FSI faculty members discussed global risk, democracy, and security issues this spring before Stanford alumni and friends in San Francisco and New York City. Elizabeth and Joe Mandato, parents ’03, hosted a faculty panel in San Francisco and Ruth Porat ’79 and Anthony Paduano welcomed FSI faculty and friends to their home in New York.

In San Francisco, Scott D. Sagan, professor of political science and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation; Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and coordinator of the democracy program at FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; and Rosamond L. Naylor, Julie Wrigley Senior Fellow and director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment at FSI, joined a panel moderated by FSI Director Coit D. Blacker.

Sagan spoke about North Korea and commented on the recent conclusion of the six party talks that resulted in an agreement by North Korea to suspend nuclear weapons production. He argued that the United States will be most successful in containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions by taking regime change off the table. Diamond addressed conditions on the ground in Iraq and the limited choices now facing U.S. policymakers. He argued that they should focus on securing a viable political agreement among the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites in Iraq, but warned that the danger of chaos is great. Naylor emphasized the ways in which hunger and malnutrition jeopardize security and create havoc for women, children, and governments worldwide. She examined the “deadly connections” that link food security, climate risk, poverty, and civil conflict— challenges whose resolutions are critical to human survival over the long term.

In New York, faculty members from FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law addressed Democracy, Security, and the National Interest: Dealing with Iraq, Iran and Russia. Michael A. McFaul, deputy director of FSI and director of CDDRL, and Kathryn Stoner, associate director for research at CDDRL, joined Diamond for the discussion. Blacker moderated, and Stephen D. Krasner, professor of political science and former director of CDDRL who just stepped down as director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, commented.

As in San Francisco, Diamond offered his view of the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. He stressed the need for a coherent strategy for extracting U.S. troops from Iraq and urged that the United States make conclusion of a power-sharing agreement among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions a top priority. McFaul discussed two options for America in shaping policy with Iran: pursue regime change or make a deal to disarm the regime. He argued that while both goals are worthwhile, the only way to change the regime and stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons is to actively engage it. Stoner-Weiss discussed trends in Russia away from democracy under President Putin. She argued that while Putin has posed as a democracy reformer, he has systematically undermined democracy and consolidated political and economic power. Krasner reviewed some of the conceptualizations and longer-term policy initiatives that characterize policy planning and reflected on the high degree of uncertainty policymakers face in the current international environment.

An FSI presentation to alumni and friends in London in June, on the topic of The Future of the Trans-Atlantic Relationship, completed the institute’s outreach events for this academic year, as FSI actively supports a key goal of The Stanford Challenge: to bring Stanford to the world.

What nuclear threats do we face today? America went to war because its leadership believed Iraq had nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We are reminded daily of the potential dangers of Iran turning its quest for nuclear energy into a weapons capability. We are locked in a deep struggle to get North Korea to give up its nuclear status demonstrated in last fall’s test. Concerns about Russia’s nuclear arsenal are resurfacing. And, we are constantly reminded that we must wage America’s “war on terror” to avoid the nexus of international terrorism and nuclear weapons.

All nuclear threats are not alike. How do these and other nuclear threats compare in terms of severity or likelihood? And how can we effectively address them? It is useful to think of today’s nuclear threats at three levels. First is an all-out exchange of nuclear warheads—hundreds of them—that would destroy civilization as we know it. Next is a limited, but still disastrous exchange—tens of warheads —that would create levels of destruction not seen since World War II. The third level is the use of one or several nuclear bombs, which would threaten our way of life. Reframing the nuclear threat in this way allows us to gauge our level of concern and formulate meaningful preventive strategies.

An all-out nuclear exchange could occur today only between the United States and Russia, which still maintain many thousands of warheads in their nuclear inventories. A nuclear war between these two countries represents the only existential threat to the United States.

The end of the Cold War rendered this threat highly improbable but not impossible. An accidental or unauthorized launch followed by a response is still possible. To eliminate this threat, the United States and Russia should follow through on detargeting and commit to de-alerting their nuclear forces—to remove them from high alert status that allows a launch within minutes to pre-identified targets.

The two nations should commit to making major reductions in their nuclear stockpiles and eventually eliminating them. In the midst of the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev reduced their stockpiles and even came close to an agreement to lead the world in abolishing nuclear weapons. Last January in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, George Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn called for a renewal of that vision by outlining steps to be taken now.

To move more rapidly toward much smaller numbers, I would add that leaders in both nations should undertake a zero-base nuclear assessment that would answer this question: If you were creating a stockpile from scratch today, how many weapons would you need to meet the current threat? Such a calculus would yield much lower numbers than trying to decide how many weapons you can live without. U.S. and Russian nuclear postures toward China should also carefully avoid provoking a Chinese nuclear buildup.

An exchange of tens of nuclear warheads is somewhat less improbable than nuclear war between Russia and the United States. But at this level, potential confrontations include nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan, or between the United States and China—over Taiwan, for example, or on Russia’s southern border, or in the Middle East, between Israel and possibly Iran in the future. To limit the possibilities, it is crucial to stop more countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. The fewer fingers on the nuclear trigger, the better.

The United States should play a leading role in reinforcing the nuclear nonproliferation regime, centered on the 37-year-old Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows a country to come within a whisker of building a bomb. A global expansion of nuclear power will pose additional challenges to the system. We need new rules of engagement for expanding nuclear power, including viable international controls on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing.

To encourage non-nuclear weapon states to keep their end of the NPT bargain and refrain from acquiring the bomb, the five nuclear weapon states must show a greater commitment to working in good faith toward eventual elimination of their arsenals, as pledged under Article VI of the treaty.

Security guarantees from the United States and other nuclear weapon states can help curb some countries’ nuclear ambitions by alleviating fears of invasion by major world powers or by regional foes. India and Pakistan—two nuclear weapon states that aren’t parties to the NPT—should continue to pursue confidence-building measures to avoid miscalculation and potential nuclear war. We should help realize the nuclear-free zones that states are calling for in the Middle East, on the Korean peninsula, in Central Asia and in as many other regions as possible.

The United States and other states with nuclear weapons can also lower the risk of limited war by declaring a no-first-use policy, reserving nuclear weapons only as weapons of last resort.

The use of one or several nuclear bombs today is more likely than it was during the Cold War. If detonated in a big city, the damage would be catastrophic. Humankind would survive such a catastrophe, but it could gravely threaten our way of life. A country or a terrorist group in possession of a rudimentary nuclear bomb could deliver such a weapon in a van, boat, or plane. North Korea could do so, in desperation; Israel could do so in response to an existential threat; and under current doctrine, the United States or Russia could do so in response to a chemical, biological, or radiological attack. More likely, and hence of greater concern, is that terrorists would use a nuclear bomb, if they could get one.

The most likely route for terrorists to acquire a bomb is to devise one from stolen or diverted fissile materials. Theft or diversion of a ready-made weapon is far less likely.Building a rudimentary bomb is not easy but is judged to be within the capabilities of some sophisticated terrorist groups if they are able to obtain fissile materials.

Although it is widely recognized that keeping bomb materials out of terrorists’ hands is essential, the difficulty of doing so, especially from a technical standpoint, is not well understood. Only a few tens of kilograms of plutonium or highly enriched uranium are required for a bomb, yet almost 2 million kilograms of each exist in the world today, and some of it is not adequately secured. Securing these materials requires greater commitment to nuclear materials safeguards by all countries that possess them. It calls for greater urgency to protect and eventually eliminate highly enriched uranium in research reactors and facilities around the world. Bilateral or multilateral sting operations to intercept nuclear black market trade may help locate material already outside of state control. International cooperation in building databases and detection systems will improve nuclear forensics and attribution.

