Audience member: You called for one of the hopes for Iraq to hold together. Serious people in foreign policy thinking, some of them believe that that’s actually one of the impossibilities at this point in terms of Kurdish independence, Sunni-Shia splits, irreconcilable Sunni Ba’athists who are not going to reconcile to Shia dominance, et cetera, et cetera. In terms of split, three-way split versus holding together and what influence we can have internationally in, with the international community for a settlement in that direction?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you have to be careful about the analogies with, with the Balkans. This is not quite like the Balkans. And so, I know a lot of people talk about this. They say, ‘Look, you guys separated, you stopped the war in, in Bosnia. You stopped all this. You separated..’ I-it’s a little bit different. It’s different because the Balkans is not the Middle East. These issues are more complicated. there’s oil involved here. There’s different populations. There’s powerful neighbors who are at odds with each other, and the populations aren’t actually separated. So, you’re right in that there are fracture lines that you can see forming. You know the Shias mostly have the South and they want it. And the Kurds mostly have the North, but they don’t have Kirkuk, and they’re prepared to fight Kirkuk. I don’t know if you saw the, the Bob Novak piece on the weekend that said we’re going to run a special operation inside the Kurdish area to eliminate the PKK guerrillas in combination with Turkish Special Forces. And THAT’ll make us really popular there. (laughter) And, and you’ve got Iran, Turkey.. i-i- This may well be what happens, but I would hate to see the United States propose it and have to worry about implementing it, because it’ll be one more recipe for conflict. There’s no simple mechanistic way out of this. This is about human dynamics. It’s about engagement. It’s about changing people’s minds. It’s about Westernization over a period of time, and it can’t be done in isolation in Iraq. You’ve got to reach out to Iraq’s neighbors.

(snip)

Tom Rinaldo: My question relates to diplomacy, and I’ve been pleased that Democrats in general, our Presidential candidates, our current Presidential candidates show a greater willingness to proclaim that we should be willing to talk with Iran for instance without preconditions, but what I hear them defining as diplomacy pretty much stops there. It’s like, ‘Sure, I’ll talk to them. I’ll lecture them. I’ll tell them what they have to do. I’ll tell them why they’re wrong and why we’re right. And sure I’ll organize diplomatically. I’ll organize a coalition of people to put pressure on them.’ It’s all the stick….

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The third level is the level that I’m talking about. You go in with a statement of principles. You say things like, ‘Borders should be respected.’ ‘People should have rights.’ ‘Nations should choose their own form of government.’ ‘No nation should use force to threaten another nation.’ Say, ‘Which one of these principles do you agree with?’ When they say, ‘We agree with all of them,’ you say, ‘Good. Can we, can we sign a statement and sort of say there’s an agreement in principle here on these things?’ And you work it through statements and agreements of principles into greater community of interests, into organizations that can deal with those specific interests. Is it about border controls? Is it about the movement of agricultural products? Is it about marketing petroleum. Is it about sharing refining assets? Is it about exchanging security? Is it about turning over Al Qaeda members held in Iraq? Is it about releasing reserves that have been held in New York, financial reserves? There’s a multiplicity of issues. There’s a long way we can go down there.

But diplomacy’s not simply going in and threatening them and saying, ‘There, I talked to them. Okay? You guys do this again, you’re dead.’ (laughter) Diplomacy’s not simply going in and say, ‘I’ll give you this. You give me that.’ It’s about changing people’s perception of their future possibilities. Imagine if Iran actually believed it could be accepted as a member of the world community, join the World Trade Organization, receive financial assistance from Western banks, major Western…, be invested in by the American oil industry (laughter), and participate in all the fruits of the economy. Imagine that. The Iranian people would love it. They want blue jeans, pop music, travel and access, just like the people of Eastern Europe. Surely, we can build a dialog which diffuses tensions and may give us an opportunity to find common interests or convergent interests, and surely we have to try to do that before we resort to threats or beyond. And that’s what I mean by diplomacy.

Full Transcript

…I go to the Middle East….And when I travel, they ask me, they say, ‘Well look, you know, the biggest cause of terrorism, the thing that we’re most worried about is that you Americans haven’t done your duty in trying to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

(applause)

And oh, by the way, they get around to mentioning Iraq too. (laughter) Not one of them, not one, no statesman, no scholar, no businessman has come to me and said, ‘What you Americans did in Iraq, you know, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, thank you very much. Come and do it to my country!’

(snip)

But here’s where, here’s where I need your help. We got to get out of there the right way, because unlike Vietnam, when we leave Iraq, we’ll still be left with a whole passel of interests there. We’ll still have concerns about Iranian nuclear potential. We’ll still have worries about Israel and the Palestinians. We’ll still be worried about, yes, the security of the world’s principal supply of oil. We’ll still be worried about our friends in the, in the Persian, in the Arab Gulf who, who are dependent on us for some of their security. We’ll still be worried about Lebanon. We’ll still be worried about terrorists. Those interests won’t go away simply by pulling U.S. troops out. So, we not only have to come out, we have to come out the right way.

