General Wesley Clark on Fox News Live

Gregg Jarrett: In the meantime, it's a new year and new challenges for the Bush administration - among them, Iraq. What can we expect this year?

Joining me now to talk a bit about it, Fox News Military Analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark joins me. General, always good to talk with you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well good to be with you too.

Gregg Jarrett: Iraq held its third national vote, a huge turnout including the Sunnis who had boycotted the previous two. More Iraqi security forces are now standing up for their country. Major cities are more secure now than a year ago and international support is substantially increasing. Are you pessimistic or optimistic about the year 2006 in Iraq?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think you've given a good run down of the bright side of what happened last year. I think, you know, it has to be balanced by recognition that we're seeing what's going on on the surface. Underneath, there are very strong sectarian tendencies - one branch of Islamic faith against another. And Iraq is a polarized society and the polarization is probably getting worse. The militias are strengthened. The polarization has crept into or moved into the armed forces and security forces and so the security is still bad. I'm not sure whether the cities are really more secure or not. It's arguable because there is a campaign of assassination and assassination attempts underway. We know it's sectarian in nature. So, here's where we really are, I think.

Our military has done a great job over there, doing what they were supposed to do. They're fighting the Sunni insurgents, they're training the Iraqis. The political piece has to come together with political representation for all three major groups - the Kurds, the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. And, the constitution has to be changed so that the Sunnis have a stake in the government.

You can't give all the oil revenues away to the Shi'ites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis with nothing and you cannot allow the Shi'ites to have a mini-state in the south that would align itself with Iran. And, these changes are all being discussed in the context of the formation of a government so right now it's all up in the air. If Zalmay Khalilzad can pull it together politically then the insurgency will lose steam.

If not, the insurgency will grow in intensity.

Gregg Jarrett: Well, it's interesting you put your finger on oil. Do you think the Iraqis can effectively craft a wealth-sharing model based on oil that would sustain a cohesive and democratic and united Iraq in the year 2006, 7, 8, and so forth?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's not a technical question as you know, it's a political question and it really goes to the heart of some of the stresses inside Iraq. The long-repressed Shi'a majority want their day in the sun and that means they want their distribution of the oil revenues and they want to be able to use those revenues in their part of the country. The Sunnis are still fighting for power. It really is going to require some very adroit maneuvering. And, for the United States it's a question of whether we can take our military leverage in Iraq and use it to obtain political leverage to force these compromises. You know, one complicator here is the talk of the strike on Iran and that's going like wildfire throughout the middle east right now.

Gregg Jarrett: It is.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And, you know, associated with the visits of Vice President Cheney and the CIA director Porter Goss and the leak in the newspapers and so forth. On the one hand that's very positive because the Iranians have to understand that they need to come and settle this nuclear issue through peaceful, diplomatic means. But, should the United States resort to force, of course, Iran has its own means of retaliation. One of them will be the strengthening the anger of the Shi'ite militias inside Iraq.

Gregg Jarrett: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So there's a complicating factor and it's not just about politics, it's about how the United States handles the region.

Gregg Jarrett: Well I…since you brought up the subject, I might as well go with it. Uh, Iran. It was just this last week that the chief of Mossad appeared before the Knesset in Israel and said a couple of things. First, that within a year the Iranians will have a bomb and second of all they're not going to stop with just one. Um, which invites the question if it's true that Porter Goss met with the Turkish Prime Minister and got permission to use bases there to launch a tactical air strike on Iran, if negotiations fail and we're running out of time, would you think that's a good option, a tactical air strike…assuming we know where some, if not all, of their nuclear sites are in Iran?<

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we know where some of the sites are. We probably don't know where all of them are. I think you have to keep the military option on the table. That means it has to be a real option and if I were guessing what that option would be, and I'm not revealing any classified information here, but it would take advantage of America's strengths and Iran's weaknesses.

We'd use airpower and we would strike continuously for six, maybe eight days. We might have a pause and reassess, we might be prepared to go back in. We might be prepared to put special forces in and occupy and secure and seize evidence at some of these sites so there's no doubt in the minds of the world why we went in there.

So this is not going to be just a single strike if the United States has to do it but before we reach that stage, I hope that we'll be able to say that we've exhausted all other alternatives.

You know, the United States still hasn't talked to Iran and, on the other hand, I mean, we don't like the Iranian president, but on the other hand, before we bomb him, we could at least try to have a dialogue. We've gone through the Europeans, why can't we talk to him before we bomb him?

Gregg Jarrett: What do you bet that story was leaked purposely to instill a bit of fear and maybe force Ahmadinejad to the bargaining table. We'll leave that for another discussion. General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for being with us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Great to be with you, thank you.