report boxes on the plane contained rocket launchers, mortars, Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition. And that was only a few months 

after the fighting had begun. One can only imagine what else has 

made its way into Syria over the past 2 years. And we know that 

Iran has sent its elite Quds Force to train and advise Syrian forces. 

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander was killed 

near the Lebanon-Syria border in February. There are also reports 

that Iran is raising militias in Shi’ite strongholds in preparation for 

a Shi’ite enclave in post-Assad Syria. 

Iran’s brazen attempt to shape the Syrian conflict risks broader 

regional security and stability as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and 

other Sunni states are backing various factions waging war against 

the regime. Now Iraqi-Shi’ite militants have acknowledged that 

they too have joined the fight alongside Assad in Syria. These are 

the same militant groups that repeatedly waged war on American 

troops in Iraq. 

Last week we sent a letter to Prime Minister Maliki asking him 

to inspect Iranian planes suspected of carrying weapons through 

Iraqi airspace en route to Syria. Iraqi Government officials have 

said that they have no interest in arming either side, but this requires actively preventing weapons from flowing to Assad’s forces. 

Now Maliki’s op-ed in the Washington Post this week affirmed his 

desire to have a strong relationship with the United States. And 

as the U.S. showed our commitment to Iraq’s security last October 

by finalizing a deal to provide 18 more F–16s to Iraq, we also need 

cooperation from our partners to help bring an end to the Syrian 

conflict. So the question remains, how far is the Iranian regime 

willing to go to protect its ally and further its desire to raise Shi’ite 

militants through the Middle East? As Iran’s economy is suffering 

under devastating economic sanctions, how much longer can it continue to sustain Assad’s forces financially? 

As we examine these issues today, we must focus on the driving 

factors behind Iran’s relationships with these rogue regimes, and 

how U.S. policy toward these regimes can serve our national security and the security of our allies in the Middle East and Asia. 

Again I thank my friend, the chairwoman, and I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Deutch. And now 

I am pleased to recognize subcommittee chair Mr. Chabot of Ohio. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased in joining 

you and Chairman Poe and the others and our colleagues on the 

committee in holding this hearing to address a triple threat that 

is becoming more dangerous as each day passes. The individual 

threats that North Korea, Iran, and Syria pose to the United 

States and the rest of the international community could easily 

consume an entire day of discussion. But today we will look at the 

linkage of their illicit activities and ongoing cooperation with each 

other which has not received the amount of attention it deserves. 

Of late, the world has been witnessing an escalation of bellicose 

rhetoric and reckless actions from an inexperienced and imprudent 

third-generation Kim. It would be unwise to not take North Korea’s 

4

confrontational behavior seriously. While most believe that North 

Korea is unlikely to initiate a suicidal all-out war, it seems to again 

be playing the threat game to wring concessions from an uneasy 

international community. However, unlike his father and grandfather, young Kim does not seem to understand how far is too far. 

North Korea’s threats extend far beyond the Korean Peninsula 

and Asian continent. North Korea has positioned itself squarely 

within the circle of rogue regimes, a one-stop shop for missile and 

nuclear materials and technology. North Korea prides itself on providing whatever its very few friends need as it gets oil, cash, and 

weapons essential to maintaining the power of the Kim regime. It 

does this with the likes of Iran and Syria to circumvent international sanctions and United Nations Security Council resolutions. 

Other countries, among them Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, 

and Iraq have also been patrons of North Korea in black market 

weapons deals. It is no secret that the Syrian nuclear facility destroyed by Israel in 2007 was built with the assistance of North 

Korea and modeled after North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor. 

Even more threatening is the long and enduring relationship between North Korea and Iran that began in the 1980s with the sale 

of Scud missiles to supply Iran’s ballistic missile program. 

Over the course of the past few decades, the linkage has not received the attention it deserved, perhaps until now that is. Following the test of North Korea’s third nuclear bomb in February, 

it was suggested that Iran had in some manner sponsored the nuclear weapon. This followed a Scientific and Technology Accord that 

North Korea and Iran signed in September 2012, which is aimed 

at ‘‘strengthening bilateral ties, expanding cooperation and boosting the anti-hegemonic front.’’ The nuclear test also underlined another harsh reality—that North Korea’s weapons capabilities are 

more advanced than Iran’s. 

This highlights the tremendous failure of the Obama administration’s policy, or lack thereof, for dealing with North Korea today. 

U.S. policies toward Iran have not been any more successful, unfortunately. Despite numerous overtures from the U.S. Government to 

the mullahs in Iran, they are closer than ever to obtaining nuclear 

weapons. It is hardly a coincidence that while North Korea is creating such international anxiety, Iran entered into another round 

of talks with world leaders to supposedly limit its nuclear program 

that ends in a stalemate and it is followed by Iran’s announcement 

of two nuclear related projects that will expand its ability to extract and process uranium. In the face of economic sanctions 

against its own country, Iran seems to be flexing its muscles 

through North Korea. 

This is all occurring as the situation in Syria takes on another 

frightening turn into the throes of civil war. A war that Iran wants 

Syrian dictator Assad to win because his removal would be a divisive setback for its own strategic future. I will yield back the remainder of my time and I look forward to this hearing. Thank you 

for calling it, Madam Chair. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And 

now we will hear from Ranking Member Brad Sherman of California. 

5

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. Cooperation between Iran, Syria, and 

North Korea has long been a problem. In 2007, Israel destroyed a 

nuclear facility in Syria that had been built not only with help 

from North Korea, but help from Iran as well. Last month I joined 

the chairwoman in reintroducing the Iran, North Korea, and Syria 

Nonproliferation and Modernization Act. This was quite similar to 

the bill we had introduced 2 years previous that passed the House 

418–2, and like so many good bills, died in the Senate without action. Hopefully that will not be its fate this year. 

That bill contained provisions that would sanction countries that 

provide Iran, North Korea, or Syria with the technology to mine 

and mill uranium. It would also prohibit assistance to any foreign 

government that has provided assistance to Iran, North Korea, and 

Syria or has failed to prevent individuals or entities under its sovereignty from aiding those countries’ proliferation activities. Our 

bill would also sanction any entity that is selling conventional military goods or technologies to Iran, North Korea, or Syria by freezing property and denying access to the U.S. banking system. 

As to the talks in Kazakhstan, I think Mr. Chabot was right. 

Once again a round of talks followed by an acceleration of Iran’s 

nuclear program, now complemented by its renewed efforts at mining and milling and creating yellowcake. As to Syria, Hezbollah has 

been an active part of Assad’s fighting forces. Tehran has been 

sending commanders and fighters from both Hezbollah and the 

Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps to Syria as well as arms. Israel’s 

military intelligence chief has claimed that Iran and Hezbollah 

have built a 50,000-strong parallel force in Syria to help the Assad 

regime. The fall of the Assad regime would obviously be a blow not 

only to Iran, but also and especially to Hezbollah. Hopefully we will 

see the end of that regime, but we must note that Syria has massive stockpiles of chemical weapons including sarin and VX gas. 

Assad may use that against his own people, and that is of course 

a red line for the United States, or transfer those weapons to 

Hezbollah or Iran. 

One of the issues that is before the United States is whether to 

license the repair of old Boeing jets owned by Air Iran. Some argue 

that it is humanitarian to fix these supposedly civilian aircraft. 

First of all, the aircraft should be grounded until Iran grounds its 

nuclear program. But as to the humanitarian aspect, in May 2011 

the United Nations Report revealed that North Korea and Iran had 

been routinely sharing prohibited ballistic missile technology with 

the help of Air Iran flights into an unnamed third country spelled, 

C–H–I–N–A. Now we see Iran using supposedly civilian aircraft of 

Air Iran to airlift arms, weapons and murderers to Syria. So those 

who think that fixing these planes is the humanitarian thing to do 

should talk to the bereaved families of the victims of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps fighting in Syria. 

We are dealing with three evil countries or at least evil governments, but they are at very different stages. One seems to be on 

the ropes. A second seems to be dedicated only to its own survival. 

And that is why I focus mostly on Iran because it has the ambition 

to influence events around the world, and I think poses the greatest threat to the United States. I yield back. 

6

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Sherman. And 

now we will hear from subcommittee Chairman Poe of Texas. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. There may be a chart 

on the screen. I want to hold up the one I have. A little history 

about how nuclear weapons have proliferated in our lifetime. 

First, the Soviets helped the Chinese and later the Russians assist the North Koreans in nuclear proliferation. China also helps 

the North Koreans, and China helps Pakistan. Meanwhile, the 

North Koreans assist the Iranian nuclear program, and while they 

are doing that they assist the Pakistanis in a missile program in 

exchange for nuclear technology. The Pakistanis not only assist the 

North Koreans, but they help the Iranians as well. And then of 

course Iran assists Syria in chemical and biological weapons programs. They are all very busy bees helping each other out getting 

weapons they wish to probably use in the future. This is a serious 

threat to the world, this proliferation, and it is important that we 

recognize the truth for what it is. And Syria, if Assad doesn’t get 

chemical weapons and use them on his own population they could 

wind up in the hands of the terrorists like al-Qaeda’s Al Nusra 

Front, one of the most heavily armed and effective groups in Syria. 

In a hearing I chaired last month along with Ranking Member 

Sherman, we looked into the terror Iran is causing around the 

world through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its 

proxy Hezbollah. And we found that there is narcotrafficking in 

South America, there is support for Assad in Syria, rebels in 

Yemen, terrorist plots across Europe and Asia, and money laundering on almost every continent. It will only get worse should Iran 

think it has the cover of nuclear weapons to protect itself. 

Back when I was on the bench as a judge, I knew that it was 

important that we don’t reward people for bad behavior. There 

should be consequences. With both North Korea and Iran, the 

United States and the international community should make it 

harder not easier for them to continue their march toward nuclear 

weapons. I don’t believe we should give North Korea any more aid. 

They took our food aid in the past and still let their people go hungry while the regime enjoyed luxuries of life and expanded its 

weapons program. The danger is not just about Iran and North 

Korea getting nukes, but the sharing and selling of that technology 

with other bad actors including state and sub-state actors. 

We should increase our sanctions to go after illicit transactions, 

weapons smuggling, and nuclear technology transfers. We should 

not give up on demands that actually show the stopping of a nuclear program, such as giving up all enriched uranium and stopping all centrifuges. And I would ask unanimous consent to put 

this chart into the record. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Without objection. 

Mr. POE. And I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Thank you so much, Congressman Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that presentation. I am 

going to introduce our witnesses now, and I would like to first 

apologize. There are a lot of other committees going on at this time, 

and subcommittees, and some of them have markups. So you will 

see our members coming and going, and it is not indicative of their 

level of interest on this topic. And number two, unfortunately I 

7

have to leave early at 3:10 to catch a flight for a family matter, so 

you will excuse me as well. 

But the Chair is now pleased to welcome our witnesses for this 

afternoon. We will first hear from Ambassador James Woolsey who 

is the chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and 

a co-founder of the United States Energy Security Council. Prior to 

that Ambassador Woolsey has had a long and distinguished career 

in government service having previously held Presidential appointments in four administrations, most recently as Director of the CIA 

from ’93 to ’95. Ambassador Woolsey has previously served as the 

Annenberg Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and in 2010 was a senior fellow at Yale at the university’s 

Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Welcome, it is always a pleasure. 

Next, we will be hearing from Henry Sokolski, executive director 

of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a nonprofit organization founded to promote a better understanding of strategic 

weapons proliferation issues. He also currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics, and previously 

served as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Department of 

Defense for which he received a medal for outstanding public service from then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He has also authored and edited a number of books and publications on proliferation. Welcome, Henry. 

And third, David Albright is a physicist and a founder and president of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security. Mr. Albright has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world and has co-authored 

several books on the subject. His 2010 book, ‘‘Pedaling Peril: How 

the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies,’’ was listed by 

the Atlantic as one of the best foreign affairs books of 2010. 

And finally, our subcommittees welcome Dr. Ray Takeyh, senior 

fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations 

where he specializes in Iran, political reform in the Middle East, 

and Islamist movements and parties. He is currently an adjunct 

professor at Georgetown University and has previously taught at 

the National War College, Yale, and the University of California at 

Berkeley. Dr. Takeyh previously served as a senior advisor on Iran 

at the Department of State, and is the author of several books and 

articles in his area of specialty. 

I would like to kindly remind our witnesses that your testimony 

will be made a part of the record without objection, and to please 

limit your verbal testimony to no more than 5 minutes. And we will 

begin with you, Ambassador Woolsey. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE R. JAMES WOOLSEY, CHAIRMAN, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

(FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE 

AGENCY) 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I 

want to cut short the analysis of the problem. I think most of us 

understand the nature of these three regimes, and the fact of their 

interaction particularly with respect to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. North Korea helps develop Iranian and Syrian balVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
8

listic missiles. North Korea and Iran effectively have a joint missile 

program together. Iran financed the Syrian nuclear program including particularly the reactor that was destroyed by, probably, 

the Israeli Air Force. And the whole situation is one in which these 

three countries have a very stressing and negative effect on a full 

scope of world affairs, but it centers in many ways on their approach toward proliferating both ballistic missiles and nuclear 

weapons. 

We need to remember that in 1957 when the Soviets first 

launched a basketball-size satellite, the United States went to general quarters. Sputnik changed a lot about the United States. And 

one of the reasons was because if you can put something into orbit, 

you can get to the other side of the earth. And you may not get 

to the other side of the earth very accurately, but you can get 

there, and then you can work on the accuracy. So once a nuclear 

power has ballistic missiles of substantial range, particularly once 

it can orbit anything, we are not in the early stages of a problem, 

we are very, very far into the problem. 

I think it is important to focus on what we might be able to do 

in terms of policy. I would make three points. First, our primary 

and overall goal should be to break, literally destroy, this axis. Not 

destroy the countries, but destroy the interaction between these 

three states and their offshoots in the terrorist world—Hezbollah, 

Hamas, and others. To do that I think we need to do three things. 

First of all, we need to vigorously support non-Islamist opposition. 

I understand the problem about putting boots on the ground, but 

at the very least we can speak up with respect to the behavior of 

these states. President Reagan struck a huge blow for freedom 

when he told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. And we can, 

I think, enhance the ability internally of those in Iran and Syria 

and to some extent maybe even in North Korea to resist if the 

American Government will take a brave and solid stance. So far we 

have not done that. Although we told Mubarak to leave after 10 

days of demonstrations, we have well over 2 years now in Syria, 

with tens of thousands of deaths, barely done a thing. I think that 

air power use is, under this circumstance, reasonable particularly 

for a no-fly zone. But even without the use of force we could do a 

great deal more in terms of training, assistance, and helping the 

resistance. I do think it is absolutely vital that we be in Syria 

somewhere, somehow, on the ground and able to take custody of 

those chemical weapons immediately upon anything occurring 

which could put them at loose in the black market or Syria fracturing or anything else. 

Secondly, I think we need very strong financial sanctions. I 

would simply endorse the chairman’s bill and say that this is vital. 

There are more than 12 banks in Iran. We shouldn’t be dealing 

with just 12 banks. We should be conducting an all-out boycott of 

the country’s products and their commercial efforts. And that 

would require a good deal of change in our attitudes, but I think 

it is time now to start talking about things like near total embargoes, excluding only humanitarian aid and the rest. 

And then finally, we need an effective anti-ballistic missile program in the United States. We do not have one. We especially don’t 

have one that would deal with a so-called Scud in a bucket. That 

9

is, a Scud fired from a fishing boat. Scuds are all over the world 

including all of these three states. One of these states has nuclear 

weapons, another is about to get them, and I think that that will 

be a major test. We have to be able to deal with electromagnetic 

pulse, not just with accurate weapons. Thank you, Ms. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Woolsey follows:]


80364a-1.eps
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80364a-2.eps

Ambassador R. James Woolsey 

Ambassador R. James Woolsey 

Chairman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies 

Former Director of Central Intelligence 

April 11, 2013 

April 11,2013 

Chairmen Ros-Lehtinen, Chabot, and Poe and Ranking Members Deutch, 

Faleomavaega, and Sherman, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittees, 

thank you for inviting me to testify today about the Iran-Syria-North Korea trilateral 

relationship and the implications for US security policy, Thank you to all three 

subcommittee for your leadership on this important issue and for calling this joint 

hearing today, 

Thank you also to my co-panelists, Mr. Albright,Mr. Sokolski, and Dr. Takeyh, I am 

honored to be testifying alongside these three experts, and Ilook forward to our 

discussion, 

The purpose of my testimony is to analyze the relationship between Iran, Syria, and 

North Korea, with a particular emphasis on the Iran-Syria relationship and steps 

that the United States should take to support our national security, 

In January of this year, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior aide to Iran's Supreme Leader, 

warned that Iran viewed the toppling of Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad, as a "red 

line," "If the Syrian President Bashar aI-Assad is toppled," Velayati said, "the line of 

resistance in the face oflsrael will be broken,"l 

Velayati's comments illustrate the prism through which the Iranians view Syria and 

how concerned they are about losing their control over it, Since the 1979 Islamic 

revolution in Tehran, the Assad regime, first under Hafez then under his son, has 

been Iran's most strategic Arab ally, The two regimes' relationship has been 

extensive and has included strengthening the Lebanese Shia terrorist group 

Hezbollah; military and intelligence cooperation; collaboration with North Korea on 

developing WMD's weapons; and procurement from Russia and North Korea, China 

reportedly also remains a key procurement and transshipment point for Iran,2 The 

axis of nuclear proliferation among Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang was revealed 

clearly in 2009 when Iran's former Deputy Minister of Defense, Ali Reza Asghari, 

who defected in February 2007, disclosed that Iran financed Syria's nuclear 

weapons program, the centerpiece of which was a North Korean nuclear reactor in 

Syria,3 The reality is that Iran's "line of resistance" in the region - its power - is 

underpinned by North Korean arms and technology, 

Arming Hezbollah 

Syria has long been Iran's main portal to the Arab and Sunni worlds, and, most 

importantly, Tehran's forward base on the Mediterranean, Given Damascus's 

domination of its smaller neighbor, Lebanon, Iran has used Syria to develop 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

Hezbollah into the threat it constitutes today, Velayati's "line of resistance" is also 

referred to as the "resistance axis" -- a euphemism for the regional bloc led by Iran 

that includes, alongside Hezbollah, other terrorist groups such as Hamas and 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, This axis claims its mission is to "resist" the ambitions and 

incursions of Israel and the US, 

No one should forget the "resistance" bloc's long and bloody history of antiAmerican violence - from the bombings of our embassy and Marine barracks in 

Beirut in the early 1980s, to the seizure and murder of American hostages, to the 

systematic campaign to derail our efforts in Iraq by facilitating the violent activities 

of Sunni and Shiite extremists alike, not least those of Al Qaeda in Iraq, As we think 

how bestto deal with this Irania n, Syrian, Hezbollah axis, it bears recalling thatthe 

threat they pose to US interests is not some vague future possibility but a dangerous 

reality in the here and now, We have the evidence of hundreds, if not thousands, of 

Americans who have died as a direct result of their actions, 

Because Syria borders both Lebanon and Israel, it is the primary conduit of logistical 

support from Iran to Hezbollah, In 2006 Iran and Syria, announced that they had 

signed a joint military agreement to counter "common threats" from Israel and the 

US,4 One manifestation of this close cooperation was the installment of two IranianSyrian signals intelligence listening stations (SIGINT), funded by the Iranian 

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and reportedly active since 2006, on the Syrian 

side in the Golan Heights and in the al-Jazira region in northern Syria,S 

As the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel ended, it also became apparent 

that Iran and Syria had introduced strategic weapons into Hezbollah's arsenaL 

Amongthem: Iranian-made Fajr-5 and Zelzal-2Iong-range rockets and the C-802 

Iranian variant of an advanced Chinese anti-ship cruise missile, 

Following the war, Iran and Syria not only moved to restock Hezbollah's arsenal, but 

also to drastically bolster its capabilities, as well as those of Hamas in Gaza, Tehran 

and Damascus developed a sophisticated network in the region to transfer Iranian 

long-range rockets into both Lebanon and Gaza,6 Among the officials running this 

network were Revolutionary Guard commander, and a founder of Iran's ballistic 

missiles program, General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, Syrian General Muhammad 

Suleiman, and Hezbollah's military commander Imad Mughniyeh, All three have 

since been killed, 

Syria also transferred strategic weapons of its own to Hezbollah, In 2010, the Assad 

regime transferred Scud-D missiles? as well as a number of M-600 missiles (that 

have a 250Km range and carry a 500Kgwarhead) - a clone of the Iranian Fateh-ll0, 

Syria provided Hezbollah operatives with training on using the Scuds at a base near 

Damascus,s 

The Assad regime procured systems from Russia, which were to be partially or fully 

transferred to Hezbollah, Those included advanced Russian anti-air defense 

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systems- such as the Pantsir Sl-E and SA-17 BUK systems - as well as sophisticated 

anti-ship systems, like the Yakhont P-800,9 It was believed that Hezbollah was the 

end user for some of these systems, which were kept in the group's weapons depots 

on the Syrian side ofthe border.lo Prior to the 2006 war, Syria also transferred 

Russian-made Kornet anti-tank weapons to Hezbollah, which then used these 

weapons against IsraePl As the war in Syria has intensified, Hezbollah began 

moving some of these advanced systems out of Syria, In January, according to media 

reports,12 the Israeli Air Force struck a convoy inside Syria that was likely 

attempting to transfer SA-17 anti-aircraft systems to Hezbollah. 

Cutout Arms Purchases from Russia 

Such Syrian straw purchases, as well as other arms deals with Russia for the Syrian 

military itself, appear to have been bankrolled by Iran.13 As part ofthis deal, some of 

the weapons that Damascus procured were then passed on to Tehran. This is an old 

practice dating back to the Iraq-Iran war, when the Assad regime purchased 

weapons from the Soviet bloc on Iran's behalf and Iranian planes transferred them 

to Tehran. 

For instance, in 2007,jane's Defence Weekly reported that Syria agreed to send Iran 

at least 10 Pantsir air-defense systems that Damascus was buying from Russia. This 

deal was part of "the military and technological cooperation mechanism stipulated 

in a strategic accord signed by both countries in November 2005."14 Sources 

indicate that Syria may have received and installed the systems in August 2007, or 

one month before the Israeli attack on the Syrian nuclear facility at al-Kibar. 15 

Also in 2007, the Russian daily Kommersant revealed that Moscow's 

Rosoboronexport arms export company was to deliver five MiG-31E fighter jets and 

an unspecified number of MiG-29M/M2 fighter bombers to Syria. Iran paid for the 

purchase may have been the intended end-user.16 That particular deal seems never 

to have materialized. However it did reveal an important and dangerous aspect of 

the Iranian-Syrian partnership - one that extends well beyond cutout purchases of 

conventional weapons. 

Cooperation with North Korea on Ballistic Missiles and WMD's 

Aside from Russia, the principal strategic partner of the Iranian and Syrian regimes 

has been North Korea. 