(snip)

But what we’ve got to do is create not an argument in the United States over the troops or their tactics, but raise the debate to the administration’s strategies and policies in this region. Here’s why. We can’t succeed in Iraq with the numbers of troops, no matter how good they are, because you can’t succeed in this war just by killing people or intimidating the opposition.

(applause)

Dave Petraeus would be the first one to tell you that. The military’s part of the solution. It’s not the answer. The answer’s the politics. The politics inside Iraq are not just people who are afraid. It’s not just a group of people who say, ‘Gee, if I just, if I could just let my kids go to school, I wouldn’t have to join a militia.’ Maybe there’s some of that, but there’s a lot more than that going on. This is a power struggle within religious factions. It’s a power struggle between religious factions. And it’s a geo-strategic struggle between different nations in the region. – All playing out on the ground in forms of violence, intimidation, blackmail, corruption, payoffs, influence, healthcare, coaching, counseling, there’s no telling how many different intelligence agencies and means of action and influence from different nations are present in Iraq. It’s a whole lot more then the number of nations participating in our coalition. I can promise you that. (Applause)

And so, we’re not going to solve this problem unless we work it at the diplomatic level and that means we’ve got to stop isolating people we disagree with and start engaging those people.

(applause)

The Iranians have tried several times over the last three or four years to engage us. We’ve rebuffed them every time. Of course, you understand the Iranians are not our friends. We’ve been in a virtual state of war. It’s a cold war. We’ve been in a state of war with them for 30 years, and that government is not our friends. Now, their population is the most pro-American population in the Middle East. They all love Americans and 61 of them, 61% of them think they’re government’s no good. That’s what the latest polls show. But the Iranian government is not going to have a friendly conversation with the United States. Look, they’ve got something they think we want. We want some support in Iraq and we want them to stop building their nuclear weapons. These people are in this for sort of the larger aggrandizement of their, of their purposes, their, their nationality, their heritage, their religious faith. And so, they’re going to bargain. They’re going to joust. They’re going to work. The United States has to engage. It can’t isolate and get what it wants. It’s time to engage.

The Bush administration says we don’t have enough leverage. Well, we’re the most powerful country in the world. We’ve got aircraft carriers on two sides of Iraq. We got air bases on the other two sides. We’ve got planes that can fly over. We’ve got military dominance over Iran. And we can go into Iran any time we want, and they know it. Not only that, we’re the most powerful nation economically in the world. Virtually every organization that Iran wants support from we either control, dominate or heavily influence. So, we don’t have enough leverage? We want to capture five more Iranian spies or something? It doesn’t make sense.

Let’s get engaged. Let’s talk. Let’s give our troops the kind of diplomatic support they need. We’re-

(applause)

Now, people usually say, ‘Okay well, what’s your plan?’ Well, we did this in the Balkans. We started with a statement of principles. We had, here’s the principles we’re looking for. Here’s what we can do, plusses and minuses for you. And then we sort of launched out. As Richard Holbrooke said, “It’s not exactly, it’s not exactly like a military plan, it’s more like jazz.” You know, the thing about diplomacy and engagement is it takes two, three, four sides to participate. So, you can draw up all the timelines and visits you want, but it doesn’t mean anything if you haven’t got the other side to sort of engage with you.

So, no one can sit up here and give you a timeline for diplomacy. No one can say, ‘Two trips to Tehran, then a trip to Damascus, then a trip to Riyadh, then back to…’ That all has to be worked out in the process, but what has to be done to start that process is the United States has to be willing to engage with a nation that we don’t like. And to do that we have to be willing to move away from the state of war that we’re a part of with that nation.

(applause)

I’m not saying that Iran is not a serious problem, but I’m saying you can’t, you can’t deal with that serious problem until you’ve tried to engage. I’m not taking any options off the table with Iran, but remember the rule: When you’re talking about the use of force, it’s only, only, only, ONLY as a last resort.

(snip)

I don’t think Iraq is, well I was going to say I don’t think it’s a total failure, but it’s getting pretty down, far down the list. It’s clearly not going to be a Western-style democracy. It’s not going to have the America flag imprinted on one corner of its constitution. (laughter) It’s not going to invite the United States Congress to, or the Presidency to send a representative to sit in permanent session with the Iraqi Assmebly. It’s not going to ask to become a member of NATO. It’s not even probably going to ask to host U.S. bases. In fact, the majority of Iraqis seem to want us to leave.

But what we can hope for still is a state that holds together, that doesn’t break apart. And we can hope for a state that tries to work law and order issues with its own, within its own territory and doesn’t become a breeding ground for future terrorist activities or for exporting violence in the region. And we can hope for a state that in some way will allow the wonderful, industrious, smart and capable people of Iraq to make their own way forward. And we can hope for a state in which thousands of Iraqis aren’t dying every month.

