The Third IISS Regional Security Summit
The Manama Dialogue
Manama, Bahrain, 8–10 December 2006
Address by Secretary William Cohen,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Cohen Group;
former US Secretary of Defense
Ladies and gentlemen,
When John asked me to offer a few comments he said ‘Be sure to try to contain your remarks to roughly 10 minutes,’ and I, as some of you may know, that is a heroic undertaking for any former member of the United States Senate, but I will try.
I was thinking as you were talking about the need for clear thinking. There was a scene in a movie called the Three Days of the Condor, based actually on a novel entitled Six Days of the Condor, in which there is a scene between a former member of the OSS and a young intelligence officer. And the young man turned to the older OSS man and he said ‘Do you miss the good old days?’, and the senior man said ‘Not really, but I do miss the clarity of it all.’ And I suspect that many of us feel exactly the same way. The good old days had a certain clarity to them and that clarity has certainly fragmented and become much more difficult to foresee.
I thought also of a statement made by Vaclav Havel when he appeared before a joint session of Congress. He was then the President of the Czech Republic and he opened up by saying ‘Things are happening so fast, so rapidly, we have little time to be astonished.’ And I thought that applies to today’s environment as well; things are happening very rapidly and it is somewhat astonishing to many of us. For example, if you go back to 9/11, following that tragic event for the United States, President Bush certainly acquired an enormous grant of power from the people of the United States, empowering him to go to war in Afghanistan and also into Iraq, with very little challenge or questioning on the part of the American people or indeed some parts of the media.
That power again was exercised in the 2002 and 2004 elections, in which the Democratic Party was seen and painted as being rather weak on national security interests and that the future of our security was in the hands of a strong president. And so the Republicans held onto power both in 2002 and 2004. And just most recently, we have seen a change of attitude on the part of the American people. Much of that has come about as a result of the perception and indeed the reality that things have not gone as originally planned or at least presented to the American people. That the war has not been successful; that we have not been greeted as liberators; that democracy, the seeds of democracy have not taken root; and that what the American people tend to see on a regular basis is more chaos and more violence and very little progress being made in terms of developing the institutions in Iraq that would put it in a position to be able to be a self-sustaining single integrated country with the rights of the minority respected and certainly the power of the majority established and revenues from the oil resources distributed rather equitably. That has not become a reality and as a result of that we’re seeing lives lost on the part of soldiers, now nearly some 2,900, some 23,000 have been severely wounded and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi people also killed during this particular conflict.
And so the mood has changed in the United States. The Democratic Party, or some in the Democratic Party, sought to take advantage of this changing perception during the discussion of the Dubai Ports World. When in fact, Dubai Ports World – certainly one of the most qualified companies in the world to manage port security – and yet key Democratic members tried to move, and did successfully move, to the right of President Bush by saying that they were stronger on security than the president. And they were successful in that regard, helped by Republicans to some extent, but that success also gave a lot of incentive, I think, to challenge the president during the last year very aggressively on the issue of Iraq. And I think we should make no mistake about it – this last election primarily revolved around the success or failure as perceived by the American people in Iraq. And the country spoke quite clearly – they wanted a change of direction. And during the past year, Congress created the Iraq Study Group, Baker-Hamilton co-chaired that study group, and made their recommendations, some 79 recommendations we’ve all read about, indeed presenting that to the president saying this is our best judgement in terms of the way ahead. President Bush has received it, indicating that he is open to many of its recommendations, but also reserving the right to resist several of them.
What I wanted to say this morning, just briefly, is that we have just a brief window of time between now and the 2008 elections to talk about a policy position as opposed to a political one. And, I think that window may close rather quickly if we are unable to really secure a consensus in the country.
What Baker and Hamilton have recommended is a statement that the future of Iraq is in the hands of the Iraqi people. I think there is very little disagreement on that, particularly on the political side, as well as military experts would agree that there is no military solution to the conflict in Iraq today. The United States and allies must provide support to the goal of a unified state and one that protects the rights of minority interests and distributes wealth equitably. That at least is the goal.
As you can tell from the language that’s been used, we have seen victory or success defined down rather substantially from the rather eloquent statements about creating a Jeffersonian-type of democracy in Iraq.
