MTP Transcript for Nov. 19

MS. WRIGHT: Ah, let’s be very careful about that. They all believe they should have nuclear energy because that is the key to development and being a modern country. When it comes to a bomb, that’s a very different issue and I’m not sure that—no—there are no public opinion polls in Iran, so we don’t know—but there’s a very strong feeling that the outside world is trying to block them from having energy because they want to keep it as a kind of third world country that is submissive and dependent.

You know, Iran also has gone through this long war with, with Iraq itself. It was isolated by the outside world. The United States actually provided, again, as Ted’s documentary points out, provided intelligence to the Iraqis.  Much—some of which was used in—using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. There is a paranoia. So there are those, obviously, who feel very vulnerable, and there are strong indications that they are looking at developing a bomb. But when it comes to the average Iranian, it’s the nuclear energy issue that’s important to them.

MR. RUSSERT: You encountered a farmer, in terms of...

MR. KOPPEL: It blew, it blew me away. We went for a drive outside Isfahan and I was so tired of being manipulated that I said, “OK, we’re going to drive out of town.” When I say manipulated, you’ve got government minders with you most of the time and they let you do this and don’t let you do that. I said, “Let’s go for a drive.” And they said, “OK.” I said, “All right. Go straight here and make a right here and make a left there.”

We’d gone about 20 miles outside Isfahan and I see a bunch of guys spreading fertilizer in the field. I say, “OK, stop there. I want to talk to these guys.” No way they could’ve set it up. Talking to the guys in the field, all of a sudden this tall dude comes along, he’s the owner, 10 acres. Right?  Small land owner. We start talking about the bomb, and even in Farsi I can hear he’s saying, “NPT,” non-proliferation treaty. He’s invoking the non-proliferation treaty and saying, “We have a right. Why can’t we, you know, the Pakistanis have it, and the Israelis have it and the Indians have it. Why shouldn’t we have it?”

And Robin’s exactly right, he was talking about nuclear energy, not the bomb.  But I would go a step further than, than Robin. I think Iranians are sort of secretly and sometimes not so secretly pleased that Ahmadinejad is tweaking the United States and making us so upset about this.

MR. RUSSERT: Is there any realistic way we can stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?

MR. KOPPEL: Boy, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I mean, if they want it, the only thing we have to hope is that their, their, their technology is not all that advanced. And unless they buy the technology somewhere else, I’m not at all sure they would get it for at least a few more years.

But having said that, can we stop it? We had no—I had a senior U.S. State Department official tell me we’ve had more diplomatic contact with North Korea than we have had with Iran. No diplomatic contact. The economic and trade sanctions have been in place for over a quarter of a century, really aren’t working. And the military option? Boy, I don’t think that’s—I don’t think that’s an option.

MS. WRIGHT: Well, I will add one thing to that. There is this illusion that we can go in and strike a few targets and eliminate their program. But the reality is with all the troops we have on the ground, any military operation against Iran would end up having to strike at their defensive positions.  Whether it’s along borders, their tank corps, their artillery corps. It would be far more—to be effective, would be far more extensive than anyone envisions at this stage. At least in terms of the public debate about a military option. Much more complicated and costly.

MR. RUSSERT: On the—Thursday in the Financial Times, there was in interesting article written which I’d like to read to you and for our viewers and come back and talk about it because it brings into the equation Iraq.

“Analysts say that as the U.S. scrambles to find an honorable exit from Iraq, opening a new channel to Iran is very much under consideration. Bringing Iran and Syria into the equation is expected to form one of the main proposals of the Iraq Study Group led by former secretary of state James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton. ...

“Trita Parsi, an analyst who advocates engagement, says the U.S. cannot conceal its weakness but has limited alternatives. He says that for Iran to be drawn into a dialogue it needs a clear indication that the U.S. is looking to discuss all issues and address a strategic transformation of the relationship, not just a tactical quick fix of the Iraq crisis. ...

“[At] a three-hour meeting last month between Mr. Baker and Javad Zarif, Iranian envoy to the U.N., ... Mr. Baker was told that Iran would consider helping the U.S. in Iraq if ‘Washington first changed its attitude toward Iran.’ ...

“Iran is wary of its last experience of cooperating with the U.S., when it helped oust the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001 ... only to be denounced by Mr. Bush weeks later as a member of the ‘axis of evil.’”

The grand compromise.

MR. KOPPEL: Well, focus on that last line. Because I think most Americans are not aware of the fact that Iran really was extremely helpful in getting rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. And I had one political scientist, who’s a childhood friend of Ahmadinejad, tell me, “You know, we’re not without resources. We helped you guys in Afghanistan, but we can also hurt you guys in Afghanistan.”

I had several people make the point to me that Iran today is more influential inside Iraq than the United States, for all that we have 130,000 troops in there. And that if they wanted to make life even more difficult for us in Iraq, boy, could they do it.

MR. RUSSERT: Richard Engel, our correspondent from NBC News in Iraq, says if you want a hotel reservation in southern Iraq, you order the room in Farsi, the Iranian language. The Iranians have built an airport and a train station in Iraq for their pilgrims to come over to. In order to deal with our crisis in Iraq, must we bring in the Iranians, and have a grand compromise on nuclear power and Iraq?

MS. WRIGHT: Clearly we need to deal, and include in some way, the Iranians and the Syrians. But I think we have to also understand, not have any illusions about what they can accomplish. Remember, Iran is a Shiite country, predominantly Shiite, led by Shiites. Syria is led by a Shiite offshoot minority. They can have influence when it comes to the Shiite militias in, in Iraq. But the insurgency is predominantly Sunni, and the foreign fighters are predominantly Sunni. What influence they can have is still in question. They can certainly, when it comes to the issue of civil war, perhaps, whether it comes to the issue of arms, intelligence, funds, it can try to hold them back.

MR. RUSSERT: But Iran could probably help with the militias and the death gangs.

MS. WRIGHT: The militias and the death squads, yes. But the big question, of course, is are we about to see a full-scale civil war? And on that front, the Iranians may be less of an influence. Syria could help to a certain extent, because the insurgents often go through Syria. But reining them in, that’s a different issue as well.

MR. KOPPEL: Robin makes a really important point, that there’s another half to that equation. As she correctly points out, who’s going to help with the Sunnis? And the Saudis, for example, could be of enormous assistance with the Sunnis, and to date have not been. So it’s not just a function of bringing the Iranians into the equation, and bringing the Syrians into the equation, you really have to bring everyone in the region into the equation. And let me say that one dirty word that no one in politics says these days: oil. It’s about oil. Not about the Iraqi oil, but about Persian Gulf oil that supplies 25 percent of all the oil that is consumed every day in the entire world. And if Iraq blows up, and if that spills over into the region, you could have an economic instability throughout the world that we haven’t even begun to consider.

MR. RUSSERT: Less than a year ago, last December, you were on this program, and we talked about Iraq. And you were rather prescient, talking about the elections, and the tone of the debate, and what would happen after that as Democrats would have to deal with real power. Let’s listen.

(Videotape, December 15, 2005):

MR. KOPPEL: The mousetrap that is waiting for the Democrats is if they do not publicly acknowledge that U.S. national interest is, is just fundamentally involved in a stable Iraq and a stable Persian Gulf; if they simply come after the Republicans and take the cheap shots on the war and say you got to bring the troops home at all costs, they might even win the election. But if they win the election, they’re going to find themselves confronting the same issues of national interest that the Republicans are facing right now. The simple fact of the matter is, it is in America’s national interest that there be stability in the Persian Gulf. And if we precipitously pull the troops out of that area now, there’ll be hell to pay.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: That’s the debate.

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