(applause)

Those are pretty modest, those are pretty modest objectives, and as we move toward those objectives, if we do it the right way, I think we can protect the larger U.S. interests in the region and we can withdraw our troops, but we can’t do it without a change in the United States strategy of engagement in the region. We must engage people we don’t agree with. We must take seriously our responsibilities to help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians….We got to get out the right way, because history doesn’t stop when the last American troop heads down the road to Basra.

Transcript of Full Speech

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.

Full Transcript and Audio

Charlie Rose: Tell me, without doing all the sort of dancing that I might do, say, you know, ‘If you were President what would you do?’ Just tell me what we ought to do.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Got to have a new strategy. The President said he had a new strategy, but he didn’t. He had a new approach militarily on the ground in Iraq. The Iraq problem is part of the regional problem, and you can’t solve Iraq just with military force or just by dealing inside Iraq. Iran’s got a major role and a major voice in the region and inside Iraq. And so, you have to deal with the problem in a coherent way. That means diplomacy, politics and the military. We need to be talking to Iran and Syria and the rest of it, the neighbors of Iraq. We’ve needed, and I’ve been pretty consistent on this for the last three or four years, a regional security forum, a continuing dialog-

Charlie Rose: Okay.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the ability to harmonize interests.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: This administration had, went into Iraq with the idea that Iraq would be the first of a number of let’s call them dominoes-

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -which it could tumble over in the Middle East – Syria, Lebanon and ultimately Iran. We’ve gone for 75 million dollars in funding to promote regime change in Iran. The Iranians are under no illusion about the United States. So, having a dialog between Foreign Ministers to talk about Iraq, it, it doesn’t change the nature of the cold war.

Charlie Rose: What changes the nature of the war?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: A change in U.S. strategy in the region. W-What we should’ve learned out of Iraq is that we’re not for the imposition of our form of democracy at any price. We’re just not for it. What we would do if we could do I think and do it over, is we would work for the sort of gradual change in Iraq that might lead to a fundamental reform without all the destructive anarchy that’s accompanied the U.S. invasion there.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I keep hearing from Washington the administration doesn’t have enough leverage to talk to Iran. Now, think about this for a minute, Charlie. We’re the most powerful nation in the world. All of the international institutions – The World Trade Organization, the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the Group of 8, all those – we either dominate or heavily influence, and that’s what Iran really wants is legitimation. We don’t have enough leverage to talk to Iran, as though if we could just capture five more Iranians in Iraq, that would give us more leverage?

(snip)

Charlie Rose: The President makes a speech and he says, ‘Listen,’ to all, to the Iranian government, you know, in all of its manifestations, ‘We have no interest in changing your regime. That’s not what we want to do. We want to see understanding between the two of us, and we understand what your mission is and what our mission is and how we deal together with big issues that threaten all of us.’

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that’s a pretty constructive way to start. I think that’s not enough, but that’s a constructive way to start.

(snip)

Charlie Rose: Okay. Are you then, and you know this is the terminology they all use as you know: ‘We’re going to-’ You know, they all say, everybody says, ‘We’re never going to take the use of force off the table.’ Are you taking it off the table.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No. No, of course not. You don’t have to take it off the table, but you have to talk to people.

Charlie Rose: So, you say then, if necessary we’ll use force, but hope we can avoid that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, what you say to them is, ‘Let’s sit down and talk about all the issues,’ and you send a team over like we did in the Balkans that represents the President and the Pentagon and the National Security Council staff and the State Department, and you really talk about the issues – all the issues in the region. And you don’t just talk to the Iranians, but the team goes to the other capitols in the region and talks to other leaders. One of the problems with Iran, of course, is we don’t know exactly who to talk to, because there’s a government and then there’s a shadow government.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The Iranians still have got that border. They’ve got, this is their home court advantage that we’re playing on. They can infiltrate. There’s no telling how many Iranian agents are inside Iraq. They probably come in all different flavors.

Charlie Rose: What do you think their goal is?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There’s this-

Charlie Rose: What do you think the Iranian goal-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They want to be sure that Iraq is, for them, a supportive and friendly country, and then they may want more than that. But if the United States had been invaded by Canada, and then there was regime change in Canada, we’d be pretty interested in figuring out what was going on in Canada and trying to influence it.

Charlie Rose: So, therefore the Iranians have a, have a legitimate interest in what’s going on.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They’re a, they’re a state in the region just like Israel has a legitimate interest in what’s going on. So does Syria. So does Saudi Arabia. So, you can’t deny Iran’s interest in the region, but what you can do is you can make it come out from being covert to being overt.

Charlie Rose: Okay, you’re saying-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Get it out in the open and talk about it.

Charlie Rose: Yeah. Tell me what policy will prevent the Iranians from an involvement in, on the ground, supplying weapons to whoever they’re going to.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You must take away their interest in doing that.

