The McLaughlin Group Debates Iran

Host: John Mclaughlin

Panel: Patrick Buchanan, MSNBC; Eleanor Clift, Newsweek; Tony Blankley, The Washington Times; Clarence Page, The Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON (Public Television) September 21, 2007 — MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Issue One: General Advice.

For almost four years, July 2003 to May 2007, the number one military person overseeing all of Iraq and the region was four-star General John Abizaid. As the head of the U.S. Central Command, Abizaid was also the superior to all of the generals in the Middle East.

Ten months ago, General Abizaid made news in testimony before the Senate when he said that a surge in U.S. troops was a bad idea.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: (From videotape.) I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: This week, the general made news again. Abizaid said that it was unlikely that Iran would attack with a nuclear weapon if it had one and that we could live with a nuclear Iran.

GEN. ABIZAID: (From videotape.) Iran is not a suicide nation. They may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Abizaid went on to say that the U.S. could live with a nuclear Iran.

GEN. ABIZAID: (From videotape.) There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran. Let's face it. We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union. We've lived with a nuclear China. We're living with nuclear other powers as well.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Abizaid floated the idea that the U.S. can live with a nuclear-armed Iran. Was that irresponsible? Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: No, it was not irresponsible. And I would commend the general for doing this, John. I think what is going on here — first, a nuclear Iran is a terrible idea. But then you get down to the choice, if we have to go to war to prevent it or to delay it for 10 years, is a war with Iran worth it? General Abizaid is saying, "I don't believe it is worth it."

And secondly, I believe the general is speaking for generals retired and on duty right now. I think he's speaking for a lot of people in the Pentagon who desperately do not want this war with Iran, which the neoconservatives and Mr. Cheney's element and the Israelis and others are pushing us toward.

I think he performed a service for the country. He is doing what this Congress ought to be doing is weighing the question of whether or not what Iran is doing in Iraq and with regard to enrichment of nuclear technology is worth a United States war with Iran.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is this idea of a strike circulating in the Pentagon?

MR. BUCHANAN: Oh, the idea of a strike is — I mean, it's circulating all over the Net.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Does the vice president want a strike before the president finishes his term?

MR. BUCHANAN: Everything you read about Cheney is he's saying, "Condi Rice has failed. Let's get on with it." I think the Israelis are pushing it. We don't know what that strike in Syria was about. The neoconservatives are pushing it; the AEI. They're holding their little sessions there, promoting this idea. It is the biggest issue in D.C. right now.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think he was trying the blunt talk, Abizaid was, by saying that we can militarily handle a nuclear-armed Iran?

MS. CLIFT: He is saying publicly what a lot of generals are saying privately and what the military is saying privately, and that is that the U.S. is in no position to handle another war. And all this loose talk about a bombing campaign, as though we can take care of Iran from 30,000 feet — you can't go into a military engagement like that unless you have the troops that you can back up all the tough talk with.

So I think he is speaking to a reality that exists. And we already are coexisting with North Korea, which has a rather irrational government as well. I think Iran is actually a middle-class — has a vast middle class. They're not that happy with the government they have. If we militarily engage them, we will just raise the nationalism in that country and make it so much more difficult to deal with them in the future.

Diplomacy is needed.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think General Abizaid is sending a signal to the Iranians that they need not be concerned about the opposition of the U.N. or the EU or the U.S. to their development of a nuclear program?

MR. BLANKLEY: I don't think he's in a position to send a message, because he's out of office, out of government now. France has also started talking about the need for —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, they yanked that minister back.

MR. BLANKLEY: No, Sarkozy reinforced that. But let me respond to your first question, because this is obviously a very serious question. I would remind you that President Jimmy Carter in 1980 said the greatest danger to the world is nuclear proliferation. A lot of people laughed at him.

But in the Middle East right now, it's not just going to be Iran. If Iran gets it, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Turkey go after getting nuclear weapons. And then we've got — and Israel has already got nuclear weapons. Everybody in this most dangerous place in the world will be nuclear-tipped. And you think that's a safe place to just use deterrence?

The danger — even if you assume that Ahmadinejad is not going to be able to carry out his threat to wipe Israel off the map, and that was just talk or he doesn't have the power, the idea of a completely nuclearized Middle East is to me a lunatic strategy to accept.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, the idea of containing the nuclear development of the world is equally untenable.

And what has happened to the MAD doctrine, mutually assured destruction?

MR. BLANKLEY: No, if Iran is stopped, then we won't have — we won't see Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Turkey do it. If Iran is not stopped, they're all going to be sucked into it.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why don't you, with your newspaper, develop a new theory to replace the existing theory on the development of the nuclear bomb?

MR. BLANKLEY: What is that new theory I should be articulating?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I don't know what the theory is, but clearly the proliferation —

MR. BLANKLEY: Proliferation is a tremendous danger, and particularly in the Middle East.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I understand that. But you simply can't say, "Oh, no, we can't do it," when it's obvious that nations are going to get the bomb.

MR. BLANKLEY: It's not obvious. We have the power to stop them.