Each level of nuclear threat implies a different strategy of prevention. But three common aspects emerge as priorities for national and international policymaking:

• The fewer nuclear weapons, the better.
• The fewer fingers on a nuclear trigger, the better.
• Keeping fissile materials out of terrorists’ hands is essential.

Finally, this is not a problem for the United States alone to solve. It can only be solved through international cooperation.

The Stanford alumni association announced in May the selection of political science professor Michael A. McFaul, deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, director of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, as the 2007 Class Day speaker.

A world-renowned expert on U.S.-Russian relations, democratization in the post-Soviet world, and efforts at democracy promotion abroad, McFaul also co-directs the Iran Democracy Project and writes widely on contemporary Iran. He received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2005. McFaul received a standing ovation after delivering the address in Maples Pavilion on Saturday, June 16, 2007, to an appreciative audience of graduating seniors, their families, friends, and the leadership of Stanford University.

Hoover Institution senior fellow and CDDRL democracy program coordinator Larry Diamond was selected as Teacher of the Year by the Associated Students of Stanford University and honored during Commencement Weekend with the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. It was widely agreed among students that Diamond’s influential teaching “transcends political and ideological barriers,” the ASSU said. The Dinkelspiel Award cited Diamond, inter alia, for “his inspired teaching and commitment to undergraduate education; for the example he sets as a scholar and public intellectual, sharing his passion for democratization, peaceful transitions, and the idea that each of us can contribute to making the world a better place; and for helping make Stanford an ideal place for undergraduates.”

On November 15, 2007, FSI held its third annual international conference, Power and Prosperity: New Dynamics, New Dilemmas, examining seismic shifts in power, wealth, security, and risk in the global system. Acting FSI Director Michael A. McFaul, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry offered stagesetting remarks before a capacity crowd of business and civic leaders, diplomats, policymakers, faculty, and students. Interactive panel sessions encouraged exploration of contemporary issues with Stanford faculty and outside experts.

Image

Christopher and former Secretary of State Jim Baker are heading a new National War Powers Commission to study and resolve these issues. Planning to do something of a prospective nature, they will focus their recommendations on the 2009 Congress, seeking to bring to bear the collective judgment of both the president and a Congress traditionally reluctant to exercise the power it has under the Constitution.

“I spent most of my adult life under the dark cloud of a nuclear holocaust, a war that threatened no less than the annihilation of humanity,” said former Secretary of Defense William Perry. Now the Cold War is over, but its end did not bring about the end of history. “History is being written every day in the streets of Bagdad, in the deserts of Darfur, in the nuclear test range of North Korea, and in the nuclear laboratories of Iran.”

Image

A complementary route is to work to reduce and then eliminate nuclear weapons. Getting to the political will to take those steps was a major objective of a January 4, 2007, Wall Street Journal op-ed, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” published by Perry, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, and conferences at Stanford. “This conference can teach us what to do,” Perry said, “what is needed is the political will to do it.”

Gi-Wook Shin, director of FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, chaired Plenary I, “Asia’s Triple Rise: How China, India, and Japan Will Shape our Future.” “While our policymakers are preoccupied with the Middle East, Asia is going to have much more impact on our future,” Shin said. Asia is experiencing a unique moment in Asian and world history. Can three great nations rise simultaneously, creating a regional architecture for stability and security? What role can the United States play?

“There are two defining characteristics of today’s world,” said J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China, “America’s role as the sole superpower and China’s precipitous rise to power and influence.” Roy traced China’s resource demands, military development, and global economic impact and evaluated China’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. “While we see a more powerful and prosperous China as a security threat,” he stated, “the case could be made for a more optimistic scenario in which growth creates a sizable middle class, greater global dependence, and a more open society as the fifth generation of Chinese leaders takes over, the first to mature in a period of openness to the world and the power of modern democracies.”

“The only democracy in the world with which the United States had endemically bad relations during the Cold War was India. Happily that has changed,” said Robert Blackwill, former U.S. ambassador to India. He addressed our many areas of common interest: the fight against global terrorism, energy security, a healthy global economy, and shared democratic values. Analyzing the pending civil nuclear cooperation deal, he placed India’s need for 15–20 new nuclear reactors in the context of domestic growth. Some 450 million people make less than $1.50 per day; India will not tolerate outside direction to slow growth. “The United States and India are natural allies,” he concluded.

“The India entering its seventh decade as an independent country is one that is open to the contention of ideas and interests within it and outside … wedded to the democratic pluralism that is its greatest strength and determined to fulfill the creative energies of its people. Such an India truly enjoys soft power in today’s world.” former under secretary-general of the united nations shashi tharoor“Japan has resumed a solid growth track,” said Michael H. Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Japan. The country seeks respect and wants a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, which it deserves. Japan’s economy is four times the size of China’s; Japan’s military budget is just 1 percent of GDP, yet it is the third largest in the world and the most sophisticated in Asia. Japan has the resources of a great power—huge financial reserves, modern science and technology, and enormous aid and investment flows. As Japan assumes a more robust international role, we should expect the Japanese to “hedge their bets,” he said, balancing strong U.S. ties with other nations and competing with China in pan-Asian community building efforts. Japan-U.S. relations should not be forgotten, he advised, as we focus on China and India.

Shashi Tharoor, diplomat, historian, and former U.N. under secretary-general, mused about “India’s Future as a Great Power.” Asking what makes a country a world leader, he acknowledged that India has the world’s second largest population, fourth largest military, status as a nuclear power, and the fifth largest economy. Yet a nation that cannot feed, educate, or employ its people cannot be termed a “great power,” Tharoor noted. He suggested that India’s greatest asset is its “soft power”— its liberal democracy, social and cultural diversity, and enormously popular culture. All hold important lessons. “The India entering its seventh decade as an independent country,” he said, “is open to the contentions of ideas and interests within it and outside … wedded to the democratic pluralism that is its greatest strength and determined to liberate and fulfill the creative energies of its people. Such an India truly enjoys soft power in today’s world.”

Lynn Eden, associate director for research at CISAC, chaired Plenary II, “Critical Connections: Faces of Security in the 21st Century,” examining security risks posed by Iraq, nuclear weapons, and food security and the environment—issues, she noted, “that are also central themes of the Stanford International Initiative: improving governance, pursuing security, and advancing human well-being.”

“There are now multiple indications that conditions on the ground in Iraq have improved quite substantially,” said Hoover Institution denior fellow and CDDRL faculty member Larry Diamond. Violence is down and there is a return to something approaching normalcy, as a result of the 30,000 “surge” in U.S. troops and a more effective counterinsurgency strategy adopted by General David Petraeus. The new military-sized force and strategy come at a propitious moment, when the Sunni Arab heartland has turned against Al Qaeda. As Al Qaeda has been weakened, fear, fatal bombings, and Iraqi and U.S. fatalities have declined significantly. The problem is that strategic military gains have not been matched with requisite political progress: enacting an oil revenue sharing bill, reversing de-Baathification, and scheduling provincial elections. “The harsh fact is that military progress on the ground is not sustainable,” warned Diamond, “without political progress toward reconciliation in Bagdad and the provinces.”

