Editor's Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers' remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations. 

Today we present the remarks of General Joseph Hoar who led U.S. Central Command during his 37 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. As CENTCOM Commander in Chief in the early 1990s he was responsible for U.S. military forces in Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf that were enforcing the American policy to contain Iran and Iraq, including enforcement of the "no-fly zone" in Southern Iraq. General Hoar was joined on the panel by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Mr. Wayne White and Dr. Kenneth Katzman. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
�Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations�
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: IRAN AND IRAQ

Chair: Dr. John Duke Anthony
Speakers:
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft (USAF, Ret.)
Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (USMC Ret.)
Mr. Wayne White
Dr. Kenneth Katzman

Engagement is the Answer
Gen. Joseph P. Hoar

[JOHN DUKE ANTHONY]  ..The next speaker is Retired General Joseph Hoar, who had a distinguished career of 37 years in the United States Marine Corps. And I first came to know him when he was Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility then was just under 20 or just a few more than 20 countries, which has grown considerably since then. He served as the Chief of Staff to General Norman H. Schwarzkopf of renown in terms of Desert Shield/Desert Storm the reversal of Iraq�s aggression against Kuwait, the restoration of national sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity to Kuwait. 

He also served as the Commander overseeing Operation Southern Watch to prevent another massacre of the southern Iraqi people that ensued after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. He served also to enforce the naval blockade in the Persian Gulf, in the Arabian Sea, and he was in charge of overseeing American military and civil humanitarian operations in Kenya, as well as in Somalia and in Rwanda. 

General Hoar, it�s a pleasure and a privilege to have you here, to reflect on this issue that was one that you dealt with before. Now that you�re out of uniform, not constrained so much by the policies, what can we learn from you in terms of focusing on this particular thorny controversial issue? 

[GEN. JOSEPH P. HOAR] Thank you, John. I want to say, as I think most everybody else has, what a wonderful conference this is, and how well organized it is. And I suspect that the conferees all feel the same way. I think we�re blessed to have this opportunity and I�m delighted to be here to participate. 

As you recall, the subject is challenges and opportunities for Iraq and Iran. One of the difficulties that we face is that we can change neither geography nor history of the region, and both are really important. And I�m not going to go into any great detail, but with respect to the geography, and General Scowcroft touched on this a moment ago, the solutions to both of these problems are in some measure greater or lesser, dependent on the neighbors. And if you start over in Central Asia, with India, with Afghanistan, go up into Central Asia, Russia, the countries in the Caucuses, Turkey, Ukraine, obviously Syria, Lebanon, Israel, not to mention the GCC countries and Egypt, all of these countries have a role to play to a greater or lesser degree. And we can�t expect that part of it to change. 

But unfortunately here in the last several years, we�ve had opportunities to seize that might have made some difference, particularly with respect to Iraq. Many of you probably know it, was alluded to this morning, that going back to right after 9/11, the Syrians were willing to engage with us, and at one point talked about starting all over with a blank sheet of paper, with respect to coming to an agreement with Israel. How much different our ability to have dealt with Iraq might have been, had that process gone forward in 2002. Different for Syria, different for Lebanon, certainly different for Israel, and so these are the kind of things that impinge, and certainly make more complicated, how we�re going to deal with these two countries. Also, there�s the issue of history, of the First World War, and one type of imperialism of the Ottoman Empire, was replaced by two other empires, the British and the French. The legacy of that period is still with us today. 

Now I don�t know that you agree with me, but the invasion of Iraq was mistake right from the start. It was wrong because Iraq was contained. They were not a danger to us. When Mr. Wolfowitz was asked about this, he indicated well we better do something, it�s costing us a half billion dollars a year. Well, that�s true. The tab was a half billion dollars a year, but an Arab country was paying that half billion dollars. The U.S. Government was not. And so the priorities then as now should be Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, neutralizing the Taliban, continue to work on homeland security, and obviously progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. 

There were early mistakes made without question, but today we should point out that as in every insurgency, if you plan to bring change about, you have to look at root causes. Root cause today in Iraq is the lack of political reconciliation among various regional groups, among religious groups. And we have been unable to encourage the Iraqis to move forward on some of these very, very difficult issues; the business of provincial elections, dividing up oil revenues, what to do with militias, and a whole host of other things. And there�s been some minor improvements but it�s useful to point out that both in Kirkuk and in Mosul these problems are bubbling up right now. And so while the surge helped and while security is better now than it was before, security improvement is ephemeral without change on the political side. The politics of this is going to actually make the difference in the long run. 

I would just say very briefly because Brent covered it, but timetables are not a good idea. The enemy always gets a vote. I really like the sort of discussions that are taking place at the bilateral level between the United States and Iraq. We�re talking about a particular date, but it�s also tempered by the possibility that things may change between now and then. So before I leave Iraq, we probably ought to say a few things about what could be done in the future. I would say to begin with that the new President ought to concentrate on political change, on reconciliation. He�s got one of the very best ambassadors in Ryan Crocker out there. What he needs is to provide support and the direction from Washington, so that everybody knows the President is involved. He can let General Petraeus who will be at Central Command starting tomorrow, to deal with the nuts and bolts of the security issue. And then, if I were in that situation I�d find the best historian in the Ottoman Empire that I could and then get the best cultural anthropologist to keep him company, and I�d have them follow me around every place that I went, just to make sure that we got it right, finally. 