North Korean assistance has been instrumental in developing both Iran and Syria's 

ballistic missile programs. Pyongyang's cooperation with Tehran is particularly 

close, so much so that the two countries have been described as maintaining "in 

effect a joint missile development program."17 Iranian teams have regularly 

attended North Korea's long-range missile tests, and Tehran has received North 

Korean technology. Iran's Shahab-3 missile (1,300-1,500Kms), for example, is based 

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on North Korea's N odong missile, the development program which was reportedly 

financed by Iran,18 

In 2010, there was a debate on whether Pyongyang had sold Tehran BM-25 missiles 

that could hit Western Europe, At the time, a senior US intelligence official said that 

while he was unaware of any sale of a complete BM-25, there was probably a 

transfer of kits, made up of missile components, "There has been a flow of 

knowledge and missile parts" from North Korea to Iran, he said,19 Iran's quest for a 

first strike capability and delivery systems for its nuclear weapons program 

suggests that cooperation with North Korea will only grow, 

Pyongyang and Iran have helped Syria develop its ballistic missile program, Syria 

relied on North Korean technology to upgrade its Scuds, In 2005, Syria tested ScudD missiles, but the test ended in failure, as the missile fell apart over Turkey, 

Another test in 2007 was successful, thanks to technological assistance from North 

Korea that further improved the Scud-D and extended its range, In the early 1990's, 

the North Koreans helped the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) 

construct missile complexes in Aleppo and Hama, The Aleppo facility was also used 

for fitting chemical warheads on Scud missiles, An explosion at the facility in july 

2007 shed further light on the Syrian-Iranian-North Korean triangle, 

The explosion took place as the Syrian regime was attempting to weaponize Scud-C 

missiles with chemical agents, According to a report in jane's Defence Weekly at the 

time, the explosion resulted in the death of "dozens" of Iranian engineers,2o The 

japanese daily Sankei Shimbun also claimed that three North Korean engineers were 

among the dead,21 

jane's described the weaponization effort as part of a joint program with Iran, 

According to the weekly, Iran helped Syria in "the planning, establishment and 

management" of five facilities designed for the "indigenous production of CW 

[chemical weapons 1 precursors," The presence of North Korean personnel at the site 

indicates that this was in fact a trilateral collaboration. 

That wasn't the most audacious aspect of this three-way partnership. A couple of 

months after the Aleppo explosion, Israel attacked a remote, secret nuclear facility 

in al-Kibar in eastern Syria. To the world's shock, it emerged that Pyongyang had 

helped the Syrians develop a reactor, intended for plutonium production, and 

modeled on its own Yongbyon reactor. Once again, the details that emerged 

following the strike on the facility revealed the deep cooperation between the three 

rogue regi meso 

As with the explosion at the Aleppo missile facility, japanese media reported that 

North Korean scientists - ten in this instance -- were among the dead in the strike 

on al-Kibar.22 Then, in 2009, reports emerged claiming that Iran financed Syria's 

nuclear project. The claims were based on information provided by a high-ranking 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

Iranian Revolutionary Guard official and former deputy defense minister, Ali Reza 

Asghari,23 

This close partnership with North Korea is being replicated in Iran's own nuclear 

program, Last September, Tehran and Pyongyang signed a "scientific cooperation" 

agreement, which appears effectively identical to the one the North Koreans signed 

with Syria in 2002, leading to the development of Syria's plutonium reactor,24 It 

should be noted that alongside its uranium enrichment, Iran also is operating a 

plutonium reactor in Arak. 25 

North Korean collaboration with Iran and Syria continued apace after the al-Kibar 

strike, By 2010, Pyongyang had resumed its supply of sensitive military technology 

to Syria, A report that year in the Japanese Nikkei newspaper claimed that North 

Korea was helping Syria build a production line in Horns for maraging steel "that can 

be used in missile skins, chemical warheads and gas centrifuges, a vital component 

in the uranium enrichment process,"26 The steel's "durability and malleability 

makes it ideal for creating thin missile skins capable of carrying heavier payloads," A 

couple of months prior to that report, Thailand intercepted a cargo plane carrying a 

large shipment of weapons and missile parts headed for IranY 

Some of the weapons on the plane were reportedly destined for Hezbollah and 

Hamas,28 Syria was again a critical node in this axis of proliferation in the region, 

underwritten by Iran, supplied by North Korea,29 

Qods Force and Hezbollah He/ping the Assad Regime 

It is hardly surprising then, that the Iranians have drawn a red line around the Assad 

regime and have gone "all in" to prevent its collapse, The Iranian effort has involved 

the dispatching of IRGC and Qods Force (QF) personnel to assist, advise, and train 

regime forces, This includes the organization of a large paramilitary force modeled 

on the Iranian Basij force, called The Popular Army, which was designated as an 

entity of the Syrian government by the US Treasury Department last December. 3D 

Iranian officials themselves have admitted to the presence of QF officers on the 

ground in Syria. In September, IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jaafari admitted at 

a Tehran press conference that his forces were deployed in Syria and Lebanon, as 

"advisers."31 Similarly, the deputy commander ofthe Qods Force, Ismail Gha'ani, had 

earlier admitted to Tehran's ISNA news agency that Iran was present in Syria in 

support of the regime. 32 

Indeed, a number of IRGC elements were abducted in Syria by the rebels and were 

ultimately released in exchange for Syrians detained by the Assad regime. In 

addition, Hezbollah fighters also have been deployed in Syria, especially in the 

border areas near the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. The bodies of Hezbollah fighters, 

including senior regional commander Ali Hussein Nassif, killed in action in Syria, 

have been returning to Lebanon on a regular basis. 

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The highest ranking Qods Force commander killed in Syria was Hassan Shateri, who 

was based in Lebanon under an alias, where he worked as the director of the Imam 

Khomeini Relief Committee. Shateri was a military engineer in charge of Hezbollah's 

military infrastructure in Lebanon.33 He was likely in Syria to oversee transfers of 

Hezbollah's strategic weapons, but was ambushed and killed by Syrian rebels in 

February on the road back to Beirut. 

Last but not least, the Assad regime has been dependent on Iranian arms supplies to 

continue to fight the uprising against it. Iran has reportedly stepped up its military 

support to the regime, according to Western diplomats and an intelligence report. 

The types of weapons being sent range from communications equipment to light 

arms and advanced strategic weapons, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 

and surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. The weapons are being sent using Iranian 

civilian aircraft flying through Iraqi airspace and also using Lebanon's airport. These 

flights reportedly occur on an almost weekly basis, and each carry about five tons of 

arms.34 

I applaud Representatives Ros-Lehtinen, Deutch, Cotton, DeSantis, Schneider, Weber 

and your colleagues for highlighting the overflight issue in a letter to Iraqi Prime 

Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The letter raised concerns that despite US urging Iraq to 

ground and inspect Iranian flights attempting to access Iraqi airspace, "after only a 

short period of compliance, these flights have resumed."35 

Iran's objective is clear: if it cannot help the Assad regime reassert control over all of 

Syria, it seeks at least to ensure its survival in an enclave territorially contiguous 

with Lebanon and with access to sea ports. Coupled with the insurance policy of 

chemical weapons, Iran's support would enable Assad to, as my colleague atthe 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Tony Badran said, "hang on as a 

warlord presiding over an Iranian and Russian protectorate on the 

Mediterranean."36 Such an enclave - or "Alawistan" - would prevent the total 

disruption of Iran's regional network. 

implications for us policy and Policy Recommendations 

The US objective in Syria is straightforward: to break this axis linking Iran and 

Hezbollah, Syria, and North Korea. By ensuring the downfall of the Assad regime and 

all its structures that have secured Iranian influence, the "axis of resistance" will be 

dealt a body blow, which is precisely what Iran fears. As former US Centcom 

commander General James Mattis put it in his testimony before the Senate Armed 

Services Committee in March of last year, the fall of the Assad regime would 

represent "the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 25 years." 

In addition, inasmuch as Syria sits at the heart ofiran's regional weapons smuggling 

network, its removal from the equation would disrupt Iranian and North Korean 

arms supplies to Iran's regional assets and help stem the transfer of strategic 

weapons to Hezbollah. 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

With the current US policy, Syria is on track to break up into various parts, which 

might well preserve an Iranian foothold on the coast in an Alawite enclave. Such an 

outcome would be detrimental to US and allied interests. 

Instead, the United States should take meaningful steps to undermine the IranSyria-North Korea nexus, to isolate these regimes from the global financial and 

economic markets, and to protect US national security interests at home and abroad. 

In particular, I would like to discuss three policy recommendations: 

First, the United States should take a leadership role in supporting the 

opposition in Syria and preparing the country for a post-Assad leadership. 

Legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to authorize 

humanitarian and non-lethal or restricted military aid to the opposition in Syria and 

to provide support for a post-Assad Syria. H.R. 1327, sponsored by Representatives 

Engel, Rogers of Michigan, and Sherman - thank you Ranking Member Sherman for 

your leadership on this issue - and S. 617 sponsored by Senators Casey and Rubio 

contain important provisions for aiding the downfall of the Assad regime, disrupting 

the Iran-Syria axis, and supporti ng US interests. 

These measures and others like those laid out by Senators McCain and Levin in their 

March 21 letter to the President37 should be seriously considered by the 

administration to ensure that the outcome in Syria advances US national security 

interests in this region. 

As my FDD colleague John Hannah said: "As difficult as the situation in Syria has 

become, doing nothing poses the greatest risks of all to the interests of the United 

States and its allies by surrendering the fate of this vital region to Assad's killing 

machine, Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah proxy, and the black flag of Al 

Qaeda."38 

Additionally, we need to be seriously preparing CIA and military teams to deploy 

and secure Syria's WMD arsenal at a moment's notice. In order to do this, the CIA 

needs to front-load deployment by putting a small, elite team of officers in country 

gathering intelligence. There is no indication that the CIA has teams in country. They 

should. CIA officers need to be near the sites where we believe the Assad regime has 

stored or may still be manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. 

Second, the United States should work with its allies in Europe to impose 

stronger financial sanctions against Syria and to go after the regime's overseas 

assets, using the financial sanctions against Iran as a model, 

Iran has provided significant financial support to Syria. The majority of Iran's aid to 

Syria likely occurs outside the formal financial systems via IRGC smuggling 

networks and cash in suitcases, however, targeting the formal banking system 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

continues to be important Less than six months after the uprising in Syria began, 

Iranian Supreme Leader Khameini was reportedly prepared to provide $5,8 billion 

in aid to Syria to bolster its economy.39 Despite economic difficulties of their own, 

Iran has spent upwards of$lO billion propping up the Assad regime including by 

paying the salaries of Syrian government troops and providing weapons and 

logistical support.40 

More recently, in January 2013, Syria and Iran agreed to a $1 billion import line of 

credit deal between the Export Development Bank ofIran and the Commercial Bank 

of Syria,41 both of which are under US sanction. While not directly supporting Syria's 

foreign reserves, the deal enables Syria to purchase goods on credit from Iran at a 

time when the regime is finding it increasingly difficult to purchase goods from 

other countries. In March, the governor of the Central Bank of Syria, Adib Mayaleh, 

told Syrian television that his institution received a $1 billion line of credit from Iran 

to support the Syrian Pound. 42 

Stronger measures should be taken by the United States and the European Union to 

squeeze the Assad regime's access to foreign reserves both to make it difficult for 

Assad to fund the extreme oppression and killing he has leveled on his population 

and to see if the threatto his regime's very existence is the factor that changes his 

calculus. 

These measures can be modeled after our sanctions against Iran. 

The United States should use financial sanctions like those included in the 

Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) to 

target foreign banks doing business with Syrian financial institutions. 

We should also work with our European allies to expel Syrian financial institutions 

from SWIFT, the Belgium-based network that provides secure financial-messaging 

services. In March 2012, following an EU Council decision, SWIFT discontinued 

services to Iranian financial institutions subject to EU sanctions 43 However, 

according to SWIFT's 2011 annual review, 22 Syrian banks and financial institutions 

continue to use the network.44 

We should work with Europe to create a unified and consistent policy regarding 

both the Iranian and Syrian financial sectors, banning financial institutions and 

regime persons from both nations from accessing SWIFT as well as Target2, the 

European Central Bank's proprietary electronic interbank payment system. 

So far, no other measures have succeeded in changing Iran's pursuit of illegal 

nuclear weapons or their domestic repression. Nor have measures taken to date 

against the Assad killing machine impacted his calculus. 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

Third, the United States should develop a comprehensive defense system to 

protect the US homeland and US allies from potential attacks by the IranSyria-North Korea nexus and their terrorist proxies, 

One issue that is often overlooked in the lran-N orth Korea threat analysis is of the 

possibility of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack from "Scuds-in-a-bucket," In 

such a scenario, agents or terrorists working on behalf of Iran and/or North Korea 

put a nuclear-tipped Scud missile in a vessel- perhaps one disguised as a freighter 

or fishing boat - sail close to the United States and launch the missile and detonate 

the warhead at high altitude, The result would be an electromagnetic pulse 

radiating down to the surface of the Earth at the speed of light, knocking out power 

grids and computers for months if not years, We know that Iran has experimented 

with mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea, 

Indeed, studies from as early as 2004 revealed that North Korea and Iran were 

seeking to develop these weapons, which can be unpredictable and difficult to 

deter. 45 Defending against this kind of threat requires a multilayered missile 

defense system that can detect and intercept an attacking ballistic missile while it is 

still ascending, The administration should work with our allies in Europe and the 

Middle East to deploy the necessary interceptors to create a robust and effective 

system, Hardening of the American electrical grid also is possible and relatively 

inexpensive. 

In conclusion, these and other measures can be part ofa clear and robust 

policy to disrupt the strategic relationships among Iran, Syria, and North 

Korea. 

The implications of these relationships are stark for US security interests, as well as 

for the security of such regional allies as Israel and the Gulf States. 

That Iran and North Korea have been able to maintain such a close relationship in 

the development of nuclear, WMD and ballistic missile programs, even extending it 

to Syria and Hezbollah, should give pause to anyone who thinks "containing" a 

nuclear Iran is a viable policy option. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to discussing these issues 

and am happy to answer your questions. 

1 "Assad's overthrow 'red line' for Iran: supreme leader's aide." Reuters. January 20, 

2 John Pomfret, "Chinese Firms Bypass Sanctions on Iran, U.S. Says," The Washington 

Post, October 18, 2010. 

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hJ;j;pJ1/.ml'1N.1"liJ5bing:tQllllost.cOJnb.vpdynl~Q1}JentLill:tjslli2JllQj 1 0 / 17 IAH20 1 0 lQ 

J]03J2311tml 

3 John Bolton, "Iran's Axis of Nuclear Evil," The Wall Street journal, March 21, 2009. 

http://online.wsi-com/article ISB123 '759986806901655.html 

4 "Iran, Syria sign defense agreement," AFP, June 16,2006. 

h:tt!).;LLV\l1,V\.'D!ill~tn-"lWHilll1hr1i..::.l§IJtzl1jJ.,1_:J2f13.Z12...QQ,lttIDl 

5 "Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile." A Report by the Federal 

Research Division, Library of Congress, December 2012. 

http;.LL'&'WW.fa.s.Qr~;LiJ:pbllQrlWLiJnlIllQisJQLj)i!.f 

6 Tony Badran, "Iran and Israel fight, Lebanon loses," NOW, February 15, 2013. 

h ltps: Ilno\N.mmedia.me lib len Icotnmentarya nn]vsis /iran-s nd-iscael-fi~h [-leba nOllloses 

7 "U.S. Strains to Stop Arms Flow," The New York Times, December 06, 2010. 

http://www.1.n11LlJCS.COlnL20JJlL12/07 fworl QL07wi ~Jg_aks-

"Pentagon concerned over Russia's plans to sell Yakhont missiles to Syria," RlA 

Novosti, September 21, 2010. bJ1i;!;,LLeJLJ.:l9_IL~orld 120lJ)()'!2.1L16066L398.htrrll 

10 Tony Badran, "Dangerous delusions," NOW, September 30, 2010. 

https:lhlOw,mmcdia.mellb/en/cornrnentarvanalysis /dan!;erous delusions 

11 Peter Spiegel and Laura King. "Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to 

Hezbollah," The Los Angeles Times, August 31,2006. 

http: Ihuticics.latimes.com IL006/Jug!31/world/fg-hezbollah3! 

12 "Officials to AP: Israel hit SA-17 missiles shipment," Ynetnews, January 30, 2013. 

hup: IIwww,ynelnews,conl/arUcles/O 7340 1.4339181 OO,h1ml 

13 For additional details about the military relationship between Rnssia, Iran, and 

Syria, see Steffany Trofino and Alexandr Nemets, "Russia: Tipping Middle East 

Balance," Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 22, No.2, Apr 2009. Available online: 

hltl2111mso.l.Q.iJ.yenvyorth.qIln.:Uni]jdocumcllts/Tir,plJlg::thc:h:J.liJD£~,-P_cji. See also 

Yiftah Shapir, "The Syrian Army Buildup," The Institute for National Security 

Studies, Strategic Assessment, August 2007, Vol. 10, No.2. Available online: 

http://\.\J\wl.inss.org.;] /pub lica tions,p htl'1 ca t-21&incat-&rcad-2 57 

14 "Iran set to obtain Pantsyr via Syria," jane's Defence News, May 22, 2007. 

lmp;LLwc b .iJITbJ.\Ce. 0 [gjy.'Lril).L2 0 QZlQ.:L8JlQ 2 84-lill:!1]2;LLiar&~.mDJ1Qfj~Elll,e In e",,;;jj 

(,iw/jdwOZQ52Z In.shtml 15 Steffany Trofino and Alexandr Nemets, "Russia: Tipping Middle East Balance," 

Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 22, No.2, Apr 2009. Available online: 

http://frnso.leavcnworth.armSJIlll,Ldocuments tl:m!2in~,thc- baJanc8,pcl f. 

16 "The Strange Story of MiG-31 Jets for Syria," Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 4lssue: 

120, June 20, 2007. 

http://wwli:4i.illnestown.()r~/sir~LZ1x ttnews%5Btt ncws%SD-32817 

17 "Iran to observe North Korea missile test," UPl, December 7, 2012. 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey April 11,2013 

IS/bid, 

19 John Pomfret and Walter Pincus, "Experts question North Korea-Iran missile link 

from WikiLeaks document release," The Washingtan Post, December 1, 2010, 

http://w\llw'washinotonpostcom iwpdyn/contel]Jjgrtide 12010/11/30 IAR20 10113006781.html 

20 Robin Hughes, "Explosion aborts CW project run by Iran and Syria," jane's Defence 

WeeklY, September 26,2007, 

http://www.ar15.com (archive ilopic.iltrn l?b=l &f=5&tcc620 L 74 

21 "N.Korea, Syria 'Discussed Chemical Missile Warheads'," Chosun Ilbo, November 

27,2007, 

http://cnl:lish,chosun,com Isite (data Ihtml dirI2007/11/77/20071l2761017,html 

22 "N orth Koreans May Have Died in Israel Attack on Syria, N HK Says," Bloomberg, 

27,2008, 

I~r=ji!piln 

23 Erich Follath and Holger Stark, "The Story of 'Operation Orchard': How Israel 

Destroyed Syria's Al Kibar Nuclear Reactor," Der Spiegel, November 02,2009, 

"Iranian defector tipped Syrian nuke plans," AP, March 19, 2009, 

http://www.ynelnews.comlartides/07340L-368932000.htm] 

24 "Iran-North Korea Pact Draws Concern," The Wall Street journal, March 08, 2013, 

25 "US, Israel concerned about Iran pilltonillm reactor," AP, March 21, 2013, 

26 "Report: N, Korea resumes military aid to Syria," Ynetnew5, February 02, 2010, 

http://vvww,ynetnews,com /articles /0 n40 \'-384:l393 OO,html 

27 "Thais Say North Korea Arms Were Iran-Bound," The New York Times, January 31, 

2010, htlilJ Iwww,nyti ro~s,coIl1J20Ji2LQ2/0 1 /world iasia/111pJa ne,htnll 

28 "Lieberman: Iran, and North Korea are new 'axis of evil'," AP, 12,2010, 

29 Tony Badran, "How Syria benefits from the axis of proliferation," NOW, February 

16,2010, 

Department Treasury, "Treasury Sanctions Al-Nusrah Front Leadership in 

Syria and Militias Supporting the Asad Regime," December 11, 2012, 

http: I (www,treasurY,\lov/prcss-center!press-relcases Il'agcs Iti;1797,<1spx 

31 "Top Iranian Official Acknowledges Syria Role," The Wall Street journal, 

September 16, 2012, 

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Ambassador R. James Woolsey 

32 "Tehran Sent Troops to Syria - Iranian Officer," RiA Novosti, May 29,2012, 

1:111p; I / en .ria n.rl!jm2lliU2 0 120.'122111.31.3 2 S59 .html 

33 Tony Badran, "Iran's Lebanon arm," NOW, February 28, 2013. 

https:llnow.mmcdia.me lib /cn/commcntalyanalysislirans-Icbanon -arm 

34 "Exclusive: Iran steps up weapons lifeline to Assad," Reuters, March 14, 2013. 

bJ1u;.U~'ww J:s:llliTS·C9JJUm.i.rltLZ.QULQ.3.LL4L1l.:2::5.!l!i'l:..CI:ig2.::lran:: 

WUSBRE92D05U20130314 

35 Letter addressed to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, March 28, 2013. Available 

online: bJ1p..JLt.Q_d deutl=.h.hoJl5.~clilQY lup I llil<kdfilwraq oYQL1]Ight.l"-WJ."P..df 

36 Tony Badran, "Alawistan," ForeignPolicy.com, July 27,2012. 

hltQ: Ilwww.forei .. npolicy.com/articies/2012/07t27/aial.vistan 

37 Letter addressed to US President Barack Obama, March 21, 2013. Available 

o nlin e: bJ.l;p;LLi;lLg,l!~.~~t'i.c.hufIjnz!;Q!lp.9.2~.&.g1.1.lL'l.;;lt:IDJ'1L_e3inSyrh"1..]2"'U 

April 11,2013 

38 Foundation for Defense of Democracies, "FDD Applauds Bipartisan Syria 

Legislation," Press Release, March 22, 2013.bttpJId.er~lldd~moCl"<!Q'.Qn;/mec!ighit/fdd-appbuds-bipartisan-syria-legislatioll ! 

39 "Tehran ready to give Syria $5.8 billion: "Reuters, July 15, 2011. 

40 Hugh Tomlinson, "Tehran split over billions spent by spy chief to prop up Assad 

regime," The Times (UK), October 1, 2012. 

http://Wwvi".theillnf2.co.uk/t.to/n ews IworldLm i ddleeastL;rrticl ECi.!.E.S.4JJ.l.'t,ec(l 

41 Michael Peel and Najmeh Bozorgmehr, "Iran gives Syria $1bn import credit line," 

The Financial Times, January 16, 2013. http://www.ft.comiintl/cms/s/O /c0266202-

600c-l1e2-b6S7 -00 144feab49a.htmi#axz7.2IHuAD1Xb 

42 "Central Bank to Use CDs, Iranian Credit Line to Support Currency," The Syria 

Report, March 25,2013. bttp:!/vvww~yria-re.1l0.Lt.G..QJn.Jru:ws/finance/central-h,mli;:: 

llse-cds-iranian-creciit-line-5upporl-currell.(;y. Massoud A. Derhally, "Syrian pound 

loses 166% against US dollar," ArabianBusiness.com, March 26, 2013. 

43 SWIFT, "SWIFT instructed to disconnect sanctioned Iranian banks following EU 

Council decision," Press Release, March 15,2012. 

of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from 

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Volume 1 Executive Report 2004", 

http://vvwvv.emueommission.org /docs tempe exec rpt.pdf· accessed March 26, 

2013 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies www.defenddemocracy.org 

-12-
22

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Thank you very much. Excellent 

testimony. Mr. Sokolski? 

STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY D. SOKOLSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NONPROLIFERATION POLICY EDUCATION CENTER 

(FORMER DEPUTY FOR NONPROLIFERATION POLICY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE) 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for inviting me 

here today to discuss some principles by which the U.S. should proceed against Syrian-North Korean-Iranian strategic weapons collaboration. I think the first and most important principle may be 

the most obvious but hasn’t really been focused on enough and that 

is, less is better. Although three doesn’t really sound like a large 

number, Iran, North Korea, and Syria, along with their key foreign 

supporters, present a set of diplomatic intelligence and military 

challenges that is exponentially greater than dealing with just one 

or two parties. 

I say this based on my own experience in the Pentagon dealing 

with the Condor Program versus dealing with a single program for 

missiles that had to do with South Africa. Believe me, the latter 

was a lot easier to deal with. Certainly the transition of just one 

of these states to moderate, self-government would have significant 

positive nonproliferation knock-on effects. And in specific, the challenges and uncertainties of trying to neutralize the remaining 

proliferators would fall dramatically. 

As for Syria, it is unclear what awaits us if Assad’s rule should 

come to an end. Some of his arsenal may fall into bad hands, however, I think these risks must be balanced against the near certainty that if Assad were to stay in power, he would restart his nuclear program, which brings me to the next important principle. It 

is critical that we avoid conceding per se rights to these or any 

other state engaged in dangerous nuclear and aerospace activities. 

For reasons of convenience, I believe our Government and most of 

our allies have gotten into the lazy habit of explaining the Nuclear 

Nonproliferation Treaty as a deal that demands and supplies three 

things equally—nonproliferation safeguards, nuclear disarmament, 

and the sharing of peaceful nuclear technology. 

This breezy ‘‘Three Pillars of the NPT’’ pitch, although popular, 

lacks historical or legal substance. It also defies common sense. 

While nuclear disarmament and the sharing of peaceful nuclear 

technology are mentioned in the NPT, they play only a secondary 

supporting role to the treaty’s primary aim that is and must be nuclear nonproliferation, not nuclear technology sharing or global disarmament. It would be helpful if Congress could get State to heel 

on this point. 

I note that the chairman in the past has held hearings on this, 

but it has been about a decade. It may be time to come back to this 

topic again. Some experts, after all, are still recommending that we 

concede Iran’s right to enrich uranium in exchange for merely limiting enrichment to levels of about 20 percent. Yet, what is most 

worrisome about Iran’s program is the increasing number of centrifuges and our inability to secure timely warning of possible military diversions from nuclear fuel making, not the amount of 20 

percent of enriched uranium it has on hand. Certainly, if WashVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
23

ington were to concede Tehran’s right to enrich, it would make preventing Iran from breaking out and acquiring nuclear arms far 

more difficult. It also would make resisting the nuclear fuel making 

demands of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and every other 

nation that might want it far more challenging. 

Similarly, while we should close ranks with South Korea against 

North Korea, it would be a mistake in our current nuclear cooperative negotiations to allow Seoul to make nuclear fuel from U.S. nuclear materials or to allow it to prepare or condition U.S.-origin 

spent fuel for this purpose. Such fuel making is not only unnecessary and uneconomical, it risks encouraging Japan to take the fateful step of massively increasing its stockpile of nuclear explosive 

plutonium by opening a very uneconomical reprocessing plant at 

Rokkasho. In fact, Parliamentarians in both states claim largescale reprocessing would serve a desirable nuclear weapons option 

purpose. Any move to actually produce more plutonium-based fuels 

in either South Korea or Japan, though, would inevitably prompt 

China to up its nuclear ante, and so dramatically increase the nuclear threats already facing us in this region. 

Finally, a word on putting North Korea back on the list of terrorist states. I think this would help assure Pyongyang’s financial 

dealings are sanctioned. The one thing Pyongyang needs most to 

keep its Communist party members faithful is hard currency. It is 

kind of like organized crime. By the way, this is something Beijing 

has never given Pyongyang. To secure this cash, Pyongyang used 

counterfeiting, drug trade, gambling establishments in Japan and 

illicit arm sales. 

But to hold and move its cash from these activities, North Korea 

also needs legitimate banks. By the way, this is a point that I 

raised in a piece I wrote a decade ago and it was acted on. In fact, 

it is why North Korea protested so loudly in 2005 when U.S. officials sanctioned Banco Delta Asia, even though the amount frozen—$24 million—was nominal. This action also got China’s attention. It was deathly afraid that its own banks would be targeted 

next. Actually, that is a pretty good thing that they would be 

afraid. Unfortunately, the U.S. dropped this sanctioning effort and 

removed North Korea from the list of terrorist states in 2007. To 

increase pressure on North Korea and China without harming innocents, I think it would be useful to revisit this decision as well 

as enforcing U.S. and existing allied nations’ laws against the illicit 

ways in which North Korea raises cash. By the way, this one 

doesn’t require getting a lot of countries to agree, and it only targets the Communist party faithful in North Korea, which is exactly 

where you want to place the pressure. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sokolski follows:]

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Blocking Syrian-Iranian-N. Korean Strategic Collaboration: 

What's Required? 

Testimony of 

Henry D. Sokolski 

Executive Director 

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center 

1601 N. Kent Street, Suite 802 

Arlington, VA 22209 

www.npolicy.org 

A Hearing before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, the Subcommittee on the Middle 

East and North Africa and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, 

"Breaking the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nexus, 

April 11, 2013 

Room 2172, 

Rayburn House Office Building 
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I would like to thank Chairman Chabot, Chairwomen Ros Lehtinen, and Chairmen Poe, along 

with ranking members Faleomavaega, Deutch, and Sherman for asking me to testify today on 

how best to address the proliferation of strategic weaponry capabilities to, from and between 

Syria, Iran and North Korea. I understand that it's extremely rare for three subcommittees hold 

joint hearings but, then, the focus of today's hearing is also extremely challenging and 

important. 

Traditionally, our government has dealt with strategic weapons proliferation threats one 

country at a time. The nexus of Syrian, North Korean, and Iranian strategic weapons 

cooperation, however, literally and figuratively runs circles around such an approach. It allows 

the testing of weapons-related systems in one country to benefit weapons development in 

another, technology acquisition by one country to benefit the other two, and the transit 

through and financing from one or more countries to benefit all of the others. 

None of this makes tracking or blocking the further spread of strategic weapons-related 

capabilities any easier for these three trouble states -- just the opposite. In fact, any serious 

effort to block such collaboration will require that our government to adopt four new antiproliferation policy premises or principle. These new principles are 

1, The transition of anyone of these states to moderate self-rule would have significant, 

positive nonproliferation knock-on effects with regard to the other two. 

2. Our recognition of these current hostile, autocratic governments' legitimacy and of 

their questionable per se "right" to engage in dangerous nuclear or aerospace-related 

pursuits will severely undermine any chance of blocking dangerous collaboration and 

will afford the nexus and other would-be proliferators a major cover for strategically 

dangerous pursuits. 

3. In reining this proliferation nexus in, one must avoid overplaying one's hand 

diplomatically or militarily in ways that might risk fueling even more proliferation 

elsewhere. 

4. Any serious effort to reduce proliferation from or between these three targeted states 

must also address their most prominent sources of military, technical, and political 

support - Russia and China. 

Adopting these new principles in our fight against strategic arms proliferation will require 

abandoning some existing policies and implementing new ones. Congress clearly has an 

oversight and legislative role that can speed up this process. 

Below, I review some of the ways Syria, Iran, and North Korea have collaborated in the 

development of strategic weapons capabilities and how their cooperation is likely to continue. 

Then, I specify the new principles our government should adopt if it is serious about 

neutralizing this new proliferation nexus. Finally, I detail how these principles might be applied 

by our government and allied governments against each of the three states. 

In What Strategic Ways Do These States Collaborate? 

One of the most disturbing forms of collaboration is nuclear. North Korea has secured 

European, Pakistani and (probably) Chinese assistance in its development of uranium 
26


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enrichment centrifuges that can make bomb-grade uranium. Iran, meanwhile, has secured 

European, Russian, Pakistani, and Chinese assistance in developing its centrifuges and uranium 

hexafluoride feed plant. Both of these countries could assist Syria in this regard, if they chose 

to do so. 

As for the development of large reactors capable of making significant amounts of plutonium, 

Iran has worked with Europeans, Russians, and others to complete, operate, and eventually fuel 

a large light water power reactor. North Korea, meanwhile, has worked with the US and South 

Korea to develop similar technology under the Agreed Framework. Pyongyang is now eager to 

complete construction and operate an experimental light water reactor of its own. 

Collaboration between Iran and North Korea on this technology clearly is a possibility. Some 

experts, including those testifying today, believe North Korea's experimental reactor could be 

used to make several bombs' worth of plutonium a year and Iran's to make nuclear weapons 

plutonium as well. 

Earlier, of course, Pyongyang received both Russian and Chinese assistance to complete its 

plutonium-producing, graphite-moderated reactor and reprocessing plant at Yongbyon. As is 

now well known, North Korea shared graphite reactor technology in the mid-2000s with Assad 

in Syria. There also is reason to believe that the Iranians may have helped finance this project 

and that China was a transit state for the transfer of much of this technology from North Korea 

to Syria. 

In addition, both Iran and North Korea are deeply interested in developing nuclear weapons 

designs. Both may have received Chinese nuclear weapons information through Pakistan. Iran 

may have benefited from Iraqi, Russian and possibly American weapons design information. 

North Korea, meanwhile, has benefited from what it may have learned from three separate 

nuclear weapons tests. The Iranians have long had a scientific team in residence in North 

Korea. What mayor may not have been transferred between these two states relating to 

weapons design is not publicly known. 

Although Iran initially sought North Korean help in the development of Iranian missile 

technology, Iran now has made significant advances such that it may have at least as much to 

offer North Korea as Pyongyang has to offer Tehran. Both countries have significant ICBMcapable space satellite launch programs. 

With regard to passive defenses, Iran has succeeded in securing the very best European 

tunneling technology to help it build deep structures to hide and protect some of its nuclear 

activities against attack. It also is perfecting Western ultra-high performance concrete 

technology. Both would be of interest to North Korea. 

Finally, with regard to deflecting international nuclear, missile, and political sanctions, all three 

regimes have reason to want to cooperate and learn from one another in a variety of ways. 

North Korea has learned how to negotiate with the US and other key powers, something Iran is 

dealing with now. Syria, meanwhile, must get around existing economic and military sanctions 

that are similar in several respects to those that have been imposed on Iran and North Korea. 

How this Nexus Tests Us and Our Current Policies 

Although three does not sound like a large number, Iran, North Korea, and Syria along with 

their foreign sources of military technical and financial support constitute an exponential 

increase of intelligence tracking challenges over dealing with just one or two proliferators. I 

know this from my personal experience in the Defense Department. One of the projects the 

U.S. was able to close the files on in the early 1990s was the long-range rocket space launcher 

2 
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program that South Africa was pursuing. Accomplishing this, even though the US did not 

formally recognize the Pretoria government, was relatively simple, inexpensive, and quick. 

By contrast, dealing with the Condor missile program, which involved Argentina, Egypt and Iraq, 

required the resources of our entire government and that of friendly parties in Germany, Saudi 

Arabia, France, Argentina, and Egypt. It was a massive, complicated, multiple-year undertaking 

that taxed our intelligence and diplomatic corps to the maximum. It is also worth noting that 

with the Condor project, only Iraq was clearly a hostile party and that the Condor was only a 

missile program. In the case of Syria, Iran, and North Korea, all three are hostile parties that are 

engaged in multiple projects of concern. This makes things much, much more difficult to track 

and neutralize. 

How much more difficult might it be? This and the brief survey of strategic collaboration I've 

given above suggests four minimal principles or policy premises our government and that of our 

allies would need to adopt to tackle this new strategic nexus. Their adoption is not a given. 

The first of these new premises is that the transition of anyone of these states to moderate 

self-rule would have significant, positive nonproliferation knock-on effects with regard to the 

other two. As I've noted the intelligence and diplomatic uncertainties of trying to neutralize 

the remaining proliferation problems would actually fall exponentially. Also, in Syria's case, 

there's an additional point. It is quite unclear what awaits us if Assad's rule should come to an 

end. There is a risk that some of his arsenal may fall into bad hands. However, these risks need 

to be balanced against the near certainty that if Assad were to stay in power, he would restart 

his nuclear weapons program with help from North Korea and, possibly, Iran. 

The second new policy principle is directly related to the first: Our recognition of these current 

hostile, autocratic governments' legitimacy and of their questionable per se "right" to engage 

in dangerous nuclear or aerospace-related pursuits will severely undermine any chance of 

blocking dangerous collaboration and will afford the nexus and other would-be proliferators a major cover for strategically dangerous pursuits. This principle would require major 

changes to how our and allied governments currently deal with these states and strategic 

weapons proliferation generally. 

It would be a mistake to cut off communications. Instead, our government should encourage 

talking with citizens and officials in hostile, closed states like Iran, Syria, and North Korea. 

Towards this end, I think more can and should be done; Congress should be curious and eager 

to find out what would make sense. 

That said, negotiating with these governments, which necessarily entails recognizing their 

legitimacy, is a very different matter. At the very least, one has to have a very clear idea of 

what one's objectives before entering into such negotiations. Otherwise, one risks supporting 

the legitimacy of a hostile state in exchange for little or nothing at all. 

This point is of some moment, since a very strong case can be made that the negotiations with 

North Korea and Iran are anything but clear with regard to their immediate and long-term 

objectives. Their goal is somehow to disarm North Korea and to prevent Iran from going 

nuclear. That's clear enough. But how we plan to these achieve these goals, and according to 

what time schedule is murky at best. Lacking such an itinerary, a very strong case can be made 

that our negotiators should stay home. 

This, then, brings us to the related problem of recognizing per se "rights" to engage in 

dangerous nuclear and aerospace activities under the guise of "peaceful" commercial activity. 

For reasons of convenience, our government and most of our allies have gotten into the lazy 

habit of explaining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as demanding three things 

3 
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equally in order to secure any nonproliferation: nonproliferation safeguards, nuclear 

disarmament and the sharing of peaceful nuclear technology. This breezy "Three Pillars of the 

NPT" pitch lacks historical, legal and logical backing. While nuclear disarmament and the 

sharing of peaceful nuclear technology are mentioned in the NPT, they playa supporting role to 

the treaty's primary aim, which is and must be nuclear nonproliferation, not nuclear sharing or 

technology transfers. 

It would be helpful if Congress could get State to heel on this point. I know the Chairman has 

held hearings in the past on these issues. Perhaps additional hearings are needed. Driving this 

point home, especially with regard to dangerous nuclear fuel making activities (which are not 

mentioned in the text of the NPT and demands for which were actually rejected during the 

treaty's negotiation) should not be regarded as some academic pursuit. In the March 31st 

edition of The Washington Post, Ray Takeyh, a keen analyst of Iranian affairs at The Council on 

Foreign Relations (but hardly a nonproliferation don), advised the governments negotiating 

with Iran not to concede to Tehran's demand that they recognize Iran's "right" to enrich. As he 

noted in his piece "The Best Red Line for A Nuclear Iran": 

Tehran knows that as it incrementally builds is nuclear apparatus, it risks the 

possibility of a military strike. To mitigate this danger, Iranian diplomats insist 

that the P5+1...recognize its right to enrich. The purpose of such an 

acknowledgement is to give Iran's nuclear apparatus legal cover ... Should the 

great powers formally acquiesce to Iran's right to enrich, the bar for a military 

strike would be set at a much higher leveL' 

Although, I am extremely skeptical of the benefits of the US or Israel making military strikes 

against Iran, I think Mr. Takeyh is making a very important point here: Conceding Iran has a per 

se right to enrich will make it more difficult for the great powers ever to limit Iran's ability to 

break out at any time to acquire the bombs we all fear. 

This then brings us to the third point, which is that in reining this proliferation nexus in, one 

must ovoid overploying one's hand diplomatically or militarily in ways thot might risk fueling 

even more proliferation elsewhere. Some experts are now recommending that we concede 

Iran's right to enrich in exchange for Iran merely limiting its enrichment levels to 20 percent or 

less. For reasons detailed by NPEC's Senior Researcher, Greg Jones, in his most recent 

analysis,2 such a deal, however, would be a bad one, as the real problem is the increasing 

number of Iranian centrifuges and the inability to secure timely warning of military diversions 

from fuel making activities, not as many insist, the amount of 20 percent enriched uranium Iran 

has on hand. In any case, if the US were to concede Iran's right to enrich, it would be all but 

diplomatically impossible not to approve such rights for Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and 

every other nation that might want it. 

1. Ray Takyeh, "The Best Red Line for A Nuclear Iran," The Washington Post, March 31, 2013, 

available at http://www.washingtonpost.com!opinions!the-best-red-line-for-a-nuclearIran!20W.Q~L31!ge9~Z.9£-jl33c.:-l1e_4.-ba5b-S50c7abf63842t9r.Y.JJ..trnl. 

2. See Greg Jones, "Iran's Rapid Expansion of its Enrichment Facilities Continues as the U.S. 

Concedes That Iran Is Getting 'Closer and Close' to Having Nuclear Weapons," (The 

Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, March 19, 2013), 

ava i I a bl eat .rJ.!!Q;il!JQQli£'LcQaU a rt icJ!,.,p.b.p..i'.2icJ.=l.fQ§~.s19-="1. 

4 
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Similarly, it is tempting to close ranks with South Korea in its hour of need as it faces an 

increasingly hostile North Korea. It would be a mistake, however, to grant Seoul the right to 

make nuclear fuel from U.S. nuclear materials or to grant it permission to prepare or condition 

spent fuel of U.S. origin for this purpose. It not only is technically unnecessary and 

uneconomical, it risks encouraging Japan to take a fateful step in massively increasing its 

stockpile of nuclear explosive plutonium by opening its uneconomical reprocessing plant at 

Rokkasho. 3 The reasons why are both cultural and competitive: Parliamentarians in both 

countries have already gone on record stating that reprocessing on a large scale would 

constitute a major nuclear weapons option hedge that they believe is desirable. Any move in 

this direction, however, would inevitably prompt China to up its nuclear ante, thereby 

increasing the nuclear threats the US and its Asian allies would all face. 

As for military actions, one can easily imagine US or allied actions against either North Korea or 

Iran taking place before the case against these nations' supposed "right" to make nuclear fuel 

was made persuasively. In this case, even if there were no downsides tactically to such military 

actions, they could backfire strategically in making the US and allied case appear to the world to 

be a case of might over right, which will cause more resistance rather than compliance. 

Fourth and finally, any serious effort to reduce proliferation from or between these three 

targeted states must also address their most prominent sources of military technical and 

political support - Russia and Chino. The policy repercussions of this basic point are spelled out 

below. 

Some Specific Operational Implications 

Applying these principles to each of the three states and their supporters produces more than a 

few things to do. 

In the case of North Korea, legislation that would place it back on the list of terrorist nations has 

already been proposed. It would be useful to pass if only because it would then make 

sanctioning Pyongyang financial dealings more likely and easier to accomplish. This is 

important since the one thing that Pyongyang needs to keep its Communist Party 

membersfaithful is hard currency - something China has never given it. How does North Korea 

secure this cash? The answer is illegal activities in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere -

counterfeiting, drug trade, gambling establishments in Japan, etc. 

It needs banks to hold and move the proceeds from these activities. That's why it was so loud 

in protesting the sanctions the US imposed on Banco Delta Asia in Macao in 2005, which 

handled its funds, even though the amount that was frozen -- $24 million-was hardly massive. 

Our sanctioning action in this case, also got China's attention, since it was deathly afraid that 

the US might sanction other banks that were much closer to China's financial center. The US 

dropped this sanctioning effort and removed North Korea from the list of terrorist nations in 

2007. Clearly, if we are interested in increasing pressure on North Korea and China without 

harming innocents, it would be useful to revisit this decision. 

3. See Henry Sokolski, "Pyongyang Is Not Our Only Nuclear Worry: Japan and South Korea are 

engaged in nuclear positioning," National Review Online, available at 

b.J:!2if:!Y'!!!.YYA13 t 10 Ilalt:"yiey,",-,-,om/ a r!lfl§.!5I'L4!Z'1.§LQ'L9J1ID''L~K~[,cQ!::Q'dI::QnlV:llU c I eflI::\l,fQ[r:Y: 

henry-sokolski. 

5 
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In addition to targeting North Korean hard currency activities, though, the US and its Asian 

allies should redouble their efforts to enforce their own laws against counterfeiting, drug trade, 

shady or illegal arms trades, gambling and other illicit activities North Korea might engage in in 

the region to secure hard currency. As I noted some time ago, the beauty of taking this 

approach is that it does not require North Korea's consent or the passage of new laws, only the 

enforcement of existing laws. It also hurts the North Korean Communist Party but not the 

average North Korean citizen. It's among the very smartest of sanctions. 4 

It also would make sense to increase the intensity of our spotlight on North Korea's human 

rights abuses and to China's willingness to work with Pyongyang in forcibly repatriating 

escapees found in China. The latter is done in clear violation of China's treaty obligations. I 

know that the House has held hearing on these issues before. More is better. Sanctions 

legislation against China is worth another look. A similar look should be made of Iran's human 

rights record. 

Finally, Congress should use its power of oversight to clarify the supposed "peaceful" character 

of the nuclear power and space launch activities it and Iran is engaged in. Where did these 

technologies come from, what their electrical and satellite benefits are, and how much cheaper 

they might be secured with alternative means should be examined. Here, one wonders why 

North Korea would not avail itself of Chinese space launch services and Iran of similar Russian 

services. 

As for power, how important are the nuclear programs Iran and North Korea have? How much 

economic sense do they make given the nonnuclear alternatives? Why are Iran and North 

Korea making such large research reactors, which can make plutonium in large quantities? 

Wouldn't much smaller, less plutonium-prone producing research reactors be adequate? What 

are the safety and nuclear weapons proliferation risks of these programs? Congress should 

constantly be bearing down on these issues, even at the risk of repetition. Also, on these topics 

one may want to work with Russian and Chinese experts, not to reach consensus conclusions, 

but learn more about Russian and Chinese thinking as they help others in these fields. 

Finally, a word on moral hazard. In our zeal to crack down on proliferation between Iran, North 

Korea, and Syria, we need to make clear that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water. 

In specific, it's important that any deals we might cut diplomatically do nothing to alienate our 

key Middle Eastern and East Asian allies in ways that might encourage them to go nuclear or 

ballistic. It also would be a mistake to engage in major military offensive operations under any 

circumstances unless we had made a clear and coherent case on the matter of nuclear rights. 

Also, we need to take care in the kind of technical and military support we extend to friends 

and allies located near Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Rather than approve or transfer dual use 

or military technologies that would enable them to "go it alone," we should be arming and 

assisting them in ways that integrate them economically, politically and militarily more closely 

with us. Anything else risks encouraging these nations to engage in offensive or defensive 

moves that could force us to have to come to their assistance at time and ways that could be at 

odds with anyone's best interests. 

6 

Its 

at 
31

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, sir. And the Chair 

would like to, before we recognize Mr. Albright, ask if my Florida 

colleague, Dr. Ted Yoho, would take over the chair. I would be 

greatly honored, and you can steal some of my best questions here 

from the great mind of Mr. Acevedo. Thank you so very much. And 

Mr. Albright, you will be recognized as soon as Dr. Yoho takes the 

chair. Thank you. 