“As Americans, we have not thought systematically about what it means when we use the phrase ‘Islamic fundamentalism.’ We tend to treat it holistically. If we are going to understand this threat, we have to disaggregate that big thing called ‘the Muslim world’—we have to know the difference between Islamic fundamentalist, Islamist, and liberal Muslims.” acting fsi director and political science professor michael a. mcfaulAssessing nuclear proliferation, CISAC Co-Director Scott D. Sagan said, “In 1963, John F. Kennedy famously relayed his nuclear nightmare that by the 1970s there might be 15–20 nuclear weapons states. Was Kennedy’s fear inaccurate or only premature?” Today there are nine nuclear states, but the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is cracked and challenges abound. The A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan exported nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. North Korea withdrew from the NPT and conducted a 2006 test, before agreeing to dismantle its nuclear program. Iran has rejected international demands to suspend uranium enrichment. The United States has not lived up to its NPT commitment to work toward eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. For Sagan, keys to nonproliferation include a successful U.N. 2010 NPT Review Conference, peaceful resolution of the North Korean and Iranian crises, developing control of the international fuel cycle, and American ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Turning to human security, Rosamond L. Naylor, the Julie Wrigley Senior Fellow at FSI and the Woods Institute for the Environment, reported that 1 billion people face acute risks every day from hunger, infectious disease, resource depletion, climate change, and civil conflict. Incredibly, 15 percent of the world’s population lives on less than $1 per day and 50 percent live on less than $2 a day. Three billion people are vulnerable to disruptions in food prices because of competing biofuels and climate change. While terrorism kills 3,000 people each year and battle deaths claim 20,000, more than 6–8 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition. “What can be done?” asked Naylor. We urgently need to conserve our genetic crop resources and invest in rural development, agriculture, and education.

Gilles Kepel, professor and chair, Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, at Sciences Po, delivered the dinner keynote, “Islamic Fundamentalism: On the Rise or the Decline?” “As Americans we have not thought systematically about what it means when we use the phrase ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” said Acting FSI Director Michael McFaul. “If we are going to understand this threat, we have to disaggregate that big thing called ‘the Muslim world’—we have to know the difference between Islamic fundamentalist, Islamist, and liberal Muslims.” Gilles Kepel, a leading author and scholar of the Middle East, who has “invested tremendously in the study of Islam,” was invited to fill that void. “When it comes to understanding Islamic fundamentalism, Paris is the 21st century,” said McFaul. “I see it as a real challenge to all of us to learn from our French colleagues, and tonight I promise you, you will learn from one of our French colleagues.”

In a December 2001 manifesto, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s mentor and Al Qaeda ideologue, admitted Islamic jihadists had failed to mobilize the masses to overthrow their corrupt rulers, “the nearby enemy,” and establish Islamic states, Kepel began. By inflicting a massive blow on 9/11 on “the far enemy,” the United States, they would demonstrate that America was weak, Islamic militants were strong, and the masses could revolt against their leaders without fear. The Muslim world and then the whole world would become ruled by Shariah under Islamist aegis. Kepel then asked, “Have they succeeded in what they set out to do?”

“After 9/11, we had a clash of two grand narratives: ‘jihad and martyrdom’ where the apostate regimes of the West and the Middle East were about to fall and ‘the War on Terror’ in which the roots of terrorism would be eradicated and autocratic regimes would tumble, bringing about democracy and a transformation of the Middle East.” professor gilles kepel, institute of political studies, parisKepel’s answer was no. Since 9/11, he said, “There have been two grand narratives: the narrative of jihad and martyrdom preached by Zawahiri and bin Laden, arguing that the rotten regimes of the West and the Middle East would fall, as jihadists waged copy-cat bombings in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, suicide operations, and so forth” and “the narrative of the American-led War on Terror,” hammering that the roots of terrorism would be eradicated and autocratic regimes would tumble, bringing about democracy and the transformation of the Middle East.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq opened a new area for radical Islamic mobilization. But the two clashing narratives gave ground to something unexpected: the rise of Iranian influence in the region and “a golden opportunity not for Sunni Islamic fundamentalists but for the radical Shia in Iran,” who after the 2005 election of President Ahmadinejad found they could engage in nuclear blackmail with the world and threaten the United States with the activation of Shiite militias in Iraq, where American forces would be at a disadvantage fighting two enemies at the same time.

While Zawahiri continues to paint the “triumphal march of Sunni fundamentalism,” Kepel stated, “the discrepancy between his world view and reality is growing bigger and bigger.” To date, the bigger winner from 9/11 is not Al Qaeda but the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran and Hezbollah have become the heroes and champions of the Muslim world. This fragmentation in the Muslim world, pitting Shia against Sunni, has weakened the Sunni radical movements’ ability to mobilize. How the confrontation plays out, he concluded, will determine the future of the Middle East.

POWER AND PROSPERITY: NEW DYNAMICS, NEW DILEMAS

INTERACTIVE PANEL DISCUSSIONS ON CRITICAL ISSUES
In an FSI conference highlight, participants engaged in spirited debate on leading issues with Stanford faculty and outside experts. Audio recordings of the plenary and panel discussions are available below.

IS DEMOCRACY GOOD FOR HEALTH?
Alan M. Garber, Grant Miller, Douglas K. Owens, and Paul H. Wise

NUCLEAR POWER WITHOUT NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION?
Scott D. Sagan, David G. Victor, Robert Rosner, and Siegfried S. Hecker

A CHANGING CONTINENT? OPPERTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR EUROPEAN UNION EXPANSION
Katherine Jolluck, Mark Leonard, Monica Macovei, and Wolfgang Münchau

GROWING PAINS - GROWTH AND TENISIONS IN CHINA
Andrew G. Walder, Jean C. Oi, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhou

AUTOCRATIC HEGEMONS AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST: DEALING WITH CHINA, IRAN, AND RUSSIA
Kathryn Stoner, Larry Diamond, Michael A. McFaul, and Abbas Milani

FOOD SECURITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND CIVIL CONFLICTf
Rosamond L. Naylor, David Lobell, and Edward A. Miguel

FACES OF ENGERY SECURITY
David G. Victor, Bryan J. Hannegan, and Chris Mottershead

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THE MIDDLE EAST
Allen S. Weiner, Byron Bland, Bruce Jones, and Lee D. Ross

Image

This year’s 27 Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development—outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from developing democracies—were selected from more than 500 applicants to take part in the program, which FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted July 30–August 17, 2007. They traveled to Stanford from 22 countries in transition, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And like their academic curriculum during the three-week program, which examines linkages among democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, their professional experiences and fields of study center on these three areas, assuring that each fellow brings a seasoned perspective to the program’s discussions.

“Should the United States promote democracy? Can the United States promote democracy?” The curriculum for the first week focused on defining the concepts of “democracy,” “development,” and the “rule of law” and identifying institutions that support democratic and market development. Using selected articles and book chapters as starting points for discussion, CDDRL Director Michael A. McFaul and Marc Plattner, National Endowment for Democracy vice-president for research and studies, began the weeklong module with an examination of what democracy is and what definition or definitions might apply to distinguish electoral democracy, liberal democracy, and competitive authoritarianism. Another question discussed was whether there was such a thing as Islamic democracy, Asian democracy, Russian democracy, or American democracy.

Faculty including Diamond, CDDRL associate director for research Kathryn Stoner, Stanford president emeritus and constitutional law scholar Gerhard Casper, Stanford Law School lecturer Erik Jensen, and economists Avner Greif and Seema Jayachandran “team-taught” individual sessions as the week progressed. Fellows and faculty discussed how to define and measure development, the role and rule of law in societies, how legal systems affect democratic development, constitutionalism, electoral systems, parliamentary versus presidential systems, horizontal accountability, and market development. Fellows worked in groups to discuss and present their conclusions about an issue to their colleagues, comparing experiences and sharing insights into how well political parties and parliaments constrained executive power and how civil society organizations contributed to democratic consolidation.

