Wes returns yet again, March 11, to UCLA Burkle Center for a Conference on Rogue States and how best to address them via our foreign policy.

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ROGUE STATES CONFERENCE PART I-

I arrived on campus around 2:30, just as the ABC and CBS trucks were packing up their gear to pull out (I have this effect on the media….) After Bill Richardson’s address – which I could not attend. I snuck into the large conference hall just as Panel 3 had gotten underway and grabbed the nearest seat in the back of the room – trusty recorder in hand. Dr. Suphamnonghkhuo (hereafter known as “Dr. S”) was discussing the famous six party talks with N. Korea while a man two rows in front of me was busily scrolling through his Blackberry…. Waitaminute! I know the back of that head--It’s Wes! And of course- I somehow always find myself lurking just behind him, over his shoulder, making it all the more difficult to dispel that notion of me being a Zelig-ian Wes-stalker. He turned around at one point -- smiled and waved. “Hi Wes!”. I mouthed. He must be used to looking behind him in L.A. by now to find the obligatory blond with tape recorder and notebook….

Panel 3: Challenges of Iran, N. Korea, and Pakistan:

Henry T. Wooster became Deputy Director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the Department of State in 2006. His previous overseas assignments include Russia, the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels, Haiti, Georgia, the OSCE in Vienna, and Tajikistan. In Washington, he has served on the Russia desk in the Bureau of European Affairs.
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Dr. Kantathi Suphamonghkhon,(above) 39th Foreign Minister to Thailand (“Dr. S.”) and participant in the six party talks with North Korea
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Brig. General Feroz Hassan Khan (above)(ret) Expert on Pakistan

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Dr. Neil Joeck, Senior Fellow Center for Global Security Research Livermore National Laboratory

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Dr S: “North Korea said, No-- We want bilateral…we don’t want six party talks. I said well look, how about accepting a six party framework and you can always talk to the US directly - privately? Hey, that’s good they said. That’s a good thought. They were happy that they would be able to talk to the US directly.

In 2005-- I was Foreign Minister, before I went... I called Secretary Rice, and all the foreign ministers of the six parties….

Well the US decided to do joint military exercises in S. Korea – right before the talks. And they appointed Lefkowitz right before…”

Dr S detailed yet more sticky challenges that had resulted from Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evill” moniker. He said that North Korea used the rationale in the nuclear disarmament discussion-- that the US had labeled three countries in the Axis of Evil; Iraq, Iran and North Korea. They’ve already attacked Iraq, they’re preparing to attack Iran…. Therefore- ‘We must have nukes, as they are surely planning to attack us one day too.’ Hard to argue with the theory… Stopping the gratuitous name-calling seemed to be a theme for the day at the conference… something we can all profit from at every level.

“If the US makes us feel secure, we no longer need nuclear weapons” and they added the insistence of the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Dr. S. said they had reached a tentative agreement, when two weeks later N. Korea added all manners of new conditions… yet eventually an accord was reached. He went on to discuss the case of a missing Thai woman, abducted by the North Koreans in 1978 (Anocha?), that they’d long stopped looking for, a closed case. Dr S. directed the N. Koreans to search anew for her… and they agreed.

“After that… there was a military coup in Thailand, and – I left office.”

Brigadier General Hassan Khan spoke next on Pakistan, and was introduced as a foremost expert on Pakistan nuclear issues - but his accent was so thick that I felt I needed a translator to get the real gist of his commentary. Here is a sampling of what I was able to decipher—my Urdu verb conjugation is weak though….

He opined the obvious- that we’ve got to have more allies in the world today…. General Khan characterized the US-Pakistan relations as the most enigmatic relations we have – the nation coming under the heading of our “Disenchanted Allies”.

“Pakistan was the most sanctioned ally—but they became the most distrusted ally…. Pakistan, this last year -- It’s like the story of the blind man touching the elephant. He finds something new everywhere he touches”… Or something like that. Urdu is not easy. General Khan couldn’t stress too much how extremely “complicated” Pakistan and relations with Pakistan were. Over 50% of their borders are currently being disputed by surrounding nations, with Afghanistan disputing the mountainous border and India and others in dispute as well. He told us that their armed forces are ill equipped to fight the kind of war they find themselves fighting today… and then spoke in more Urdu-like sounds that were lovely but indistinguishable. I followed General Clark’s lead and headed toward the fruit and drink table to refresh… sliced cantaloupe hit the spot.

