Former Ambassadors Say U.S., Iran on Path to War

“If I wanted Iran to get the bomb, I’d keep doing what we’re doing,” Robert Hunter, former US Ambassador to NATO, told a full house at NIAC’s second Annual Leadership Conference. “And if I were Iran and wanted to get attacked, I’d keep doing what they’re doing.”

“If I wanted Iran to get the bomb, I’d keep doing what we’re
doing,” Robert Hunter, former US Ambassador to NATO, told a full house at
NIAC’s second Annual Leadership Conference. “And if I were Iran and wanted to
get attacked, I’d keep doing what they’re doing.”

Ambassador Hunter was one of a trio of academic and
political leaders in the first of three panels last week at NIAC’s 2012
Leadership Conference in DC. The experts voiced highly critical appraisals of
both the US and Iran’s handling of the current crisis.

Thomas Pickering, former Ambassador to Israel and Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said the success of the
sanctions-heavy, diplomacy-light policy with Iran “hovers between 0 and 5” on a
scale of 100.

Professor Farideh Farhi, a renowned scholar at the
University of Hawaii, also criticized the U.S. policy of focusing on pressure
over Iran’s nuclear program to the detriment of the pro-democracy movement in
Iran.  “Look at what happened in the United States after 9/11 – a country
under threat becomes securitized,” said Farhi. Sanctions and the threat of war
have reinforced the Iranian government’s efforts to crack down on
pro-democratic forces, Farhi argued.

Hunter expressed his views on sanctions more bluntly,
exclaiming “Sanctions don’t work. Sanctions don’t work. Sanctions don’t work.”

There was unanimous agreement on the disastrous results of
war. “If you didn’t want Iran to build a nuclear weapon, a military attack now
would be the worst of all possible circumstances,” Pickering argued. Pickering
cited the findings of a major study by former U.S. military and diplomatic
officials, who concluded that a military attack “would provide the excuse and
maybe the driver to move the Iranian program into weaponization and would lead
to expulsion of the IAEA.”

Hunter leveraged his credentials to
boldly claim that war with Iran “would be nuts” and that no great power should
allow another country to force its hand on starting a war.

Complimenting his critique, Ambassador Pickering proposed a “simple first
package” to break the current stalemate between the U.S. and Iran.  Under
Pickering’s proposal, the U.S. would accept an Iranian enrichment program while
placing significant restrictions on this activity to ensure Iran cannot build a
nuclear weapon.  In return for Iran accepting these safeguards, the U.S.
would provide a “step-by-step gradual reduction in sanctions.”

Pickering noted the current format of talks between
international powers and Iran limits back and forth negotiations, and suggested
that “Negotiations should proceed in a way that opens up the entire panoply of
differences between Iran and the US.”  To achieve this, Pickering argued
the U.S. should seek “arduously to open a door to one-on-one conversations
between the United States and Iran.”  The last bilateral talks between the
U.S. and Iran occurred in 2009.

All the panelists agreed that politics and years of built up
enmity made negotiations even more difficult.  Farhi challenged the
audience of Iranian American leaders to challenge this dangerous dynamic. 
“Demand common sense from your politicians,” Farhi exclaimed.