General James Conway – Washington D.C., April 6, 2012 – Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, and thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for that warm welcome. And welcome to you, to the nation’s Capitol. I’ve got three basic points that I want to speak with you about this afternoon and I’ll be relatively brief. The first is directed to you and my point to you is that your government needs your help. Let me build the case if I can.
Let me say at the outset, when we travel overseas, I am a firm advocate of the belief that you do not criticize your country abroad, my country, right or wrong is still my country. I don’t hold those same reservations when I’m talking to my fellow Americans in the United States. And in that context I would also offer you to sort of a paradox that we see.
We are the most powerful country in the world. Our secondary education may not be all that great, but we have the finest universities in the entire world. We have an incredibly diverse population and yet today again your government needs your help because your State Department is making serious mistakes. Particularly in the Middle East.
Now, it’s not just the State Department today. This goes back some time. It transcends republican and democratic administrations. It transcends Secretary Clinton and like a number of the members of the panel, I have a high regard for her. I think she’ll go down as one of our finer secretaries. Will not be so good when it comes to Ashraf. But beyond that she is generally well received.
But the question is, who is advising the Secretary. And my observation, my experiences, both as the J3 for the joint staff and the commandant. It’s a fairly young crowd, you might be surprised how young, very well-educated and opinionated but with very little experience in the Middle East.
I emphasize the Middle East. If you look at the pacific, Europe and Asia and South America, I think our policies are pretty good. I think we’re relatively sophisticated. But time after time we seem to get it wrong in the Middle East. I’ll give you some examples of that.
Going back something beyond 20 years. 1991 Saddam was approached by his U.S. Ambassador and she basically said to him, I’ll paraphrase, but, you know, what happens with regard to Arab-to-Arab relationship is not really of interest to the United States. Now, Saddam may be thinking we were more sophisticated that we were, took that as a determination I can invade Kuwait and he did.
He promptly got slapped back. But when he complained to another U.S. diplomat, the response was, well, I know what we said, but that’s not what we meant.
Fast forward to Iraq again in ’03. I was there as the Ambassador indicated, commanding marine forces in a place called am bar province and a very intelligent and well-intentioned man arrived to begin the coalition authority. He brought with him a firm belief that the Iraqi Army had to be disbanded. The Iraqi Army had been the centerpiece of our recovery efforts after having taken Baghdad. We’d been accused of not having enough troops, that’s a fair accusation when you dismiss the entire Iraqi Army. Then we fought them for three years because they became convinced we were not freeing them, we were occupying them.
Iran, ’09, the citizenry goes to the streets having thought what was a democratic election was stolen from them. At the same time as was pointed out by Ambassador Bolton, we know there is a ongoing effort to build a nuclear weapon, we can foresee, we should be able to foresee what that portends.
And yet what you heard from our country unfortunately was stone cold silence. And, of course, we all know what happened with the people in the streets and we see the issue that we live with today.
Iraq, 2010, we increasingly see the Maliki administration come under the dominion of the people in Iran, the leadership in Iran.
I can tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, we did not sacrifice our treasure and the lives of our great young service men and women to see this outcome.
I understand the mentality. I understand that what the thought process was, because we employed it in our Marines as well. I had a sign up on the wall of the command post that quoted Laurence of Arabia and it says, let the Arabs do it, it won’t be the same way we would do it, it may not be as good in our minds, but it’s their way and in the end it’s better.
But you can take it two-fold. We were able to do that at the tactical level. You should never do that at the strategic level if it presumes or provides for the failure of a mission.
I honestly think that we failed to influence the Iraqi government at a critical time in history when our diplomats in the country should have been doing that.
Pakistan, 2011, the two countries are at odds with each other over the death of Bin Laden. Did people at a certain level, the Pakistani government, know where Bin Laden was? I believe they did. Did the leadership, both military at the highest levels know? I don’t think that they did. Yet we have allowed our two countries to start challenging each other. To be friction at a time when we should be coming closer together not further apart. When we withdraw Afghanistan, Pakistan will be the last man standing fighting against fundamentalism.
Pakistan represents the closest nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons. We should be getting closer to Pakistan and yet that is simply not happening today.
