Transcript

TONY JONES: Well, Martin Indyk has done two stints as US ambassador to Israel, he's endured the frustrations of peace negotiations at Camp David and he's sat in the White House advising President Bill Clinton on the Middle East. He is currently Director of the Saban Centre for Middle Eastern Policy at the Brookings Institution and a board member of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He joined us earlier this evening to talk about the prospects for peace in southern Lebanon and the role of Hezbollah's two chief backers, Iran and Syria.

TONY JONES: Martin Indyk, thanks for joining us.

MARTYN INDYK, FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Thank you, Tony. Pleasure to be here.

TONY JONES: Let's start with Syria's fulminating over the prospect of UN troops being stationed on their border. President Assad said he would regard that as a hostile move against Syria. Should that be interpreted as a threat?

MARTIN INDYK: Yes, absolutely. When he uses the word 'hostile' he means business. He means that if the forces are placed there, Syria will do something unspecified to make it very uncomfortable for them. He has also threatened Lebanon by warning them that they are somehow infringing their own sovereignty. Of course, it would be a sovereign decision of the Lebanese Government to place international forces there and it would be done under the auspices of the UN Security Council. But Assad is basically saying, I think, the message is that if you think that you're going to stop us from resupplying our strategic ally Hezbollah, you've got another thing happening.

TONY JONES: Well, that is the critical reason for putting UN troops along the border, isn't it, because it's pretty clear that's where the missiles were coming from, the Iranian and Syrian missiles being used by Hezbollah. If you don't put UN troops along the border, what use is it having them there?

MARTIN INDYK: I think it's a critical element since the troops are not going to disarm Hezbollah. They don't have the capability, they don't have the mandate to do that. If they can at least impede the resupply process, then Hezbollah is going to be weaker than it was. But for Syria, particularly for this Assad, unlike his father who used Hezbollah for tactical purposes to put pressure on Israel to negotiate over the Golan Heights, this president of Syria has turned Hezbollah into a strategic arm designed to block an Israeli advance through the Bekaa Valley to Damascus and on the other hand, designed as a proxy to retain Syrian influence in Lebanon which has been seriously undermined by the fact that the Lebanese people came out in the millions to push the Syrian troops out of Lebanon.

TONY JONES: We had the commentator Mark Steyn this program not so long ago. He was actually saying that Israel should take out Assad, that the most logical thing to do was actually to stage a war with Syria. Now Israel didn't do that, it clearly didn't even do anything like overflights of his palace which they did early in the piece. Why not?

MARTIN INDYK: Well, it was more than that, Tony. The Israelis sent constant signals to the Syrians during this last conflict that they were not interested in having a war with Syria and Syria basically sent signals back that they, too, were not interested. I think the Israelis wanted to confine this war to the Lebanon theatre. They were a casualty of verse in the way that they conducted this whole conflict. It was all air power at first, and only very reluctantly and very hesitantly did they get into a ground war. To take on Syria, there's no doubt that the Israeli army would have defeated the Syrians.

TONY JONES: But what next?

MARTIN INDYK: But the casualties would have been high and for what purpose exactly? So I think that the Israelis were very clear about the limited objectives which they actually didn't achieve in Lebanon. Ironically, had they threatened Syria more clearly, they might have gained greater leverage on Hezbollah. I don't think the Iranians would have liked a war between Israel and Syria either, but that was judged too risky for the Israelis because of the concern that a full-scale war would cause very high casualties and what would be achieved? The Syrians were already so weak vis-a-vis Israel that I don't think they saw any advantage.

TONY JONES: Regime change, I think, was the stated objective?

Well, Israelis I don't think are particularly interested in having regime change in Syria because the alternative would be either chaos and another failed state on Israel's borders, or an Islamic fundamentalist regime. And that is something that would be far more complicating for Israel than a weak leader that's isolated, that has managed to alienate the United States and much of the international community, including Europeans, and is not in himself much of a problem for Israel.

TONY JONES: Beyond Syria, the other key player, the other key outside player in this crisis was Tehran. Now the rise of Iran presents not only a nightmare for Israel and the United States, but also it's extremely problematic for Sunni Arab leaders in the region, is it not? Does that present diplomatic opportunities?

MARTIN INDYK: I think it's the most interesting dynamic that's developing here and it started before this Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. The Saudi leadership, the Egyptian leadership and the Jordanian leadership have been warning for some time about what they have referred, in public, to as a Shi'ite access that begins in Iran and spreads to the Shi'ite Government of Iraq and all of the militias associated with it, and to the Alloite minority rulers of Syria and then to Hezbollah and Lebanon. You can imagine this arc stretching across. There are Shi'ite minorities, and in some cases majorities, in many of these Sunni-led countries. Saudi Arabia itself has a large Shi'ite majority that lives in the major oil fields of northern Saudi Arabia. And so there's been a traditional hostility that goes back centuries between Shia and Sunnis, so these Sunni leaders are already alarmed. Now they see Iran making a play in Lebanon and they're now saying in private, but very clearly, "It is unacceptable that Iran should become the arbiters of Arab interests." They see Iran and Hezbollah playing in the Palestinian arena and they see through Palestine's Islamic Jihad, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran, causing problems for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader. And so now they're coming together and it's very interesting to see how they're handling it. They're talking about resurrecting Saudi Arabia's peace initiative which offered Israel peace, recognition and normalisation and an end to the conflict. The Amir of Qatar went to Lebanon, hailed Hezbollah's victory, and then turned around and said, "Now we should make peace." Which is not what Hezbollah or Lebanon has in mind - peace with Israel is not on their agenda. So, therefore, a common interest is beginning to emerge between Israel and the Sunni-Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the Sunni leadership in Lebanon and the Sunni leadership of Palestine against Iran and the threat that they face in common from Iran with this Shi'ite access.