Image

This component grounded the classroom discussions in a practical context. “It was important for our visiting fellows to interact with American practitioners, both to learn about innovative techniques for improving democracy practices but also to hear about frustrations and failures that Americans also face in working to make democracy and democracy promotion work more effectively,” explained McFaul. “We Americans do not have all the answers and have much to learn from interaction with those in the trenches working to improve governance in their countries.”

As the program’s curriculum shifted to democratic and economic transitions for week two, McFaul and Stoner-Weiss balanced the structure of the classroom with guest lecturers, a documentary film premiere, and field trips to Google headquarters and San Francisco media organizations to put into practical context the components discussed theoretically in the classroom. The field trip to San Francisco included a session with KQED Forum executive producer Raul Ramirez, a briefing with the editorial board at the San Francisco Chronicle, and a discussion of links between violence against women and children and poverty, health, and security at the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

“We are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development.” The third week’s curriculum looked at international and domestic efforts to promote democracy, development, and the rule of law. This integrative module drew on the teaching caliber of Stephen D. Krasner (FSI senior fellow), Peter B. Henry (Graduate School of Business), Allen S. Weiner and Helen Stacy (Stanford Law School), and Nicholas Hope (Stanford Center for International Development) as well as Casper, Jensen, McFaul, and Stoner-Weiss. Through case studies and, in particular, comparison of successes and failures in the fellows’ own experiences, faculty and fellows explored and assessed international strategies for promoting rule of law, reconciliation of past human rights abuses, democracy, and good governance. The discussions, occasionally contentious, circled in on a set of central questions: Should the United States promote democracy? Can the United States promote democracy? What are the links between democracy and increasing the rule of law, controlling corruption, rebuilding societies shattered by massive human rights violations, and promoting good governance?

Despite the intellectual rigor of the coursework and discussion, and the exploration of practical applicability with guest speakers and field trips, the Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program was designed as much to stimulate connections among field practitioners and to provide a forum in which to exchange ideas. “Through the summer fellows program, we are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development, and who are keeping in touch with us and with one another,” said Diamond. “When I meet our ‘alumni’ fellows in subsequent years, they speak movingly of the bonds they formed and the insights they gained in these three fast-paced weeks.”

To ensure they fulfill their goal of building a small but robust global network of civic activist and policymakers in developing countries, CDDRL launched a Summer Fellows Program Alumni Newsletter. The newsletter is based on an interactive website that will allow the center to strengthen its network of leaders and civic activists and facilitate more groundbreaking policy analysis across academic fields and geographic regions, the results of which will be promptly fed back to its activist alumni in a virtual loop of scholarship and policymaking. “We envision the creation of an international network of emerging political and civic leaders in countries in transition,” said Stoner-Weiss, “who can share experiences and solutions to the very similar problems they and their countries face.”

SSFDD ALUMNI FOCUS: VIOLET GONDA
A producer and pre s ent er for SW Radio Africa (London), Violet Gonda was a Stanford Summer Fellow on Democracy and Development in 2006, the same year her station was named the International Station of the Year by the Association of International Broadcasters. "CDDRL brings together a cross-section of people from different backgrounds, different careers," Gonda said. "Politicians, lawyers, activists ... all in the same room. It is an amazing group of people."

Banned from returning to her home country because of her journalism work at the radio station-"we are welcome in Zimbabwe but only in the prisons"-Gonda "literally eat[s], breathe[s], and dream[s] Zimbabwe." The summer fellows program, she said, gave her a broad perspective on what's going on in other countries; "it is so intensive ... you can really compare and contrast democracy on every continent." One thing Gonda found is that "when you look at these leaders, you'd think they all were born of the same mother ... and the ways people respond to these crises are the same."

Gonda had such a positive experience at Stanford that she decided to apply for, and was accepted to, the prestigious John S. Knight Fellowships for journalists for the academic year 2007-08. "It's always been Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe," she said. "Now I finally have time to sit down and read a book, write an article, go to seminars, sharpen my skills." She is not exactly sitting still however. In December she gave a presentation on Zimbabwe's political situation for the Center on African Studies, and will also be discussing Zimbabwe at the Palo Alto Rotary Club and the Bechtel International Center. "Media in America does not have a lot of international news, particularly on Africa," Gonda said. "So it's a good opportunity to talk about Zimbabwe, and I will take advantage of it."

She is also working on developing new content for SW Radio Africa and plans to interview FSI scholars she met through the summer fellows program so "We are building an extraordinary community of democratic activists and officials who have a deeper understanding of the types of institutions that secure freedom, control corruption, and foster sustainable development." that Zimbabweans can understand what is going on in different countries. Close contact with program alumni means that she has friends and colleagues in other parts of that world who can be called on for their perspective on situations. While SW Radio Africa's mission is "to record and to expose" developments in Zimbabwe, Gonda explained, "it's good to compare, to show people we are not alone, that this is happening elsewhere."

The Bush administration's North Korea strategy is being criticized from the right and the left for letting Pyongyang off the hook. Some advocate scuttling the six-party talks. Others suggest slowing our own compliance with the agreement to get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear program first. We disagree with both positions. Our mantra should be: It's the plutonium, stupid.

North Korea does have the bomb -- but a limited nuclear arsenal and supply of plutonium to fuel its weapons. The Yongbyon plutonium production facilities are closed and partially disabled.

In separate visits to North Korea in February, we concluded that the disablement was extensive and thorough. We also learned that Pyongyang is prepared to move to the next crucial step of dismantling Yongbyon, eliminating plutonium production. This would mean no more bombs, no better bombs and less likelihood of export. After this success, we can concentrate on getting full declarations and on rolling back Pyongyang's supply of weapons and plutonium.

We must not miss this opportunity, because we have the chance to contain the risk posed by North Korea's arsenal while we work to eliminate it. As dismantlement proceeds, negotiations should focus concurrently on the plutonium declaration, the extent of the uranium enrichment effort and Pyongyang's nuclear exports.

Pyongyang's declaration of 30 kilograms of plutonium (sufficient for roughly four to five bombs) falls short of the estimate of 40 to 50 kilograms, based on our past visits. We believe that North Korea is prepared to produce operating records and permit access to facilities, equipment and waste sites for verification. Obtaining and verifying its declaration of plutonium production and inventories is imperative. Let's proceed.

Pyongyang continues to claim that it has made no efforts to enrich uranium, despite strong evidence to the contrary. Although it appears unlikely that these efforts reached a scale that constitutes a weapons threat, a complete accounting is required. Dismantlement of the Yongbyon facilities should not, however, be postponed to resolve this issue. In October 2002, the Bush administration accused North Korea of covert uranium enrichment, only to have Pyongyang withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and produce plutonium to fuel the arsenal that we are now attempting to eliminate.

Nuclear exports are of greater concern. As recently revealed evidence demonstrates, North Korea sold nuclear technology to Syria, much as it sold missile technology. North Korea must cooperate if we are to get to the bottom of the Syrian incident and ensure that it is not repeated elsewhere. Israel eliminated the Syrian threat, for now, by bombing the reactor at Al Kibar. But it is imperative that Pyongyang reveal the nature and extent of its export operations and, most important, whether it has similar deals underway with Iran.

