Hagel on Syria, Iran and Foreign Policy
ASP Board Member, Sen. Chuck Hagel, talks Syria, Iran and Foreign Policy in a wide-ranging interview with Al-Monitor, on March 09 2012
Extracts:
Al-Monitor: Bomb Iran or live with Iran with a bomb?
Hagel: Exactly. We may eventually wind up with those choices. But I don’t think we’re there now. We’ve got some time, keep ratcheting up the sanctions, keep the world community with you.
…You cannot push the Iranians into a corner where they can’t get out…You’ve got to find some quiet ways – and you don’t do this in the press or by giving speeches – to give them a couple of facing saving ways out of this thing so they get something out of this, too. And recognizing internally what’s going on in Iran; things are not going particularly well. Let that play out… So you work this thing on a number of parallel tracks.
Our friend Andrew Parasiliti [board member of Al-Monitor] had this in a piece he wrote recently. He talks about Ahmadinejad laying on the table [and offering to stop producing] 20 percent [enriched uranium]. We’ve got to test all that. There’s a great Arab proverb: Trust Allah, but tie up your camel.
…You’ve got to break into some creative thinking here…don’t get caught in these damn traps. If you listen to the Republican presidential candidates, they can hardly race to say who would bomb Iran first; it’s just amazing.
Al-Monitor: There’s a big painting of former president Dwight Eisenhower in your office. Is he one of your heroes?
Hagel: Every year that goes by, I admire him more and more [for his] wise, steady leadership.
You can read the full interview here