Charlie Rose: How do you do that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You must give them a voice in what happens in the region. You must end the policy of isolation that’s been put in place against Iran, and until that’s done-

Charlie Rose: Ambassador Crocker says-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -it won’t be, it won’t be effective.

Charlie Rose: Ambassador Crocker says they’ve shown no real interest and initiative in those discussions. That’s what he said.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, they wouldn’t. They’re not interested in the tactical discussions until it reaches the strategic level. They’ve told us this. I was-

Charlie Rose: When does it reach the strategic level?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: When you talk about whether the U.S is after regime change in Iran or not. Now look, the Iranian population’s the most pro-American population in the region. 61%, according to the latest opinion polls in Iran, 61% of the Iranians don’t support their own government.

Charlie Rose: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, it’s not like this is a great government. It’s just like, don’t give the government the opportunity to make the United States the enemy.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Iran’s a challenge in the region. Iran floats trial balloons. Iran stimulates problems in Lebanon. Iran-

Charlie Rose: Iran supports Hezbullah-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely.

Charlie Rose: Hamas and everybody else.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It’s- Iran is a definite problem in the region. So, you got to, you got to work against that problem, but one of the ways you work against it is by talking with it and working with it openly.

Full Transcript and Video

Bob Steel: Where do you think we are in this war and what do you see as the future?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think we’re in a very very difficult position in the conflict. Obviously our troops are doing a great job over there in the mission they’ve been assigned but they are not going to succeed in this mission without the requisite diplomatic and political efforts in the region, including discussions and dialogue with Syria and Iran as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and so forth. And, this is what the administration has consistently refused to do. So we’ve got to take Iran out through diplomacy. I believe it can be done. If we do that, I think we’ll see a decline in the violence and I think it’s still not too late to expect that Iraq may hold together and you may actually get some stable government. It won’t be any kind of a democracy that…that we recognize and it certainly won’t have our standards of rights and freedoms but it could stop the violence. If we don’t discuss the situation and bring in the neighbors – whether we like them and approve of them or not – what we’re going to see is continuing violence. It’s their home court advantage. They’ve got the advantage on us despite all our technology and the courage of our fighters. It’s not enough; you cannot win it militarily. So that’s what the Congress has recognized and that’s what the administration really doesn’t want to admit.

Bob Steel: Well, in fact the President has said that we need to wait until September and give General Petraeus a full chance here and await his report. But one of the things that struck me was reading my paper over the weekend and seeing that the Iraqis are going to take vacation in August and we’re right here in the middle of trying to implement a policy with the Iraqi government on vacation.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well you see it’s actually even worse than that because you see when the President says ‘give General Petraeus a chance,’ General Petraeus is a military man. There’s a US Ambassador over there who’s in charge. And he’s in charge of the diplomacy and the politics. I don’t hear the President talking about Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Why don’t we give Ambassador Crocker a chance? Why don’t we give the people of Iraq a chance? This is not a war that can be won with military force but you can lose it militarily, certainly. But you cannot win it without adequate diplomacy and politics.

Bob Steel: You mentioned Iran a moment ago and today the Guardian newspaper in Britain is reporting that the thinking in the White House, pushed very heavily now by Vice President Dick Cheney, has shifted back in favor of military action against Iran.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I saw that. This is…this is Cheney playing the game. He’s waited out the diplomacy. But here’s what you have to understand, Bob and our listeners – this administration hasn’t seriously tried diplomacy because we haven’t talked to Iran. Now, I’m a military man and I’m the only commander who’s ever won an air campaign against the Serbs in 1999…

Bob Steel: Yes, I remember that and we didn’t lose a single American life.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: …and we didn’t do it with bombing alone. You had to use diplomacy. So, when we talk about bombing Iran, where’s the diplomacy that goes with that? This administration doesn’t want to talk to Iran. You’ll have to ask them to explain why. I’ve tried. I can’t get an answer. They simply say they don’t have enough leverage and here we are, the most powerful country in the world, we’re the driving force of the world economy, our voice is not in control but certainly the strongest voice in almost every international institution. What Iran wants is legitimation. They want recognition from the United States. If you look at all those populations in the region, the most pro-American population is the population of Iran. Now a few bombs can change that and if we want to make enemies of those 75 million people, we can. What they have is a very nationalistic, hard line government and what we don’t want to do is feed into their extremist views.

Bob Steel: Well and they have a crazy leader, don’t they?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: “Crazy” in the sense of he’s an extremist and he’s using some extremist rhetoric to strengthen his domestic political position. Remember he was elected. Iran is – maybe not by our standards, but by their standards – it’s a democracy and he’s playing to the extreme. So when he criticizes President Bush makes President Bush stronger. And when President Bush criticizes President Ahmedinejad, it makes Ahmedinejad stronger.

Bob Steel: Does Iran have nuclear capabilities?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, they have long-range missiles right now. Missiles long enough, long-range enough to strike let’s say Israel and some…Turkey and maybe some of the Greek Islands…um, and certainly across into Saudi Arabia. They don’t have a nuclear warhead yet, so far as we know but they do have the capacity to begin enriching uranium.

