Preventing Iran from Obtaining Nuclear Weapons

PREVENTING IRAN FROM OBTAINING NUCLEAR WEAPONS

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Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons ought to be the number one foreign policy objective of the United States. A nuclear Iran would spark region-wide nuclear proliferation. In fact, (Saudi Arabia and its allies have already announced that they are beginning a nuclear program to respond to what Iran is doing). Further, if the Iranian Government were close to being overthrown, and some of us look forward to that day, it could smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States--either in an effort to reassert popularity with its own people, or with the idea that they would rather go out with a bang.

Now, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program just by meeting with Iranian emissaries. Secretary Rice has offered to meet with representatives of the Iranian Government anywhere, at any time, to discuss any agenda--so long as during the talks Iran suspends uranium enrichment, just as Iran suspended uranium enrichment when they were talking with European leaders. The refusal of Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, even for a few days in order to speak with Secretary Rice, speaks loudly about their willingness and desire to speak with us.

Likewise, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program by making unilateral concessions to Iran. We did that in the year 2000. We opened our markets to everything Iran would want to export to us, except oil--things like carpets and dried fruit. In fact, we opened our markets to everything we didn't need, and they couldn't sell anywhere else. The result in public was nasty comments from the Iranian foreign minister. In private what they did was redouble their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, and provide assistance to the 9/11 hijackers, according to the 9/11 Commission, though they apparently didn't know the exact mission of those they were assisting.

But we can block Iran's nuclear program only if we can pass extreme Security Council sanctions. The mere adoption of strong sanctions at the United Nations would be of enormous political impact on the people of Iran. A ban on selling Iran refined petroleum products would dislocate its economy and bring enormous popular pressure on the Government of Iran, because although Iran exports petroleum, it doesn't have the refining capacity--and therefore is dependent on imports for almost half of its gasoline.

So how do we get these very extreme U.N. Security Council sanctions? Only with a dramatic change in Russia's policy.

Now, our current approach to securing that critical Russian support has been very ineffective, and we have achieved only token sanctions that Tehran can laugh off.

The only way to get the kind of Russian support we need is by offering real changes on our policy toward issues in Russia's own geographic region--issues Russia cares a lot about, issues not of great significance to most of us in the United States. Our efforts to convince Russia to change its Iran policy only because, well, they ought to do it, have been remarkably unsuccessful. We need to address Russia's concerns to change their policy toward Iran's nuclear weapons.

In particular, we may need to offer to make modest changes in our policies towards such issues as the Russian-speaking peoples of Moldova, Latvia and Estonia, the route of Caspian Sea oil pipelines, and Chechnya and Abkhazia.

Now, the State Department bureaucracy is prejudiced towards this approach for three reasons: First, a bureaucracy has bureaus, and they have got an Abkhazia bureau that doesn't want its interests sacrificed for some more important national security priority. Second, there are those in the administration with such an almost faith-based excessive estimate of our national power. They think we can achieve all of our national objectives and that we don't have to sacrifice or delay any of them. Finally, many of America's foreign policy experts grew up in the Soviet era. They spent their time strategizing how to encircle and weaken Russia. And, Madam Speaker, old habits die hard.

Nothing is more important to America's national security than an all-out diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

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