Mr. YOHO [presiding]. Okay, what an honor. You were next, 

right, Mr. Albright? Go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ALBRIGHT, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to 

testify today. As it has been made clear, North Korea is capable of 

significant acts of nuclear proliferation. As was pointed out, Syria 

bought a reactor and assistance from North Korea, and North 

Korea also likely assisted in creating the capabilities and facilities 

to produce fuel for this reactor which in normal operation makes 

weapon-grade plutonium. Now given the ongoing internal conflicts, 

Syria is unlikely to be pursuing a secret nuclear program at this 

time. However, the Financial Times raised concerns about the security of upwards of 50 tons of highly purified natural uranium alleged to be in Syria that was designed for use in the Al Kibar reactor. Now, of course this material would need further enrichment 

before it could be used in a weapon, and it does not pose nearly 

the risks of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile. However, this uranium stock could end up in the hands of terrorists who may wish 

to sell it on the black market, and this material may also end up 

in undeclared programs of other states such as Iran. 

Unfortunately, North Korea and Iran could mutually benefit 

from collaboration on their respective nuclear programs, as I think 

other witnesses and members have pointed out. We have seen reports that North Korea provided Iran with nuclear weapons data, 

and North Korea also appears to have deployed centrifuges based 

on Pakistan’s P–2 centrifuge which is also the basis for Iran’s more 

modern IR–2m centrifuges. North Korea just announced that it 

plans to use its centrifuge facility for making enriched uranium for 

nuclear weapons, and North Korea knowledge could potentially 

help Iran to overcome significant technical challenges that have 

plagued its centrifuge program. Furthermore, if North Korea builds 

devices using weapon-grade uranium, this expertise could benefit 

Iran should Iran decide to build nuclear weapons. 

North Korea has extensive experience with miniaturization of 

nuclear weapons for its plutonium bomb, and this kind of information would be immensely useful to Iran. North Korea and Iran may 

also assist one another in obtaining nuclear and missile dual-use 

goods and materials for their sanctioned programs, and Syria may 

have earlier been involved in such illicit procurement efforts. Now 

of course Iran and North Korea also illicitly procure their own 

goods for their programs. They cannot manufacture many of these 

goods indigenously unless they are dependent on buying them from 

suppliers in high technology companies or via middle men in trading companies located in countries of trafficking concern. In their 

32

smuggling efforts, Iran and North Korea use Chinese private suppliers as direct sources for goods or as platforms to buy high-tech, 

high quality U.S., European, and Japanese goods. In the latter 

case, these goods are transshipped through China to Iran or North 

Korea. 

So what is the U.S. going to do? I would like to make just a few 

points, one of which is to talk about China. China remains a key 

illicit trading and transshipment point for these trafficking efforts 

because of its failure to adequately implement U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions and enforce its own trade controls. To encourage China to take action on Iran, President Obama should designate it a ‘‘Destination of Diversion Concern’’ under CISADA unless it commits to better enforcement within a given time period, 

and such a designation would require special licenses to export certain sensitive dual-use goods to China and could have significant 

and undesirable economic consequences for China. However, its cooperation on this would eliminate the imposition of these licensing 

requirements. 

Now CISADA on this issue was a very good idea and it needs to 

be broadened, and Congress should pass new legislation giving 

Congress the authority to apply this approach to North Korea and 

perhaps other countries. Others have talked about stopping the 

money flows that pay for nuclear and missile related goods, and 

this is a very important part of this effort. And I think it is time 

to start taking the steps toward designating North Korea a ‘‘jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern’’ under Section 311 of 

the Patriot Act. And while it may not be necessary to do it all at 

once, I think the process needs to be started and to create a basis 

for more intensive sanctions on North Korea. 

Also the threat posed by Syria’s nuclear missile proliferation is 

now rooted in its internal instability, and the United States therefore must seek solutions that prevent the leakage of nuclear assets 

within or out of Syria, and in the longer term root out and dismantle weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria. And as is 

being done, the facilities and sites need to be carefully monitored, 

and as other witnesses have talked about, the United States needs 

to be prepared to act quickly to recover or to seize any assets that 

are posing a risk. 

As we seek to engage in negotiations for long-term solutions with 

Iran and North Korea, and I do hope that at some point that we 

can have those, we must at this same point be pragmatic about the 

need to exert pressure and implement measures to detect and prevent the improvement of these countries’ nuclear and missile capabilities, and in the case of Iran, inhibit its growing ability to break 

out. I would note though that in these negotiations it is very important that the sanctions regimes that are being created should not 

be in any way relaxed absent significant concessions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Albright follows:]

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A DANGEROUS NEXUS: PREVENTING IRAN-SYRIA-NORTH KOREA 

NUCLEAR AND MISSILE PROLIFERATION 

Prepared testimony of David Albright, President, 

Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) 

before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North 

Africa and Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific 

April 11,2013 

Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Subcommittees on the 

proliferation challenges posed by Iran, Syria, and North Korea and the threats posed by their 

cooperation. I will briefly describe certain aspects of the Iran-Syria-North Korea proliferation 

nexus and then offer recommendations for the Administration and Congress to better address 

this important national security challenge. 

North Korea has proven itself capable of significant acts of proliferation. It sold Syria a nuclear 

reactor and possibly assisted it in creating the capabilities and facilities to produce fuel for this 

reactor which, in normal operation, would produce weapon-grade plutonium. 

Given ongoing internal conflict, Syria is unlikely to be pursuing a secret nuclear program at this 

time. However, the Financial Times raised concerns about the security of upwards of 50 tonnes 

of highly purified natural uranium alleged to be in Syria, formerly intended for use in fuel for 

the AI Kibar reactor.! This material, unless further enriched, is not suitable for nuclear weapons 

and does not pose nearly the risk of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. However, the uranium 

stock could end up in the hands of terrorists who may wish to sell it on the black market. This 

material may also end up in undeclared programs of other states. The Financial Times in 

particular raised the concern that Syria could provide Iran with this secret uranium stock. For 

several years, Iran has reportedly tried to obtain covertly quality uranium on the international 

market. Although Iran mines its own uranium, it could prefer a secret stock of purified natural 

uranium for a parallel uranium enrichment program. Fifty tonnes of natural uranium would be 

enough, if enriched to weapon-grade, for 3-5 nuclear weapons, depending on centrifuge 

efficiency and cascade operations. 

Unfortunately, North Korea and Iran could mutually benefit from collaboration on their 

respective nuclear programs. There are reports that North Korea provided Iran with nuclear 

weapons data. Additionally, North Korea revealed that it signed a bilateral scientific 

cooperation agreement with Iran in September 2012, which the Obama administration 

reportedly fears could facilitate nuclear a nd missile advances by both countries. 2 This 

1 James Blitz, IIFears Grow over Syria Uranium Stockpile," The Financial Times, January 8, 2013. 

2 Jay Solomon, "Iran-North Korea Pact Draws Concern/, The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2013. 

1 
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agreement contains the similar wording-including provisions for "exchange of expertise" and 

"joint use of scientific research equipment"-as the scientific agreement signed between North 

Korea and Syria in 2002. Soon after it made that agreement, North Korea began constructing 

the Syrian nuclear reactor. Despite the undeniable risks presented by Iranian and North Korean 

nuclear cooperation, preventing nuclear cooperation is extremely challenging. 

There are multiple areas where North Korean assistance could prove valuable to Iran. North 

Korea appears to have deployed centrifuges based on the Pakistani P-2 design, which is also the 

basis for Iran's recently installed IR-2m centrifuges. North Korea just announced that it plans to 

use its centrifuge facility to make weapon-grade uranium, something that would likely present 

technical challenges for Iran if it decided to pursue nuclear weapons. North Korean knowledge 

could potentially help Iran to overcome significant technical challenges. 

Furthermore, if North Korea continues to develop its uranium enrichment program and builds 

devices using weapon-grade uranium, this expertise could benefit Iran, should it decide to build 

nuclear weapons. Iranian scientists are rumored to be observers at every major North Korean 

nuclear or missile test and although North Korea has likely tested only plutonium weapons thus 

far, future tests could preference its uranium program. Even if North Korea never deploys and 

tests a uranium bomb, its experience with miniaturization and weapons components, including 

sensitive machining and implosion design, could be helpful to the Iranians. 

Though Iranian-North Korean cooperation on uranium enrichment is not well documented, 

there is significant evidence of North Korea assisting Iran with its missile program. Since the 

1980s, North Korea has helped Iran produce its own short, medium, and long-range ballistic 

missiles. But Iran has also informed North Korean efforts, purportedly helping it with its first 

successful long-range missile launch in December 2012. According to MIT North Korea expert 

John S. Park, North Korea's successful launch was "rooted in Iran's orbital launch of its Omid 

satellite atop the Safir satellite carrier in February 2009.,,3 In recent years, North Korea has 

assisted Syria in upgrading its missile capabilities in significant ways. Israeli intelligence 

assessed that North Korea helped Syria double its SCUD missile manufacturing capability 

between 2006 and 2008. 4 North Korea's willingness to cooperate with other nations on 

ballistic missiles certainly raises concern about deeper collaboration between Iran and North 

Korea on nuclear issues. 

Even in the absence of close Iranian-North Korean nuclear cooperation, their cooperation on 

missile delivery systems has the possibility of indirectly advancing the capability of these states' 

nuclear programs. My organization assesses, and other experts evaluate, that North Korea now 

has the capability to deploy a plutonium-based nuclear weapon atop its 800-mile, mediumrange Nodong ballistic missile and that it may soon deploy these nuclear-capable missiles.s The 

3 John S. Park, "The Iran Secret: Explaining North Korea's Rocket Success/' The Diplomat, December 25,2012. 

4 David C. Isby, "Syrian Ballistic Missile, Rocket Capability Gets a Boost," Jane's Missiles and Rockets, March l12008. 

5 Albright, IINorth Korean Miniaturization/ 38North.org, February 13, 2013; Jay Solomon, IINorth Korea Eclipses 

Iran as Nuclear-Arms Threat," The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2013. 

2 
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lessons available to Iran for accomplishing a similar feat with weapon-grade uranium are 

apparent, when it is remembered that the Shahab 3 missile was originally a Nodong missile 

supplied by North Korea. Further, accord ing to International Atomic Energy Agency (lAEA) 

information, by 2004 Iran is believed to have already made progress in developing a warhead 

small enough to fit on the Shahab 3 missile. 

North Korea and Iran may also assist one another in obtaining nuclear and missile dual-use 

goods and materials for their sanctioned programs, and Syria may have earlier been involved in 

these illicit procurement efforts. We know that a Chinese office of Namchongang Trading 

Corporation (NCG), a North Korean trading company subordinate to its General Bureau of 

Atomic Energy, was involved in purchases of sensitive material linked to the construction of the 

nuclear reactor in Syria. 6 North Korea helped outfit the nuclear and ballistic missile programs 

of Iran and Syria, and Iran in turn may help North Korea through illicit procurements of goods. 7 

Each also illicitly procures its own needed goods for the nuclear programs, often using Chinese 

suppliers or subsidiaries as direct sources for goods or as platforms to buy high-tech Western 

and Japanese goods. These Chinese entities then transship the procured materials to Iran or 

North Korea. One question is whether Iran and North Korea are cooperating in exploiting 

China's weak trade controls and poor implementation of United Nations Security Council 

sanctions. 

Preventing nuclear and missile cooperation between Iran, Syria, and North Korea is difficult 

particularly because their experts can easily travel to one another's countries to exchange 

information. Stopping the shipment of illicit goods between them is similarly challenging. How 

then can the United States and its allies address this proliferation nexus and reduce the chances 

that each will successfully help advance the other's programs? We must focus on what we can 

detect and prevent-the successful acquisition of goods needed to outfit and expand the 

nuclear programs of these countries-in addition to what we can do to pressure and enforce 

measures against these countries to better stop their proliferation efforts. 

Better detection of nuclear and missile cooperation between Iran, North Korea, and other 

countries offers opportunities to stop it. A promising way to detect this cooperation is by 

focusing on the illicit procurements of nuclear and missile direct-use and dual-use goods sought 

by these countries, both for their own programs and for one another's. Iran, Syria, and North 

Korea have depended on the illicit import of a variety of goods, including raw materials, 

equipment, technology, and components, to outfit their nuclear and missile programs. They 

cannot manufacture many of these goods indigenously and thus are dependent on buying them 

from suppliers in high technology countries or middlemen and trading companies located in 

countries of trafficking concern. 

6 U.S. Department of Treasury, United States Designates North Korean Entities and Individuals for Activities Related 

to North Korea's Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, TG-840, August 3D, 2010. 

7 Report to the Security Council from the Panel of Experts on North Korea established pursuant to resolution 1874 

(2009), undated, circulated in 2011, pp. 35-36. 
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China remains a key illicit trading and transshipment point for these trafficking efforts because 

of its failure to adequately implement UN Security Council sanctions resolutions and enforce its 

own trade controls. Better enforcement in China would significantly help prevent Iran and 

North Korea from buying from Chinese suppliers or using private Chinese companies to 

purchase high-technology goods from subsidiaries of U.S., European, or Japanese companies 

located in China. To encourage China to take action on Iran, President Obama should designate 

it a "Destination of Diversion Concern" under Subchapter III of the Comprehensive Iran 

Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2012 unless it commits to better 

enforcement within a given time period. Such a designation would require a special license to 

export certain sensitive dual-use U.S. goods to China and could have significant and undesirable 

economic consequences for China. Even the threat ofthis designation may be effective 

enough-the U.S. threat to designate the United Arab Emirates motivated it to create and 

implement trade controls in 2007. 

To broaden the reach of CISADA and target North Korea and Syria, Congress should pass new 

legislation giving Congress the authority to designate additional countries of diversion concern 

that do not prevent illicit nuclear and missile transshipments. Doing so would help reduce the 

likelihood that U.S. goods will end up in these programs, provide the Administration and 

Congress with additional robust tools to encourage cooperation from other countries, and 

thereby hamper Iran's, North Korea's, and other proliferant states' supply lines for their nuclear 

and missile programs. 

In order to better detect Iran's, Syria's, and North Korea's illicit procurements and attempts, 

and to stop them from potentially trading with each other, the United States should seek the 

worldwide implementation of cooperative detection and prevention programs between 

governments and industries that supply sensitive dual-use equipment. Under such 

government/industry cooperation programs, governments would inform companies about the 

latest schemes used by Iran's and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and illicit 

procurement networks in order to help firms avoid making accidental bad sales. Governments 

would receive information about procurement attempts from these companies, which is useful 

in informing intelligence assessments about their requirements, activities, and smuggling 

techniques, and potentially pointing to opportunities to conduct interdictions, sting operations, 

and arrests. 

Now only a few countries, including Britain, Germany, and the United States, actively use these 

cooperative programs in which the governments regularly share information and consult with 

domestic companies and their foreign subsidiaries about the illicit procurement schemes of 

sanctioned countries. Because of the success of the British, German, and U.S. systems in 

stopping illicit procurement by a range of countries, improving such efforts in more countries is 

a critical measure to preventing these threats. 

There is also room for improvement in U.S. government/industry cooperation. The United 

States, perhaps surprisingly given its focus on stopping nuclear smuggling, has found it difficult 

4 
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to fully implement such a system because of regulatory and classification issues over this type 

of information sharing with companies. My organization's research and outreach efforts have 

indicated that Congress should prioritize passing legislation to help the Administration and 

companies overcome the significant barriers to their full cooperation. 

Improved intelligence methods will also remain a critical way to detect and disrupt illicit trade 

attempts and a crucial backstop to prevent efforts by Iran, Syria, and North Korea to exchange 

nuclear information or assets. Keeping watch on suspicious travel, spying on or infiltrating 

suspect sites, and covert actions are also important methods. Infiltration of procurement 

networks leading to tracking or sabotage of goods so as to render them useless or able to cause 

damage to other parts of a system and cyber infiltration and surveillance through procured 

computer equipment and software are equally useful methods. The Administration should 

expand these. 

We must also keep the pressure on Iran, Syria, and North Korea until they abandon their 

respective nuclear weapons aspirations or programs. U.S. efforts to increase sanctions in 

addition to enforcement activities are instrumental in convincing these countries to change 

their decision-making calculus. 

As I mentioned, convincing lagging countries to better implement UN sanctions resolutions and 

trade controls to prevent nuclear and missile trafficking by Iran and North Korea is vitally 

important to reducing their access to needed goods. The United States should redouble efforts 

at the Security Council to pass a resolution improving the mandate of the Resolution 1540 

Committee to assist and pressure lagging countries on preventing nuclear and missile 

trafficking. 

Stopping the money flows that pay for nuclear and missile related goods is another part of this 

effort. Unilateral U.S. financial sanctions have proven very powerful in the case of Iran by 

reducing its access to the international financial system. Encouraging U.S. partners to emulate 

this practice in other major international financial hubs would be beneficial. Less has been 

done by the United States to target North Korea's proliferation financing or to reduce its 

international financial access. The Administration should take initial steps toward designating 

North Korea a "jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern" under Section 311 ofthe 

Patriot Act. Doing so would start allowing the United States to better stop North Korean 

transactions potentially related to proliferation financing and reduce its access to the 

international financial system. If North Korea does not take concrete steps to constrain or 

rollback its nuclear projects, the Administration should in the future enact this designation as a 

means of containing North Korea's illicit finance efforts. 

On the enforcement side, increased arrests and prosecutions of nuclear and missile smugglers 

would work to delay or interrupt procurement operations and actively shut down Iran's and 

North Korea's illicit procurement networks. The United States has spearheaded arrests and 

indictments against Iranian smugglers caught operating or passing through U.S. territory. It 
38


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should increase these efforts and encourage other countries to model them. Stronger 

sentences against smugglers tried by the United States would also better deter and disrupt the 

procurement operations of these countries. 

U.S. sting operations have proven effective at catching and stopping both major and minor 

Iranian smugglers and should be expanded more actively abroad with regard to North Korean 

smugglers, many of whom likely operate relatively comfortably within China's borders. The 

United States should convince partner countries to start using sting operations to prevent these 

countries from illicitly obtaining goods they require, eliminate more smugglers from the scene, 

and send a stronger message about the willingness of states to tolerate violations of their 

export laws. It is not unreasonable to expect that China and Hong Kong could initiate sting 

operations against Iranian and North Korean smugglers procuring for their nuclear and missile 

programs. 

With regard to Syria, sanctions and pressure, in addition to enforcement activities, apply, but 

the threat posed by Syria's nuclear and missile proliferation is now rooted in its internal 

instability. The United States must therefore consider solutions that consider the end of 

control over nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction assets by the Syrian regime and to 

prevent the unintended leakage of nuclear assets within or out of Syria. The U.S. government 

and its allies, in consultation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, should closely 

monitor events at suspect nuclear sites in Syria, and if feasible or wise, consult with Syrian 

rebels that may be operating near these locations to determine if proliferation-sensitive nuclear 

assets exist at any of these sites. If such assets do, they should organize access and spearhead 

the creation of an international effort to ensure that these assets are secured and possibly 

removed from Syria. As part of a post-conflict, longer-term goal, the United States should work 

with the Security Council to pass a resolution that creates the mechanisms and authorities to 

verifiably characterize, locate, and dismantle Syria's weapons of mass destruction programs to 

ensure the threat they pose is ended. 

As we seek to engage in negotiations for long term solutions with Iran and North Korea and to 

help end the bloody conflict in Syria, we must at the same time be pragmatic about the need to 

exert pressure and implement measures to detect and prevent the improvement of these 

countries' nuclear and missile capabilities and, in the case of Iran, inhibit its growing ability to 

break out. Existing and any future preventive and counterproliferation measures enacted by 

the United States should not be repealed just because negotiations resume or are ongoing, or 

because Iran or North Korea make minor concessions. These measures should be withdrawn or 

reduced in line with significant progress on achieving nonproliferation and denuclearization 

goals. The Administration and Congress will need to work together and implement the 

recommendations that offer potential to achieve essential U.S. goals. 
39

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Albright, I am going to ask you to hold off now, 

and I appreciate your comments——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Okay. 

Mr. YOHO [continuing]. So we can move on. But I want to come 

back to that because that is something that we definitely need to 

talk to. 

Dr. Takeyh, if you would go ahead I would like to hear what you 

have to say. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF RAY TAKEYH, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW FOR 

MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

Mr. TAKEYH. Thank you very much for inviting me, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege to be here with Ambassador Woolsey, and of 

course my old friends Henry and David. 

I think as we focus on Iran’s relationships, Syria and North 

Korea, it is important to stress that Tehran will always search for 

allies that share this animosity toward the United States. For 

Iran’s rulers, the United States is an imperialist power determined 

to exploit its resources. For Iran’s rulers, the Islamist themes are 

never far behind as the West is also seen as seeking to subjugate 

Muslims and impose its cultural template on the region. Hence, for 

Iran’s rulers, the West is central to their view of you that is often 

laced with conspiracies and enduring animosity. This is a clash of 

interests as well as a clash of ideals. 

I think looking back on it now, the 2009 Iranian Presidential 

election was a watershed moment. The Islamic Republic at that 

time had a stark choice. It could move to a more progressive future 

and become part of the community of nations or it could choose a 

path of defiance. The public chose a certain path, the leadership 

chose another. The gap between state and society today has never 

been wider. Today the rulers of Iran’s ideological preferences are 

not shared by a wide mass of the Iranian public. In a manner that 

I think is both destabilizing and dangerous, all of Iran’s international relationships are being defined and distorted by the nuclear issues. 

Iran is at odds with its Gulf neighbors because of its nuclear aspirations. For the first time in three decades of animosity and antagonism there is a real possibility of a military clash between Iran 

and Israel. Washington and Tehran obviously seem locked in a 

confrontational posture that they cannot escape given their disagreement on the nuclear issue. The European states have moved 

beyond their policy of critical dialogue which was always being critical of the United States while having a dialogue with Iran, and 

they have now embraced a policy of sanctions and disputes with 

Iran again centering on the nuclear issue. Even the Russian Federation seems to be moving away from Iran as its conflict with the 

international community deepens. China of course were mentioned 

by others. 

I would say one of the most enduring ideological aspect of Islamic 

Republic’s international relations has been its policy toward the Levant, the Arab East. The defining pillars of Iran’s approach toward 

the Arab East is obviously its hostility to the state of Israel and 

hostility to all diplomatic efforts to normalize relations between 

40

Jewish states and its neighbors. Iran’s strident ideological policy 

has of course been buttressed by strategic incentive, as its support 

for militant groups such as Hezbollah and militant states such as 

Syria gives an ability to project power in the Levant and inject its 

voice in deliberations that would otherwise be beyond its control. 

Along this path of course Iran has made common cause with the 

radical Syrian regime that shares its antipathy toward Israel. So 

long as Iran’s policy toward the Arab East remains immured in its 

conflict with Israel, Tehran is unlikely to edge toward pragmatism 

and moderation in its embrace of the Assad regime. 

The Syrian civil war has pretty much altered Iran’s approach to 

this region and to the state of Syria in a particular way. For a long 

time that particular relationship was more tactical. It was based on 

shared animosities as opposed to common interests, but now that 

has changed. The Syrian civil war has made Bashar Assad far 

more dependent on Iran. As the Assad dynasty veers closer to collapse, the Islamic Republic will do all it can to sustain its allyturned-client. The preservation of the Syrian regime is now Iran’s 

foremost strategic objective, a Syrian regime that is obviously excluded from the council of Arab states and isolated in the international community, but nevertheless it has become a centerpiece 

of Iran’s international affairs. Through dispatch of arms, assistance 

and advisors, Tehran has made a commitment to sustaining the 

Assad war machine. For the rulers of Iran, outside of Syria is a 

front-line of resistance toward the United States as well as forces 

of democratic change. 

