Speaker: Professor William Perry
Former US Defence Secretary, 19th June 2009
19th June 2009, Committee Room 9, House of Commons
By kind invitation of The Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Transatlantic and International Security is pleased to be able to invite you to a discussion with Professor William Perry.
Just five months ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. Accompanied by great celebrations in Washington and I must say high hopes around the world. So when the president got into the Oval Office the next morning, and discovered the security challenges facing him, I expect he‘d wondered why he had sought the job. During the campaign, Iran and Afghanistan were about the only two security challenges discussed, but they will not be the only security challenges he’ll face or even the most important challenges he faces. Indeed, I believe, President Obama faces four security challenges that are both grave and imminent.
The first of these is averting a financial disaster. I describe this as a security challenge because it has profound security dimensions. Averting an ecological catastrophe, in particular, global climate warming. Averting a geopolitical catastrophe, in particular, a restarting of the Cold War would seem quite likely as recently as eight, nine months ago. And finally, averting a nuclear catastrophe. Now, all of these challenges have profound security dimensions and all of them have one thing in common: They are all global problems and they all require global solutions. They affect the United Kingdom as much as they affect the United States. And it requires the United Kingdom and the United States working together to deal with these problems.
My talk today is going to deal with the last two of these, preventing a new Cold War and averting a nuclear catastrophe. The most likely way that a nuclear catastrophe could occur is if a terror group were to get a nuclear bomb. As terrible as these attacks have been, they will seem minor if a terror group gets that nuclear bomb. I do not believe there’s a high probability that a terror group is going to get a nuclear bomb anytime in the near future. But I do believe that the consequence would be so severe that we should put the highest priority in trying to avert this catastrophe.
Now, note a little bit of good news here. And the good news is that no terror group has the capability to build a nuclear bomb from scratch. So stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is the key to preventing a terror group from inflicting this kind of catastrophe on us. Recognizing this, the international community has attempted so far unsuccessfully, to stop the nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Iran. Today, Iran has a latent nuclear weapons capability that could be converted into a nuclear bomb in about twelve months. The European Union and Russia have been negotiating with Iran for several years to contain this program, so far unsuccessfully. The United States, although we have an intense interest in the outcome of these negotiations has so far declined to be a participant in them.
Iran
President Obama delivered a message to Iran in March, in which he broke precedent by referring to them as the Islamic Republic of Iran. And spoke of the respect he had for Persian history and Persian culture. He went on to say that the United States had no quarrel with the Iranian people and that he wanted to use diplomacy to deal with our concerns about their nuclear program. To date, the Iranians have made no positive response to this initiative and the whole issue of engaging the Iranian government has received quite a setback this last week or so with the turmoil over their recent presidential elections with the outcome of that very much in doubt. I must say to you quite directly that I believe that the Bush administration’s decision not to participate with the EU in these talks has in fact increased the likelihood that Iran will get a nuclear arsenal.
So, you might ask, why would this be so bad. First, it would likely lead to a domino effect of proliferation – with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, for example, already having nuclear power programs modelled after Iran’s – but it would also increase the danger of nuclear terrorism. Iran already supplies weapons to terror groups such as Hezbollah. And it is conceivable that such connections could result in fissile material or even a bomb migrating to such a group. And although I believe that the probability of this outcome is not high, Israeli planners are busy making worse-case analyses. In any event, it is clear that even as this possibility is remote, it weighs heavily on Israel as it considers whether to conduct an air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
So where does Iran actually stand today on the nuclear program? They have procured large quantities of uranium ore and have been pursuing a program of enriching uranium that could be used as fuel in nuclear reactors. This is a very sophisticated technology that initially eluded them. But a covert deal with A.Q. Kahn allowed them to achieve their first successful centrifuge operation about seven years ago. Since then, they have built thousands of centrifuges and have enriched many hundreds of pounds of what I call reactor-grade uranium, which the technical people call light-enriched, low-enriched uranium. They are now at a fork in the road. They could unload this low-enriched uranium and put more uranium ore in and make more light-enriched uranium or they could continue the enrichment process and go from light-enriched, low-enriched uranium to high-enriched uranium. If they continued the enrichment process on the existing material for about another six to twelve months they’d have the material they need for a bomb.
So far they have refused UN demands that they stop this enrichment. They could at any time switch to the high-enriched mode and sprint for a bomb; that sprint would take them about six months from the time they decide to do it. Because of my deep concern for the consequences of Iran getting a nuclear arsenal, I responded positively to invitations to meet with the Iranian national security advisor once in The Hague and once in Vienna. This national security advisor is a long-time intimate acquaintance of President Ahmadinejad; they both went to college together, it was rumoured they were both part of the hostage-taking attempt many years ago, and they’re very close. So when I talked to him I was getting reflected the views of Ahmadinejad.
I left those meetings with a number of conclusions. First, the goal of the Iranian nuclear program is to achieve what I would call a latent weapon capability. They are intent on this objective and have not been dissuaded by past policies, which I would characterize as weak diplomacy by the EU and empty threats by the United States. If their program is allowed to reach a weapon capability, we will face a catastrophe, not the least because of the actions Israel will take if they see us unable or unwilling to act.