Transcript and Audio

So, the issue isn’t troop strength in Iraq, but rather US national strategy in the region. As of now, it is not too late for that strategy to be significantly altered. The US would have to renounce its aims and efforts of regime changes, pull back such forceful advocacy of democratization, engage in sustained diplomatic dialogue with governments in the region, including Syria and Iran, heed the advice of regional friends and allies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Emirates and Qatar, and work not to isolate Hamas but to reshape it. This new strategic approach to the region must be linked to a deeper, more effective political effort within Iraq to align interests and structures, in order to produce the kinds of compromises necessary to end the civil war there. The tactics, principles and techniques of such a shift in strategy are no mystery. I and many others have for years called for such changes. But it seems all too clear that the leaders in the White House today have not, thus far, even seriously considered such change. They persist in seeking a largely military solution, focusing on troop strength and tactics, and have had the temerity to label a 20% increase in US troops as a “new strategy,” when all along it has been obvious that we have needed perhaps three times the on-the-ground troop presence they directed.

Consequently the “surge” strategy has produced no miracles: some local progress in Baghdad neighborhoods, perhaps, and an accompanying effort, perhaps underwritten by our Saudi friends, against Al Qaeda in Anbar. But the political agreements expected to emerge, miraculously, from the presence of a few more thousand US troops in Baghdad haven’t.

The deeper truth is that we are engaged in a civil war inside Iraq aided and abetted by outside powers. It is not at all clear that the “surge” will, even were it to succeed in reducing the violence, bring this war to a successful conclusion. We are playing on others “home court.” They own porous borders, language skills, long term relationships inside Iraq, and sufficient means to ratchet-up resistance and encourage divisiveness when and where it suits their purpose.

When well-trained and equipped troops are thrown into stabilization missions, they normally do succeed in temporarily tamping down violence. This is the historical record of occupying armies, from Europe to Asia. Local opponents watch for vulnerabilities, redeploy to elude the occupier’s grasp, and deepen their structures in preparation for the resumption of hostilities. But unless mechanisms for political reconciliation take hold, violence seems inevitably to resume and escalate as aggrieved parties find ways and means to pursue their aims despite the presence of an occupying force.

In the case of Iraq, these tendencies are exacerbated by the competitive struggle between Iran and its Shia surrogates, and the Saudi and Jordanian support for the Sunni’s. The Iraqi government itself lacks the legitimacy and capability to resolve this struggle, whatever its “legality.”. And so, no matter the vicissitudes in civilian deaths, or car-bombings, or disappearances in Baghdad, the underlying dynamics of the struggle continue. This Administration has refused to address their strategic causes and has left our brave soldiers and Marines hostage to a regional power struggle.

For this reason, I believe the time has come for the Congress to demand that the Administration begin the redeployment of American ground forces and state publicly and clearly that there will be no permanent US bases in Iraq. At best, this underscores the seriousness of the American people and helps incentivize Iraqi leaders themselves work to stop the conflict through suitable dialogue and compromise. Thus far, this has been notably lacking among the Iraqi’s. At the very least, the redeployment will provide immediate relief for overstretched US ground forces.

These initial redeployments would be modest in scope, designed to stimulate internal Iraqi political dialogue, incentivize more intensive Iraqi efforts at accommodation, and underscore to the region that the United States will not be held hostage. I would like to see the withdrawal of two brigades over the next six months.

But this should be coupled with legislation compelling the Administration to address to Congress its strategy and regional efforts within sixty days. Pending suitable modifications to the Administration strategy to encompass full diplomatic and political efforts in the region and within Iraq, and assuming continual recommendations by military commanders to retain the enhanced troop levels, then Congress should support the “current less two brigades” force through March, 2008, after which the US forces should begin a twelve-month transition out of direct combat operations, except against Al Qaeda, with a residual training, security, and counter-terrorism force sized in the 50-80,000 range, which will gradually phase out.

This is the force which would effectively under gird US diplomacy, assist the Iraqi’s, maintain US capabilities against terrorists, and provide sufficient relief for the US to regain strategic military maneuverability.

However, if the Administration refuses to change its strategy appropriately, then I would see the need for a more rapid withdrawal of US forces, commensurate with reduced chances of success and the greater likelihood of having to reengage militarily within the region at a later time.

To underscore the obvious, the struggle in Iraq can certainly be lost militarily, but it cannot be won militarily, and certainly not with the limited US forces currently deployed. The hour is late, but not yet too late, to leave behind an integral, developing, and stable Iraq. But it is also true that the Administration has demonstrated its incompetence in designing and carrying out a strategy for success. And so I appeal to members of this committee to do your duty: help save our military, and help rescue our nation from the perilous consequences of our strategic blunders.

