Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs - U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Interview

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REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madame Secretary, you have an extraordinarily difficult job, and I thank you for your service to our country.

I want to focus on Iran. I know some others have asked some questions about that, and I may have missed a couple of them. And I completely agree with the arguments that have been made by some that economic pressure is the key on the nuclear issue and want to offer this committee's strongest support to put as much pressure as possible economically.

But in terms of Iran's other interests -- and the real question is, what is our diplomatic strategy for containing Iran? And just a couple of pieces of context; Iran certainly has regional interests, but they also fear us, with clear reason. We've made it clear that we'd, at a minimum, rather have a different regime there, and here we are with substantial military presence on both of their borders.

And that makes it hard to sort of get them to stop the violent actions that they're doing to destabilize us in Iraq, because the more stable and secure that our troops are there and in Afghanistan, without question, the greater threat that Iran feels.

The second piece of context is there's clearly an opportunity here with the Sunni states, who also fear Iran, to work with them on the strategy of containment. But given that first challenge in particular -- you know, trying to get Iran to tone down their efforts, to directly attack us in Iraq -- there's considerable evidence they're doing some of the same things in Afghanistan -- what is our diplomatic strategy? Understanding there's a huge military component to this as well, but just in your area, what is our diplomatic strategy for trying to contain Iran in Lebanon, with Israel and Iraq and elsewhere?

SEC. RICE: Thank you. Well, we're working very closely with allies in all of those cases. In Lebanon, we work very closely with the French. We work very closely with the Saudis. And we have a great interest in a sovereign Lebanon that can defend itself. And we work with the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

As I said, this forum of the Gulf Cooperation Council has given us a place to pursue common interests in Lebanon, in the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. By the way, one of the goals has to be to take away troubled waters in which Iran can (play ?). To the degree that you make it harder for Iran to see benefits or to see places in which they can make gains, it's easier to manage the Iranian challenge.

We also, as a part of the diplomatic strategy, have authorized Ryan Crocker from time to time -- I think he's been twice now with his counterpart, but he delivers a pretty strong message, which is that we don't have, in effect, hostile policies toward Iran. Iran has hostile policies toward us. And --

REP. SMITH: Iran doesn't see it that way.

SEC. RICE: No, I understand --

REP. SMITH: And there's reasons why they might not see it that way.

SEC. RICE: I understand. But I think that they would find that if they were not threatening our forces in Iraq, if they were not arming Shi'a militia in the south, if they were not engaged in arming Hezbollah to try to destabilize Lebanon, if they were not involved with the Hamas in the Gaza, that they would find a United States that was more than prepared to look at common interests.

REP. SMITH: Is there any level on which that -- I know there have been some preliminary conversations with Iran -- that that message has been communicated to them? Is there any possibility of that being better received than it is right now?

SEC. RICE: Well, it's a good question, Congressman. I would hope that if Iran can defend its nuclear enrichment capabilities, which are dangerous -- because enrichment and reprocessing is not a scientific problem, it's an engineering problem. You have to learn to do it for long periods of time in order to be able to enrich materials to a level where you can build a nuclear weapon.

If they will stop trying to do that, I've said we can have discussion about everything. It doesn't just have to be about the nuclear program. I think that is the best circumstance in which we could have those discussions.

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much.

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