And I think we will.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What do you think? Do we need a new nuclear doctrine? Do we need a new doctrine?

MR. PAGE: Well, maybe we need a revival of the containment doctrine that didn't work so well during the Cold War. Look, we've already —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean, which is fundamentally mutually assured destruction. Is that what you mean?

MR. PAGE: Exactly. And what Abizaid is saying is, "Yeah, the Iranians may look crazy, but they're not stupid." In fact, they are a sophisticated country with not a clear leadership in terms of Ahmadinejad speaking for them. He is not the real power over there. And they want to have the bomb the same reason everybody else wants the bomb, because they want respect. So Abizaid is saying that we can handle this diplomatically in terms of giving them the kind of respect that they —

MR. BLANKLEY: This isn't about respect. This is about Iranian hegemony there. Once they have the weapon, they're going to be able to overlord that entire zone.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I want to ask you a question. I know you have the chakra, and you have mighty chakra. Let me ask you this. With regard to Iran, is it not true, when Iran was at war with Iraq that lasted with Saddam for eight years, that Saddam used chemicals repeatedly against the Iranians and the Iranians refused to do it back because it was a weapon of mass destruction?

MR. BUCHANAN: They did, because they said it was against their religion. But let me talk to what Tony is saying. He's got a very good point. Proliferation in the Middle East is an enormous danger if Iran gets the bomb. That is why I am not convinced that it is automatic. I'm not convinced that Iran really wants the bomb.

That is why we ought to engage these people, because what they want — they want the bomb for deterrence if they do. What it's going to cost us is security guarantees for the Iranians to get them to give up that bomb, and I would give it to them.

MS. CLIFT: Yeah.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And some buyouts. That's what they want. Their economy —

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, you've got a grand bargain.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Their economy is tanking. We know that. I was in Tehran. I can affirm that. Their economy is bad, and they want something to exchange.

MR. BUCHANAN: You need a grand bargain.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: To stop the cycle at the point where it reaches fissionable uranium.

MR. BUCHANAN: The potential for a grand bargain has always been there, and it is still there.

MS. CLIFT: We all agree that nonproliferation is the way to go. We're talking about how you do it. Diplomacy is the answer. Bombing Tehran would be the single thing that could make the whole mess we're already in in the Middle East, the whole destabilization, would make it much worse. It's what Ahmadinejad wants, and he's a bombastic fellow. And we shouldn't take the bait. He would love it. Osama bin Laden would love it. It would be the clash of civilizations. That's how they would set it up.

We don't need to walk into that.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that precisely what Abizaid was about in this speech? He was trying to blunt the talk about the desirability of bombing Iran.

MS. CLIFT: Exactly. And the talk can get out of hand, because then a little incident can happen. One side or the other can blow that up, and you're in a war that you didn't even intend.

MR. BLANKLEY: Those of you on this panel who have said that proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East would be bad disagree, to some extent, with what Abizaid said, which is we can live with it. You know, he's saying we can live with it. I think a lot of us may think that we can't live with it. And everybody agrees that diplomacy is the preferable way. I met with both the president and the vice president in the last three weeks. They both said they're pushing all they can on diplomacy and economic sanctions.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay.

MS. CLIFT: They said that about Iraq, and they weren't —

MR. BLANKLEY: The question is that each of us have to decide, if the diplomacy doesn't work, then what do you do?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, why didn't he show that in relation to Ahmadinejad? And that gets us to this: Okay, Ahmadinejad snubbed.

A month ago, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, requested permission from the U.S. to lay a wreath at the base of where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood. He'll be in New York for a U.N. meeting. This week Ahmadinejad's request was denied.

It was a collective decision by three bodies: The New York Police Department, the Secret Service, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The reason for the denial was, one, security, both Ahmadinejad's and New Yorkers'; and two, safety. Ground Zero is currently a construction site and is not open to the public.

At his press conference on Thursday, President Bush was asked to comment on the Ahmadinejad snub.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: (From videotape.) Our thoughts are that the local police will make the proper decision and that if they decide for him not to go, like it looks like they have, I can understand why they would not want somebody who's running a country who's a state sponsor of terror down there at the site. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Should the decision regarding whether a foreign head of government can place a wreath at the World Trade Center site be left up to local authorities? Eleanor Clift.

MS. CLIFT: Oh, that's a ruse. They're just hiding behind the local authorities. Look, this is a PR stunt by the Iranian leader, but why not? What do we have to fear from letting him go to Ground Zero?

First of all, the Iranian people were in the streets in Tehran in solidarity with this country after 9/11. And I don't see how this could be a negative in terms of trying to advance a dialogue between these two countries to have him pay his respects.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I want an answer to my question.

MR. BLANKLEY: Yeah, I'm going to give you an answer.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it not true that the Constitution stipulates that international relations is handled by the federal government?

MR. BUCHANAN: It does, John.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that not an international relation?

MR. BUCHANAN: It does. And let me agree with Eleanor. Look, he has been obnoxious. He has been nasty. He has been stupid. But he's also the elected president of Iran and he's saying, "I'd like to come to America," a country with which you're at odds, "and lay a wreath at one of your most sacred sites." To me he has tried a couple of times to make openings, and we —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did Reagan —

MR. BLANKLEY: Let me get a word —

MR. BUCHANAN: Reagan —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Wait a minute.