Full Statement

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:….I would say this, that you cannot win this war militarily. Everybody says it, including Generals Petraeus and Odierno. So, the question is what is the administration doing to help the men and women in uniform? What are they doing diplomatically? What are they doing politically? The answer is, diplomatically they’ve done very little. From the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, it was known that this administration had plans for regime change throughout the Middle East. Iraq was the first, Syria was going to be the second, Lebanon and ultimately Iran. Those countries viewed their first line of defense as keeping us bogged down in Iraq. So they’ve had an incentive to feed the insurgency. If you don’t deal with that incentive, whatever the efforts of the military, they come to naught because we’re going in a very resistant medium.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it’s pretty clear that given the porous border, the proximity or Iran, the cultural relationships, the family relationships, the deep historical and cultural connections, that military interdiction along the border is not going to build an impenetrable fence around Iraq. So, military measures alone aren’t going to insulate Iraq. You’ve got to do diplomacy. You’ve also got to do the heavy lifting of politics. We’ve never put in the kinds of teams we need in the provinces to help government really deliver services so the surge has been sort of a wish list. It’s been more of ‘hey, let’s dump the problem back on the guys in uniform and gals in uniform and then let’s hope that by greater effort somehow like magic the Iraqis will somehow agree.’ The government is made up of factional leaders who have more to gain by continuing to fight and maintain their militias and hold out their options than they do by compromise and the surge has not affected that.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You mentioned Anbar province and you mentioned throughout the country but I haven’t seen any evidence that we’re running a counterinsurgency campaign throughout the country. In fact, in most of the country, the militias are in control. Take the area around Basra where the British are, they’ve been driven back into one simple … one single position in Basra. They’re under continuing attack and threat there. So I’m fully supportive of counterinsurgency but I don’t see the glimmer of hope. I see one more turn of the wheel while Iran and Syria mark time against the United States.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that General Petraeus and General Odierno get a lot of credit for what they’re trying to do over there, but the essential point is that the administration hasn’t given them the kind of leadership and support it needs at the policy level. I’m talking about the diplomacy, the dialogue with the countries in the region. One tactic after another has been tried in Iraq and these techniques work. We know what the counterinsurgency techniques are. We know that personal connections can be established. We know that people forge bonds in combat. We know that friendship goes so far but this isn’t our culture. It’s not our home court but it’s very close to the home court of Syria and Iran and until we can deal with the larger playing field and take away some of their incentive to continue to meddle in there, we’re … we’re trying to balance on a very shaky life raft over there, so whatever gains we might make in one operation or another, in arresting five people or ten people, we have no idea the extent of true Iranian or Syrian connections and influence inside that country. This is not a problem that’s going to be resolved militarily with a change in tactics on the ground. It requires a regional approach.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: This whole debate has been on a lesser agenda that keeps out of the public debate the real issues that are at hand. Those issues are: the war against the terrorists, dealing with Iran’s nuclear issue, trying to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, working the issues of Lebanon and Syria. Instead we’re arguing about a few thousand troops and their tactics on the ground in Iraq. It’s a crazy, misplaced debate. It serves one interest. It serves the interests of those who want to label people who question this as not supporting the troops. The real issue is the grand strategy of the United States. We were attacked on 9/11 and we responded by briefly intervening in Afghanistan and then turning our attention to Iraq. It was a fundamental strategic failure by the United States to do that. We’re living with the consequences. The latest report shows al Qaeda’s regained its strength and every day that we’re in Iraq, we’re feeding the al Qaeda recruiting machine.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think right now the Congress has to assert its authority to insist on a change – a real change – in strategy by the administration. This is not southeast Asia. We can’t simply walk away …

Diane Rehm: It’s so interesting to me that during the break General Clark, both you and Larry Korb said that while you were in Vietnam, you believed that the war, the strategy, was working. The difference between being in there and looking at it from the outside?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I spent years afterwards trying to understand what went wrong in Vietnam because when you’re in it, especially when you’re in it with an American unit, you feel good. I mean American units are competent, they believe in each other, we’ve got great leadership, we’ve got good equipment, we may not have everything we need, but we believe in each other and we generally succeed in what we do but tactical success doesn’t necessarily add up to strategic success and what I think the Congress has to do is insist that Bush get a grip strategically on the region. So I’d like to see them start the withdrawal. I think we’re overcommitted right now, we need to pull a couple of brigades back to reconstitute the force so we have strategic reserve in the United States. But I think what really needs to be done is Congress needs to demand that the Executive Branch produce and brief to the Congress a comprehensive regional strategy that folds all of this together because without dealing with this on a regional basis, our troops’ effort is not being used productively inside Iraq.

(snip)

Kimberly Kagan: al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is actually the central front in the war on terror according to the global al Qaeda second in charge Zawahiri who issued a statement just a couple of weeks ago encouraging jihadists to fight the United States in Iraq. And I think that before we decide that al Qaeda is elsewhere and must be fought elsewhere, we must realize that whatever the situation was in Iraq in 2003, right now al Qaeda is in Iraq, it is fighting and killing US soldiers, Iraqi civilians and it is in fact funneling regional assets into Iraq rather than elsewhere around the globe.