Dr. Neil Joeck spoke next, and thankfully in clear standard American dialect. He too launched into the unforeseen damages caused by our cowboy rhetoric:

“The term ‘rogue’ is not helpful. It’s polarizing and insulting ”-- (I was afraid I’d dozed off and he was yet another Kossack dissing Hillary!) Dr. Joeck emphatically stated, not without some irony, that “The Iraq war has given preventative war a bad name. Any state needs to keep the idea of preventative war in its quiver…. But you could almost throw a dart at the wall and get a better case for preventative war than Iraq…”

Henry Wooster then fielded some questions on Iran. He told us that the IAEA cannot confirm that the Iran weapons program has been put on the shelf. He gave me a case of déjà vu with: “We don’t know what’s going on. They play a game and are not being frank with the IAEA. They don’t want to come clean.” He also confirmed that Ahmadinejad is not the one with either the moxie or the power in Iran- but Khameini is and it’s Khameini who ‘calls the shots’. What surprised me though was that he claimed the Quds force also had little power in the scheme of things even though they are often the ones saddled with the bulk of the blame. Wooster said it reminded him of the days when everything would get blamed on the CIA and the KGB. I muse that the CIA is perhaps underblamed, but what do I know. Wooster is with the State Department. I am eating cantaloupe in a classroom and scribbling notes on a legal pad.

BREAK- PANEL CHANGE

Oh boy! This is the fun part.

Where I scurry down to get a seat up front and get in line to talk to Wes. I am so ready with my questions – knowing how fast one needs to talk to get it all in. I’m finally the next in line when Wes glances over and gives me that big smile “Hi! How are you?!!” gesturing me over as he talks to some young man in a chocolate brown suit who must have been honored for something earlier, because people congratulated him in passing… Wes introduced me to the guy excitedly saying: “This is one of my supporters – ‘ms in la’”-- (I was so pleased he’d remembered my blog name!) Turns out the young man was eagerly hoping to work in Intel down the road- Hum. Int. I believe, and wondered if Wes Clark might have any ideas of what he could do to get a leg up in the field?

Well our General said- “You’d be great in Intel. C’mon, come over here with me”. And proceeded to whisk him right over to the State Department’s Wooster to make the introductions. That led to an involved conversation-- and to me, with my questions still rolling in my head, knowing they would have to wait. It’s all good though. This sweet faced 20-something kid may one day be listening in on my phone call, thanks to an introduction made by General Clark… Heh.

Panel 4: Prescriptions for the Next Administration

No – this was not the Pharmaceutical panel… although given the hornet’s nest of problems and maladies the next admin is going to inherit, it might as well have been. This panel was great. Here’s the roster:

Moderator: Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief, LA Times

Dr. Dan Drezner, Professor International Politics, Fletcher School, Tufts Univ.

Dr. Dalia Dassa Kaye, RAND

Dr. Miles Kahler, Professor International Relations, UC San Diego

Ms Danielle (PNAC) Pletka, VP for Foreign & Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

General Wesley K. Clark, (ret) UCLA Burkle Center Senior Fellow

The concept for this panel was so clever. Each participant had been asked to prepare in advance for a hypothetical scenario. Here’s the set up--charmingly iterated by L.A. Times’ Doyle McManus.

”OK. It’s November 15th. General Clark has assembled you to brief the President elect… whoever she is.”

Yes, that brought the laughs up in the room. I may have inadvertently howled and caught Wes’s eye as he too chuckled and leaned into say something funny to Pletka who was just on his right. McManus continues as the laughter dies down.

“You have been told that you have 10 minutes on the President elected’s schedule, but you know that politicians, like audiences at 3:30 in the afternoon, have a short attention span. The President elect is going to hear the first 3 minutes of what you say, is going to appear to listen to the next 3 minutes of what you say—but after that the law of diminishing returns will kick in. What is your briefing for the President elect? Of all of the threats and challenges we’ve been talking about here - we can’t take them all on at once- so which threats are the most threatening? Give us a recommendation of what to do on at least one of those. And on the flip side, some of these threats may be opportunities. So which of these threats is the most promising? Dan Drezner?”

And with the driest deadpan delivery, Drezner, a hip youngish professor in a professorial tan jacket, begins his wry presentation:

”Um. Well, before I start my ten minutes, Madame President, I want to thank General Clark and Kal Raustiala for inviting me out here – with two lures. The first was wonderful weather here in March and the second was the possibility that Angelina Jolie would be in the audience. One of two wasn’t bad so… Alright.

Madame President – with your vast foreign policy experience, I’d probably be telling you things you already know, but-- let me begin with four quick facts of life and then five policy recommendations.