TONY JONES: Yet at the same time Iran is pressing ahead and developing its nuclear weapons. Now, why is it that the United States can live with a nuclear China, a nuclear Pakistan, quite possibly a nuclear North Korea, but it won't countenance living with a nuclear Iran?

MARTIN INDYK: Well, it may have to, but I think the concern is twofold. First, that Iran with nuclear weapons will be able to engage in even more mischief-making in the region, but with the immunity that comes from the fact that they can defend themselves with nuclear weapons if anybody tries to bring them to account. Secondly, is the concern that if Iran has nuclear weapons, these Sunni-Arab leaders that I've just been talking about will feel the need to get nuclear weapons as well because they'll feel as threatened as Israel will about that. And so then, you have a nuclear arms race across the Middle East which is highly destabilising in this region where most of the world's oil reserves are located.

TONY JONES: So what are the real options then on the President's desk at the moment when it comes to stopping this? We've seen the negotiations, they don't seem to be going anywhere. If anything, it appears that Iran is stalling while continuing to enrich uranium. So what are the real options? Because if I understand this correctly, Israel is making the case now that the deadline for stopping Iran is much shorter than people think?

MARTIN INDYK: There are four options - negotiations, as you say, not very likely to produce a result. Sanctions, which is already in train at the United Nations. Military force to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. And deterrence, mutual assured destruction, and a nuclear umbrella that the United States would provide to these countries that we're talking about - Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, such that an attack on them with uranium nuclear weapons would constitute an attack on the United States. The United States would obliterate Iran were it to do such a thing.

TONY JONES: Is that really playing out behind - is that message, do you believe, being given to Tehran at the moment?

MARTIN INDYK: No, not yet.

TONY JONES: Because -

MARTIN INDYK: But those are the options. Now the military option is one that a lot of focus, a lot of attention has been given to in Washington.

TONY JONES: Indeed -

MARTIN INDYK: And in Jerusalem.

TONY JONES: Anthony Cordesman, who's a strategic analyst in Washington, has actually put out a paper quite recently where he sets out a series of options including the complete crippling of the Iranian economy and state by bombing all of its facilities, including its economic facilities, its power plants, its refineries and so on and so forth. Are those genuine options for the US President?

MARTIN INDYK: Well, the United States has the capability to inflict a great deal of damage on Iran, particularly on its Air Force and on its infrastructure. But that's war. That's not a pinpoint military action like Israel took in taking out the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

TONY JONES: But you couldn't have a pinpoint action like that anymore -

MARTIN INDYK: There are facilities that would have to be taken out and once you - if you're going to do that, you're going to need multiple raids and if you're going to have multiple raids, you're going to have to take out their air defence systems AND you've got bunkers there. The Iranians have some of their facilities in bunkers. So you're going to have to use very big bombs and some people in Washington are talking about tactical nuclear weapons in order to destroy these bunkers. And on the other side, one has to take into account what Iran can do in return. Because this will be an act of war, a pre-emptive war, if the United States or Israel undertakes this kind of mission. And there - we've discussed this on your program before - there's 130,000 American troops in Iraq which are vulnerable to Iranian attacks. They've got an infrastructure in Iraq that they can use. The Strait of Hormuz has shipping coming through there, oil shipping can be taken out with Iranian missiles without much difficulty, putting the price of oil through the roof - perhaps up to $120 from the $70 we see now - to Hezbollah missile strikes on Tel Aviv, if they still have those missiles or get the resupply, to Hezbollah's -

TONY JONES: And an expansion of terrorism, presumably?

MARTIN INDYK: Hezbollah is the A-team of terror and they have a global infrastructure which can be used to target Americans, Israelis, Jewish institutions across the world.

TONY JONES: You make it sound like the military option isn't really an option and, indeed, the former President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said this, "I think of war with Iran as the ending of America's present role in the world, that they will be dragged into a war that could last 20 to 30 years and that no-one could do it without destroying America's position on the planet."

MARTIN INDYK: Well, I think we shouldn't exaggerate Iran's capabilities, but I think it's important that a president looking at this needs to understand that there are a lot of things that Iran can do to hurt the United States and hurt its interests. And don't forget, this President has a 34% approval rating, has the military stretched fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has an American public that is deeply sceptical of the notion of going to war in the Middle East for the sake of weapons of mass destruction. We did that once already and look where we ended up.

TONY JONES: But by the same token, he's not going to be president for much longer and some might argue he's got nothing to lose politically?

MARTIN INDYK: Well, you know, he said it's unacceptable. He's ordered up the option to be prepared. He's pursuing a diplomatic process at the moment. But some in Washington are saying, "Well, this is just playing out the game so that the Europeans and the Russians will see that we went the last mile before we take military action." So it is possible, and there is a decision point probably going to come on his watch, that is, within the next two years.

TONY JONES: Why is that?

MARTIN INDYK: That's because when Iran crosses the nuclear know-how threshold, when it is able to enrich uranium to weapons grade, it already has the missiles to deliver them, and it's believed that it has the plans from AQ Khan how to weaponise. Then, essentially it'll be too late once they cross that threshold and the Israelis are certainly saying it's one year from now before they cross that threshold and then they will have nuclear weapons. It may take them five years, but after that they'll have nuclear weapons and they'll move this stuff into these bunkers where it's going to be much more difficult to hit them. So the opportunity to use a military strike to take out the centrifuges is going to disappear perhaps as soon as one year from now. That's still on George Bush's watch.

TONY JONES: Martin Indyk, a pretty grim way to end the interview, but we thank you once again for coming in to talk to us tonight.

MARTIN INDYK: Thanks, Tony.