Diane Rehm: General Clark.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I certainly wouldn’t take my enemy’s definition of what the central front on war should be. In World War II, we didn’t listen to the Nazi high command tell us where they wanted us to invade, we didn’t listen to the Japanese tell us where they wanted us to invade and we shouldn’t listen to Zawahiri when he says Iraq is the central front. It’s a good front for Zawahiri because he’s got access to a lot of American soldiers to attack and train against and build al Qaeda. It’s been a diversion and a distraction for the United States to have engaged in the war in Iraq. It was a strategic failure. Having said that, I think we have to be realistic about Iraq. We can’t simply pack up and leave. There is a threat there. It does have to be dealt with.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think there have been a number of recommendations under the Baker-Hamilton approach, but essentially setting a timeline, pulling out over a lo … over a definite period of time doesn’t address the regional problems. It’s a lot better to do the diplomacy before you have the timeline and I think we’ve got one more chance …

Diane Rehm: What kind of diplomacy would you do right now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Richard Holbrooke led a team to the Balkans in a very ambivalent situation. We started with a state of principles. We went to each of the leaders that were there. He didn’t know whether it was … it wasn’t like an orchestra, it was jazz. You just went there and you tried to create something, um starting with some tools in your toolkit. You had the commitment of troops, you had some reconstruction money …

Diane Rehm: But don’t we still have troops in the Balkans?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well we’re … US troops are out of Bosnia and uh a solution to Kosovo is at hand if we can get the Russians to agree. And once we put our troops in, we never had any problem. We did the diplomacy up front. What we need now is … there’s still a window with the right leadership in the White House or the right attitude in the White House, we could put a team in that region. We could stitch together these countries, find common interests and within that context, then find the right way to bring others in and get US troops out.

(snip)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We’ve known from the beginning that when we went into Iraq, as we told everybody, including a lot of the NeoCons who testified before Congress that Iraq was just the first step. So we gave Iran and Syria every reason to oppose us. If you were in the Iranian’s position right now, you’d see themselves surrounded by US forces with US aircraft carriers there, an insurgency trying to be fomented from Baluchistan which would be hard-pressed not to blame on the United States, the continuing rumors of special forces operations inside Iran and perhaps overflights from unmanned aerial vehicles.

Transcript and Audio of full show

Larry Kudlow: -do you have any particular disagreements with Joe Liebermen’s approach?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (Laughs) Many, with Joe. First of all, I wasn’t a supporter of the war on Iraq. Secondly, I think we need to find a responsible way out of Iraq. Third, I think we need to be putting a full-court diplomatic effort on Iran to persuade them that they’re much safer and much better off without a nuclear weapon. We’re on a countdown to war, and the kinds of saber-rattling that Joe Lieberman does accentuate the countdown rather than-

Larry Kudlow: General-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -finding a way to a solution.

Larry Kudlow: General, with all due respect, do you, how can you disagree? Isn’t the evidence overwhelming that Iran is operating to finance and arm terrorists in Iraq who are killing American troops? Do you disagree with that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I, I fully agree with that. They- you know, from the beginning, Larry, when we went in there, there were those in the administration that said, ‘Well first, we’re going to handle Iraq. Then we’re going to take care of Syria and Lebanon and we’re going to end up-

Jed Babbin: (sigh)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -going after and getting regime change in Iran. Their first line of defense against the United States is what they’re doing in Iraq. If we want to change that dynamic, we’ve got all the cards. We have them surrounded. We have the military dominance. Why won’t we talk to Iran?

(snip)

Larry Kudlow: Well, General Clark, Joe Lieberman basically says if the United States withdraws precipitously from Iraq, as many Democrats in Congress are proposing that this would amount to a victory for Iran AND for the Iranian-linked terrorists in Iraq, including Al Qaeda.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Larry, the-

Larry Kudlow: You disagree?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Larry, the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein done by the Bush administration was a victory for Iran. HE was their big enemy. We got rid of him. We did the Iranians a huge favor. Now, the truth is that Iran came, has come to us at least three times since 2002 looking for an opening and a way to talk, and we’ve rebuffed them. So, we haven’t tried diplomacy. This administration’s not trying. This administration is-

Jed Babbin: (sigh)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -on a countdown, and here’s what’s waiting at the end of the road: a nice air strike, 14 days or so of air strikes, Special Forces operations. We’ve already got SF going in there. We’ve got over-flights, at least that’s what I’m told. So, we’re, as far as the Iranians are concerned, we’re doing to them what they’re-

Jed Babbin: (sigh)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: doing to us. And at the end of it, if we are able to execute this strike and we’ve really got Iran then up in arms against us, what is accomplished other than a five year or so delay in the nuclear.