Number two, the United States’ focus should be less on combat and more on the training of Iraqi forces. That also, I think, will enjoy fairly significant support from the United States Congress although there are key members, such as Senator McCain and others, who may reject that, and see our mission as being increasing the size of the US forces and dominating militarily those sectarian elements that are currently waging war.
The proposition that the United States’ combat forces can be withdrawn by the end of 2008, I think, is a useful reminder that the Iraqi government has to become much more aggressive in seeking to bring about a unification of its country and to deal more aggressively with the militias that currently are waging this kind of sectarian violence.
There is a recommendation that we talk to Syria and Iran. And I certainly can support talking to Iran and to Syria. Syria is more challenging in the sense that its interests are also tied up with the Middle East peace process; the Golan Heights remains a major issue, and their involvement in Lebanon also does not present a very positive picture in terms of outcome. But nonetheless I think we should send our ambassador back to Syria, and we should seek to engage them, although I think we have to maintain expectations at a fairly low level. With respect to Iran, once again I have no objection to talking to Iran, and indeed would be willing to do so but I think that we have to do so from a position of strength. And that position can be enhanced by two other countries. Number one, we need to have the support of China and we need to have the support of Russia. I have been fairly vocal and critical of the United Nations in the sense that they are very good in passing resolutions and not quite so good in enforcing them, and I believe as a former legislator that if you pass laws and don’t enforce them then you breed contempt for those laws, the rule of law. I think the same thing applies for resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council. If you pass them but don’t enforce them then they have very little credibility and countries who otherwise might be inclined to go to the UN will seek to avoid it. And I think the Security Council has gone on record that it is opposed to Iran going forward with a nuclear weapons programme. Now is the time I think to send a signal to Iran – I know that we have representatives from Iran here – but it seems to me the time is for those countries who recognise what it will mean for Iran to develop nuclear weapons to take a firm stand and send a signal that they are prepared to stand behind the resolutions with enforcement.
The other key element in the recommendation from the Iraq Study Group has to do with the peace process. I think it’s vital that the United States re-engage in this process in a very aggressive way. I know following the failure of President Clinton to achieve a breakthrough in the peace talks between Chairman Arafat and Ehud Barak at that time, there was a sense of the new administration coming in, President Bush, that President Clinton tried to hard, and still failed; we should try a different tack. We can’t want peace more than the Israelis and the Palestinians. And I think as a result of holding back, we have seen the forces take place that are more radical in nature. We have seen Hamas elected. Elected because they have been providing social services that had not been provided by Mahmoud Abbas. I think we have failed to empower Mahmoud Abbas in a way that would give him an opportunity to show that the path to peace is the one that should be pursued.
So we see a situation in which those elements who have advocated a more radical approach toward the State of Israel are assuming more and more power. Therefore it’s incumbent upon the United States to re-engage in that process. To say that we need a two-state solution; that we want to see a Palestine and Palestinians who have autonomy; who have dignity; who have opportunity; and also have security. But that the Israelis also have to have the one thing that they are missing at this point and that is security. So we need to use the full weight of the United States to re-engage in that process. If there is a peace settlement that is structured and forced, it doesn’t mean that peace is going to break out throughout the Middle East. But it certainly is going to enhance the United States in the eyes of much of the Arab and indeed the Muslim world that we are committed to trying to achieve a just and equitable solution for the Palestinian people.
Finally, on Secretary Gates. I have known him, I worked with him when I was the Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. I think he will do a very competent job. He will be consumed, I believe in the first few weeks, of dealing with Iraq, with Afghanistan and also to some extent with North Korea. But I am sure that he is going to bring his experience of working with the Iraq Study Group to the forefront, and to work very closely with Congress to try and hold on to this consensus that needs to be established. And I would say that contrary to some assumptions, that we have a year or more of holding this process together, my own assessment is that we have roughly four-to-five months. And if we do not see measurable progress being made on the ground in Iraq then you will see the timetable for the 2008 election cycle become much more accelerated, the candidates become much more vocally critical of the process, and we will see the fragmentation of any consensus that may be developed in the short term.
So that is the state of affairs today, and I look forward to some of your questions.
Thank You.