By the end of the year, it seems likely that Iran will be on the verge of having a bomb. I am not sure, as I sit here, that a diplomatic strategy can still be successful. That is, we might have let the program get too far downstream. But considering what is at stake, I believe we should give it our best shot.
My recommendations to the administration have been and will continue to be that we should give up trying to stop them from having this full-blown uranium power program; that our goal should be to put a red line in their going from low-enriched to high-enriched uranium with suitable safeguards in place that we would know when that happened and an implied threat, they would face very serious consequences if they would go over that line. I would not advise our government or the British government to accept a nuclear arsenal in Iran. I think that would have such dire consequences that I would be willing to consider actions that – even though there would be negative consequences – they don’t compare with the dire consequences of a nuclear program. I have a long list of reasons why I think that a nuclear Iran would be a very, very bad idea, not the least of which would be the actions the Israelis would take. They’re seeing it as an existential threat to themselves; we cannot simply look away and say it’s not going to be a problem – they can’t accept it that way. Not the least of which is reactions if that happened in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Syria accept this.
I see it as leading to a catastrophic set of consequences, and therefore facing that catastrophic set of consequences, I would be willing to recommend actions, which in themselves have certain dangers associated with them. Military action against Iran, even if successful in disabling Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is by no means certain, would lead to a host of unintended consequences, some of which could be catastrophic. One of the reasons I’m so negative about even a limited military strike against Iran is I believe it would have the effect of consolidating the people of Iran with their government. A viable alternative is robust diplomacy, which includes a coercive element of intense financial pressure. And finally, let me say I believe that Iran is quite vulnerable to financial pressure, so this could be effective, but only if it had the full cooperation, not just of the EU and the United States, but the full cooperation of Russia. So my recommendation to the U.S. government is that they get seriously involved with the EU and Russia to determine whether it is possible to contain Iran’s program through tough and effective diplomacy. And it is important that whatever our governments do, they do it soon.
Another comment I would make is on an entirely different dimension: I visited Iran last year on a totally unofficial visit, well as a tourist. And I was stopped literally dozens of times in the street by Iranians who wanted to talk with me, practise their English. And what struck me on that in particular was that I contrasted that with my visits to Moscow and Leningrad during the times of the Soviet Union, where I would never be stopped in the streets by a Russian. And in fact, as I would walk down the streets, they would find a way to evade looking at me, to evade my eyes. The reason during the Soviet Union’s time was that they were fearful that if they were seen talking with an American there would be a knock on their door that night. I saw nothing like that in Iran when I was there, which suggests that their secret police apparatus is not as much feared by the people. The consequences of that this sort of spontaneous uprising you’re seeing in the streets in Iran today suggests some people are not quite so fearful of the secret police as you would’ve imagined. And therefore, the ideology hasn’t seeped down to the ranks quite so heavily as existed in the days of the Soviet Union, or as exists today in North Korea.
I do not think we would be successful whether we offer in getting them to drop their emerging program. In other words, I think the objective of diplomacy at this point has been an objective that is essentially unachievable. I would instead prefer an approach which put limits on what they can do, but limits that would only have meaning if we have transparency in the program. So we would want to negotiate two agreements; one is to have limits on what they did in enrichment and the second is to have access that would give the UN, in this case, the transparency.
My own judgement is that we will not dissuade any Iranian government from giving their nuclear power program or their ability to enrich their own uranium. I think we could persuade them to adopt a serious safeguard to full transparency. The timing factor’s important here, because if we had full transparency for what they’re doing, if they did decide to go to a nuclear weapons program it would take them about a year to do that, so there’d be ample time at that point if any military action was contemplated, to do it after we saw the full evidence that they were moving toward a military program.
North Korea
Now I’m going to pivot my lecture over to another nuclear proliferator: North Korea, which is farther along than Iran. My first crisis when I was Secretary of Defence occurred in 1994 as the nuclear reactor at a small town called Yongbyon in North Korea depleted its fuel cycle. I don’t want to take the time today to review this bit of ancient history, except to say that this crisis almost resulted in a second Korean War, but in the end it was resolved by a diplomatic agreement known as the Agreed Framework.
A new crisis developed in August of 1998 over missiles, with North Korea flying long-range missiles over Japan, landing in the Pacific Ocean just west of Hawaii. President Clinton, in response to this crisis, asked me to conduct a major review of North Korean policy. By that time I had left office and was no longer Secretary of Defence. After an intense review, which I carried out jointly with South Korea and Japan, I submitted our conclusions and recommendations. The key finding was that North Korea was undergoing terrible economic hardship including widespread famine. But, and this was a huge conclusion as far as I’m concerned, those hardships were unlikely to cause the regime to be overthrown.
