Senator joe Lieberman remarks on steps to stop
the Iranian Nuclear Threat at the
AIPAC National Council and Board of Directors

U.S. SENATE

February 14, 2011

Excerpts

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While we are understandably focused on the events in Egypt, it is important not to forget that the most clear and present danger in the Middle East today comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I have been a supporter of the Obama administration's dual track approach of engagement and pressure in response to the Iranian challenge-including the effort to orchestrate a new set of sanctions, in the hope that these measures will push the leadership in Teheran to suspend its illicit nuclear activities and reconcile with the international community. The White House has pursued this strategy with discipline and determination.

The result has been a cascade of new measures since last summer-beginning at the UN Security Council, and then continuing in Congress and among responsible countries and companies worldwide, from the EU to Australia, Japan to South Korea, and most recently Norway and Switzerland-that has been faster, broader, and more intensive than I expected and than the Iranian leadership anticipated, I suspect.

There is no question that the Iranian regime is under heightened pressure today, both at home and abroad. That is the good news-and I am deeply grateful for the essential work of AIPAC throughout this process. Your strong and principled leadership has been crucial.

Unfortunately, as you know, the Iranians have shown no sign that they are willing to change their strategic calculus in response to the pressure we have brought to bear.

It was less than a month ago that the Iranians met in Istanbul with the members of the P-5+1-the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and China. Rather than seize this opportunity to negotiate seriously, the Iranians instead used the gathering to insist that sanctions be lifted and that the P-5+1 recognize their "right to enrichment" under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear efforts are continuing forward. Despite some technical difficulties that have been acknowledged by the Iranians, Iran's centrifuges keep spinning, and its stockpile of fissile material continues to grow.

In the aftermath of the Istanbul meeting, several steps are clearly now necessary in my view.

First, we must not waiver or consider concessions to Iran in the hope of restarting the diplomatic process. In particular, we must continue to hold the line and aggressively counter Iran's claim that it has the "right" to enrichment under the Nonproliferation Treaty, and make clear that under no circumstances can we trust the current rulers of Iran to keep any enrichment or reprocessing activity on their territory.

Second, Iran's failure to negotiate seriously at Istanbul demands that we ratchet up the pressure on the regime. That means more aggressive and creative enforcement of existing sanctions against Iran. It means American penalties against companies that continue to invest in Iran's energy sector or sell refined petroleum to Iran-including Chinese companies.

And it means that the Administration must make use of the powerful new authority granted to it by law, to cut off from the U.S. financial system any foreign bank that continues to do business with the IRGC, its front companies, or other illicit Iranian actors.

Third, it is time for the United States and the EU to begin exploring even more severe and destabilizing measures against Iran, such as sanctioning the Central Bank of Iran or targeting the Iranian regime's ability to derive revenue from its oil exports, which are the lifeblood of the Iranian economy.

Finally, we must also acknowledge the possibility that the current leaders of Iran are incapable of compromise on the nuclear program, no matter how much pressure is put on them, because opposition to America and the West is so integral to their very identity. If this is the case, our best hope to resolve this confrontation is not for the regime to change its behavior, but for the regime itself to be changed. In this respect, let us hope and pray that what has happened in Egypt will provide renewed inspiration and direction to the millions of Iranians who yearn for freedom.

In fact, in recent days, Iran's leaders have sought to claim the uprising in Egypt as a victory for the Islamic Republic. The reality, however-as the Supreme Leader well knows-is that the success of Egypt's young, largely secular protesters in overthrowing a thirty year-old dictatorship is precisely what the majority of young Iranians want in their own country as well.

One of Egypt's young protest leaders-the Google executive Wael Ghonim-put it well last week, when he spoke to an Iranian human rights group, itself a hopeful sign. His message to the Iranian human rights activists was this: "I tell all Iranians that you should learn from Egyptians because we learned from you."

We in the United States must also learn from what happened in Egypt-first and foremost, that even the seemingly most entrenched and determined dictatorships can be brought down by the power of their own people with stunning speed. Our sanctions effort with Iran should therefore increasingly aim not just to add pressure on the existing regime, but to target the growing fissures both within the regime itself, and between the regime and Iranian society.

This should include much more robust engagement and support for opposition forces inside Iran, both by the United States and like-minded democratic nations around the world. And it should involve more targeted sanctions by the U.S. and EU against human rights abusers in Iran, as authorized by a provision that Senator McCain and I inserted into the comprehensive sanctions bill passed by Congress last year.

And I hope that the Obama Administration will continue to elevate the importance of human rights and democracy in its overall approach to Iran.

There is no one senior official in the Obama administration who wakes up every day "owning" the mission of helping the Iranian people overcome their government's electronic monitoring and censorship, share information, and secure the universal human rights with which all of us have been endowed by our Creator-as Stuart Levey has so ably done regarding financial sanctions against Iran. In other words, the President needs to choose and empower his "Stuart Levey" for the Green Movement in Iran.

I also agree with President Obama that the use of military force is not the "ideal way" to stop the Iranian nuclear program. But if a nuclear Iran is as unacceptable as we all say it is, we must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to prevent the unacceptable.

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