Jed Babbin: Well-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We don’t have the capacity to occupy Iran. We don’t have to capacity to calm down the Islamic world after the strike.

Larry Kudlow: Yeah but Jed Babbin

Jed Babbin: Can I get back in here.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It’s more (inaudible) We’re playing into Al Qaeda’s hands.

(snip)

Larry Kudlow: General Clark, just let, real quick, General Clark, how, w-why don’t we turn the financial screws on Iran. We could take them out of their misery, not the country, but the Mullahs running the country, right now – as Condi Rice suggested to our Maria Bartiromo – turn the financial screws. The Mullahs can fold.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I’m all in favor of using financial screws, but I think you have to couple it with some direct dialog with Iran.

Larry Kudlow: Alright.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You’ve got to change their approach.

Full Transcript and Video

Keith Olbermann: That plan that has been, been put forth by General Odom, would the main obstacle to that plan seem to be lawmakers in Congress having the guts to execute it?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I, I think the country’s not quite there yet on the impeachment issue, but I do think that it’s important to get those troops out of Iraq. It’s time for the United States to begin redeploying. We’ve given it four long years. The politics has never come together. This administration won’t do the diplomacy in the region. And it’s left our men and women in uniform out there exposed. Bill Odom’s a strategist. He’s thinking of it strategically, and he says you’re in a situation where you’re only losing more with each passing day…we’ve never had, enough troops on the ground to really do the kind of peacekeeping mission that was required. But even worse than that is the strategic failure, Keith. You know, soldiers expect their leaders to do the hard work of diplomacy and to use the military only as a last resort, because when you use the military, it’s final, people die. The fate of nations hangs on it. It’s much better for the diplomats to work it all out first if they can. Well, this administration didn’t give the diplomacy a real chance to work before the war, and now in dealing with Iran and Syria, it simply refusing to do the diplomacy that’s required. Our men and women, most of all, need the support of good leadership, courageous leadership, in the While House, and they don’t have it.

Full Transcript and Video

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: For whatever reason, Vice President Cheney and President Bush refuse to talk to Iran.  They refuse to talk to Syria. They refuse to commit the adequate resources necessary to bring these warring factions in Iraq together politically.  That’s the failure, not a failure of the men and women in our Armed Forces.  It’s a failure of the administration’s political leadership, a refusal to do what’s necessary to help our soldiers on the ground….I think they’ve made up their mind that they’re going for regime change in Iran and Syria, therefore they will not talk to them.  So, it doesn’t matter what the Generals say about needing a strategy.  They tell the Generals, ‘Focus on the military aspect of it.’  But the Generals are responsible for the overall success of the war, and they’re not getting the leadership from Washington, the support from Washington necessary to succeed.

Texas Blue: You have a concern with the burgeoning possible war with Iran. I mentioned we had Jon Soltz on the show, co-founder and chairman of votevets.org, and you’ve worked with him at votevets on the advisory board and on another project called stopirarwar.com. At the time of this interview StopIranWar had collected some 50,000 signatures through netroots activism. How did StopIranWar come to be and how will it work toward the ultimate goal of raising awareness about and possibly preventing a war with Iran?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, what we’ve tried to do with StopIranWar is raise awareness that the Administration is not pursuing the kinds of policies that are required to check Iran’s influence in the region or to dissuade Iran from going after nuclear weapons. They’re feeding Iran’s paranoia. They’re encouraging the hardliners in Iran to be able to point to the west and say they’re out to get us and therefore we’ve got to have nuclear weapons and we’ve got to be tougher in fighting against the Israelis. It’s producing results that are diametrically opposed to those that should be sought by any sensible policy maker and in the end it’s going to present the United States, I’m afraid, with the alternative of either going to war with Iran in an effort to prevent Iran’s gaining nuclear weapons or acquiescing in a very hostile isolated Iran gaining nuclear weapons. We’re going through the charade of the diplomacy, but both the Iranians and the White House are playing at the charade: the White House because it won’t personally at a high level engage directly with Iran; the Iranians because they know what Washington’s hostility is and they wanna go through the motions of diplomacy without giving up their option for a nuclear weapon.

Texas Blue: Do you see a way out of that policywise before the Bush Administration leaves office ?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Probably not except through public pressure but thus far the public pressure’s been neutralized pretty much by the Administration. The Democrats are focused on troops and tactics which is what the Administration wants to talk about in Iraq rather than the larger regional concerns. I’ve tried to elevate the dialogue but haven’t had too much success in that because basically everybody wants to look at the losses of troops in Iraq. Democrats want to say ‘this is terrible, pull the troops out’. The Republicans, at least the Administration, wants to say the surge is probably going to work, give it time. The truth is the surge is a military tactic. It’s not a strategy. To deal with the strategy you have to deal with the nation’s in the region. The Administration has a strategy. It is to overthrow Iran. The strategy’s not working and it’s not going to work but in doing so it’s going to bring us to the brink, if not over the brink, into another war, with Iran.

Audio