In sum, today we face in Iran a determined and disciplined adversary. The Islamic Republic is committed to advancing its nuclear program and maintaining its allies. To address the threat 

posed by Iran we must appreciate that this is a multi-front struggle. The Western powers have to resist not just Iran’s surging nuclear ambitions but also its attempt to subvert moderate Arab 

states. In many ways, Syria has emerged a lynchpin of the new 

struggle for the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime 

could go far in undermining the forces of radicalism led by Iran, 

although I don’t think we should exaggerate the impact of that on 

the Iranian state’s own durability. It is important, however, to note 

that the tide of history is working against the Islamic Republic. A 

regime distrusted by its neighbors, disdained by its citizens poses 

a challenge that the robust Western effort can still and surely overcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Takeyh follows:]

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COUNCIL011J 

FOREIGN 

RELATIONS 

1777 F Stree~ NW, W • ..Jllngton, DC 20006 

tel202.509.8400 fax 202.509.8490 www.cfr.org 

Prepared statement by 

Ray Takeyh 

Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations 

Before the Subcommittee on Middle East and North Africa 

Committee on Foreign Affairs 

United States House of Representative 

113 th Congress, 1 ml Session 

April 11,2013 

The Sources of Iranian Conduct 

More than any other nation, Iran has always perceived itself as the natural hegemon of its 

neighborhood. Iranians across generations are infused with a unique sense of their history, the 

splendor of their civilization, and the power of their celebrated empires. A sense of superiority 

over one's neighbors, the benighted Arabs and the unsophisticated Turks, has defined the core of 

Persian cosmology. The Persian Empire has shrank over the centuries, and the embrace of 

Persian culture faded with the arrival of the more alluring Western mores, but a sense of selfperception and an exaggerated view of Iran have remained largely intact. By dint of its history 

and the power of its civilization, Iranians believe that their nation should establish its regional 

preeminence. 

Yet, Iran's nationalistic hubris is married to a sense of insecurity derived from persistent 

invasion by hostile forces. The humiliating conquests by the Mongol hordes and Arabs have left 

Iran profoundly suspicious of its neighbors' intentions and motives. Few nations have managed 

to sustain their cultural distinction and even absorb their conquerors as effectively as the 

Persians. In due course, Persian scholars, scribes and bureaucrats would dominate the courts of 

Arab empires and define their cultural landscape. Nonetheless, such unrelenting incursions with 

their prolonged periods of occupation have had a traumatic impact, leading Iranians to 

simultaneously feel superior and suspicious of their neighbors. 

However, to ascribe Iran's foreign policy strictly to its sense of nationalism and historical 

grievances is to ignore the doctrinal foundations of the theocratic regime. Ruhollah Khomeini, 

the founder of the state, bequeathed to his successors an ideology whose most salient division 

was between the oppressors and the oppressed. Such a view stemmed from the Shiite political 

traditions as a minority sect struggling under Sunni Arab rulers who were often repressive and 

harsh. Thus, the notion of tyranny and suffering has a powerful symbolic aspect as well as 

practical importance. Iran was not merely a nation seeking independence and autonomy within 
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Takeyh-2 

the existing international system. The Islamic revolution was a struggle between good and evil, a 

battle waged moral redemption and general emancipation from the cultural and political tentacles 

of the profane and iniquitous West. Khomeini's ideology and Iran's nationalist aspirations 

proved reinforcing, creating a revolutionary, populist approach to regional realities. 

The Islamic Republic's internationalist vision has to have an antagonist, a foil to define itself 

against. A caricatured concept of the West has become the central pillar of the clerical rulers 

Islamist imagination. The Western powers are rapacious imperialists determined to exploit Iran's 

wealth for their self-aggrandizement. The Islamic themes are never far behind, as the West is 

also seeking to subjugate Muslims and impose its cultural template in the name of modernity. In 

a sense, for Iran's rulers the Shah was a mere tool of a larger Western conspiracy to plunder and 

abuse the Muslim world. One of the principal purposes of the Islamic Revolution was to expose 

the manner in which the West sustained its exploitive presence through local proxies. Disunity 

among Muslims, the failure of clerical class to assume the mantle of opposition, and the young 

people's attraction to alien ideologies are all somehow byproducts ofa Western plot to sustain its 

dominance over Islam's realm. 

Back to the future: Revival of the Revolution 

The 2005 Iranian presidential election constitutes a watershed event in history ofTran. The 

elders of the revolution now receded from the scene, and a new international orientation 

gradually surfaced. The 1990s are often seen as a decade when clerical reformers were seeking to 

reconcile democracy with religion, while the younger generation was moving away from a 

political culture that celebrated martyrdom and spiritual devotion. However, beneath the surface 

of innovation and reform there evolved a war generation-pious young men who had served on 

the front lines of Iran-Iraq war. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is emblematic of this new 

generation ofleaders. A combustible mixture of Islamist ideology, strident nationalism and a 

deep suspicion of the West composed the global perspective of the younger conservatives-the 

New Right. As uncompromising nationalists, they are unusually sensitive to Iran's prerogatives 

and sovereign rights. As committed Islamists, they continue to see the Middle East as a battle 

ground between forces of seculari sm and Islamic authenticity. As suspicious rulers, they perceive 

Western conspiracies where none in fact exist. 

The rise of the New Right in Iran coincided with important changes in the Middle East. As the 

Iraq and Afghan wars drain America's confidence and power, and as Islamist parties in Lebanon 

and Palestinian territories claim the mantle of leadership, Iran has emerged as an important 

regional player. The Arab Awakenings that have led to surge ofTslamist parties will not produce 

clients for Iran, but perhaps interlocutors with a greater sympathy than say Hosni Mubarak. 

Tehran's determination to sustain its nuclear program, its quest to emerge as a powerbroker in 

Syria, and its holding aloft the banner of resistance against Israel are all means of asserting its 

regional influence The old balance between ideology and pragmatism is yielding to one defined 

by power politics and religious fervor. In the early twenty-first century, Iran finally has a 

government that looks more to Khomeini for guidance then before 

Although many of Iran's younger generation of conservatives may have been in their 

twenties when Khomeini passed, his shadow looms large over their deliberations. They often 

romanticize the 1980s as a pristine decade of ideological solidarity and national cohesion. They 

see it as an era when the entire nation was united behind the cause of the Islamic Republic and 

was determined to assert its independence in face of Western hostility. Khomeini and his 
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Takeyh-3 

disciples were dedicated public servants free of corruption and crass competition for power, traits 

that would characterize their successors. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency were the cherished 

values of a nation that sought to mold a new Middle East. Back to the future in essence is their 

common refrain. 

Tn 2009 election, Tran had a stark choice. It could have opted for a return to reformist 

policies whereby it would seek to become part of the community of nations by conceding to the 

mandates of the international community or embark on its path of self-assertion and defiance. 

The public chose a certain path, and the governing elite another. The gap between state and 

society has never been wider. Today's the ruling elite's ideological preferences are not shared by 

a wide mass of Iranian public. 

In a manner that is destabilizing and dangerous, all of Iran's relationships are being 

defined and distorted by the nuclear issue. Iran is at odds with its Gulf neighbors not so much 

because of its nuclear aspirations. For the first time in three-decades of animosity and 

antagonism, there is a real possibility of a military clash between Iran and Israel. Washington 

and Tehran seemed locked in a confrontational posture that they cannot escape given their 

disagreements on the nuclear issue. The European states have moved from their policies of 

constructive dialogue to one of sanctions and hostility due to the nuclear dispute. Even, the 

Russian Federation seems to be moving away from Iran as its conflict with the international 

community deepens. The next several years will answer the question of how this conflict can be 

sort out: one side backing down or a clash that would unsettle the volatile politics of the region 

In end, it is too facile to suggest that Iran has gone the way of a typical revolutionary 

state, namely, relinquishing its ideological patrimony for more mundane considerations. 

Khomeini was too much of an innovator in terms of institutions he created and the elite that he 

molded to see the passing of his vision. On a range of issues from its antagonism to the United 

States and Israel, Iran has sustained its animus long after such hostilities proved self-defeating. 

The theocratic regime would remain a state divided against itself, struggling to define coherent 

objectives; with revolutionary pretensions pitted against national interests. The Islamic Republic 

would alter its course, limit its horizons, and make unsavory compromises but would not 

completely temper its raging fires. Tn the end, Khomeini may not have been able to impose the 

totality of his vision on Iran, much less the Islamic world, but neither would he become another 

faded revolutionary commemorated on occasion and disregarded most of the time. 

Tn many ways, China's experience encapsulates the paradigm of the life cycle ofa nonWestern revolutionary state. Initially, the new regime rejects the existing state system and norms 

of international behavior, especially respect for sovereignty. Foreign policy decision-making 

dominated by ideological considerations, even if there are concessions made to pragmatic 

concerns. But, over time, a clear trajectory is observed. As the next generation ofleaders comes 

to power, the ideology is modified and later abandoned outright in favor of becoming a "normal" 

country, usually to promote the economic development and modernization of the country. 

This continues to puzzle Western policymakers-why Iran has not yet become a postrevolutionary country. What makes this case more peculiar is that by the late 1990s, Iran did 

appear to be following the footsteps of states like China and Vietnam, at least in terms of its 

foreign policy. Yet this evolution was deliberately halted and then more fundamentally reversed 

by the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Paradoxically today, it is the younger 
44


80364d-4.eps

Takeyh-4 

generation of Iranian leaders who have rejected the more pragmatic, non-revolutionary approach 

of their elders-such as Rafsanjani and Khatami-in favor of reclaiming the legacy of Khomeini 

in foreign affairs; a commitment, rooted in austere Islamist vision, to overturning the regional 

order and to find ways to challenge the existing international system. 

Tn the end, the Tslamic Republic has managed to maintain its revolutionary identity in 

face of counter-veiling pressures, elite defection, and mass disaffection. The institutional 

juggernaut of the revolution, an elite molded in Khomeini's image or mere domestic politics that 

press factions in a manner that ill-serves a country's interests are all valid. However, Iran's 

foreign policy has also played a crucial role in sustaining its domestic ideological identity. A 

narrow segment of conservative clerical elite, in command of key institutions of the state, have 

sought to fashion a foreign policy that would maintain the ideological character of the regime. As 

such, preoccupation with external determinants-changing balance of power in the region, the 

rise and fall of superpowers-misses a key ingredient about how the Islamic Republic thinks of 

itself and its role in the Middle East. 

Iran and the Levant 

One of the more enduring ideological aspects of the Tslamic Republic's international relations 

has been its policy toward the Arab East. The defining pillar ofIran's approach to this region has 

been its intense opposition to the state ofTsrael and the diplomatic efforts to normalize relations 

between the Jewish state and its neighbors. Iran's strident ideological policy has been buttressed 

by strategic incentives, as its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah gives it a power to 

influence the direction of politics in the Levant and inject its voice in deliberations that would 

otherwise be beyond its controL Along this path, Tran has long made common cause with the 

radical Syrian regime that shares its antipathy to Israel. So long as Iran's policy toward the Arab 

East remains immured in its conflict with Israel, Tehran is unlikely to edge toward pragmatism 

and moderation in its embrace of the Assad regime. 

On the surface, the high-prolife visits and the wide variety of compacts and accords can only 

give the impression that Iran and Syria are intimate allies sharing the same vision and embracing 

the same priorities. However, prior to outbreak ofthe popular revolt in Syria, the ties between 

the two states were at best an alliance of convenience based on shared fears and apprehensions. 

For the past three decades, Tran's persistent animosity toward Tsrael has coincided with Syria's 

quest to exert pressure on Israel as a means of recovering land lost during the 1967 war. While 

Tran's policy was driven by Tslamist determinations, Syria's was propelled forward by cold, 

strategic calculations. Tehran may view Hezbollah as a vanguard Islamist force struggling 

against the "Zionist entity," but always harbored a degree of unease about Damascus' resolution 

All this has now altered. The Syrian civil war has made Bashar Assad far more dependent on 

Iran. As the Assad dynasty veers ever closer to collapse, the Islamic Republic will do all it can to 

sustain its ally-turned-client. The preservation of a Syrian regime, isolated from the councils of 

Arab states, has emerged as a critical aspect ofIran's international relations. Through dispatch of 

arms, assistance and advisors, Tehran has made a commitment to sustaining the Assad warmachine. For the rulers of the Islamic Republic, Assad's Syria is the front-line of resistance 

toward the United States as well as forces of democratic change 

In sum, today we face in Iran a determined and disciplined adversary The Islamic Republic is 

committed to advancing its nuclear program and maintaining its radical allies. To address the 
45


80364d-5.eps

Takeyh-5 

threat posed by Iran, we must appreciate that this is a multi-front struggle. The Western powers 

have to resist not just Iran's surging nuclear ambitions but also its attempt to subvert moderate 

Arab states. In many ways, Syria has emerged as the Iynchpin of the new struggle for the Arab 

world. The collapse of the Assad regime can go far to undermine the forces of radicalism led by 

the clerical rulers in Tehran. It is important to note that the tide of hi story is working against the 

Islamic Republic. A regime distrusted by its neighbors and disdained by its citizens, is a 

challenge that a robust Western effort can surely overcome. 
46

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, sir, and I appreciate your testimony there. 

Mr. TAKEYH. Thank you. 

Mr. YOHO. What I would like to do now is ask you some questions here for a few minutes, and then we will pass this on to the 

ranking member Congressman Sherman. This is something that I 

have been following for the last 30, 35 years, the proliferation in 

the Middle East. And I always go back to the Founding Fathers, 

what George Washington said, that ‘‘honest trade and commerce 

with all nations, true friendship with all nations, entanglement 

with none.’’ And I see a policy that has not worked real well over 

the past 35 years. 

And I want to ask you, the panel, how close do you see that Iran 

is to a nuclear weapon? I have talked with Ambassador Bolton. He 

said 3 to 6 months. I have heard other people say it is years away. 

Do you guys have a feel for where we are at? The other question 

I would like to ask you is how many nuclear weapons, with your 

best estimate, do you feel are available in North Korea, Pakistan, 

the possibility of Iran? Ambassador Woolsey, if you would start 

please? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. As far as how close is concerned, I think I will 

yield to Henry on that type of question as I have for years. But my 

own judgment is that Iran probably could assemble something that 

passed as a nuclear weapon and have an explosion up in the northern desert and some radioactivity and a mushroom cloud within a 

matter of a very few months. How soon it would be before it was 

really something that you could put on a front end of a missile and 

have it perform adequately, I don’t know. Considerably longer, I 

would think. 

One thing we really need to worry about is that since Iran has 

orbited a satellite, we have a situation where they may be able to 

launch and have something that goes into orbit or partial orbit. 

The Soviets had an old fractional orbital bombardment system, 

they called it, which started out heading south around the Pole to 

catch from us a direction where we weren’t looking. It is fairly simple, you don’t need a reentry shield if you are going to detonate in 

an orbit, you don’t need a lot of things. Why would they want to 

do that? Once they have a nuclear weapon, a detonation up at a 

low earth orbit area—20, 30, 40 miles—could have an absolutely, 

even with a very primitive weapon, could have an absolutely huge 

effect on our electric grid. 

Mr. YOHO. Sure. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. The pulse, the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear 

weapon, rivals that of the so-called Carrington Events that occur 

about once a century: An extremely strong sun pulse that affects 

electronics and can affect them decisively. So I think we need to 

keep our eye on more than just a simple nuclear weapon. And the 

combination of the ballistic missile program, the launch vehicle 

program, and the Iranians’ hard work on nuclear weapons, says to 

me that we should get busy shielding our electric grid. 

Mr. YOHO. Well, my concern is if they have that capability then 

they can go into the dirty bomb category and that is a whole different category that we don’t want. I appreciate your input there. 

Mr. Sokolski? 

47

Mr. SOKOLSKI. When this question comes up I am reminded of 

a meeting I once had with Dr. Deutch, from MIT when he was running the CIA, and he talked to me and my former boss and said, 

we have that much intelligence, but we have this much interpretation. 

Mr. YOHO. Right. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. I think we are on terra firma saying we are now 

in a zone where no one knows how soon. I would ask that, I forgot 

to ask. There are two or three items that are very brief, very brief 

that are cited in my testimony I would like to place in the record, 

if that is possible. 

Mr. YOHO. Please. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. One of them goes over, technically, how soon 

things could happen. We don’t know when any longer because it is 

very close in, and the variety of views now are starting to move 

closer together. People argue very, very hard for their own point of 

view, but boy, it is getting closer and closer. And the differences 

between various estimates are not that broad. They now are talking about, roughly, months, not many years. And so at this point 

you have to start acting like it has happened, because if you wait 

you are really going to be behind the curve. 

Mr. YOHO. Yes, we don’t want to do that. 

Mr. Albright, if you would. Thank you for your testimony, sir. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. At ISIS we spend a lot of time assessing these 

questions and we have experts in centrifuge that help us do it. I 

think the key thing though is you want to prevent Iran from making the decision. I think that is the fundamental goal, and so we 

don’t know how long that will work. But there are certain dates 

that are defined technically that you can talk about. 

One is if they tried to break out now and make weapon-grade 

uranium in a sufficient quantity for a bomb it would probably take 

them a couple months, maybe even longer because sometimes their 

centrifuges don’t work very well. However, as they increase the 

number of centrifuges, you reach a point where they could break 

out and the international inspectors wouldn’t detect it before they 

have got enough material. And at ISIS we have identified that that 

could happen in mid-2014, and that is what we have called critical 

capability and is another date to keep in mind. 

You asked about North Korea. I mean we have done assessments 

on North Korea, and I agree with Henry. There is not a lot of information. I have visited North Korea. I have had discussions on their 

centrifuge program with North Korean nuclear officials. But the 

bottom line is just that we have to make a judgment, and we would 

assess based on what we know that they have enough plutonium 

essentially for about a dozen weapons, and they could have more 

if they had made weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons. 

There is uncertainties to it. It could be lower, it could be higher. 

But it is a substantial number. 

Mr. YOHO. I appreciate your comments. I am going to cut you off. 

And Dr. Takeyh, since I was a bad scorekeeper here I am going 

to let the ranking member Mr. Sherman, Congressman Sherman, 

please go ahead. You are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. One comment is China has decided on its behavior 

based upon how it sees the world. It has decided to subsidize North 

48

Korea, and as long as it is clear that will have free access to the 

U.S. trading system, which it abuses constantly, it is unlikely to 

change its behavior. 

Mr. Sokolski, North Korea hasn’t been shy about sharing its 

technology, but often if you want something you just want to buy 

it, not buy the technology to make it yourself. Why has North 

Korea been unwilling to just sell a completed weapon to North 

Korea, Syria or others? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. It is afraid. Just because we think they have interests different than ours doesn’t mean they are totally different 

than us. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, they are not afraid that Assad is going to 

bomb North Korea, but I mean I assume they are afraid that our 

reaction——

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Right. 

Mr. SHERMAN [continuing]. To the sale of a weapon would be far 

greater than our reaction to the sale of technology. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Well, that is one thing but it doesn’t stop there. 

Everyone likes to talk about how eager all these countries are to 

hand these things off to terrorists. Really? 

Mr. SHERMAN. I didn’t say——

Mr. SOKOLSKI. No, but the point here is that there are risks 

when you sell a completed item that are not attendant to say, oh, 

it is just a reactor. Now do you know what our reaction was to that 

reactor? No pun intended. Well, we argued, I think, for several 

weeks, well, is it really related to a weapons program? Right? 

Mr. SHERMAN. I thank you for your answer. I want to go on to 

another question. Everyone in the world is convinced that China is 

generally angry with North Korea, but North Korea and China and 

especially their Communist parties have been cooperating for a 

long time. It is possible according to my most conspiratoriallyminded staff members that this is a charade, a good cop-bad cop 

situation. 

Mr. Albright, what concessions might China extract from us in 

return for getting North Korea to be quiet, which is the traditional 

good cop-bad cop game? The good cop protects you from the bad cop 

in return for something. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think China is upset about North Korea’s recent 

actions, but I think as you pointed out——

Mr. SHERMAN. The whole world thinks that. I am asking you 

to——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. Well, China also does not want to see North 

Korea collapse and it creates a fundamental problem of how do you 

elicit Chinese cooperation on this? And I think it is more of a problem of how you look at that but not giving them——

Mr. SHERMAN. You are giving me the standard information that 

is in all the press. I appreciate that. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, it is also true. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I know. I asked you to comment on the possibility 

that it wasn’t, and I guess we are going to buy into the traditional 

view. So we are going to do that and we are going to move on to 

the next question. 

You provided important information in formulating Title 3 of 

CISADA which deals with transshipment. That is to say, for examVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
49

ple, nuclear or useful technology is shipped to one country such as 

China really for further shipment on to Iran. And the administration has been unwilling to name China as, I believe, it is a country 

of transshipment concern. First, should Title 3 be amended to target not just the transshipment or diversion of American goods, but 

the transfer of nuclear equipment no matter where it is made, to 

Iran; and second, if the administration won’t designate China, 

should Congress do so? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, I think it would be good to broaden it. For 

example, you see European goods being transshipped, and so I 

think it certainly should be broadened. It should also be broadened 

to include North Korea, Syria, and other countries as the destination. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So as destination countries not as countries of 

transshipment. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, probably a bit more. And also, for example, 

I think it is very important to name China now as a country of diversion concern. How punishing that would be isn’t really the issue 

right now. What is important is that China be named and that 

then see how they react, if they start to——

Mr. SHERMAN. I think the diplomatic reaction would be greater 

than the practical reaction, but I think it would be a good step. 

Since the administration is highly unlikely to take it, we will see 

if our 435 people can agree. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, and if Congress, I think there is certainly 

in my organization, I think we would be very sympathetic if Congress passed a law helping that designation along. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Albright, I appreciate it. Mr. Sherman, thank you. 

I would now like to recognize Mr. Chabot, chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will address this to the whole panel. We all know that Russia and China 

should be more cooperative and that it would be in their best interest and the best interest of the world if they would put more pressure on all three of these countries; they haven’t been particularly 

helpful. What recommendations or what suggestions would any of 

the panel members make to how we can actually get their attention 

and get them to cooperate? What could we do that we are not already doing? Mr. Woolsey? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I don’t have a very good suggestion about China. 

Because of its economic power and military power, it is more impervious to diplomacy and so forth, I think, than it used to be. Russia has only one thing that it does, it pumps oil and gas. It does 

not manufacture anything. It doesn’t do anything but pump oil and 

gas, and it uses oil and gas as instruments of power. I think a system in the United States whereby we have choice at the pump and 

could have gasoline, and let us say, not only ethanol but methanol 

made out of natural gas to drive on, the way the Chinese are starting to do, I think if we had something that competed with oil products so Russia began to see oil consumption and demand for oil 

going down and a lot of pressure on OPEC, I think that is the twoby-four between the eyes that could get the attention of Russia. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay, Mr. Sokolski? 

50

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Two ideas, one I mentioned. It doesn’t take much 

to get the attention of the Chinese if any of their banks get contaminated as outlaws. They get very nervous even if it is not much 

money. They freeze. So that is a lever point and that is the reason 

why, I think, you can get the Chinese, not just the North Koreans 

to pay attention, if you go after the financial institutions that are 

laundering this hard currency that is illicitly gained by North 

Korea. So that is one lever. 

