General Wesley Clark on The Young Turks and Air America – 8.01.07
Cenk Uygur: General Clark, we have breaking news that we’d like to share with you and get your reaction on. We just found out that the main Sunni block has quit the Iraqi government, and we know yesterday that Michael Mullen, the new Joint Chiefs of Staff nominee said that if there is no political progress – and so far that there is no political progress – that no amount of troops and no amount of time will make much of a difference. Is this Sunni block withdrawing a big blow to our efforts in Iraq?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it’s a tactical blow. This is all part of the game of each side gaining what it can from the current position. That’s why I believe it’s important that the United States take strong measures to initiate a pullback of troops, that we deal with the countries in the region, and then that we slowly proceed to withdraw these forces. Because as long as we’re there, we’re supporting these kinds of antics.
Cenk Uygur: S-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We’re enabling them to pull back, wrestle with their, with themselves underneath the protection of the American soldiers that are on the ground.
(snip)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I mean, we are in the middle, on top of a civil war that’s emerged and gotten stronger, but it’s also part of a regional quest for power by Iran. There’s no telling how many Iranian agents of influence are present inside Iraq today. Something like a million Iraqis fled to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. You have to believe that many of these people have come back. They’ve still got connections. They’re- The Iranian intelligence agencies are, much like other intelligence agencies, they’re organized into separate compartments and cells and competing organizations, and all of these have elements of influence inside Iraq. After all, Iraq’s their closest neighbor. They want to make sure that they control what happens in there. The Saudis are busy working, and it wouldn’t surprise me that the Saudis have influenced these Sunni tribes to cooperate with U.S. Forces. But of course, as you say, the cooperation has a double meaning, because not only can they go after Al Qaeda, but they can prepare themselves to guard against a Shi’ite takeover of all of Iraq, which makes Iraq a civil war.
Cenk Uygur: So, is there a possibility that us, not necessarily funding, but actually giving weapons to the Sunni insurgents that we’re theoretically fighting and certainly in reality fighting – in fact that we’ve been mainly fighting them for a long, long time – that it’s actually part of a larger geopolitical decision that, hey, we’re going to help the Saudis and we’re going to help the Sunnis here, and we’re going to work against the Shi’ites that are in control of the Iraqi government, because they might one day, they are likely one day to team up with Iran?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it, it will eventually emerge that way, and in the sense that unless we open up diplomatic relations with Iran, we’re going to take sides in the region in a way that puts us against Iran. That of course, taking sides against Iran encourages them to develop a nuclear weapon, which then sets off the nuclear race in the, in the region, which makes everyone less secure.
Cenk Uygur: So, if you were in charge, General Clark – and we’re talking to General Wesley Clark here – how would you handle Iran now, because yes Iran is a threat, yes they’re in there, but yes also the Saudis have been funding a Sunni insurgency that was a much greater threat. And I feel that the Iran influence has been overblown to some degree, and certainly attacking it we know is not the right way to go, and the of course the preferred course for Vice President Cheney. But how would you deal with it, even if it’s just 10% of the problem, how do you w- talk to them, do diplomacy, work with them and at the same time deal with the, the nefarious forces that they’ve unleashed in Iraq.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, what I learned from working with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was that as long as people are talking and not killing, that’s okay because diplomats like a good quarrel. And you don’t have to agree with Iran to talk with them, but if you can talk with them and work with various factions in Iran, remember the, the Iranian people are the most pro-American of any group in the Middle East. 80% of the Iranians (chuckle) so far have something like a favorable opinion of the United States. It’s the government that doesn’t. So, the last thing we want to do is bomb the Iranian people and have them side with their government. 61% of the Iranian people in the poll I saw believe that their government should go. So, it’s not that they’re, that they’re anti-American. What they are is in a state which has pursued some expansionary policies, some revolutionary policies that the United States has opposed. So, we have to work around the government. We did that in Eastern Europe. It’s the way we brought down the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. We opened up relations at many different levels. We let the people themselves make the decisions, and eventually they did. It wasn’t just the Reagan Defense buildup of the 1980s. It was a culmination of five Presidential- Presidencies who worked to have a broad front of engagement with communism at the same time holding it in check. That same kind of policy has to be applied with Iran.
Ben Mankiewicz: I-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And Iran will eventually come our way, because human nature’s human nature. People are more concerned about their families, their circumstances of life, the hopes for their children and other things than they are about the larger more idealistic issues.
(snip)
Cenk Uygur: And so, you would say if you were leading the Democratic Caucus, ‘Hey, ignore the Petraeus report. No matter what it says, it doesn’t address the real issue here, which is that the Iraq politicians won’t make a deal, and without that deal, our presence there, no matter how lovely, is irrelevant.’
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It doesn’t address the real issue in that if the, the administration won’t talk seriously to Iran and Syria, we’ll never move forward to addressing the problems in the region, including our mission in Iraq.
Cenk Uygur: General Clark-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, what I said in my Congressional testimony three weeks ago is two brigades out by Christmas, the administration gets 60 days to revise its strategy and policy, otherwise consequences will follow, and that revised strategy has to include dialog with Iran and Syria – serious dialog, not, not going in and accusing Iran of, of arming and giving improvised explosive device warheads to the, to the militias, but actual dialog about what are your aims and purposes in the region, what would you like to see, where do you see it in ten years, and going at a mul- on it, on it on multiple fronts.
Cenk Uygur: Gen-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: To crack through the facade of the hardline anti-Israeli rhetoric of Ahmadinejad, which doesn’t have the support of the majority of the Iranian people.