MR. BUCHANAN: He wrote a —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: He laid a wreath at Bitburg.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, he did.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And you wrote his comments.

MR. BUCHANAN: No, Ken Khachigian wrote them.

MR. BLANKLEY: That was —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Wait a minute.

MR. BLANKLEY: That was a war that had been over for 40 years. Iran today is trying to kill American troops in Iraq. To let a war leader against us come and put a wreath there is shocking.

MR. BUCHANAN: But look, Eisenhower —

MR. BLANKLEY: That would be like inviting Hitler over here during World War II.

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, look it. Richard Nixon went to China and he toasted Mao Zedong —

MR. BLANKLEY: We weren't fighting them.

MR. BUCHANAN: — in toasts I wrote for the guy, and he had killed 33,000 Americans in Korea.

MR. BLANKLEY: But not currently.

MR. BUCHANAN: Tony, we've got to act like a great and mature country.

MR. BLANKLEY: If you want to negotiate with him, you can negotiate. But don't let him come to a sacred site like this.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think, as a great country, we should have allowed this act to happen?

MR. PAGE: I think we should. At the same time, I understand the feelings of New Yorkers, that they do feel this is sacred ground. We've always been ambivalent in this country as to whether the cities and the states ought to have their own foreign policies.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Part of this nation went crazy when Reagan laid the wreath at Bitburg because Nazi soldiers were in part buried there. Correct?

MR. BUCHANAN: SS.

MR. PAGE: SS.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: SS soldiers.

MR. PAGE: If there was Gestapo in that cemetery, that would have —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But he went, nevertheless, and there was an uproar. Now, the uproar in — there's been no demand, by the way. There was a demand for — a request from the German government in that regard. Our government has not asked. I mean, the government in New York has not asked that he go there; no one from the government. Correct?

MR. PAGE: Correct.

MS. CLIFT: I guess you can legitimately say that his country is aiding and abetting al Qaeda. But Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. And so I don't really see that we need to exclude him from this sacred ground.

MR. BUCHANAN: Exactly. John, again —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Nor have the Iranians attacked any American citizens.

MR. BUCHANAN: John, also —

MR. BLANKLEY: Yes, of course they have, in Iraq. They're supporting the killing of American troops in Iraq now.

MR. BUCHANAN: But Tony, why doesn't Congress —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did we not permit the Soviet Union to participate in the kind of public event that Ahmadinejad was seeking, even though we knew that the Soviet Union was supplying weaponry in small wars throughout Southeast Asia and South America?

MR. BUCHANAN: John, look, Richard Nixon went to —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you see the logic behind that?

MR. BLANKLEY: No. This is a —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: A robust diplomacy will permit that kind of —

MR. BLANKLEY: You can have a robust diplomacy —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: — relatively minor transgression. Isn't that true?

MR. BLANKLEY: You can have a robust diplomacy, but not at a sacred site. We can meet him in Switzerland.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I want to hear from Pat.

MR. BUCHANAN: Richard Nixon went to Moscow and Richard Nixon went to Beijing in the same year that the Soviets and the Chinese were pouring weapons —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: There you are.

MR. BUCHANAN: — into South Vietnam to kill our guys —

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: There you are, Tony.

MR. BUCHANAN: — because he wanted to stop the damn war. That's what we want to do, Tony, is stop the war.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Tony, chew on that, will you? Is General Abizaid right? Get back to Abizaid. Can the U.S. live with a nuclear-armed Iran and that there is no need for a preemptive strike that could lead to another full-scale war in the Middle East? Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: We may have to, John. And I think Abizaid has performed a service because he at least raised the question.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Eleanor.

MS. CLIFT: We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, nuclear China. We're living with a nuclear North Korea. It is not the preferred option, but it is better than a preemptive strike. That would only antagonize that whole region of the world and really set off a clash of civilizations.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And did not the Iranians sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

MR. BUCHANAN: Sure.

MS. CLIFT: Yes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are we helping India with its nuclear technology when India did not sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

MR. BLANKLEY: I would point out that mutual assured destruction almost didn't work a number of times; the Cuban missile crisis.

The idea that you want to take a chance on something that almost blew up the world a couple of times when you can avoid it by preempting —

MS. CLIFT: Blowing it up earlier?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean, go in in violation of international law and effect a military strike, and do that?

MR. BLANKLEY: It may be that that's the more prudent thing to do.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ah. So you stand outside international law.

MR. BLANKLEY: There is no international law.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Oh, there is no international law.

MR. BLANKLEY: Self-defense is the only international law that's ever going to exist.

MR. PAGE: I'll tell you one law of war, which is once you start it, you don't know how it's going to end.

MR. BLANKLEY: Absolutely right.

MR. PAGE: I would be very slow about thinking, "Well, a few surgical strikes will be all it takes in Iran." That's just folly.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You should dwell on Clarence's words of wisdom. He could not be more right.