General Wesley Clark on the Ed Schultz Show

March 10, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC

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Ed Schultz: Thank you for being with us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Ed.

Ed Schultz: Russia wants to talk more about Iran. They've proposed more talks on nuclear program as the five UN Security Council powers today considered a statement to pressure Tehran to clear up questions about whether it is trying to build atomic weapons. I just read that for the first time. It was just handed to me. What do you think of that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it's great if Russia continues to talk. I think they should. I think the United States should talk directly to Iran, and I think that we need to find some way to have a dialog on the broader issues that are impacting on Iran.

Ed Schultz: How, how do- Can we talk to these people? I mean, can-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Of course, you can talk to these people.

Ed Schultz: Can, can, can, can we communicate with them? Do they want to talk to us?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Certainly. Well I mean, some of them may not want to talk. Some of them might. But we've had low- level dialogs episodically. It's a matter of US domestic politics. This administration's afraid it'll be branded as soft or something if it talks to Iran, I suppose, but- and people remember the impossible embarrassment that could come as it came in the Reagan administration over Iran-Contra. But the truth is that Iran is a very powerful country in the region, and it's in our interest to have a dialog with them, even if we don't agree with them. We're not negotiating about anything. All we're doing is having a dialog, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Ed Schultz: You know, looking at the history of this country - General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show - I mean, I mean, we had a relationship with that country, with the Shah of Iran. I mean. We, we were doing good business with them just a few decades ago. Do the people over there remember that at all? What do you think?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that there's so much animosity that's been generated by the press in Iran against the United States that, that the official position is that the friendship that existed before the, the, Ayatollah Komieni took over is not recognized. But there's a tremendous latent sympathy for Americans, not necessarily the American government, but Americans among the Iranian people.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley Clark with us. It's interesting you just mentioned a moment ago, General, about this administration doesn't want to be viewed as soft. The other part of this story that I've got here, Ambassador John Bolton and other senior American officials have suggested that if the Security Council does not take tough action, Washington might look elsewhere to punish Iran, possibly by rallying it's allies to impose targeted sanctions. Do you think that's, you think that's the right way to go?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't think sanctions are going to have much impact on Iran at this point. What- As they're backed into a corner, they're in a position where they want to represent the Islamic world's right to nuclear power. And so, opposition strengthens the hand of the extremist government in Iran. It doesn't weaken them, and it's unlikely that any economic sanctions targeted will be of sufficient- For example is Russia going to call off it's one billion dollars in arms sales to Iran? Is China going to refuse to send Chinese engineers to work on constructing subway lines and communications in Iran? Is China going to cancel it's oil contracts with Iran. Now, if we talk about that level of pain, yes that's significant, although even that might not be adequate. But it's unlikely that, to me, that those kinds of pressures will be available.

Ed Schultz: General Clark, is it a, lack of a better term, a bridge too far to think that maybe the President of the United States could go to Iran right now the same way Richard Nixon went to China?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It is. I don't think there's any possibility that President Bush could go to Iran right now. I think if you look at the reaction against President Bush in India and Pakistan with the demonstrations and you magnified it by a hundredfold, I think they'd have to lock down Iran if the President went there, and I think it'd be counterproductive. But I do think it's possible to open a dialog in a quiet way, and that it could possibly lead to meetings in- on neutral ground sometime, and it's not impossible to think that a year or two from now, if, if it worked out the right way, there could be mutual visits back and forth between Iranian and American leaders.

Ed Schultz: If you were advising the President right now, what would you tell him? You gotta meet with this guy sooner or later?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I'd tell him you have to do three things. You have to plan for how to continue this dialog with Iran, including opening up a direct dialog with Iran, not just using the Europeans and the Russians. Number two, you have to be working very seriously on a military option, not only what do you strike, but how do you end the conflict. And number three, you've got to be working very quietly on how would you live in a world where an extremist Iranian government got ahold of nuclear weapons. What would you do? What would- who would- How would you make the possibility of stability and, and optimism possible in that world?

