And we ' ve been talking about N eo c ons, about the CIA, about Iran.
Let ' s talk about Iran . Now, w e went over a couple of things that you have on your agenda now , and one of them is to prevent war with Iran.
So , what are your thoughts about Iran?
Lawrence Wilkerson: First, Iran is not an existential threat to anyone. Israel would come closest in that particular configuration, but I don ' t think as long as Israel has a hundred or more nuclear weapons and airplanes to carry them, I think deterrence works. So Iran using a nuclear weapon against Israel, to me is preposterous , because Iran ' s leaders know that, were they to do so, Tehran would disappear and maybe lots of other cities in Iran; n ot only because Israel would retaliate, but probably because we would retaliate too. So deterrence work s. It worked during the Cold War, and people who say the "N o, the mad Mullahs in Tehran "' T hey ' re not mad Mullahs in Tehran, they ' re as rational as anybody else . They ' re interested in power . Power, that ' s their objective. And so deterrence would work. So i t ' s not an existential threat . If Ira n were to achieve a nuclear weapon , that is to say the way North Korea did (and notice we aren ' t doing too much about North Korea ), t h en probably what would immediately happen is the Saudis, who would feel, probably of all the people in the Middle East ( even more so than Israel) would feel threatened , would buy ten or twenty or maybe thirty , complete with personnel to take care of them from Pakistan. And Pakistan would sell them to them. And so you ' d have an immediate balance of terror as it were, across the Straits of Hormuz.
So deterrence would work, but that ' s not " that ' s an ultimate position. The interim position, and the position that we ought to be pursuing but I ' m sad to say I don ' t think we are, well not with any vigor anyway, is that Iran has said repeatedly , "Y ou let us enrich to five percent.
That ' s our right under the Non-Proliferation TreatyAnd t hat ' s arguable, but Israel ' s got bombs.
The least we can do is let Iran enrich to 5% " And we will do everything else that we need to do , with Highly Enriched Uranium [HEU] above 5%, say, that for medical isotope s and things like that, that needs to be enriched to a higher rate, say up to 20%, we will buy that from other countries . Furthermore, we will allow the IAEA [ International Atomic
Energy Agency ] in with very rigorous, beyond NPT and additional protocol, safety standards, and so forth.
Inspection regimes to make sure that we ' re living up to our word. We ' ll do that, but you ' ve got to give us some sanctions relief.
That ' s our quid pro quo ! That ' s obtainable right now! Hell, t he Turks and the Brazilians had it a couple of years ago. The Russians had it a couple three years ago . So the deal is there to be made. We just don ' t seem to want to make it.
And what I conclude from that , is that when a President says all options are on the table, including the military option, and then says he wants diplomacy to work but forecloses that diplomacy working, then ultimately we ' re going to res ort to the military option. Because I don ' t see any other way to go , other than backing down.
That ' s what disturbs me, and that ' s what I ' m working against, to see if I can ' t help prevent our having to go to that military option.
Rob Kall: M aybe after the election things will change.
Lawrence Wilkerson: I ' m hoping so. The deal is there. I ' ve spent time with Iran ' s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi . I ' ve spent time with their Ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee. I even spent some time, some two hours, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, t he kind of nutty President they have ( who ' s r eally not very powerful any more) i n New York City, during the U.N. General Senate Assembly ' s meetings. And the deal ' s there. I mean it ' s there to be made. It ' s just a question of whether or not a D emocratic President re-elected, feels like he can suffer the ' slings and arrows' of my idiot Republicans, if he proceeds to make a deal. I would say that if he ' s re-elected he has more opportunity, more power, more mandate, to do that , but he ' s got to get re-elected first . And I have no idea, although when you parse it carefully, Mitt Romney ' s policy is Obama ' s policy. So, I have expectations that we wouldn ' t see much change with Mitt Romney. Now my fear there , is that while Romney m ight feel that way , the Neocon s around him don ' t. And I ' ve already "
Rob Kall: That was my next question . That was my next question! It ' s very interesting, you ' re saying that Romney and Obama have almost the same policy o n the face , but Romney ' s advisors are N eo c ons, and I know you ' ve had some pretty strong words for Bolton. W here do you think that separation is between what Romney states, and where he ' s going to go once he brings in policy advisors and makes appointments?
Lawrence Wilkerson: You know you just put your finger on what frighten s me, because I saw how the N eo c ons captured one President, a nd frankly I don ' t see a whole lot more experience in the critical areas that one would need it , in Romney, than I did in George W. Bush. So when you pit Romney against his Chairman of the Joint Chief s of Staffs, his Secretary of Defense, his Secretary of State, his Director of National Intelligence, his National Security Advisor , and others who may be from that crowd, by the time he gets his Cabinet formed , then I get worried . I get scared. I get the feeling that I ' m seeing everything happen over again, only this time with Iran.
Rob Kall: [Noise of disapproval] What about besides Iran? What other policies are you concerned about, that Bolton and his other advisors, his N eo c on advisors , will
move Romney to act on?
Lawrence Wilkerson: Well, one of the m is that Americans don ' t really care about
b elieve me, I ' ve been working on it for five years, some of them don ' t even as close as Cuba is, they don ' t even know where it is. It's Cuba! And , I know that the Romney position, and some of the people on the Romney team, even take this position further, is even to the right of George W. Bush . A nd we ' re talking about curtailing travel again, we ' re talking about enforcing the Helms -Burton Act to the extent that Cubans who live in the S outhern part of , for example, can ' t even go home to see their mother when she gets sick. W e ' re talking about a real draconian tightening of the embargo of Cuba, or the " blockade ' as the Cubans call it , more appropriately and more accurately. So that ' s a policy I also oppose " a ridiculous, illogical, stupid policy, that ' s failed now over fifty years and we still pursue it, that I see this administration, if it becomes a Romney administration, even making worse.
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