And of course Camp Ashraf. And I won’t repeat what you heard already from my colleagues on the panel. But purely it is probably the best example of what in many ways, it represents pure ineptitude incompetence and very serious way a hypocrisy for what this nation stands for in terms of its values.
So, Ladies and Gentlemen, I can tell who you who is not advising the Secretary of State, certainly in sufficient numbers, and it’s people like you who speak Farsi and basically have an Iranian sounding last name. Okay, you walk the ground, you understand the region.
I would encourage you or perhaps your children, get involved. Go through the laborious process of tests and vetting and interviews and those types of things so you can have a voice in your government and help us to make sure that our State Department and eventually this world is a better place.
Secondly, and some of you have heard me say this before, I firmly believe that the U.S. in Iran is on a collision course. I think that Iran has a head wall pursuit of nuclear capability that will eventually be turned into nuclear weapons. They will say it’s for purposes of energy, but frankly I don’t think anybody, say, maybe the governing administration really believes that. I think at this point the clock is ticking and we’re only months away from the capability.
United States Government has said that is unacceptable and we’re joined in that belief by 33 other nations. The problem, folks, is that there are no good options. Right now we’re following a passive course that has to do with sanctions, has to do with condemnation from the rest of the world with regard to the Iranian effort, it has to do with inspections and those types of things, but surely as we’re sitting here today, that will lead to the development of a weapon.
It I think it will lead to a position on a part of the United States that simply says that containment must work. The old thought process of how we dealt with other countries having nuclear weapons before.
The problem with that approach is that it invites Israel to attack to take care of their own concerns about their existentialism. And I think it will provoke a weapons race in a very unstable part of the world, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, perhaps others thinking that we will not live under the hegemony of Iran with them being the only nation in the region with a nuclear weapon.
If you conduct limited attacks, all you do is poke the tiger, you have not stopped the program. If you want an all out attack, it would be very difficult. It would cost thousands of American lives, probably tens of thousands of Iranian lives because it’s a long way to Tehran from any beach the country has.
The third option we talked about briefly moments ago, that option is, of course, change from within. Change that the people of Iran would effect themselves in terms of the government that presides over them.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am normally a pretty optimistic person but I stand before you a bit of a pessimist today, it is, the largest problem that we now face in this new century.
Lastly, let me pay salute to the Iranian-American organizations both here and overseas, ex-Pal-Iranians in the case of those overseas for who are and what you do. I am conscious of the fact that this is often seen by the people of Ashraf and Liberty and in a very real sense I’m talking to them about you because I’ve observed this organization now for almost a better part of a year and frankly it’s impressive.
My service in the Marine Corps has a motto, it’s “semper fidelis”, that’s Latin, for always faithful. I observe you as being always faithful to this cause of making sure that the people of Ashraf eventually enjoy freedom and security.
I’ve, overseas in particular, I have stand watched an audience like you sit for five straight hours listening to a panel like this.
And their enthusiasm is as great for the last speaker as it is for the first speaker.
Let me tell you, I don’t think there’s any average American audience out there that would do that. (Applause.)
You could have a hundred dollars at the gate and they wouldn’t do that. It’s amazing to those of us that have seen it and it speaks to the concept of dedication and loyalty.
You’ve been aggressive and well-intentioned and disciplined on a whole post of fronts. Through the print media we have seen articles, we have seen full page advertisements in New York principal newspapers; to television news and talk shows; through public appearances by prominent Americans some of whom are at this panel today talking to the cause; at rallies and symposiums at conferences again like this; through the other branches of government in our country, through the courts and through the Congress.
Today someone told me before we came here, we now have 98 congressmen and women who signed on in support of what it is we portend to do. On both sides of the Atlantic, both here and in Europe and now in the United Nations.
Now, I would say certainly and you’ll recognize we haven’t won every battle, okay, but I think your involvement has made the outcome much, much better for the people of Ashraf otherwise would be the case and I pray that they understand.
U.S. Embassy also has another expression when we’re in combat and that is that, there is no better friend and no worse enemy than our force.
I think the same can be said of you, the people of Ashraf have no better friend, the United States State Department has no worse enemy. God bless you all for what you do. (Applause.)