We do not advocate letting Pyongyang off the hook, but a "confession" regarding Syria is not the critical issue. We have good knowledge of what the North Koreans supplied to Syria. What we really need is information from North Korea that will help us deal with potential threats. For example, was North Korea acting alone, or was it part of a more sophisticated proliferation ring involving Pyongyang's trading partners and suppliers? North Korea's leadership must resolve all three declaration issues fully, and these will take time to verify.

To ultimately succeed in the peaceful elimination of nuclear weapons, we must understand why North Korea devoted its limited resources to going nuclear. The September 2005 six-party joint statement addresses many of these concerns, promising mutual respect for national sovereignty, peaceful coexistence, and a commitment to stability and lasting peace in Northeast Asia, as well as normalization of relations. Given the acrimonious history of our relations, such steps require a transformation in the relationship between North Korea and the United States, a change that will first require building trust -- step by step.

The six-party negotiations have put us on that path, and there is much evidence of winds of change blowing in North Korea that will make navigating that path easier (the recent New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang is one such symbol of change; the joint industrial facility at Kaesong is another). But North Korea's reluctance to provide full declarations and the Syria revelations have moved us in the wrong direction.

Nevertheless, walking away from the talks or slowing them at this point would be counterproductive. Instead, in its remaining months, the Bush administration should focus on limiting North Korea's nuclear capabilities by concluding the elimination of plutonium production. If it can also get answers on the Syrian operation and resolve the question of uranium enrichment, it will put the next administration in a stronger position to finally end the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Siegfried S. Hecker and William J. Perry are with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Hecker was director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 through 1997. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 through 1997.

Thank you Chairman Dorgan, Senator Domenici and distinguished members of the Committee for giving me the opportunity to comment on the National Nuclear Security Administration's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation programs and its 2009 budget request. I have a written statement that I would like to submit for the record.

This morning I will summarize the three main points in my statement. My opinions have been shaped by 34 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and nearly 20 years of practicing nonproliferation with my feet on the ground in places like Russia, China, India, North Korea and Kazakhstan.  Much of this I have done with the strong support and encouragement of Senator Domenici.

1) The proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons capability is growing. Today, we face a nuclear threat in North Korea, nuclear ambitions in Iran, a nuclear puzzle in Syria, recently nuclear-armed states in Pakistan and India, and an improved, but not satisfactory, nuclear security situation in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union. The danger of nuclear terrorism is real. This is not a fight the United States can win alone. We cannot simply push the dangers beyond our borders. It is imperative to forge effective global partnerships to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Meeting these challenges requires diplomatic initiative and technical cooperation. The United States must lead international diplomacy and DOE/NNSA must provide technical leadership and capabilities. The NNSA has done a commendable job in nuclear threat reduction and combating nuclear proliferation. However, funds to support these activities are not commensurate with the magnitude or the urgency of the threat.

2) CTR began with Nunn-Lugar followed by Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation directed at the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union. We must stay engaged with Russia and the other states of the Soviet Union. Much progress has been made, but more needs to be done. We have to change the nature of the partnership to one in which Russia carries more of the burden.

We should expand the cooperative reduction programs aggressively to other countries that require technical or financial assistance. The nuclear threat exists wherever nuclear materials exist. These materials cannot be eliminated, but they can be secured and safeguarded. We should more strongly support the International Atomic Energy Agency and provide more support to countries that try to implement UNSCR 1540 to prevent nuclear terrorism, for example.

We should enlist other nations such as China, India, and for that matter, Russia, to build a strong global partnership to prevent proliferation and combat nuclear terrorism. China and India have for the most part sat on the sidelines while the U.S. has led the fight. Russia has not engaged commensurate with its nuclear status. These efforts are particularly important if nuclear energy is to experience a real renaissance.

3) The hallmark of all of these efforts must be technology, partnership and in-country presence. The DOE/NNSA has in its laboratories the principal nuclear expertise in this country. It should be applauded for sending its technical experts around the world, often in very difficult situations (I met up with the DOE team in North Korea on a bitterly cold February day). However, both for structural reasons and budgetary shortfalls, that technical talent is slowing fading away. We do not have in place the necessary personnel recruitment or the working environment in the laboratories or the pipeline of students in our universities to replenish that talent. I strongly support the NNSA's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, which is aimed at tackling this problem.

Mr. Chairman, when I first visited Russia's secret cities in 1992 shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, I feared that its collapse may trigger a nuclear catastrophe. The fact that nothing really terrible has happened in the intervening 16 years is in great part due to the DOE/NNSA programs that your are considering today. We must now be just as innovative and creative to deal with the changing nuclear threat today.

In my statement I also mention the implications of my recent trips to North Korea and to India. However, since I am out of time, I will need to leave those for your questions.

Thank you for your attention.

Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.

North Korea's recent nuclear test and Iran's refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium -- potentially to weapons grade -- highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era. Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today's war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges.

Apart from the terrorist threat, unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American "mutually assured destruction" with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. New nuclear states do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards put in effect during the Cold War to prevent nuclear accidents, misjudgments or unauthorized launches. The United States and the Soviet Union learned from mistakes that were less than fatal. Both countries were diligent to ensure that no nuclear weapon was used during the Cold War by design or by accident. Will new nuclear nations and the world be as fortunate in the next 50 years as we were during the Cold War?

Leaders addressed this issue in earlier times. In his "Atoms for Peace" address to the United Nations in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged America's "determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -- to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." John F. Kennedy, seeking to break the logjam on nuclear disarmament, said, "The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution."

Rajiv Gandhi, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on June 9, 1988, appealed, "Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people. Or even a thousand million. It will mean the extinction of four thousand million: the end of life as we know it on our planet earth. We come to the United Nations to seek your support. We seek your support to put a stop to this madness."

Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons," which he considered to be "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." Mikhail Gorbachev shared this vision, which had also been expressed by previous American presidents.

Although Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev failed at Reykjavik to achieve the goal of an agreement to get rid of all nuclear weapons, they did succeed in turning the arms race on its head. They initiated steps leading to significant reductions in deployed long- and intermediate-range nuclear forces, including the elimination of an entire class of threatening missiles.

What will it take to rekindle the vision shared by Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev? Can a world-wide consensus be forged that defines a series of practical steps leading to major reductions in the nuclear danger? There is an urgent need to address the challenge posed by these two questions.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons. It provides (a) that states that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 agree not to obtain them, and (b) that states that do possess them agree to divest themselves of these weapons over time. Every president of both parties since Richard Nixon has reaffirmed these treaty obligations, but non-nuclear weapon states have grown increasingly skeptical of the sincerity of the nuclear powers.

Strong non-proliferation efforts are under way. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Additional Protocols are innovative approaches that provide powerful new tools for detecting activities that violate the NPT and endanger world security. They deserve full implementation. The negotiations on proliferation of nuclear weapons by North Korea and Iran, involving all the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Japan, are crucially important. They must be energetically pursued.

But by themselves, none of these steps are adequate to the danger. Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev aspired to accomplish more at their meeting in Reykjavik 20 years ago -- the elimination of nuclear weapons altogether. Their vision shocked experts in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, but galvanized the hopes of people around the world. The leaders of the two countries with the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons discussed the abolition of their most powerful weapons.

* * *

What should be done? Can the promise of the NPT and the possibilities envisioned at Reykjavik be brought to fruition? We believe that a major effort should be launched by the United States to produce a positive answer through concrete stages.

First and foremost is intensive work with leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise. Such a joint enterprise, by involving changes in the disposition of the states possessing nuclear weapons, would lend additional weight to efforts already under way to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran.