Thus I recommended that we had to deal with the North Korean government as it was, not as we would wish it to be. I recommended that the allies should established two alternatives strategies. If North Korea would forego its long range and nuclear weapons program, the allies would move to a comprehensive normalization of relations, which among other things would provide substantial economic benefits to North Korea. Alternatively, if North Korea did not remove these threats, the allies were agreed on the necessary actions to contain them. And when I approached North Korea, I did indeed make coercive arguments. I said, if you proceed with this nuclear weapons program, you’re going to be facing military action, not just by the United States, but by South Korea and Japan.
In May of 1999, I led an American delegation to Pyongyang to present those two alternatives to the North Korean government. During the talks, it was clear that North Korea was seriously interested in the economic and political measures in the positive alternative. And in the next few years, North Korea took a number of unprecedented actions indicating that they were anticipating major political and economic changes. They held their first-ever summit meetings with South Korea and Japan. They allowed North Korean athletes to march with South Korean athletes in the Olympics. And Kim Jong Il sent a senior emissary to Washington, Marshal Jo Myong Rok, where he met with President Clinton. Marshall Jo, on his way to Washington, stopped off at Stanford to discuss with me the upcoming meeting with the president. Based on these actions taken by the North Koreans and based on my discussions with Marshall Jo, I believed that North Korea was prepared to make major changes, including giving up their nuclear weapons program.
But we will never know that with certainty because we cannot relive history. At that critical junction, the administrations of the United States changed. The Bush administration took office and one of the first things they did was break off all dialogue with North Korea and has remained broken off for more than two years. Three years after they took office, they reluctantly began a dialogue, but by then, North Korea had already started their program of processing plutonium at their facility at Yongbyon. Whatever one thinks about the logic of President Bush’s approach to North Korea, the net result was that the North Koreans built six to eight nuclear bombs and tested two of them during his two terms in office.
Dealing with either Iran or North Korea entails cooperation from other nations, most notably, Russia and China. In particular, Russia is the key with dealing with Iran I believe, but in fact, the U.S. relationship with Russia has become poisonous these past few years with some of the overtones of the Cold War. The low point was reached of course last August during the Russian invasion of Georgia. A few months ago at a security conference in Munich, Vice President Biden said that he wanted to “press the reset button” on U.S.- Russia relations. Many predicted that the Russians would react to that with cynicism or scepticism, but I had the opportunity to test this first hand a few months ago when I visited Moscow, along with Henry Kissinger and George Shultz and Sam Nunn at a meeting hosted by former Prime Minister Primakov.
The highlight of this meeting was a discussion of President Medvedev. He was preparing for the upcoming London meeting summit meeting with President Obama. Medvedev started the meeting by saying that he supported the long term goal of eliminated nuclear weapons – the first time I’d ever heard a Russian leader say that. And he said that Russia was anxious to resume serious arms control discussions with the United States with the immediate goal of negotiating a follow-on treaty to the START – Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. He believed that such a treaty could and should be completed by the end of this year. That’s an important date because this present START treaty expires in December of this year.
Another interesting point in the meeting was that he complimented us on Obama’s message to the Iranian people, which we had not even heard yet – it had occurred just a few hours before our meeting – and he noted that while he did not yet have an official text of the message, he had seen the basic thrust while browsing the internet that morning. Now that parenthetical comment made a major impression on me, since it indicated Medvedev is really a modern man and gets much of his information on world events by browsing the internet every morning before he goes into the Kremlin. So I was confident that our two presidents would hit it off. Both are young, both are smart, both are good listeners, which is very rare in a politician. And both are internet-savvy. Indeed, that confidence was justified by the summit meeting the two leaders had in London shortly after that meeting. And I believe that it will continue to be testified to in the upcoming meeting in Moscow.
I’m going to conclude my remarks by telling you of an initiative that started in October of 2006 with a meeting at Stanford celebrating the 20th anniversary of the so-called Reykjavík summit with President Reagan and President Gorbachev. As a result of that meeting, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, and I wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed. citing the dangers of nuclear weapons, and arguing that we should start working for the global elimination of these deadly weapons. A year later, we followed up with another op-ed. outlining concrete steps that could be taken in the next year or two to move in that direction. Last year we met in London, in Delhi, and Shanghai to rally the support of other leaders. This year, we’ve met in Moscow, as I’ve already told you, and Rome in a conference sponsored by the Italian government to explore ways of advancing nuclear disarmament. During the past year I also chaired a congressional commission that examines what actions the United States are taking with its nuclear forces to maintain deterrence without signalling to other nations we are trying to rebuild those forces. We completed the report six weeks ago and I subsequently briefed the president and the Congress on its findings.
So, based on President Obama’s Prague speech, President Medvedev’s comments to us, and on international responses we have gotten to date on our nuclear security initiative, I’m encouraged to believe that we are on a positive track. More than a hundred years ago, Victor Hugo wrote, “More powerful than the tread of mighty armies, is an idea whose time has come.” I believe that the idea of finally containing the deadly arsenal of the Cold War is an idea whose time has come. But I also believe it’ll take decades to achieve that final goal. And until we approach that goal, nuclear power, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, will feel obliged to maintain some level of deterrence. And those forces, as long as they exist, must be constituted at maximum levels of safety and security.