Now, let�s talk a little bit about Iran. The first thing is, by attacking Iraq, we automatically made Iran a regional power. We took out their major adversary in Iraq, and we neutralized, if only temporarily, the Taliban, on the other side. And so now we see not only that they are regional powers, but clearly indications of aspirations to be perhaps a hegemon in the area, their role in Iraq, their role in Syria, in Lebanon as well. And I can tell you, and I think you�ve heard it already, that there is real fear among the GCC countries about where all of this is going. All of them have minorities, in one case it�s not a minority, it�s a majority of Shias, and as the Sheika correctly pointed out, they can�t exchange Iran for some place else. A friend of mine in Oman said maybe North Dakota would be nice as a replacement, but it won�t work. So they have to deal with the facts on the ground and so do we. 

I mentioned earlier the European involvement. In no place is it more obvious than in Iran. The British extracted concessions for oil going back to 1872. One of the major reasons for overthrowing Mosaddegh in the early 50�s was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was about to be nationalized. One writer at the time said, speaking of the United States, by following British policy the U.S. will gain nothing but loss of prestige and hatred. And we really have to place this, our relationship with Iran, in that context. 

And so the answer is really engagement, just as the five Secretaries of State said at the George Washington CNN conference a while back. When the Iraq Conference report came out, the Baker-Hamilton Report, Jim Baker was asked about engagement by Tim Russert on the Sunday morning talk show, and Mr. Baker said famously �engagement does not constitute endorsement.� And that�s how we should be going into it. And I again emphasize Brent�s point about preconditions. We need to sit down and we need to cast a very broad net of the players in the region and those other players like China and Russia, that are on the National Security Council, the U.N. Security Council, that will have a role to play in all of this. We need to bring in the IAEA. I had some experiences with them over several years, and it�s very easy to disparage them, but I think they�re a very effective organization. And the end result is going to be compromise. 

Now, you shouldn�t let me get away without talking about the possibility of an air attack on nuclear positions in Iran. So let me try and talk about that for a few moments. I would say first of all that it�s one of two possibilities. The first is that this may be the best example in recent times of a highly coordinated threat of force against a country in order to bring about a diplomatic solution. The threat of force is far more useful than its actual application as I think everybody here understands. And so it�s possible that that�s what we�re observing. I�m not sure. However, I can tell you that for people that think this is serious, I would put it in the utter folly department. The people that fly airplanes and drop bombs that I talked to seem to think that �A�, we don�t know enough about where the facilities are and we don�t have the right kind of weapons to do the job. 

Again, logistics and geography play a key role. Sure, we can force open the Straits of Hormuz. Sure we can do a lot of things. But I should also share with you a conversation that Hamad bin Jassim, at the time he was the Foreign Minister of the State of Qatar had in Tehran. He�s now the Prime Minister. Hamad bin Jassim went to Tehran and explained to his interlocutors that the State of Qatar had supported the United States in the attack against Iraq, but was not going to support the United States in an attack against Iran. And his interlocutors said to him you�ve got it all wrong. If we�re attacked by the United States, we don�t have the missiles to strike the United States. But we can certainly strike all of the facilities up and down the coast of your friends. 

And so Qatar, as I think you know, has about a $20 billion capital expenditure in a joint venture with Qatar Gas and Exxon Mobile. And there are similar arrangements all over the region. This is perhaps why UAE is investigating getting anti-missile missiles. And I know that in some cases from personal experience that some of the GCC countries are carrying on engagement right at this very moment. And so it is going on.

The point is that we�re in a very dangerous situation. I think Brent described it very well. It�s in our interest to engage. It�s in our interest to broaden the base and bring as many other players in as we can. It�s in our interest to find a great compromise here that will work to everybody�s advantage. Thank you. 

[ANTHONY] Thank you General Hoar. 

QUESTIONS POSED TO GENERAL HOAR IN THE Q AND A PERIOD:

[ANTHONY] General Scowcroft, you may want to comment on this one as well, but I�ll ask it to General Hoar first, and others can comment if they like. With regard to the bunker buster bombs, the U.S. has sold one thousand of these to Israel. Comment on the implications of that and association with any delivery systems before or subsequently. And what about this strategic concept of mutually assured destruction that seemed to work in an East/West context during the Cold War, but hasn�t really even entered into serious or favorable consideration as being applicable to this particular situation between say, Israel and Iran, having mutually assured destruction, although it would not be really mutually assured. One has several hundred and the other, so far as we know, doesn�t have one yet. And related to that, I appreciate the humor in this person, prefacing, "I hope this question will not be thrown away, please. If Israel has 200 atomic bombs, why can�t Iran have only 2 to protect itself from Israel?" 