The program on which agreements should be sought would constitute a series of agreed and urgent steps that would lay the groundwork for a world free of the nuclear threat. Steps would include:

• Changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon.

• Continuing to reduce substantially the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them.

• Eliminating short-range nuclear weapons designed to be forward-deployed.

• Initiating a bipartisan process with the Senate, including understandings to increase confidence and provide for periodic review, to achieve ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking advantage of recent technical advances, and working to secure ratification by other key states.

• Getting control of the uranium enrichment process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price, first from the Nuclear Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or other controlled international reserves. It will also be necessary to deal with proliferation issues presented by spent fuel from reactors producing electricity.

• Halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally; phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium in civil commerce and removing weapons-usable uranium from research facilities around the world and rendering the materials safe.

• Redoubling our efforts to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts that give rise to new nuclear powers.

 
Achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons will also require effective measures to impede or counter any nuclear-related conduct that is potentially threatening to the security of any state or peoples.

Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America's moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible.

We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal, beginning with the measures outlined above.

Mr. Shultz, a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger, chairman of Kissinger Associates, was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A conference organized by Mr. Shultz and Sidney D. Drell was held at Hoover to reconsider the vision that Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev brought to Reykjavik. In addition to Messrs. Shultz and Drell, the following participants also endorse the view in this statement: Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Michael Armacost, William Crowe, James Goodby, Thomas Graham Jr., Thomas Henriksen, David Holloway, Max Kampelman, Jack Matlock, John McLaughlin, Don Oberdorfer, Rozanne Ridgway, Henry Rowen, Roald Sagdeev and Abraham Sofaer.

After the exhausting and dispiriting testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Congress this week, it is now even more starkly apparent that we are stuck in Iraq with no exit strategy. The plan of the Bush administration, and of these military and diplomatic leaders, is still to "stay the course" and hope things will finally take hold in Iraq: hope that the competing Iraqi parties and factions will finally settle their biggest political differences; hope that the Iraqi Army will finally show the ability to face down threats to security and hold the country together; hope that "strategic patience" will eventually allow us to draw down our forces to a level that will not stretch the U.S. Army to the breaking point. But as a group of mid-level American military officers who served in Iraq observed in a devastating edited volume of this name, "Hope is Not a Plan."

To be fair, the U.S. military surge in Iraq (and its attendant shift in strategy on the ground), has achieved many positive things. Iraqi and American casualties have fallen sharply (by more than two-thirds on some measures) from their peak levels in 2006 and early 2007. The Iraqi army and police have grown by roughly 100,000, in addition to some 80,000 local community militia forces ("concerned local citizens") armed and paid by the U.S. As a result of increased force levels and a dramatic change in strategy toward engaging the Sunni Arab communities (including forces once active in the resistance), Al Qaeda has been driven out of most Sunni Arab communities, particularly in Anbar province, and its fearful grip on that section of the country has been broken. This has been the most important achievement of the surge. In many Iraqi urban neighborhoods, both in Baghdad and in other cities, particularly in the once lawless Anbar province, Iraqis have been able to return to the streets and to something approaching normal commercial and social life.

One of the biggest blunders has been the analytical failure to see that the Shiite Islamist political party's political triumph in Iraq would bring a strategic bonanza to Iran--effective control of at least the southern half of Iraq. These are not small achievements. Unfortunately, in the absence of a larger and more tough-minded strategy, they are also not sustainable ones.

John McCain may have been right for the moment when he declared to the Kansas Veterans of Foreign Wars on April 7, "We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat." Unfortunately, in the context of continued political stalemate in Baghdad and the absence of a viable political strategy for stabilizing Iraq, the second part of his sentence simply does not follow: "... and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success." Rather, as Petraeus and Crocker unwittingly made clear, what we can look forward to is the indefinite commitment of 130,000 to 140,000 American troops, holding together a country that would otherwise shatter into much wider bloodshed. Hope is not a formula for success.

The truth is, we remain trapped in an awful quagmire. No less staunch a Republican than Senator Richard Lugar observed in the Senate hearings this week, "Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient." Senator McCain lacks the candor or clarity of mind to recognize that absent a new political strategy, we are stuck in a holding pattern, propping up a badly divided and corrupt political class in Baghdad. At least he has had the candor, however, to acknowledge that, under these circumstances, American troops might have to be in Iraq for another 10, 20, or 100 years.

Senators Clinton and Obama, in turn, recognize that the United States cannot maintain large numbers of American troops in Iraq for anything like that long. Not only will Iraqi resistance forces rise up against it again, but these commitments are draining our fiscal and military vitality.

Even if we were to leave Iraq tomorrow, it would take years to rebuild, re-equip, and reset the American armed forces to their pre-war levels of capacity and readiness. In a survey of American military officers by the Center for a New American Security, 88 percent thought the war had stretched the US military dangerously thin. And then there is the question of what kind of Army we will be left with as we have to lower standards further and further to find the "recruits" to sustain this military quagmire. CNN reported on April 7 that one out of every eight new recruits requires a waiver because of past criminal behavior or other prior misconduct. The percentage of high school graduates among recruits has declined to 79%. Retired General Barry McCaffrey said recently that ten percent of Army recruits "should not be in uniform." And when the Vice-Chief of Staff of the Army testifies (as General Richard Cody did last week) that repeated deployments are placing "incredible stress on our soldiers and their families" and that "our readiness is being consumed as fast as we can build it," you know we have a serious problem.

Yet Clinton and Obama don't see the other side of this awful reality: that a swift, unconditional timetable for withdrawal of the kind they propose (on the order of one to two combat brigades per month) would likely see Iraq slip back into all-out civil war -- unless something dramatic changes in the political landscape there.

We urgently need an exit strategy from Iraq, but it cannot simply be to declare we are leaving by some fixed, early date -- and goodbye and good luck. Without the prospect of a substantial American military drawdown on the near horizon, Iraq's political factions will lack the incentive to make the hard choices for a sustainable compromise that might hold the country together. But in the absence of an intense diplomatic effort to broker this compromise, the prospect of imminent American withdrawal will not induce compromise, but rather rigidity and the psychology of preparing for an imminent civil war.

So what needs to be done?

To begin with, we need a more hard-headed analysis of our real interests. For years now, the Bush administration has leaned toward the Shiite Islamist political party, ISCI (the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI). ISCI and its militia, the Badr Organization, which has heavily penetrated the Iraqi army and police, were formed in exile in Iran in the 1980s and grew up under the heavy influence there of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They subscribe to the hard-core Khomeini of system "velayat al faqih" -- rule by the Islamic jurist. And they have welcomed numerous Iranian agents into Iraq to help them establish that system.

Of the many grand blunders of the Bush administration in Iraq, one of the biggest has been the analytical failure to see that ISCI"s political triumph in Iraq would bring a strategic bonanza to Iran -- effective control of at least the southern half of Iraq. To pave the way for this, ISCI and its leader, the ailing Islamist cleric, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, have long sought to gather all nine provinces in the Shiite southern half of the country into a single super-region, which would enable ISCI to establish political hegemony over the entire Shiite region, control most of the country's oil resources (based mainly in the Basra area of the far south), and dominate the politics of the center.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's recent ill-fated crackdown on the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr was not just about establishing order in the south. A more important subterranean motive (for which the United States allowed itself to be used) was to remove the chief obstacle to ISCI's bid for hegemony in the south. Sadr and his disparate political and militia forces oppose the creation of a Shiite super-region, and constitute the most significant political rival to ISCI (and its junior partner in Shiite politics, Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party). ISCI's calculation has been that if Sadr could be neutralized, its path to victory in the coming provincial elections in October could be cleared, and then it could press forward with its aim of gathering all nine southern provinces into one.