Two, I think to varying degrees the Russians and the Chinese, 

for different reasons, are very sensitive about being accused of violating human rights treaties, but they both are. Forced repatriation 

of the North Koreans who flee cannot be focused on too frequently, 

too often, too loudly in this chamber and outside it and it is not 

getting the attention it deserves. It is an old song, but we have got 

to keep singing it until people believe it. They, the Russians and 

the Chinese, for all kinds of deep concerns about control of their 

populous, do not want that focused on. Good. Focus on it. 

Finally, something friendly. We always want to end on an upbeat 

note. The Russians really do worry about the Chinese and their 

military. Why don’t we listen more to them about that? We actually 

are concerned too. Far be it from me to make many recommendations about working with the Russians, but on that one, sign me 

up. That makes sense. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Mr. Albright? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think on the North Korean situation, they clearly do a lot of banking business in China. China knows it, and I 

think if sanctions start targeting that I think it could elicit a perhaps better Chinese reaction. We will see. I mean I think this all 

has to be tested. China is a very big economic power, a lot of U.S. 

corporate interests in China. But I think it is time to start putting 

this kind of pressure on China. 

We like at ISIS the idea of the country of diversion concern because it is a way to start. We are just asking China to enforce its 

own laws, essentially, and we want assurances that our products 

that we are in good faith selling to Chinese companies do not end 

up in the nuclear programs or sanction programs of Iran and North 

Korea. So to us that is a start, but I think it may have to be followed by some more aggressive sanctions, and the banking sanctions or the financial sanctions would be very useful. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Dr. Takeyh? 

Mr. TAKEYH. I don’t have recommendations beyond what I have 

suggested. I would just say one thing. The current negotiations 

with Iran takes place in the context of what is called 5+1, the five 

members of the Security Council and Germany, and the last meeting was in Kazakhstan. That particular format has, actually, despite limitations that it has, has I think in some ways served us 

well. When Iranian officials in these particular meetings behave 

with truculence and mendacity even the Chinese and Russians are 

compelled to actually impose pressure and sanctions on them. 

The reason why I say the 5+1 has served us well, because there 

is a movement now, and there is some degree of suggestion that 

perhaps the United States and Iran should move to a more of a bilateral discussion away from 5+1. That actually removes the penalty for Iranian mendacity. But so long as they get together in 

51

Kazakhstan and they lie in front of all the members of the international community, there is more of a pressure therefore to build 

sanctions on Iran and other measures of coercion than actually 

doing so in a bilateral context where everybody else is exempt from 

responsibility. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, sir. The Chair would like to recognize Ms. 

Meng from New York now. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you, Ambassador, and our witnesses for being 

here today. My question is, as the United States is growing our 

naval presence in the Pacific, what are some of the things our Navy 

can do to disrupt North Korean trade and shipping? Any and/or 

all? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I mean the interdictions are critically important. 

I mean right now I think it is a little difficult to contemplate seizing a North Korean ship at sea. We are not sure of what the consequences of that would be given the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. But the presence is useful. My understanding is this pivot to 

Asia doesn’t dramatically increase the actual naval presence. It is 

an increase, but not a huge increase. But it is important. 

But on the interdiction side, it is critically important to be able 

to have the mechanisms which involve intelligence or information 

gained from states to try to stop North Korea’s shipments, and it 

mostly focuses on the ports or keeping a North Korean, deterring 

a ship from North Korea to be able to land someplace. In a sense 

we saw that before. They end up going back rather than land 

where the shipment could be interdicted. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. There is a reason why we don’t do it on the open 

seas. It is illegal. We can’t do it. It is the reason why we have to 

limit PSI mostly to port interventions and why it is a problem with 

air travel for certain kinds of small goods and why you are not seeing the movement of large items and why the cooperation is in situ. 

You have North Koreans living full-time for many years in Iran 

and now Iranians living full-time in North Korea. So it is a lot 

tougher than it used to be. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. We have had two carriers in the Persian Gulf area 

for some time. We are now going to go down to one because of sequestration. It is very hard to tell an area that it is really important, and we are here as the number one naval power in the world 

and so forth, if we can’t afford to send ships to it. And although 

the tilt toward the Pacific, I think, as David said will help with respect to maybe keeping things there about where they are, or very 

slightly enhanced, we are paying for it in other parts of the world 

because of sequestration. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. The Chair would now like to recognize Judge 

Poe, chairman of the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for 

being here. We have three bad actors—Syria, Iran, and North 

Korea. I call them the SIK axis. That is S–I–K axis. I have to keep 

it simple, as you know I am from Texas. 

52

Ambassador Woolsey, I would like to know, at the end of the day, 

and all four of you, at the end of the day is Iran going to get nuclear weapons? Is North Korea going to get nuclear weapons? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, North Korea has had three detonations, and 

the last one the people commented on the fact that it was small. 

But if, let us say, they mean to use it for electromagnetic pulse 

then you don’t need more than a very few kilotons. What you want 

is gamma rays. So it is an essentially enhanced radiation weapon. 

So they may not be staying small because they can’t build a larger 

weapon, they may be testing small because they have decided to 

enhance their ability to take out our electric grid. 

Mr. POE. I guess I am really asking about delivery systems, with 

weapons plus delivery systems. That is really my question. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, North Korea now has put at least one 

maybe two satellites into orbit, and if you can get around, get high 

enough and with enough lift to go into orbit, which doesn’t take a 

great deal, you can reach the other side of the earth. And the ability to use a fractional orbital bombardment system to just detonate 

something up above the United States that comes at us from the 

south, we don’t have radars pointed down that way, and you have 

a very, I think a very, serious situation. 

Another kind of problem is the so-called Scud in a bucket, which 

is a simple $100,000 Scud missile in a freighter pulling up to a couple of hundred miles off the East Coast and launching a nuclear 

weapon. If you want to be able to stop something like that you 

have got to be able to shoot it down in boost phase or ascent phase 

while it is going up. We started some work on those in the Reagan 

administration, different types. We have now cancelled every single 

American program that deals with intercepting ballistic missiles in 

the ascent phase or boost phase. We might well see a North Korean 

or Iranian fishing boat launch something, but there is not a damn 

thing we can do about it unless we catch it at midcourse or coming 

into a terminal phase to its target at detonation. While it is going 

up we can’t shoot it down. So I would say at least, at least working 

on those two types of problems is something our military ought to 

move back into. 

Mr. POE. All right. Dr. Sokolski? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. I was reflecting on the question, the answer. With 

regard to North Korea, I guess what this conversation reminds me 

of a little is the conversation I remember having in graduate school 

after the flash in the South Atlantic occurred in 1979, and we were 

still debating as graduate students, did Israel have nuclear weapons or not. I am not sure it is a very good analogy, but it suggests——

Mr. POE. Excuse me, sir. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Yes? 

Mr. POE. Cut to the chase. I only have a few minutes. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Okay. I think you need to move on. Yes, they have 

nuclear weapons in North Korea, and yes, you are not going to 

know exactly whether they are deliverable or not, and all the interpretation is just guesswork. 

Mr. POE. How about Iran? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Iran——

53

Mr. POE. The day they are going to get nuclear weapons and capability? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. If we continue the way we are going, absolutely. 

Mr. POE. All right. Dr. Albright? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, I am a little scared to say this after what 

Henry just said, but we do assess in North Korea, and we would 

assess that they are capable of putting a miniaturized warhead on 

a Nodong missile which has a range of about 800 miles. We don’t 

think they can put one on an intercontinental ballistic missile until 

they do quite a few more flight tests of the warhead, but they could 

be starting to do that and so it is very worrisome. 

On Iran, I think again no one knows. I mean a lot of it is going 

to be what the United States does to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. The role of Congress and the sanctions to increase 

the pressure, the pain, helping stop Iran from getting the kinds of 

goods it needs is all very important. If Iran crosses, it is probably 

going to be a fairly crude weapon as probably more of a nuclear explosive device. And it would take several more years, probably, to 

have a reliable, deliverable nuclear weapon on a missile. 

Mr. POE. All right, thank you. 

Mr. TAKEYH. The Iranians seem determined and they have 

crossed many red lines. They are crossing further. I would just say 

one thing. And it is at times suggested that Iranians will stop at 

the breakout capacity and not cross the threshold when they get 

to it, I don’t think that is true. I think if they get there they will 

cross, and they have broken every other taboo so that is the road 

we are on. 

Mr. POE. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yield back. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you. The Chair now would like to recognize 

Ms. Gabbard from Hawaii for 5 minutes. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, 

for being here today. My questions will be mostly focused on North 

Korea. We have seen with the policies that we have had and how 

we have been dealing with North Korea so far, representing Hawaii 

obviously in the Pacific we pay very close attention to what is happening in North Korea, and we have seen this endless cycle over 

decades now of North Korea making threats, providing sanctions, 

providing aid over and over and over again. What needs to be done 

to break this cycle? Ambassador? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. The North Korean Government, as it is constituted and operates, is run by a fanatic. And negotiations to try 

to persuade them to take steps have been for us, for 25 years anyway, playing the role of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football 

with it being pulled away every year at the last minute. We have 

been conned. We have not performed well. And North Korea has 

worked very hard while executing that classic diplomatic maneuver 

known as lying through their teeth. 

We have to decide that we are going to effectively bring the government down. And I think the only route to that short of using 

force ourselves is probably the financial sanctions of the sort that 

have been talked about by the chairman, and I would mention that 

Henry described especially going against their elites. And it is almost our last gasp on keeping them from being a functioning nuclear power with the same characteristics that they have as a govVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ernment. It is one of the least effective series of events in the conduct of American foreign policy that I know of. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you very much. And just a follow-up to 

that. Bringing up the financial sanctions on hard currency, this 

was done a few years back but only for a short period of time. Mr. 

Sokolski, I wonder if you could address why it was stopped almost 

prematurely? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. I understand you were going to have Ambassador 

Hill here. I think he holds the answer to that question. I do not 

understand it. I know people on the Left and the Right working 

within the system that shook their heads when that happened, and 

I certainly on the outside shook mine. I think it was a mistake. It 

was the very smartest of what could be described as smart sanctions. It was making a difference. It was getting China’s attention. 

It was doing damage to the elites that really mattered. I mean that 

country is run by 2 million Communist party members. That is 

your problem. And I don’t know. I think that should be something 

that you should get satisfaction on here in Congress about, and if 

you can’t, I would legislate. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you. And Dr. Albright, since 2009, the 

United States and South Korea have basically adopted a joint approach including four main elements, one of which includes refusing to return to nuclear talks with North Korea unless they demonstrate that they are taking irreversible steps to denuclearize. Realistically, is that an option for North Korea? And if it is, what 

could possibly be offered as an incentive to move them in that direction? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, one of the problems is as we have learned 

with North Korea, I mean it is not a great history but things can 

get a lot worse. I mean North Koreans have been talking off line 

for a couple years they may deploy nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, 

shorter range like the Nodong and that is a much worse situation 

if they overtly deploy those. So I think it is very important that we 

create a sanctions regime that sticks and it should only be reduced 

if there is significant concessions on the part of North Korea. 

But I also think we have to start finding a way to talk to them 

again. And the point is two-fold. One is to start limiting their nuclear program. I mean not to have this reactor restart, not to have 

the light-water reactor, which is five times larger, they are building 

that turn out plutonium for weapons, to start shutting down parts 

of their centrifuge program. And I think the Obama administration 

is going to have to face that. I think the South Korean Government 

is beginning to. That the talks, ultimately, you want 

denuclearization, but in the short run you want concrete limits on 

their ability to build and deploy nuclear weapons. 

Ms. GABBARD. Great. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you. Now the Chair would like to recognize Mr. 

Tom Cotton from Arkansas. You have 5 minutes, thank you. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you. Mr. Woolsey, I would like to draw upon 

your experience as a senior leader in our intelligence community to 

explore our intelligence gathering efforts in North Korea. How difficult is it for the United States to actually collect reliable intelligence from that country? 

55

Mr. WOOLSEY. Our technical systems are extremely good, and 

over the years we have gotten a lot of information about Korea and 

its programs from those both the satellite systems and the electronic systems. Human intelligence espionage is extraordinarily difficult to conduct in a country where we don’t have a diplomatic 

presence, where we don’t even have any American commercial people. And even people from other countries who would help us would 

have a very difficult time learning anything about what was going 

on there. It is probably the hardest place in the world to spy in 

human intelligence terms. 

Mr. COTTON. And that would include our allies in the Pacific 

Rim, up to and including South Korea? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Yes, generally. Probably our best place to go to 

find out what is going on in North Korea, and the most useful set 

of arrangements that we have got is not so much, I think, likely 

to be espionage we are running ourselves, but rather liaison work 

with the Republic of Korea, South Korean Government. Because 

people have relatives in the North, people have family, they have 

contacts of one kind or another, refugees get out, they know people 

on the inside. Probably the most useful way to spend time outside 

running all our electronic and technical collection is working closely 

with the Korean intelligence services and in law enforcement and 

other, anybody that has a link to a South Korean who has some 

link to the North. 

Mr. COTTON. Does the Chinese Government needs to conduct intelligence in North Korea or do they simply talk to North Korea? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. The Chinese spy everywhere, and I imagine they 

are worrying about North Korea as David and Henry, I think, everybody has pointed out. They don’t want it to collapse. They don’t 

want millions of refugees headed north across the Yalu. But by the 

same token, they don’t want it to get into a war on the Peninsula, 

and the worst thing they could think of would be a war and then 

unification which would mean the South would be running a major 

country on China’s immediate border that is an attractive, functioning democracy. So China doesn’t have an easy time, and I 

would rather imagine that one of the top portfolios for the senior 

Chinese intelligence officials would be figuring out what is going on 

in North Korea. 

Mr. COTTON. Given that relationship, do you think that senior 

decision makers in the Chinese Government would be aware if the 

North Korean Government was going to strike South Korea or any 

U.S. interest in the area to include a conventional strike with the 

thousands of dug-in pieces of artillery across the DMZ? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Very hard to say. They would probably work very 

hard to try to know what was going to happen, but this new young 

leader of North Korea, Trey Parker and Matt Stone did a marvelous job on his father, Kim Jong-il, in Team America: World Police. He is even more conducive to humorous treatment, I think, 

than his father was. I don’t have any idea about anybody who 

knows what is going on in this guy’s mind, whether he is blustering, whether he has a tactic in mind, whether he is just uncontrolled. 

Mr. COTTON. Any idea whether he is acting as the prime decision 

maker or as a cat’s paw for other elements of the regime? 

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Mr. WOOLSEY. I don’t know. The external appearance doesn’t 

make it look as if he is doing anything as a subordinate, but who 

knows what the power structure is underneath him and what military officers are on his side and who might want to look at somebody else? I don’t know. That is the kind of thing that probably 

outside North Korea the only people who know much about might 

be some part of the South Korean intelligence service. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you. I would agree that he is ripe for parody. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, sir. The Chair now would like to recognize 

Mr. Juan Vargas from the great state of California. 

Mr. VARGAS. Thank you very much, and thank you for the pitch 

for California. I appreciate that. 

Mr. YOHO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VARGAS. Especially coming from Florida. Thank you, sir. My 

first question would be this. I certainly believe that Iran is attempting to get a nuclear weapon in their program. Do any of you 

doubt that? Are any of you in any doubt that that is exactly what 

they are attempting to do? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, I think it is exactly what they are doing. 

The Persians invented chess and they are good at it. And they have 

had one of their pawns being moved down steadily to the king’s 

road to become converted to the most lethal piece, the queen, nuclear weapons, and they are distracting us by doing things on the 

other side of the chessboard. And as soon as we turn our attention 

away they figure out a way to get that pawn moved even closer to 

lethality. 

Mr. VARGAS. So you have no doubt then? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. With everything in intelligence and foreign policy 

and so forth, there has always got to be some kind of shred of a 

doubt, but my doubt about that is about as small as I could imagine in this field. 

Mr. VARGAS. Anybody else? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Let me just say I would express it in a little more 

complicated way. I think they made in a sense a strategic decision 

to try to build nuclear weapons and they have been stopped in the 

past. I mean I think in 2003, between fear of what the United 

States was doing in Iraq, the negotiations done by the Europeans 

that led to the suspension in their enrichment program, they hurriedly shut down what looks to be the weaponization program. And 

so I think they were deferred at that point and I think they were 

on the track to make nuclear weapons. 

Mr. VARGAS. Do you believe now that that is what they are attempting to——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think they are trying to build a capability, but 

I am not sure they have made the decision, because ultimately it 

is the decision by the Supreme Leader, and I think he is weighing 

whether he can get away with it, and so I think the more that is 

done to deter him the better. And I think it is very important that 

he understand that a military strike is possible if Iran goes to build 

nuclear weapons. 

Mr. TAKEYH. If I could just say the few things about it. Number 

one, I think if you look at their strategic environment given the 

fact that there is an imbalance of conventional power between they 

57

and their neighbors, it makes sense for them to have a nuclear balance to that. Number two, I think Ambassador Woolsey said that 

we should hope for the collapse of the North Korean regime. I 

would say there are large members of the international community 

that don’t want the North Korean Government to collapse. And 

why do they not want it to collapse? Because it has nuclear weapons. 

So Iran, with nuclear weapons, I think, will have an opportunity 

to get the international community invested in perpetuation of the 

current regime. I think you can make a case and a fairly cogent 

one that the prolongation of the Kim dynasty has had something 

to do with the fact that it has nuclear weapons. 

Mr. VARGAS. And my other question would be this. I am from 

San Diego. We do, in fact, have two nuclear carriers there, the Carl 

Vinson and the Ronald Reagan. And you mentioned, Ambassador, 

now that we only will have one carrier in the region down from 

two, we also talked about ballistic missile system to be able to attack at a particular level. Those cost a lot of money. I agree with 

you on both, but what do we do though when we are cutting money 

here? What is your suggestion to us? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, just to be clear, I don’t know how long we 

are going to be down to one carrier in the Persian Gulf, whether 

it is a few months or a year or more. But it is just symbolic to me 

of what we are doing to ourselves by our fiscal situation. I am very, 

very worried about the state of the military and programs getting 

cancelled and people leaving that we need in the military. And I 

think that however Congress sorts out this fiscal situation that we 

are in, I really hope they do it in such a way that we don’t end 

up losing a great deal of military capability. 

Mr. VARGAS. Anyone else want to comment on that issue? And 

then lastly I would ask this. How far do you think Iran would go 

to save the Assad regime? We talk about intervention. How far 

would they go? Doctor? 

Mr. TAKEYH. Sure. My guess would be they are going to commit 

considerable degree of what they are doing already at the intensified level. But I think there is also a notion pervasive within Iranian councils of power that they can still play around in Syria in 

aftermath of the collapse of the Assad regime. Because the collapse 

of the Assad regime doesn’t end the civil war, and the idea is that 

they have capabilities of being active in ambiguous areas as you 

saw with Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think the Assad regime does 

not end Iran’s involvement in Syrian affairs. 

Mr. VARGAS. Thank you. 

Mr. YOHO. I am sorry, we are out of time. I am going to go on. 

The Chair now would like to recognize my colleague Randy Weber, 

from the great state, or as he refers to as the country of Texas. 

Randy, you have 5 minutes. 

Mr. WEBER. All right. Well, the president of Texas will appreciate that. Ambassador Woolsey, you made the comment in earlier 

remarks that you think the best way to bring down the North Korean Government is through sanctions. If you could put every sanction in place that you thought was necessary, give us a time frame. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. That is very hard to do. If Congress, tomorrow, 

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tions with the stringency that they were in effect—for what was it, 

a couple years before they were, not even that, more like a year—

and if we furthermore proposed a total secondary boycott of anything having to do with the North Korean regime. And what I 

mean by that is this. If any manufacturing facility in any country 

exports anything to North Korea, overtly or covertly, that institution would be barred from using American banks, trading with 

American companies, and having any economic dealings with the 

United States. 

Mr. WEBER. All right. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Make people choose. North Korea or the U.S.A. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, thank you. Yes, I think that sounds like a 

good plan to me. And secondly, I don’t remember who said it that 

if they got a missile into orbit, North Korea, we would not see it 

coming from the south. Was that you, Henry? Mr. Sokolski? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I am afraid it was probably me. 

Mr. WEBER. It was you. Does NORAD not look to the south? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. There is a gap. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, let us not tell anybody. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, it is all out in publications and it is unclassified. But the United States has never defended the southern approaches to the U.S.A. effectively. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Thank you, I appreciate that. And this would 

be a question for all y’all, which is plural in Texas by the way. Y’all 

is singular. Who has the most vested interest to know when North 

Korea is about to strike? I ask you first. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Well, I don’t know. Let us just pick one. 

Mr. WEBER. Would it not be South Korea? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. South Korea and China. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. So you talked about not having good espionage available, and yet with the close relationship between people 

in South Korea and North Korea, families, it would seem that 

South Korea would be our go-to people in that regard. Is that too 

naive of thinking on my part? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. No, I think that is right. Our alliance with South 

Korea, it has had rocky periods here and there but generally it is 

very good and it works very well. And the close cooperation between the intelligence services, they even called their intelligence 

service for a time the CIA, it is also very, very good. 

Mr. WEBER. That is what I thought. Now the question, do China 

and South Korea share Embassies? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. They do a lot of trade. They are quite close. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And then I think Mr. Albright you said that 

Iran was, when my colleague Congressman Vargas asked you about 

did you think Iran was hotly pursuing weapons, I noticed you kind 

of gave it that, and you said you thought they were stopped in the 

past and you gave a couple of examples. Reiterate those examples 

of what stopped them in the past. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, they started their bomb program, nuclear 

weapons program, from the information available, in the mid-’80s, 

and they had a long way to go. But by early 2000s they were moving along pretty well. And I think with the invasion in Iraq and 

with the international attention that was brought to bear on Iran, 

they then made cutbacks and stopped the nuclear weapon——

59

Mr. WEBER. Okay, that is what I wanted you to reiterate right 

now. Final question, who is best, who has the most vested interest 

to know about a nuclear bomb in Iran? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Israel. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. TAKEYH. Can I just say one thing about when the Iranian 

nuclear program began, because I don’t think it was mid-’80s. Hassan Rohani who was a negotiator, a high ranking Iranian official, 

has written his memoirs unfortunately only in Persia. And he suggests that actually the decision to resume or sustain the Shah’s nuclear program was made while they were still in exile in 1979. So 

it actually has, the antecedents of that program come before Iraq’s 

invasion of Iran, which leads me to believe that this is not a weapon of deterrence. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back a negative balance. 

Mr. YOHO. Appreciate it. The Chair now would like to recognize 

from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome 

to our panel. I am picking up in your last point, Dr. Takeyh, can 

we point to an example of a country that has seriously decided a 

priority that nuclear capability ushered in your full-fledged adult 

membership into the family of nations as a power that had to be 

respected and therefore we are proceeding? Is there any example 

we can think of in history that that country was persuaded to desist once having made such a commitment? 

Mr. TAKEYH. There has been cases of nuclear reversals, Ukraine, 

for instance, that had Soviet weapons and then it gave them up, 

or some Central Asian republics, they actually gave them up. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Libya. 