[HOAR] I�ll give it a shot. I don�t know enough about what we have sold to Israel, but I know in talking to some of my peers that are aviators, and people that have been in this business for some time, they say the likelihood, lack of intelligence for one thing, and the second thing is we know these nuclear sites are dispersed. 

And that secondly, conventional weapons are not powerful enough to get down to the depth at which these structures are built. I can�t comment beyond that because I don�t have any firsthand knowledge, and I suspect that some of this is not for public consumption in any case. 

In respect to the mutual deterrent. I�m not really sure. I�m not really that familiar with the inside operations of Iran, but I have had some experience talking to the Pakistanis about their nuclear program. I think that this whole concept that it wouldn�t happen because the outcome might be too terrible to contemplate doesn�t necessarily have to be true in that part of the world. I always was concerned that there were people in the Pakistani government that seem to take that possibility with India very lightly, and I�m not sure that that�s true with respect to Iran or not. Brent or one of the other gentlemen would probably have a much better sense of that than I.

[OTHER PANELISTS]

[ANTHONY] This next question is also Iran-centric, but it has various pieces to it that I�m trying to mold into one. And any of you can take a whack at the answer. Will the reduction in oil prices effecting Iran�s budget impact Iran�s designs on Iraq? Another one related to that. Assume for the sake of argument Iran does not exist beside Iraq, and assume that it doesn�t interfere in Iraq�s affairs, do you not think that the Iraqis would still resist the occupation in any event? Thirdly, with regard to North Korea and the way that the United States has handled it diplomatically, strategically, politically, engagement wise, quite differently than Iran. Is there no applicability of what the United States has done towards North Korea and its nuclear situation to that pertaining to Iran? Is it that North Korea does not reside inside the jugular of the world�s energy preponderance that drives the economies of global economic growth? Is that the difference? Is it Iran�s strategic real estate, 550 miles of coastline on the Gulf, including the other side of the Hormuz Strait, versus Iraq�s having less than 50 miles on the Gulf? And could you comment as well about the reality, or feasibility of the statements that go practically unchallenged about Iran�s threats to close the Hormuz Strait, shut it down, when the totality of the maritime traffic going into the Hormuz Strait goes not through Iran�s waters, but through Oman�s waters, two mile wide zone going in, two mile wide zone going out, and a two mile separation zone between the two. Joe, you want to take a stab at that first? Because you have had to look at that issue.

[HOAR] Well, absolutely. You will recall that during the 80�s that we were involved, what Hal [Bernsen] used to do, which was called the tanker war, escorting reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. And there was a good deal of activity with the Iranians during that period. I don�t know whether Tony Less is still here this afternoon, but Admiral Tony Less presided over the largest naval engagement since the second World War in the Persian Gulf, in I want to say �87. And so there were ships sunk, airplanes shot down, oil platforms destroyed and so forth. And so we�ve had some experience with this. 

The earlier question about forcing the Strait of Hormuz, all of this is possible. We have enormous capabilities. But it�s important to note also that the way the Air Force goes about this is that you take out all the air defense first. There�s no sense in flying in to try to hit strategic targets with people shooting missiles at you. It tends to cause you to lose your concentration. And so the first thing that goes is the bad guys� air defense. And then incrementally you are able to do some of the other things, which explains why we heard just a moment ago about the numbers of sorties and so forth. 

But the Iranians have very sophisticated surface-to-surface missiles, Silkworm, the Seersucker and several others that are very effective. They have small boats that were armed with missiles. It would be a difficult task, and it would be very complicated, and of course we could prevail, but it would take more than a couple of carriers to do this. You would need to get Air Force units deployed into someplace in the GCC -- UAE, Qatar, wherever. You�d have to get permission to do this. There wouldn�t be a lot of support for this, I don�t think. I think it would be difficult politically to make it happen. We would prevail but it would be at some cost. To Wayne White�s point. The result would be that we would have the makings of a very large fight on our hands as a result. 

<end>

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)
http://www.auspc.org 

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About General Joseph P. Hoar, USMC (Ret)

General Hoar retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 37 years of service. During his last three years of active service, he was the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command�the unified command that has the planning and operational responsibilities for 19 countries of the Middle East, South Asia, and the Horn of Africa. Operational highlights of his tenure include enforcing the naval embargo in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, enforcing the no-fly zone in the south of Iraq, the humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Kenya and Somalia, support for operations in Rwanda, and the evacuation of U.S. civilians from Yemen during the 1994 civil war. General Hoar was the Deputy for Operations for the Marine Corps during the Gulf War, and, prior to that, he was General Norman Schwarzkopf�s Chief of Staff at Central Command.

As an infantry officer, Hoar commanded at all levels, from platoon to regiment. He also commanded three Marine Corps Air Ground Task Forces.

Since retiring, General Hoar has formed a consulting firm that is engaged in business development in the Middle East and Africa. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations.

For more information: www.armscontrolcenter.org ; www.cna.org ; 

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