We should have no illusions: Sadr is a nasty, deeply illiberal character. His militia forces, or those who swagger around, draped in weapons, seizing territory and imposing Islamic order in his name, often approximate the Taliban in their level of commitment to human rights, women's rights, religious freedom, and the rule of law. But Sadr's political movement is a broad tent that also includes more nationalist Shiite elements who share with one another (and with many Sunni Arab factions with whom they have been in contact) a determined resistance to ISCI's and Iran's bid to control southern Iraq, and through that region, the country as a whole. In other words, the participation of the Sadrist movement in electoral politics at least preserves political fluidity and pluralism. Its elimination, while leaving ISCI and its tightly knit militia network in control of much of the security apparatus and of existing provincial governments in the south, paves the way for Iranian domination.

One of the greatest and most bitter ironies of the Bush administration's posture in Iraq has been its persistent failure to see how it was handing the greatest threat to security in the region -- the Islamic Republic of Iran -- a grand strategic prize. So far, the Iranian regime has largely succeeded in its goals of bogging the U.S. down in a bleeding insurgency, draining its military and its treasure and sapping its will, until the point that Iraq (so they think) will fall into their hands like a ripe apple. No wonder the Iranian ruling elite so often seems to be smiling like a mafia gang on its way to eliminating its rivals. As one Iraqi recently observed to me, "The Iranians are more intellectual, more strategic, and more patient than the U.S. The Bush administration's approach in Iraq has been purely tactical. When the U.S. spends a billion dollars in Iraq, Iran spends $50 million and gets more."

It is not clear that this strategic victory for Iran in Iraq can be prevented at this point. Certainly it will not come from the Kurds, who have long since struck a cynical bargain with ISCI: they can have their Shiite super-region, and in return the Kurds want to absorb into their Kurdistan region the city and province of Kirkuk, whose vast oil resources would make eventual Kurdish independence a much more viable proposition.

It does not take much facility in political arithmetic to figure out who are the big losers in all of this: first of all the Sunni Arabs (about twenty percent of Iraq's population), who have no major oil producing assets in the provinces where they predominate, and who believe the creation of a Shiite super-region would be a formula for their own permanent marginalization and impoverishment. The other big loser would be all those Iraqis (surprisingly, a majority) who continue to believe in the idea of a united Iraq, and who are adamantly opposed to Iranian domination.

For this reason, the bargain between ISCI and the Kurds (codified in the 2005 constitution) cannot be the basis of a stable and democratic Iraq. It leaves out two crucial sections of the population: first, the Sunni Arabs, and second, a majority of Iraq's Shia as well, who fought Iran in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s and do not want their territory to become a satellite of Iran's Islamic Republic. If the United States were to withdraw from an Iraq configured along these lines, civil war would almost certainly follow. It would pit an ISCI-dominated government in the south and in Baghdad, backed by Iran, against a loose coalition of Sunni Arab and Shiite nationalist resistance, backed by Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni Arab states in the region alarmed by Iran's expanding power (which also includes a determined drive to acquire a nuclear weapons capacity). And in the chaos, there would also be a welter of more local-level fights for dominance.

The only way out of this nightmare scenario is a coherent, well-prepared, vigorous effort to broker a constitutional compromise before it is too late. The parameters of the necessary bargain have been clear for many years. ISCI would need to give up its ambition of a single, nine-province super-region, but could be granted a federal system with the eventual ability to lobby for creation of smaller regions (of up to three provinces each, as the interim Iraqi constitution had allowed for). The Kurds would get to keep their own region as part of a federal system, but the development of new oil fields would remain a prerogative mainly of the central government, not, as the Kurds and ISCI wish, regional governments. The Sunnis would have to reconcile themselves to being a minority political force in Iraq, but their provinces would be assured a fair and automatic distribution of the oil revenue, more or less in proportion to each province's share of the population.

There are a number of other issues to be worked out as well (including the reintegration of former Baathists below the top level into government, and the pruning of ISCI loyalists from the commanding ranks of the security forces, especially the police). But the pivotal elements of a deal involve the structure of the federal system and the control of oil production and distribution of its revenue.

The constitutional deal that is needed cannot be brokered by the United States alone. A "diplomatic surge" is urgently needed, in which the U.S. would partner with the UN and the European Union. For an administration that has been loathe to surrender control in Iraq, this is a difficult step, but without it, there will be no political breakthrough, and thus no exit from the quagmire.

In the context of such a grand bargain, the United States could draw down somewhat more gradually than Clinton and Obama now envision, perhaps getting down over the course of about three years to a small residual security force to protect American civilian operations in Iraq. If the provincial elections scheduled for this October can come off without massive intimidation and bloodshed, that will help, as it will likely deliver setbacks tin the south to ISCI and Dawa (who have governed poorly) and generate a more pluralistic political terrain, in which power in the Shiite south is shared by a more diverse set of actors.

It is far from clear that Iran, so close to winning its prize, would not sabotage such an outcome. Direct and intensive engagement with the Iranian regime would also be needed. This could offer the Iranians other incentives as part of a larger deal that would include verifiable suspension of their nuclear program. It could also play on the prospect of what they could themselves could face in an Iraq without the United States: a divided Shiite community, part of which is rising up in resistance to their dominance, allied with a united Sunni community with the broad backing of other Arab states in the region. And all of this before they had acquired the nuclear weapon they think will give a huge boost to their regional power.

A certain amount of brinksmanship would be needed to demonstrate to Iran that the alternative to compromise in Iraq is that they could wind up trading places with us, being bled and drained in an insurgent war while their enemies score opportunistic gains. In that case, the strategic prize could become an albatross around the neck of a regime that faces huge economic and political problems within Iran itself.

The above offers no sure path out of Iraq. Should diplomacy fail, we would be left with little choice but to prepare to withdraw, perhaps rapidly and in extremis, letting the regional actors and the Iraqis themselves pick up the pieces. It would be an ugly and costly scenario. But the credible threat of it might be the one thing that tips Iraq's polarized parties toward accommodation. And bad as it would be for a time, it could hardly be worse than having the United States bogged down in Iraq, desperately holding our military fingers in the dike for the decades that Senator McCain seems prepared to envision, while both our military capacity and our soft power drain away.

How did you get involved in diplomacy and inspection work?

I had originally intended to become a professor. I took a PhD at Cambridge and I also studied at Columbia University for two years. Then as I got back to Stockholm and did some teaching, I was asked to come in as a consultant to the Foreign Ministry, and gradually I got gobbled up by the ministry.

Can you describe the experience of doing inspections in Iraq?

My job was mainly to make sure that our inspectors had all their rights to do what they needed to do, that they were not stopped. Remember that in the '90s, Iraq frequently stopped inspectors and we suspected that they had something to hide. But in 2002-2003, we were never stopped for any inspection, not even the so-called palaces of Saddam Hussein. I thought that in the '90s sometimes the inspectors from New York had been a bit too Rambo-like, and of course inspectors from the teams often had people from the intelligence side, both from the U.S. and the U.K. We were determined to be completely independent. And I think we were. We were in nobody's pocket.

There were moments which were thrilling. At one point our inspectors found some munitions which had been for chemical weapons. There was no chemical in them, but they had not been declared. For a moment we thought maybe this is the tip of an iceberg, but gradually came to the conclusion that it was floes from an iceberg that had been there.