Mr. TAKEYH. South Africa. So there has been cases. But if you 

look at all those cases, every case is particular into itself. Ukraine 

was trying to become part of the European community. The South 

Africans had a change of regime. So in terms of the fact that, the 

incentives for Iran to have a nuclear weapon today are greater 

than the incentives for stopping. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would you agree with that, Mr. Albright? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I am not sure. I mean it is hard to know what 

they are thinking on these questions. And I think the outside does 

have an impact, and part of the strategy is to play for time. I mean 

I would also add Taiwan to that list where the U.S. intervened 

twice to stop their nuclear weapons program. And so it is possible, 

I think, to keep a country from building nuclear weapons even 

when it looks like that is what they are trying to do. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Where we clearly have some leverage. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. He mentioned, and not to interrupt Henry, but 

South Africa, Ray mentioned South Africa. There was in the sense 

a regime change, but it was the President changed. It wasn’t a regime change as often thought about. But there had also been all 

these efforts to press South Africa through sanctions, through 

working with the African National Congress to change the nature 

of the decision making of the——

Mr. CONNOLLY. And weren’t there some anomalous explosions we 

detected in——

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Mr. ALBRIGHT. ’79? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. For what it is worth——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Sokolski. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. No, they had nuclear weapons so——

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Let me intervene, because I was on watch and 

traveled to the Ukraine and traveled to South Africa when they let 

go of these things. And you can’t tell me that there wasn’t regime 

change for the better that had a heck of a lot to do with our ability 

to reason with these folks on these things, and without that I don’t 

think we would have seen it. 

And in the case of Taiwan, how many countries are like Taiwan? 

I mean we don’t have leverage over the world like we do over Taiwan. I think the point about ‘‘regime change’’ that Ambassador 

Woolsey raised, which is, I guess, politically incorrect to say that 

anymore, so we talk about a transition to self-government, is that 

is is powerful, still important, critical. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, and Ambassador Woolsey, I want to come 

back to your regime change because it is good advice. But it seems 

to me that the experience of Pakistan is not felicitous with respect 

to regime change. We have gone through lots of different governments, military, civilian, leaders who are executed, leaders who 

have had to come back from exile, leaders who went back into 

exile. Multiple regimes, but one constant was the pursuit of nuclear 

capability until they got it. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. That is exactly right. It is different ways in different circumstances. In South Africa it worked. In Libya it kind 

of worked. So it is not really clear when it is going to function. It 

is just that if you keep trying as governments go through changes 

for one reason or another, you may be able to somewhat limit the 

spread of nuclear weapons, but you are certainly not going to be 

universally successful. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Albright? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think I have to take exception. South Africa did 

not go through regime change as typically it is defined. In 1989, 

when P.W. Botha stepped down and allowed F.W. de Klerk to take 

over as President through an election, and that is when the decision was made. And there were many other factors that came into 

play that where South Africa was under tremendous pressure and 

wanted to then change the regime and allow, and then to apartheid, and then a black government. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. You and I should disagree off line and I will fill 

you in with what I know. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. All right. But the point I want to make though 

is that I think that regime change as a strategy to stop proliferation has not worked that well and we need other things much sooner. And I am not sure. In my experience working on North Korea 

for 20-some years that regime hangs on. I was not real enamored 

with the Agreed Framework in ’94. I ended up supporting it, but 

I was told, well, don’t worry. In 5 years that regime won’t exist. We 

will never have to build the light-water reactor. These regimes 

hang on, and your example on Pakistan is an excellent one. So I 

think our strategy needs to be not on regime change but on other 

61

things. If the regime changes through various means then it may 

be better, it may not be. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. How about an energy policy analogy, ‘‘all of the 

above,’’ please. Don’t be blind to these possibilities. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you. Mr. Albright, I appreciate it. We are out 

of time on this question here. What I would like to do is address 

you on a couple things and then we are going to pass this on to 

Mr. Cotton from Arkansas. 

Like I said, I watched this unroll for 30, 35 years. I have seen 

the cat and mouse game with the IAEA and Iran. Yes, we have, 

they are saying they have nuclear capabilities or they are developing them. No, we don’t, and then it goes back and forth, and then 

some concessions are made. Sanctions are put on, and then they 

come forthright and say yes, we have done that, and then it starts 

over again. I have watched that for 35 years. It is not working real 

well. We have spent a lot of money in foreign aid. Actually it is 

more foreign welfare in this situation. And we need to change, I 

think, our whole policy. 

And you guys have been involved in this for a long time, and I 

would love to hear your response, especially dealing with the situation, Mr. Woolsey. And I want to address all of you where you were 

talking about with sequestration we are bringing our fleets home. 

I have met with Navy, people in the Navy, and they said Iran, 

North Korea are watching our Navy. They know when we have to 

bring them back and when we have to refuel them. They know we 

have so many in the ports. It is a very dangerous situation that 

they can just afford to sit back and wait. And if they were to decide, if you say within 3 months that they can have a bomb capability and they go out on a Scud or on a boat, it is a dangerous situation and our policy has not worked real well. And with sequestration, yes, we would love not to be in this situation but we are here, 

and if we don’t get some things straightened out in this country it 

is not going away real soon. 

So in lieu of that, what policy difference could we make, or what 

different policies could we come up with instead of the sanctions? 

Because the sanctions we have tried. But yet when you have China 

and Russia, and then you have Venezuela funneling money from 

Iran that keeps them afloat, how can you go about putting more 

sanctions on that when we are borrowing over 40 cents on a dollar? 

It is a very precarious situation for this country and for the rest 

of the world. I would like to hear just your thoughts briefly, and 

say 30 seconds each and then I am going to pass this on to Mr. 

Cotton. Thank you. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. I would have to say that you do have to have a 

long-term effort kind of like the Cold War. I have argued this for 

a long time since I worked in the Office of Net Assessment where 

we do competitive strategies. You don’t want a hot war. That 

means you are not going to get a quick answer. And if you think 

longer and bigger you are going to have more success with all these 

cases. That is what we have not done yet. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think on North Korea one of the important 

things is to, in a sense, learn some lessons from the Iran sanctions 

that it is to apply the sanctions that can get you the result or try 

to get you the result you want. In this case you want China to coVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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operate and press North Korea, and so I think that has to be one 

of the goals. And to think through what are North Korea’s 

vulnerabilities? I mean that is really, I guess the key for the Iran 

sanctions was to understand Iran better. I think we need to understand North Korea better. 

The other thing is, I think we are going to have to depend on 

South Korea to try to create some possibilities with North Korea. 

I mean right now is not the time, but I think they are going to 

have to take the, not necessarily the lead, but to try to get back 

to the point where there are limits put on the North Korean program, but we don’t give rewards for that. That we want, the policy 

to get North Korea to stop activities is very important to maintain 

but it is going to be very hard right now to do that. But I think 

that it has got to take place. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. Dr. Takeyh? 

Mr. TAKEYH. I agree with Henry on his long-term approach. I do 

think that our policies of sanctions and sabotage have slowed down 

the Iranian nuclear program based upon the evidence that is available. I would just say one thing, this is true about the United 

States. This is true about Israel. This is true about all countries 

who have engaged in diplomatic dialogue with Iran. We have 

drawn red lines that we have not enforced. 

Mr. YOHO. Right. 

Mr. TAKEYH. That actually gives the impression of irresolution 

which further actuates that. If you are going to draw a red line 

then we are going to have to stick to it. If we are not going to stick 

to it then we shouldn’t draw it. 

Mr. YOHO. I agree. Ambassador Woolsey? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. There aren’t any very good short term answers to 

the question. In between military force and just talking sanctions 

are about the only thing, really, that is there. But if you take a 

longer look at it, in 1945 at the end of World War II there were 

20 democracies in the world. Today there are about 120 depending 

on how you count. An awful lot of that was us, not directly as we 

brought about democracy in Japan and Germany and Italy, but 

often indirectly. But a lot of that was us. And part of it was by example, part of it was standing firm against the Soviet Union in the 

Cold War. There was just different things that produced it. And we 

would be in a lot worse shape now with respect to the spread of 

nuclear weapons, I think, if we hadn’t had that rather substantial 

increase in states which are free. But it is not the only solution. 

And you have democratic states like Pakistan which are kind of 

going crazy, six directions at the same time, and maybe their nuclear weapons leaking out to Taliban or Lord knows what. 

Mr. YOHO. All right. I am going to cut you off there, and I appreciate your input. The Chair now would like to recognize Mr. 

Connolly for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. A fascinating 

panel, a fascinating discussion. I wish we could do this for many 

hours more. I don’t know if you feel that way. 

But Dr. Takeyh, I heard what you said about red lines, and I absolutely agree with you. On the other hand, I think I am not sure 

I agree that we have set red lines and then allowed them to slip. 

I think there is a difference between Israel and the United States 

63

and what our red line is and what their red line is. And within 

some reasonable boundary, I think that ambiguity can be useful because the other side has to now calculate who is going to do what. 

But if, however, you are right that we absolutely, clearly, allow a 

red line to go past us, then I think we dissipate credibility and 

damage actually the end goal. Comment? 

Mr. TAKEYH. No, I am not disagreeing with you, Congressman. 

For instance, look at the Fordo facility, the facility that is in Iran, 

hard and in the mountains. Our position used to be that Fordo has 

to be shuttered. Now our position is the activities in Fordo have to 

be suspended. That is not shuttered. Maybe if it was too hard to 

shutter Fordo then we shouldn’t have asked for it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. It reminds me a little bit of Potter Stewart, 

Justice Stewart on the Supreme Court who once said with respect 

to the definition of that which was obscene, I know it when I see 

it. And maybe we will know the red line when we see it. I don’t 

know, but I take your point. 

Yes, Mr. Sokolski? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. Mr. Takeyh is absolutely spot on correct. He could 

go on with many more examples though. We once opposed opening 

up Bushehr. Oh, we don’t anymore. They have a ‘‘right’’ to that 

now. So we do not only not hold to the red lines we set, we move 

them, and I think that is what you are referring to——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI [continuing]. And you are nodding, so yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay, fair enough. Great. I want to go back to 

the question of Iran and Syria. Lots of stuff going on in Iran right 

now. How far do you think, and I think, Mr. Albright, you were 

commenting on this in response to Congressman Vargas. How far 

do you think Iran is willing to go? How much credibility, how much 

by way of resources is Iran willing to expend in either shoring up 

the Assad regime or in making sure that its interests are protected 

to Syria as opposed to the Assad regime? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Ray was talking about that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Oh, you were talking about that, okay. Dr. 

Takeyh? 

Mr. TAKEYH. In some ways this is an unusual situation for the 

Iranians because this is one of the first time they are looking at 

a situation where a critical strategic ally faces the possibility of extinction. So we don’t have too many historical precedents about 

how far they will go. So far they have made the determination that 

they will give financial assets, military advice, technological transfers and all kinds of stuff. 

But what I wanted to suggest that there is an increasing perception in the Iranian power circles as far as we can tell that they 

seem to think they can nevertheless function and advance their interests in post-Assad Syria. Because post-Assad Syria is still going 

to be a state which is going to be at war with itself, different confessional and different sectarian groups. And it is such an ambiguous situation Iranians have experience of dealing whether it is in 

southern Lebanon, whether it is Iraq, whether in Afghanistan, they 

seem to do well in terms of finding allies and even clients in situations like this. 

64

I don’t know how far they would go in terms of, my guess is they 

are going to the limit in terms of financial transfer and that stuff, 

not necessarily effective deployment of their own forces. But I 

should say for the Islamic Republic this is an unprecedented situation and so this is going to be case law. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And I have 37 seconds, so Mr. Ambassador, the 

same question in a sense about China and Korea. Seems to be 

some cracks in the cement around feet in Beijing with respect to 

the recent actions of Pyongyang. How much credence should we 

give to the seeming growing, well, the seeming distance between 

the new leadership in Beijing and the new leadership in 

Pyongyang? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I rather imagine that the Chinese are worried 

enough that they are starting to work very closely with the South 

Koreans, and we may almost be kind of in a rivalry with China 

over who can work more closely with the South Koreans these 

days. I think the Chinese would very much like to have anybody, 

if anybody is going to make people mad and much less use force, 

they would much rather it be us than them. And I think it is pretty 

unlikely that they are seriously considering trying to effectively 

constrain North Korea in the way that they might have to to get 

the job done. But it is an odd situation and it is one that is very 

difficult to predict how it is going to come out. I have rarely seen 

Asia in quite such a state of confusion. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And Mr. Chairman, if I may though, how much 

credence though should we, or are we reading too much in some 

of the statements from the new Chinese leadership with respect, I 

mean they made all the veiled references to the leadership in 

Pyongyang at least inferentially in negative terms. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. At least what, deferentially? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Inferentially. I mean they didn’t by name say—

no. But they clearly said countries have to behave in a certain way 

and the inference being they are not. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I think the new Chinese leader seems to have a 

bit more taste for the military and taking sort of a strong posture 

in getting along with them than may have been the case in recent 

history in China. I think China is probably worried and they are 

not quite sure what to do other than to just kind of look strong and 

try to figure out who knows what. I don’t think they are in a 

hugely better shape than we are. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think we have to careful. I agree with what the 

Ambassador said. But there are two things to remember. The 

President of China made the statement, we thought it was North 

Korea. The Chinese Government, I believe, issued a statement a 

couple days later saying no, they were talking about the United 

States. And then one of the articles that has been widely cited is 

showing this crack. The guy was removed from his job. So I think 

the U.S. challenge to get China to start playing a more constructive 

role is still front and center. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COTTON [presiding]. As the chair, I think I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. We spoke earlier about our efforts to look into 

North Korea. I want to maybe turn the mirror now on ourselves 

and evaluate our response not necessarily over the last 4 years or 

65

the last 30 years with North Korea, but maybe the last 60 days, 

and get your opinion as a panel on how the President and the administration has responded on the positive side. 

I see that in general it has not rushed to prostrate itself the way 

the American Government has sometimes in the past. The introduction of the B–2 bomber into annual exercises, the forward deployment of F–22 fighters to South Korea. On the less valuable 

side, I have seen a cancelled ballistic missile tests from our West 

Coast, General Thurman, the commander in South Korean forces, 

a decision not to return here for a previously scheduled testimony. 

Maybe most troubling, some reporting by David Sanger in the New 

York Times a few days ago, with that senior administration official, 

said the United States Government finds itself in the unusual role 

of trying to restrain the South Korean Government and any attack 

by North Korea such as artillery shells against our forces or South 

Korean territory, or ships are being met with a more proportional 

response rather than overwhelming response. 

If I could just go down the panel and get your assessment of how 

the administration has handled the last, say 60 days. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I guess I would say no huge errors, but when 

dealing with somebody like Kim Jong-un, or if there is anybody like 

him, to sort of start out from a firm posture and then to kind of 

back down to one that is less so is frequently the worst thing to 

do. It is not called appeasement anymore, but that is what appeasement meant in 1938 before it took on its negative connotation 

was basically accommodating, accommodating, accommodating. 

And one wants to be able to talk. I have spent a lot of time in diplomatic negotiations and there are sometimes things that you can 

usefully do even between enemies in a crisis. But to start out and 

transition now to look like you are pulling back, I don’t think is 

wise. 

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Sokolski? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. I was in Korea and was able to talk with officials 

both in South Korea and in our Embassy in 2010. And the unanimous view of all parties political and official was that when the 

United States found out about the sinking of the corvette and the 

shelling of the island, it instructed the South Koreans more or less 

to be quiet, to take it. I think what is regrettable about what has 

happened in the last month isn’t so much what the President has 

done, which I think, actually, is appropriate, but that it had to be 

so public. I think it had to be so public because of what happened 

in 2010. And then because they were getting criticized for overplaying their hand, they, then, publicly said, well, we will restrain 

ourselves. 

By the way, we are in a tricky situation, I understand, because 

the South Korean military is very eager to say that they will go 

north. You do not want to get sucked into a war easily, so there 

is a real problem here. But I think the cycle of concern about how 

we look is driving too much of what we are doing, and it doesn’t 

look good when you do that. I think that is the point. 

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Albright? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. No, I won’t pretend to be an expert on military strategy with North Korea, but I don’t think it was done as 

well as it could have been. I mean, I do know in working with 

66

North Korea over many years that they are very worried about 

U.S. military strength. They think they are going to be attacked. 

And some of it is propaganda to keep the regime, or the population 

under control, but a lot of it they really believe. 

And I think the public actions with the B–2 bomber and other 

actions guaranteed a massive escalation on the part of the North 

Koreans, and they are never going to let us have the last word. 

And so I think it could have been done differently. And then cancelling the ballistic missile test, I kind of agree it is a sign of weakness. Now maybe that can be turned in, or what is the phrase? 

Lemons can be turned into lemonade somehow. But I think it could 

have been done better. 

And we have to always remember that we are dealing with a regime that has military people that are incredibly isolated, never 

left that country, see us in an extremely paranoid way, and see us 

as incredibly powerful and they are never going to show weakness. 

And so you have a very tricky situation. And I think at the same 

time, I don’t think South Korea is going to take another attack. I 

think they will respond. I think the past President made that clear. 

I think the current one has made it clear. And so I think the 

United States has to work carefully with South Korea to make sure 

that if North Korea does attack that there is, I guess the term 

would be a proportionate response that they hopefully will not escalate into a war. 

Mr. COTTON. Dr. Takeyh, in brief? 

Mr. TAKEYH. As you mentioned, Congressman, with the Korean 

crisis there is always a cycle. There is a North Korean bellicosity 

that is usually followed by diplomacy and rewards and so forth. I 

think the administration has been measured in its response not to 

follow that particular cycle. In a situation like this you have a task 

of deterring your adversary and restraining your ally. What I don’t 

know is how this crisis ends, because at some point North Korea 

has to be given a path out of the predicament of its own making 

and that may at some point call for introduction of diplomacy into 

this. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you. Briefly. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, don’t underestimate the military’s influence 

that they don’t want to negotiate. I mean we are in a very tricky 

situation, and I think that it is not necessarily the old cycle. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you all. I will now turn to the gentleman 

from California for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Mr. Albright, let me 

just note that if they—yes, they are not going to show a sign, what 

they consider to be a sign of weakness to us by reaching out or trying to find a peaceful way of interacting with us. That they see that 

as a sign of weakness on their part. But they also see when we are 

doing that as a sign of weakness, isn’t that true? So it is not just 

them saying oh, I am not going to show a sign of weakness, when 

we try to do the same thing they think we are being weak. 

Well, so what does that mean about our policy for the last 20 

years dealing with North Korea? Have we not been subsidizing 

North Korea to the tune of billions of dollars between ourselves and 

our friends in South Korea? Haven’t we been providing them with 

67

billions of dollars? Did they see that as a sign of friendship or of 

weakness? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, but we have gotten quite a bit for it. I mean 

their program was constrained for years, and so I can tell you it 

can get a lot worse. I mean if they start deploying nuclear tipped 

ballistic missiles——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, we got a lot out of it. We are now in a 

position where you have a North Korean regime that may be a nuclear armed regime soon. We didn’t get a lot out of that at all. That 

regime may have fallen had we not provided a subsidy in oil and 

food so they could use their own money on weapons. 

Before I had to leave for other meetings, Ambassador Woolsey 

was mentioning other alternatives of how Ronald Reagan approached the Soviet Union which had nuclear weapons, which was 

a threat, which was involved with aggressive actions toward us, 

and he said, ‘‘tear down the wall.’’ Well, I was one of Ronald Reagan’s speechwriters as most people know, and Ronald Reagan was 

the one responsible for those lines, I will tell you that much, because all of his senior advisors didn’t want him to say it, except his 

speechwriters of course. And had Ronald Reagan not done that it 

would have been a sign of weakness, and instead of having the wall 

come down and the Soviet Union collapse without an armed conflict 

we might have actually perpetuated Soviet strength. 

And during that same time, Reagan was also, as Ambassador 

Woolsey mentioned, supporting those people within their society 

who were trying to regime change from within. Whether it was the 

Afghans fighting the Soviet Union, whether it was Lech Walesa, 

whether it was the Contras down in Nicaragua, we were undermining the Soviet military regime that threatened us by supporting 

the enemy of our enemies. 

Instead, in Korea——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. But I think all that has been done on North 

Korea. I think all that has been done in North Korea. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Instead in Korea, our approach has been to 

subsidize this wacko, lunatic regime that now threatens the world 

with nuclear weapons. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. All right. If you are talking about the Sunshine 

Policy of the South Korean Government——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Which we encouraged. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. That was a tremendous subsidy, and 

I think the South Korean Government is unlikely to pursue that 

path again. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it is too late now. We have already 

given them the billions of dollars they needed so that they could 

invest in their nuclear program without having to deny their people food. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, but back to the early——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I have only got 1 minute more. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I don’t think the regime would have collapsed in 

the early ’90s if there had not been something like the Agreed 

Framework. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, unless we came in and decided, like 

Ronald Reagan did, to support people who are going to try to overthrow that regime. 

68

Over to Iran, let us just note we haven’t done anything with Iran 

either. I mean we have been making our gestures, this administration in particular made wonderful friendship gestures. But over 

these last years instead of supporting those people, whether they 

were the Iranian students who were out protesting when we just 

held them at bay and said, we don’t have anything to do with you, 

or the Azeris or the Baluch or a number of these other groups that 

are there, Turkmen who are part of that country, we haven’t done 

anything to help the opposition to the mullahs. So how can we expect that the mullahs are going to look at that as a sign of friendship? 

Again, they are seeing this, all of these dictators see these efforts 

on our part as a sign of weakness. And when we allow, for example, we make this big deal about what, we are having this economic 

boycott. We can’t buy oil from Iran. And then we give waivers to 

everybody in the world to go ahead and buy your oil, which I think 

we just gave it to China, how do you expect them to take us seriously? The mullahs think we are weak because we are not siding 

with their enemies. We are not siding, and their enemies happen 

to be the friends of democracy and the friends of the United States. 

So we have gone down the wrong road with Iran, and now they 

are on the edge of threatening us with nuclear weapons. We subsidized the North Korean nut cases, and now we are on the verge 

of having them threaten us with nuclear weapons as well. So much 

for trying to curry favor with dictators. 

Mr. Woolsey, Ambassador? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. One quick point, Congressman, I agree to a great 

degree with what you said. There are indirect effects too of the 

kind, I would call it weakness that we have exhibited toward Iran 

because it makes it easier for other countries, in this case it is 

often Russia, to lean on small countries in the region because they 

don’t think we are going to stand up for them. Azerbaijan as an 

example. Bulgaria as an example. Both of those countries have a 

number of people who would like to work with the United States, 

but the Russians are scaring them. And the Russians take heart 

from the fact that we are not standing firmly against the Iranians, 

I think. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to 

give Mr. Albright the last word. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I am not going to challenge what you are saying, 

I mean you have done this a long time. But I would add though 

that we could have been facing the situation we are facing now 20 

years ago with North Korea. So I think in my own experience delay 

is worth something, but now we are paying, we have to deal with 

it. 

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Albright shows his wisdom by not challenging 

what the gentleman from California is saying. 

The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WEBER. And also since he is honored to give the last word 

proves he is probably not married. 

Four quick questions, I hope. Ambassador Woolsey, you said 

sanction all the banks, all the companies doing business with 

69

North Korea to bring the most pain to them. Do we know a list of 

their trading partners, or do you know a list of their trading partners in order? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I don’t personally, Congressman, but we have got 

pretty good information, I think. 

Mr. WEBER. But we would have that and so——

Mr. WOOLSEY. The Treasury, probably more than the CIA, it is 

the Treasury. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And what length of time have we had those 

sanctions on Iran? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Oh, we haven’t done anything close to that with 

Iran. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, so it is safe to say that probably ought to be 

a two-pronged attack, in your opinion? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, I mean if we didn’t have the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile problem, we have got one of the countries 

that has ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and we have got 

another one that has ballistic missiles and is very close to having 

a nuclear weapon. So I am afraid, yes——

Mr. WEBER. No, I get it. But my specific question is what would 

the impact be on trade? In other words, that is going to affect businesses in the United States. Has that been calculated? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I don’t know that it has. 