Uh, first- this is not your husband’s administration. It is not 1992. It is not 2001. You- as a country- meaning the United States- have much less power than you did seven years ago and significantly less power than you did fifteen years ago. You have less international support. You have less material power. You have less utility for the conventional tools of power - that’s the use of military force. And let’s face it, our reputation is not at its highest peak. So… you’re starting from a position of weakness in terms of dealing with Rogue States.

Now the good news is, the biggest foreign policy concerns for your administration still generate relatively broad multilateral support. The two biggest concerns articulated by the previous administration was --

Proliferation of terrorism, and

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

Let’s take a look at the Middle East. Israel was attacked by Hizbollah, and remarkably the Arab League actually issued a release condemning that attack. Israel attacked Syria because Syria was potentially monkeying around with WMD, and there was no condemnation from across the entire region.”

Then he went on about pros and cons of economic sanctions, mostly the cons: citing long term sanctions as having very debilitating effects and inviting corruption into the countries -- as the people attempt to illegally bypass sanctions. Then you’re forced to battle the corruption you’ve created, after the sanctions are lifted.

”And the final thing I’ll tell you Madame President, which you probably already know (snark snark)… is that all policy options in dealing with rogue states stink. If you’re dealing with a rogue state in the first place – and my definition of a rogue state is states that don’t agree with the United States—you’re already dealing with an adversary. All the tools of diplomacy: engagement, containment, military [ inaudible ] work much better with allies than they do with adversaries. So don’t get your hopes up on any of these sets of policies…

Then he laid out his 5 foreign policy recommendations:

1) Take Gov Richardson’s advice today: Generate some Good Will. More transparency starting with Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc.
2) Lift the Cuba embargo. Lift it without preconditions.
3) Focus on WMD and terrorism, for broadest international support (incl Russia and China) and to advance our security
4) Negotiate with China before you do anything else with anyone. They have a hand in all the rogue regimes we’ve talked about today.
5) Offer talks with rogue regimes without preconditions on either side. And he tosses out this little dig: “This is a situation Madame President where your point during the campaign about ‘words not mattering’ might not make sense…”
(oooh, snark fest… I’m thinking this guy may just be an Obama fan. I glance at Wes. Oh yeah, he heard it.)

McManus: Well good! You did it in under 10 minutes, good job, so I think you’re gonna get that job at the NSC.

Wes interjects with a slight grin: “Can I just say… That… this could be a briefing… for President elect John McCain…..” (hee hee, good one)

Next up is Dr. Dalia Dassa Kaye a 30-something petite brunette woman with brown rimmed glasses, a specialist on Iranian affairs, and a little timorous to follow Drezner:

”I would first thank Madame President for such great female representation of the foreign policy advisors that she has assembled! (laughs) Given that I’m in the seat next to the brilliant NSC advisor, I will suggest on the one issue that I’ve been asked to do, which is Iran.”

She suggested to Mme. Pres that we move away from our policy of ‘cold war containment’ of Iran first. Ms. Kaye states that although it has garnered bipartisan support, it’s probably only because the alternatives are either unappealing or not feasible. (use of force or engagement) She reminds us that Iran has been the big winner from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

”Iran is not the Soviet Union. It’s not a country set on invading its neighbors. Its defense capabilities, on a conventional level, are actually rather limited. It’s very weak relative to Israel and neighboring Arab states. The main thing we need to worry about with Iran are its asymmetric capabilities, especially its ballistic missiles and its naval capabilities.[…] What Iran tries to do is to exert its political and ideological influence in the broader region – not necessarily its military influence. It does that by exploiting all the grievances that are out there in the region. Arab Israeli conflict, Shiite marginalization, corrupt illegitimate regimes ruling these Arab countries.”

She concludes that containment (based on arm sales, sanctions, military or other forms of pressure) is not an appropriate or ideal policy to contain a political, ideological threat and that the focus on Iran alone, independent of the other threats in the region, is too narrow a focus to resolve the issue. She adds that we cannot count on the Saudis or our Arab allies to effectively help ‘contain’ Iran for us. But should use our leverage with the Saudis to push the Chinese and the Russians further, to toughen their pressure Iran.

Stressing unconditional engagement like Drezner, Dr. Kaye lists the common ground we have with Iran as a starting point. They need stability in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re mortal enemies with Al Qaeda. They have a minority population, Kurds, Arabs …. Narcotic trafficking. She strictly recommends keeping the pressure on while “talking”-- esp. on the nuclear question. Lastly, like the others, she warns we should move away from the “regime change” rhetoric and change our tone for best results.

PART II - COMING SOON! FEATURING DANIELLE (PNAC) PLETKA & WES CLARK!

Stay tuned... a girl's got to sleep. :)