Preemption is where you see an attack coming, where an attack is imminent... You can take action when the airplanes or the missiles are approaching your territory. Another matter, however, is to attack a foreign country saying that we suspect that they will attack us.

From the beginning, like most people, our gut feelings were that there were weapons of mass destruction, although when we were asked about it we said, we are not here to tell you gut feelings, but to inspect. But as we inspected more and more cases, and did not find any weapons of mass destruction, the gut feeling changed, naturally.

There's a sad feeling about the whole thing that we were not able to have a greater impact. I was sometimes told, or it was assumed, that my phone had been bugged. And my reflection on that is simply that I wish that they had listened better to what I had to say.

There were also things that were amusing.

Do you have any amusing anecdotes you want to share?

Well, I remember that before we were admitted, Kofi Annan tried to bring me into discussions with Iraqis in the spring of 2002, and the Iraqis would have nothing to do with me, because they were negative to inspections, and they called me a spy. Before that they said I was a nonentity. Eventually when they accepted inspection, I was addressed as Your Excellency. So I thought when I became a spy I'd at least been promoted from a nonentity, and then when I was addressed as Your Excellency I'd really arrived.

What do you think is the key to being an effective diplomat?

You have to know your mandate first. In our case that was set by the resolutions, 1284 and 1441. As a lawyer I knew them very well. Our role was to inspect and report to the Security Council. We were not there to tell the Council what it should do. We were, as it were, the police investigation and they were the judges.

The second is that you must know your dossier. The facts. We spent lots of time going through what had happened in the '90s.

The third point I think is to exercise critical thinking, as police investigations do. They have a hypothesis, but you must collect and examine all the evidence. If you do not have the right diagnosis, how can [the] Security Council find the right therapy? This was the error, the big error, in the U.S. and the U.K. They did not have critical minds. They came, and they relied far too much on defectors. And the defectors were not interested in inspection, they were interested in invasion.

It also has to do something with--this is the fourth point--how inspectors behave. As I said I thought sometimes in the '90s the animosity and difficulty that they had in Iraq was due to the conduct of the inspectors--Rambo-style. I said when I took over that we intended to use all the rights that we had under the Security Council resolutions, but we were not there in order to provoke or harass or humiliate the Iraqis. When you ask what is important in diplomacy, I think that one of the most important things is always to avoid humiliation.

You say in your book that the climate for arms control has deteriorated, even as international cooperation has increased in some other areas like health and the environment. Why do you think that is?

The interdependence that results from more communication and transport and increased trade forces the world into a great deal of agreements, because it wouldn't function otherwise. SARS or avian flu or what have you--all this requires cooperation. The body of international law has increased tremendously, and most of it functions without any courts or any threats of sanctions.

We also have basic rules about how states conduct against each other, like diplomatic relations and the interpretation of treaties and consular relations, but also, nowadays, on the use of force. And that's an area, as I say in my book, where law is much less reliable. It's relatively new. Such rules did not exist before the U.N. Charter. The League of Nations did not prohibit states to go to war. It obliged them to try first with peaceful means. It's only in 1945 that people in San Francisco laid down the rule that states must not use armed force against each other unless they do it in self-defense against an armed attack or unless they do it under authorization of the Security Council. So that was a leap forward in 1945. Now, during the Cold War there were many violations of this. But what was new in 2002 was that the U.S. National Security Strategy declared that the rules of the Charter were too narrow for them, and they declared that they would take armed action regardless of these limitations in the Charter.

And this is no small point. This is a question of preventive war. Preemption is where you see an attack coming, where an attack is imminent. It is generally recognized that you can take action before the bombs fall. You can take action when the airplanes or the missiles are approaching your territory. Another matter, however, is to attack a foreign country saying that we suspect that they will attack us. In the case of Iran, that's taking armed action already at the sight of a few grams of uranium enriched to 4 percent. Now that's not an armed attack.

What do you think about the current prospects for disarmament?

I'm delighted to see that there's a strong body of American opinion, non-partisan, and led by former Secretary of State Shultz, and Kissinger, and Sam Nunn and Bill Perry. Many, including Colin Powell, side with them. They say, yes, the arsenal of nuclear weapons was needed during the Cold War, but no longer, and it can only damage and give ideas to other people; if the great powers need nuclear weapons maybe we also need them. So they urge the United States to take the initiative vis-a-vis Russia to move toward nuclear disarmament. They're not starry-eyed idealists. They know this is going to take time, but there are plenty of things that can be undertaken now.

And what are the most important steps to be taken now?

I have no hesitation that the most important signal would be a ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This was rejected by the U.S. Senate during the Clinton administration. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have said that they would want to have that treaty ratified. And I think the chances are that if the US ratifies it then China will, if China will, India will, if India does I think Pakistan will, then we will get the whole bunch. So this is at the top of the agenda. But taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert--which really is a relic from the cold war--I think is also very high up on the agenda.

What do you think is the most worrisome development in terms of nuclear weapons today?

I think the most acute questions are the negotiations with North Korea and with Iran. I'm favorable to the approach that's been taken lately by the U.S. in relation to North Korea. I don't think that threatening the North Koreans with any military action is a defensible policy. Military pressure is more likely to be counterproductive and lead them to a hardening of their positions; that's what we have seen in the past. However, the six-power talks in Beijing have been looking much more for carrots, and including, notably, a guarantee against attack, and also a guarantee of diplomatic relations with the U.S. and with Japan, if the North Koreans go along with a nuclear settlement. I think this is much more likely to yield results.

In the case of Iran, I think that while the Europeans have a number of carrots on the table, they say that these carrots are only available to Iran if, first, Iran does its part. There's a precondition that Iran should suspend enrichment. I don't know any negotiations in which one party says, yes, I will do my part and then we'll discuss what you'll give me for it. But the two elements I mentioned in the case of North Korea are not, to my knowledge, on the table in the case of Iran. Namely, a guarantee against attack, and talk about diplomatic relations. So I think that playing these two cards would be enormously valuable.

What about the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands?

One can hardly exclude any risk, but most experts deem it highly unlikely that non-state actors would be able to master this. They have to put together the weapons; they also have to find some means of delivery. And we also know from the case of terrorists in Tokyo a number of years ago that they chose rather the chemical weapons in their attack in the subway. There's some talk about what they call dirty bombs, a way of using radioactive material and exploding it and contaminating an area. That would be a terror weapon, but can by no means be compared to a nuclear weapon.

What's your advice to U.S. voters who are concerned about nuclear weapons?

I certainly think that McCain is a respectable, upright person with integrity. But from the point of view of disarmament, and the need for a new wind in international relations, I think that both Hillary and Obama are far better placed.

What are you up to these days?

I give a lot of lectures around the world. I travel much too much.

Actually, what I would want to do and what I'm starting to do is write a book about the development of international law and disarmament. How can we move the world slowly towards more peaceful relations? Well, you'll find beginnings of my thinking in Why Disarmament Matters. This is something I should do, but all these engagements to speak at various conferences take a lot of my time.

Aside from the former U.S. statesmen who support disarmament, are there any other causes for optimism you can see?

We need, as I said, a new wind. And I think a change of leaders, perhaps, could give a chance to that. In Russia you have a change of leaders even though Putin hovers over the scene. In Washington you will have a new leader. In France it's new, in Germany relatively new, and in the U.K., the new government is much more pro-disarmament. So there are some glimmers of hope.