Mr. WEBER. Who would calculate that? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. If it has it is probably the Treasury. The Treasury 

on all of this business about sanctions and the like, the Treasury 

over the course of the last 6 or 8 years has built up a really extraordinary expertise. They are smart and very able people. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And then, Mr. Albright, I am intrigued by 

your statement when you said that if North Korea does attack 

South Korea that there had to be a proportionate response but that 

it should not lead—did you say you didn’t think it should lead to 

war, or wouldn’t lead to war? What did you say? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I would hope it would not lead to war. I think it 

is risky. 

Mr. WEBER. I think that is naive. I mean——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. You think it will lead to war? 

Mr. WEBER. Well, if I was South Korea and I had been hit that 

number of times, I would hope they would go kick their—I mean, 

I am sorry. Yes, I would think it would lead to war. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, they would be very vulnerable though, very 

vulnerable. 

Mr. WEBER. And if you want to call it an excuse, it would be a 

great reason, a justifiable reason for them to go right at them. And 

I would hope the United States would back them up to the hilt. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Then this is a question for the United States. I 

mean South Korea has to worry about being hit with a nuclear 

weapon. What is the United States going to do? 

Mr. WEBER. No, I understand. Mr. Sokolski? 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. We just as a country authorized the development 

and export of long-range strike systems for South Korea. Now, the 

export is kind of hard to argue against, but we also authorized 

them to develop missiles that they are working on to do precisely 

the kinds of strikes against command and control centers that, as 

70

I think you are rightly pointing out, have consequences. And if they 

proceed unassociated with our efforts it could cause trouble. I think 

that is the reason why everything we do to support South Korea 

needs to embrace them even closer and integrate them more in 

what we can do with them for their defense, because otherwise you 

could really get into a——

Mr. WEBER. No, I understand. And fourth and final question. I 

think, Mr. Sokolski, you said to Mr. Albright earlier that you all 

were just going to have to disagree but you were going to do it off 

line. I want the time and date of that so I can be there. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. How should I put it? My view is informed by the 

experience of negotiating with the Ukrainian authorities and the 

South Africans. And I can tell you sure as day they had their eye 

on a change in government and they were making calculations that 

were right down to the nickel with regard to the implications of 

who was going to take control and what financially that would 

mean if they did or didn’t do our bidding. 

Mr. WEBER. No, I kind of gathered that. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, okay, but that is not regime change. So I 

mean there may not be as much——

Mr. WEBER. Okay, what we are having here is a disagreement, 

ladies and gentlemen. No, I get that. 

Mr. SOKOLSKI. We are into definitional issues here. 

Mr. WEBER. No, so we will do that off line. Thank you. I yield 

back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COTTON. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from Florida 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of questions. Thanks to the witnesses for sticking this out as we came and 

went and came back. 

Dr. Takeyh, can we chat about the elections in Iran, whether 

they mean anything, what we can expect to see in them? 

Mr. TAKEYH. Sure. Elections in Iran tend to be unfair, uncompetitive and unpredictable. So there is a whole slate of candidates 

running. I think the Supreme Leader will have three criteria for 

who will become the next President of Iran. Number one, he has 

to firmly believe in the ideology of the system. Number two, he has 

to be submissive to the authority of the Supreme Leader. And number three, he has to demonstrate some administrative competence. 

The third is less relevant than one and two, but I think with experience that he has for the past 8 years has put some premium on 

administrative efficiency. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And Ambassador Woolsey, let us just go back to 

what you said at the very beginning during the start of your testimony. In talking about Iran, and you spoke briefly about Iran sanctions then you talked about other things that we should be doing 

to really cause the regime to, that ultimately would either cause 

the regime to actually make concessions on the nuclear program or 

cause the regime to fail which is something in the nature of an allout embargo. Is that right? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Yes, I think that we have not taken anywhere 

near the kind of stance in support of the Iranian people that they 

deserve and that they clearly wanted in ’09 when they had the 

election and took to the streets in huge numbers and we didn’t supVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:39 May 09, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_MENA\041113\80364 HFA PsN: SHIRL
71

port them at all. I think we need more than a dash of Margaret 

Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Pope John II who together, the 

three of them, did so much to bring the Cold War to a positive conclusion. And one of the things they did was they didn’t let up on 

criticizing the Communist system and the Communist authorities. 

Natan Sharansky I know slightly, and he was in the Gulag when 

Reagan said, ‘‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’’ and he said the 

word of that spread like wildfire throughout the Gulag through 

these various ways they have of communicating with one another, 

tapping on pipes and so forth, and he said he still remembers when 

he heard it. And his response was, we are going to win. 

That is what we have got to do. We have got to convince the people of Iran that we are on their side not on the side of the Revolutionary Guards who own an awful lot and control a lot, sort of like 

Nazi Germany being run by the SS. And I think we need to show 

people and let people know what side we are on with respect to 

Iran, and we haven’t really done that very well, I think, really 

since the fall of the Shah and the coming into power of Khomeini. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Well, do you think given that there is an ongoing 

discussion about maintaining a viable military threat, yet there is 

very little discussion about instituting what would really be the 

most significant economic threat, which is an embargo, so that is 

something that ought to be spoken of more directly as a real alternative that may be implemented soon. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I think so. I mean I would be slow definitely to 

put boots on the ground over there, but in terms of using economic 

power, using embargoes, using sanctions, taking the gloves off completely with respect to those, doing everything we can to bring 

down their economy, I think that is something we can at least 

make a very good effort at and could use as part of the rallying 

call, I think, to the American people and people who are oppressed 

by Iran in the region and otherwise. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Well, thanks. It has been a long day so I will yield 

back. Thank you. 

Mr. COTTON. I want to thank all four of our witnesses for coming 

today. Thank you for your service to your country over the span of 

a very distinguished career for each of you. This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:54 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(73)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

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80364n.eps

JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WASHINGTON. DC 20515-6128 

Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa 

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman 

Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific 

Steve Chabot (R-OH), Chairman 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade 

Ted Poe (R-TX), Chairman 

April 8, 2013 

TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

You arc respectfully requested to attend an OPEN hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to be held jointly 

b~ the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and the 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade in Room 2172 of the Ra~ bum House Office Building (and 

available lh'e on the Committee website at \\ w\-vJorelgnatTa.if5-,110USe go\- ): 

DATE: 

TIM": 

SUBJECT: 

WITNESSES: 

Thursdav. April II, 2013 

2:30 p.m 

Breaking the Iran. North Korea. and Syria Nexus 

The Honorable R James \Voolse), 

Chainnan 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies 

(former Director of the Central Intelligence AgcncJ) 

Me. Hen!) D. Sokolski 

Executive Director 

Nonproliferation Policy Education Center 

(Former Deputyfi:1F Nonproh{eratton Fahey. US'. Department of Defense ) 

Mr. Dmid Albright 

Founder and President 

Institute for Science and International Security 

Rm Takcvh, Ph.D 

Se~ior Feilmv for Middle Eastern Studies 

Council on Foreign Relations 

By Direction of the Chairman 
75


80364m-1.eps

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

~/nNUTES OF SUBCOMlvlITTEE ON Middle l::iI\(tllldi',orlh Ajri<:c: As,'a Gmitil~l)(/djk: an;! "f~trfJ7i'i/tl, .v('>l1pr~'lltm/Ji('lf,(md 1r.ld" HEARING 

Starting Time 2·~4 nm Ending Time 4~54pm 

Recesses __ <-to __ ) <-to -> <-to __ ) <-to __ ) <-to __ ) <-to __ ) 

Presiding Memher(s) 

Chairman Ros~Lehtinen (R-FL}t Yoho (.RA:,L)~ and Cotton (R~AR) 

Clteck all oj/heiol/owing '/WI apply: 

Open Session [2] 

Executive (closed) Session 0 

Televised [2] 

TITLE OF HEARING: 

Breaking tlte Iran, North Korea and Syria Nexus' 

SUBCOMMLTTEI:; Ml!:lIlBl:;RS PRI:;S.;"'T: 

(See attl/clted) 

Electronically Recorded (taped) [2] 

Stenographic Recm'd [2] 

NON~SUnCOM1\lITTEE MEMBERS PRRSENT: (jWark wilh an * iffhey are no! memhers o./full c:ommjtff:e.j 

Jeff Dllhcah (R-SC) 

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(1} "no "', please list belml.! and include tltle, agencJ~ department, or organ;zation.) 

STATF.lVIEJ\TS FOR TIlE RECORD; (List an..v statements suhmittedfm- the record.) 

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or 

TIME ADJOURNED ___ ~ __ 
76

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Members Present 

Hearing Title: Breaking the Iran, North 

Korea and Syria Nexus 

Dale: 4111/13 

Member 

Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (PL) 

Chahot.. Steve (OH) 

Poe, Ted (TX) 

Rohrabacher, Dana (CAl 

Kinzinger, Adam (IL) 

Cotton, Tom CAR) 

C:ook, Paul (CA) 

Holding, George (KC) 

Vieb~~, Randy (TXl 

Stockman, Steve (TX) 

Yaho, Ted (FLl 

Duncan, Jeff (SC) 

Member 

Deutch, Ted (FL) ; 

Sherman, Brad (CAl 

Keating, William (MA) 

Vargas, Juan (CA) 

[lera, Ami (CA) 

Meng, Grace (NY) 

~--~ ---_._--- Gabbard, TllIsi (HI) 
77


80364e-1.eps

STATEMENT FOR CONGRESSMAN BRAD SCHNEIDER 

Hearing on Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nexus. 

North Korea has a long history of rebuking international agreements and intentionally isolating 

itself and its people from participation in the global community. Unfortunately, actions by the 

current and previous regimes to directly antagonize and threaten its neighbors with nuclear and 

conventional military threats have often gained them signiticant international concessions. 

This military saber-rattling has occurred against the backdrop of the undue suffering of the North 

Korean people, including starvation and imposed government labor camps. Furthermore, we 

have seen the failure of international sanctions and U.N. agreements to alter the behavior of the 

Kim Jong-Un regime. 

Consequently, as we look toward-new sanctions and possible aid packages to alleviate the 

suffering of the North Korean people, we must ask the frank question; what more do we expect 

in the future and can good faith negotiations with North Korea realistically be relied upon~ 

The answer has been and will continue to be no. North Korea, as is true with Tran, must either 

choose to join the international community or continue to face isolation that only hurts its own 

citizens. 

The nexus betvlieen Iran, North Korea and Syria is a troubling situation that represents a 

significant danger to global stability. We tend to seek a common thread between these three 

nations in terms of their intent. We observe, at the surface, violent regimes that have trapped 

their own citizens in a cycle of abuse, neglect and disenfranchisement. 

Upon closer examination, however, countries differ greatly in their long term aspirations. 

North Korea is concerned primarily with regime longevity and isolation from the world. It does 

not appear to seek a robust relationship with its northern neighbors of Russia and China. Its trade 

and cooperation with these countries seems limited to military technology and equipment, along 

with food aid. The erratic behavior of the regime is geared toward instilling the fear of regional 

conflict in Asia. The development of a conventional force that can inflict severe damage on the 

south while maintaining an emerging nuclear program creates a projected image oflimited 

strength. Finally, the perception of a weak state that verges on collapse further complicates the 

vision of North Korea as it seems perpetually vulnerable to internal collapse. These dynamics 

have largely paralyzed the international community in creating a unified approach to 

disanllament and aid that would restrict the regimes' movement while not inflicting severe pain 

on the majority of the populace. North Korea has sewn these perceptions into a strategy which 

provides them with international aid in times of crisis while discouraging military intervention 

from the West. The goals of North Korea thus met, they remain tlxed on a similar path while the 

latest bombast from Pyongyang helps to solidify Kim Jung-Un as an insulated leader protected 

from internal threats to his leadership. 

Conversely, Tran continues to be the largest threat to U.S. interests and its allies in the Middle 

East. Unlike North Korea, Iran has greater ambitions than simply regime longevity. Iran seeks 
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the means to establish itself as a regional hegemon. Its nuclear program is seen as a vehicle for 

Iran to become the predominant Muslim maj ority country in the Middle East. While Iran 

continues to diversify its economy in order to avoid the most damaging ofintemational 

sanctions, oil exports are no longer the only avenue for the regime to support itself financially. 

Iran's leaders will pursue a nuclear weapon to retain the legitimacy of the regime, but also in 

pursuit of their ambitions to reallocate the seat of power in the region. As members of this 

Committee, it is our responsibility to utilize all the resources made available to the government 

of the United States to prevent this situation from becoming the new reality for Tran. Such a 

reality would not only threaten the existence ofIsrael, but would create global instability in 

energy markets and threaten U.S national security. 

Looking forward, we must continue to be vigilant in addressing these disparate, but related, 

challenges. We, as a country, must continue to make our diplomatic engagement a top national 

priority. This has been our traditional role in the world and is essential to securing a better future 

for our families, communities and our national as a whole. 
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Curbing the North Korean Threat 

The U.S. must stop its military. 

National Review Online, Guest Comment 

March 10, 9:00 a.m. 

Henry Sokolski 

Will President Bush use our military to retaliate against Pyongyang's 

ncrnfnr",iti""" or swallow his and pay diplomatic tribute to curb North 

Korea's nuclear activities? These are the questions the press is now asking. The 

real options, however, remain off stage. 

targeting North Korea's known bomb-making facilities makes little 

sense. It not only risks a more frightening North Korean counterstrike against 

South Korea's own reactors, but a complete breakdown of our security relations 

with Tokyo and Seoul. Bombing what we can lar'gel also leaves Pyongyang with 

what we can't - one or more covert suspect bombs and a set of hidden uranium 

weapons plants that could make several more bombs a year. 

North Korea the non-aggression pact it's seeking i.e., one that would 

recognize and treat il as America's "equal" - on the other hand, would only 

confirm to the world's nuclear wannabes (starting with Iran) that going nuclear 

gets you what you want. Pyongyang. after all, is not JUs! pleading out of fear. It 

hopes that If it can get Washington to formally agree that North Korea IS no 

longer a military threat, allied support for stationing U.S. troops on the peninsula 

will implode. This, Pyongyang knows, would give It a freer hand over the South In 

unifying Korea. 

then, would anyone suggest such alternatives? 

Fear. Pyongyang may make more nuclear WA.:::.n"n<:: 

capabilities (North Koreans 

It fire 

ways to the U.S. 

All of these threats are real. None, however, is worth jeopardizing our alliances 

with Japan and South Korea over, which is exactly what we'll risk if we start a war 

that's unwinnable without them. Each of the threats, moreover, can be mitigated 

if the U.S. and its friends act now to rein in Pyongyang. 

How? First, protect our troops and allies. Despite North Korea's recent military 

interception, the U.S. should continue its reconnaissance flights off the peninsula 

- if necessary, with fighter escorts - to warn against possible North Korean action. 

The U.S. should also back Tokyo's claimed right to preempt North Korea's 
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launching of nuclear-capable missiles if Washington has reason to believe these 

rockets are carrying nuclear warheads. So long as Pyongyang has one or more 

nuclear weapons and is threatening us with nuclear war, shying from these steps 

will only signal U.S. weakness and invite Pyongyang to probe further. 

Second, we and our allies should stop helping North Korea's military. Two weeks 

ago, Japan's foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. to do more to block 

Pyongyang's Illicit-drug exports to Japan. This trade, which violates International 

strictures against selling drugs, is conducted entirely by North Korea's military 

and annually nets it several hundred million dollars In hard currency. Pyongyang 

spends a good portion of this money to acquire foreign paris and technology that 

It still needs to complete ils two unfinished military reactors, its uranluill-bomb 

plants, and its long-range missiles. North Korea's share of the Japanese illicitdrug market is estimated to be approaching 50 percent 

Then, there's Seoul's cash transfers. Hyundai, South Korea's most subsidized 

entity and the largest corporate sponsor of Seoul's "sunshine" POliCY, is reported 

to have funneled $1.7 billion directly to Pyongyang. North Korea, in turn, has 

used this cash to feed its modernizing military. Like lax anti-drug enforcement, 

these cash continue is no! cynical, it's dangerous. 

The U.S., is culpable as well. Norlh Korea construct 

two power reactors, Each of these is of over 50 

bombs worth of near in the first 15 months of 

President Clinton these reactors in 1994 to get North Korea 

with the Nuclear Earlier this North 

"'ITn"'·""M from the treaty and was by U.N.'s 

\A,,:,td,rlrlrl for it. Yet construction of the reactors and the 

to train the next of North Korean 

bomb makers - continues. 

diplomats. anxious to cut another deal with want to 

retain the option of completing these plants. The result? 

abroad that is so of 

capabilities that it's less interested in enforcing the NPT than it is in possibly 

P'''''nt''I<;,nn off 

As with Iraq, which defied the NPT and now is banned from receiving atomic 

technology, nuclear should also it from getting 

any nuclear reactors The White House, however, has yet to announce publicly 

that it's unwilling to waive the U.S. Atomic Act, which forbids the U.S. 

from nuclear to NPT violators. Encouraged this silence, South 

Korea continue to build the reactors hoping that still 

the US parts and needed to finish them. 

What else helps Pyongyang modernize its military power base? Counterfeiting, 

skimming from gambling operations in Japan, and selling nuclear-capable arms 
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and related technology to whomever will buy them. Together, these rackets earn 

its military hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Improved law enforcement in 

the region (with assistance from the US Treasury) could help curb this trade as 

would passage of proposed and pending measures in Japan, South Korea, and 

the U,N. geared to make peaceful interdiction of this illicit commer'ce easier. 

These steps, of course, won't eliminate the North Korean nuclear threat. Nor can 

they entirely preclude Pyongyang from making more atomic weapons or selling 

its nuclear capabilities, But they should alert other would be bomb makers who 

have already misread our silence and are now chomping at the bit - that there is 

a price to be paid for violating the NPT and no reward for going nuclear, In 

concert with proper interdiction efforts, these measures also will make it more 

costly and difficult for North Korea to sell, perfect, or complete its strategicweapons programs, Of course, If and when Pyongyang ever transfers a nuclear 

weapon or fires off more long-range rockets, support for taking tougher action will 

grow. 

Until then, these modest steps, which require relatively lilile effort to put into 

motion, will help hedge against the wars! without bombing or groveling, They 

won'! scotch negotiations, They will, however, take certain things off the lable -

non-aggression pacts and reactors - that shouldn't be there, Also, acting on these 

measures now should make it easier to insist as we must that North Korea be 

deprived of any new benefits unlil it proves to the International Atomic Energy 

and the world that it is out of the business, 

if Pyongyang continues to misbehave, Implementing these measures should put 

the U.S. and its allies in a much better to garner broader support to do 

more - something paying tribute or attacking militarily now would all but rule out 

Henry Sako/ski is executive director of the I\lrlY""cnlif"'r'~Tlr'" 

Center and author 
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4111113 Pyongyang Is Not Our Only Nuclear VIJorry- National Review Online 

Pyongyang Is Not OUf Only Nuclear Worry 

As President Obmna stnlggles to halt North Korea's and !rilll· s further "peaceful" production of nuclear e:"..plosi\e materials, 

hc needs to takc carc that hc docsn't stimulatc thc nuclcar-fuel-making aspirations of two Amcrican allics - Japan and South 

Korea. 

Unlil..e Iran and North Korea which are each generating several bombs' \\orth ornuc1ear-\,eapons ruel a year. Japan m~ open a 

plant that can produce eight tons orplutoniwn a )ear- enough to make 1.000 to 2.000 nuclear ''leapons annuall) That's at least 

as many weapons as arc in the entire US. operationally deployed nuclear force 

South Korea also \,ants to make plutonium-based flLLe1car fuels from imported US. po\,er-reactor assemblies. In a Fom 

Bottom press conference with secreta"0 or state John KelT) on April 2. South Korean foreign minister YlUl Byung-se made it 

clear that he WillIts to rC\·ise South Korea's current nuclear eooperatiYe agreement ,\"ith the US. in order to allm\" Seoul to make 

such fuel Kerry said he hoped to resolve the matter soon. He will visit South Korean president ParI.. Geun-hye in Seoul later this 

month 

What the secretary will offer President Park. though, is still unclear. lfhe says yes to SeouL Japan will be dead set on opening its 

plant at Rokkasho. This, in turn, is likely to prompt China to up its atomic ante. Beijing has been coy about " .. hat its tme nuclear 

capabilities are, but it has been toying \\ ith the idea or ha\ ing the French build it a plutonium-extraction plant nearl) identical to 

the one in Japan. China WillIts to build the pbnt adjacent to one of its major militalY nuclear-production sites in Jiayuguan 

The unspoJ..en nuclear positioning here couldn't be clearer. Japan already has ten tons of nuclear explosive plutonium stockpiled 

on its soil from pre\ious reprocessing acti,ities. China is IhOI,&hl IQ hme f! bieger resvne or nuclear explosi\e materials (i.e., a 

large amount of weapons-grade uranitun plus a rel'ltn·ely small amount of nuclear explosiye pilltolllum). but if it gets into the 

"peaceful" business of e:"..tracting plutonilUll to sta), ,\,ell ahead of Japan, Tok)o \,"ill feel compelled to make e\·en more plutollirnn 

of its 0\\11 to keep up. The military oycrtones of such nuclear fuel making arc clear: Ovcr thc last six months, prominent Japanese 

and South Korean parliamentarians have publicly backed incrcasing domestic cr .. iliallnuclcar-fucl making as a ,vay to hedgc 

against nuclear threats 

Predictab1)-, nuc1ear-indusu:. supporters seem blind to all of this. The:- insist that Japan's and South Korea's plans lo maJ..e 

plutonium-based fuels are eritieal to these countries' millIagement oftheir nuclear ,Yuste. Yet,.s..t:lli;b:: nfter.ffilili:: hus found that the 

proposed fuel-making actn·ities v,·ill significantly increase nuclear-waste-milliagement costs compared witll storing spent fuel in 

dry casks on site. Nor is it clear that Soutll Korean demillids to enrich U.S. uranium domestically make economic sense when 

large uranium-enrichment companics "ith plants in the U.S. and Elrrope, such as URENCO, arc eager to fmd someonc to buy 

them up 

Some South Korean experts understand these points Privately, the:- allo\\ that extending the existing U.S. conditions on nuclearfuel-making activities for two or four years would gi\T both South Korea and the US. the time needed to iron out these issues 

As for Japilli. offlcials there know tlmt tlle U.S. Congress expects Iok·yo and Washington to renew the existing nuclear 

cooperative agreement before it ends in20IS. Right no,,", no one in Congress is pushing lo change the tenns of that agreement. If 

Japan opcns Rokkusho and a regional nuclear & .. alry ensues, though, all bcts may be off. 

No one knows hmy Japan will proceed. If it abrupt1)-- tel1llmates the Rokkasho project, the utilities that paid $28 billion to build 

##N. nati anal review com/blog sJpri nt/344? 46 112 
83

[NOTE: The following material submitted for the record by Mr. Henry D. Sokolski 

is not reprinted here but can be found in committee records: Report by Gregory S. 

Jones, March 19, 2013, entitled ‘‘Iran’s Rapid Expansion of its Enrichment Facilities 

Continues as the U.S. Concedes That Iran Is Getting ‘Closer and Closer’ to Having 

Nuclear Weapons: Centrifuge Enrichment and the IAEA February 21, 2013 Safeguards Update.’’]

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