Ed Schultz: So, you're saying all options are on the table to protect America.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: All options are on the table, and it's the administration's duty to think through each of those options.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley Clark here on the Ed Schultz Show. We sure appreciate it. Let's talk about Iraq. What is the definition of a civil war? Some people say we're in a civil war. Others say no it's not there yet. You as a military man and your training and your expertise, what is it?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, a civil war is just when neighbors fight against each other, but it's hard to say that we're not in a civil war by that standard. But the question is, you know, how, how intense is it? What's the outcome likely to be? How long will it- How, how damaging will it be, and, and, and will it grow to bring in the neighboring powers? Those are the questions that have to be asked. I think in Iraq, we've got a choice between a C- solution and an F solution. The F solution is pull out right now. Just tell them that's up, that's it we're fed up with you. You're not cooperating with us, and we've done enough. We're leaving. The end result of that is gonna be that the Shi'ite dominated military police and militias will seize control, drive the remaining vestiges of hopefulness out of the Sunnis, isolate the Sunnis. And the Sunnis will go to the Saudis, the Jordanians and others for support, and they'll fight to gain a foothold back into Iraq. That's the civil war that will spread to other countries in the region.

Ed Schultz: And then what happens to the United States military if that unfolds? What'll we do?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we'll have to do something to dampen the conflict as best we can, if we're there. But the F solution is when we leave. Now the C- solution is we lean on top of the folks there in Iraq with everything we've got. We tell that Shi'ite President Hakim that he must change the constitution. He must allow Sunni leaders into responsible positions. He must crack down on and eliminate the Shi'ite militias. When he doesn't do it, you use leverage against him. You slow down the training of the troops. You slow the arrival of supplies. You re-deploy forces. You prepare to take other measures. And this is not going to be accomplished just by jawboning. If you do all this, there's a chance you could still pull together an Iraqi state. It wouldn't be a Western-oriented state. It won't be a US-style Democracy and it won't probably represent the hope of Democracy in the region. But it would be a state that probably won't threaten it's neighbors right away, and it might be a state that you could pull US forces out of without having it blow up.

Ed Schultz: Well, I was going to ask you finally, John Murtha, does his re-deployment idea have merit-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No.

Ed Schultz: -at this point. You, you-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Not, not in and of itself. Hopefully we will re-deploy, and hopefully if we can get the Sunnis in government, change the constitution, it's possible that you'll be able to pull out a lot of troops. But to drive US strategy by the recognition that our Armed Forces are failing, the men are tired, doesn't seem to have worked very well, let's just go home, that's a real admission of failure. That's the F solution.

Ed Schultz: Some people would call you a tough Democrat, General.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I,I think I'm realistic in terms of- look, we have interests in this region. Those interests are the welfare of our men and women in uniform. They're stability for the worlds sources of supply of a lot of the oil. There's the expansion of trade. There's protection of freedom in the region, including our association with the state of Israel. Those interests are not changed when we pull out US troops, except for the fact that you've got the troops out of the war zone. That's the only interest that's changed. The other interests remain, and you may find that it's even more difficult to work those interests when you've lost the use of troops on the ground in Iraq. So, it's not a matter of whether you're tough or, or not tough. it's simply a matter of whether or not you understand the realities in the region.

Ed Schultz: General, I got to ask you this, 'cause you were a Presidential candidate. Do you want to weigh in on this port deal? The American people don't want it, but is the President right or wrong on this?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well the truth is, George Bush scared the American people half to death about, about Arabs, and now it's come back to haunt him. But the real issue is not who owns the ports, it's whether they're secure or not. And this administration hasn't done nearly enough to secure the ports, and it needs to. If we knew what we needed to do to secure the ports, we'd be less concerned about who owns them.

Ed Schultz: Triple w.securingamerica.com is the website for General Wesley Clark. Thats securingamerica.com, and we are going to be forever indebted to you, General, for helping us get on Armed Forces Network. I appreciate it very much.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you so much.

Ed Schultz: You bet.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Bye, Ed.

Ed Schultz: You bet. General Wesley Clark here, on the Ed Schultz Show.