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Ex-Congressional Aide: Karl Rove
Personally Received (And Ignored) Iranian Peace Offer in 2003
Monday, February
26th, 2007
Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman
Listen to the interview
here.
As Seymour Hersh reports the Pentagon has created a special
panel to plan a bombing attack on Iran, we examine how the Bush
administration ignored a secret offer to negotiate with Iran in
2003. We speak with the National Iranian American Council's
Trita Parsi, a former aide to Republican congressman Bob Ney.
[includes rush transcript]
While the Bush administration continues to insist it has no
plans to go to war with Iran, the New Yorker magazine is
reporting the Pentagon has created a special panel to plan a
bombing attack on Iran that could be implemented within 24 hours
of getting the go-ahead from President Bush. According to
investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the planning group was
established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in
recent months.
In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman
Bryan Whitman denied the US was planning to go to war with Iran
and said "To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong,
misleading and mischievous." Whitman went on to say the White
House is continuing to address concerns in the region through
diplomatic efforts.
This comes against the backdrop of last week's
allegation that Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove personally
received a copy of a secret offer from the Iranian government to
hold negotiations four years ago. The Bush administration
decided to ignore the grand bargain offer. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice recently claimed she had never even seen the
document. At the time Iran said it would consider far-reaching
compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and
Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel.
Rove's involvement was revealed by an aide to
former Republican congressman Bob Ney. The aide, Trita Parsi,
said Ney was chosen by the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran to carry
the Iranian proposal to the White House because he knew the Ohio
Congressman to be the only Farsi-speaking member of Congress and
particularly interested in Iran.
Trita Parsi joins me now from Washington DC.
He is the President of the National Iranian American Council,
the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. His
forthcoming book is "Treacherous Triangle - The Secret Dealings
of Iran, Israel and the United States."
- Trita Parsi,
president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC),
the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. He is
author of the forthcoming book "Treacherous Triangle - The
Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States."
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN:
Trita Parsi joins me now from Washington, D.C. He is president
of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iran
American organization in the United States. His forthcoming book
is called Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran,
Israel and the United States. Welcome to Democracy Now!
TRITA PARSI:
Thank you for having me, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN:
Explain exactly what this memo, this proposal was, coming from
Iran, and how you say it made its way to the highest levels of
the US government.
TRITA PARSI:
Well, this is back in May 2003. The United States had just
defeated Saddam in less than three weeks, and I think there were
a lot of feelings inside Iran that they needed to present some
sort of a negotiation deal with the United States. But what they
presented was quite similar to many things that they had
communicated verbally to the United States over the last couple
of years. Basically, they said the United States has a couple of
aims, Iran has a couple of aims, and there is a process to be
able to proceed with the negotiations.
And what the Iranians agreed to discuss as a
framework of the negotiations was how to disarm the Hezbollah,
how to end support to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, how to open up
the nuclear program, how to help the United States stabilize
Iraq, and, in short, that the government there would not along
sectarian lines, and also how to sign onto the Beirut
Declaration, which is basically a former recognition of the
two-state solution. These are far-reaching compromises that Iran
potentially would have agreed to in the negotiations, but the
Bush administration, as you reported, decided simply not to
respond to the proposal.
AMY GOODMAN: Can
you explain how it made its way from Iran to the US government?
TRITA PARSI: The
United States, back in 1991, established the Swiss embassy in
Iran as a go-between between the United States and Iran. The US
needed a channel of communication, a reliable channel of
communication between the two countries just to ensure that the
war in Iraq back in 1991 would not cause any misunderstandings
between Iran and the United States that could be dangerous. That
channel was then afterwards in existence, and the Swiss
ambassador to Iran is a person that usually visits the US every
six months and gives a report to the United States to State
Department, sometimes to Congress, about what the situation in
Iran is, mindful of the fact that the US itself does not have
any diplomats in Iran. So this channel has been used on numerous
occasions by the United States and by Iran to be able to send
messages to each other.
And this time around, the Iranians gave a
proposal to the Swiss ambassador that he then sent to the Swiss
foreign ministry in Bern, who faxed it onto the State
Department, but the Swiss ambassador also made a personal visit
to Washington, D.C. to brief the State Department about the
proposal, and he also made sure that he met with Congressman
Ney, who has been a longtime advocate for negotiations and
dialogue between the United States and Iran, and he handed him
the proposal, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Now,
the Swiss ambassador was Tim Guldimann?
TRITA PARSI:
Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: And
he then got this proposal to the man you worked for,
Congressmember Ney?
TRITA PARSI:
Exactly. I was an advisor to Bob Ney at the time. And Tim met
with Bob and handed over the proposal to him. And Bob afterwards
sent it to be hand-delivered to the White House to Karl Rove,
and Karl Rove called back within two hours, and they had a brief
discussion about the proposal.
AMY GOODMAN: And
what did Karl Rove say?
TRITA PARSI:
Well, he basically said that it was an intriguing proposal. He
first wanted to know if it authentic, and the congressman
assured him that it was, according to what the Swiss ambassador
had said. And we have to remember, the Swiss ambassador would
not be handing over proposals to the United States unless they
were authentic. The Swiss ambassador’s work has been requested
by the US, not by the Iranians. So he is basically fulfilling a
mission that has been given to him by the United States.
AMY GOODMAN:
We’re going to break, then come back to you, Trita Parsi,
president of the National Iranian American Council, was the
former consultant for, aide for Congressmember Bob Ney. This is
Democracy Now! Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We
are talking to Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian
American Council, largest Iranian American group in the United
States, author of the forthcoming book, Treacherous Triangle:
The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States,
saying that the Bush administration, Karl Rove, received a memo
in 2003 that Iranian leaders backed comprehensive negotiations
with the United States. Now, Trita Parsi, Condoleezza Rice, the
Secretary of State, was questioned about this document several
weeks ago on Capitol Hill. She said she didn't recall seeing it
when she was National Security Advisor. “I just don't remember
ever seeing any such thing,” she said. Your response?
TRITA PARSI:
Well, I think part of the reason why the Secretary of State
currently is using the terminology of saying that she doesn't
recall seeing it may be because the Bush administration senses
that it may be forced to negotiate with Iran down the road,
particularly if this surge policy is a failure, which a lot of
people predict that it will be. And as a result, they don't want
the negotiations, the potential future negotiations, with Iran
to be compared to what they could have achieved with Iran back
in 2003, because clearly the United States is in a much weaker
position today than it was back then. And I think it would look
bad for the administration to come to a deal with Iran now that
would be substantially worse than the deal they could have
achieved back in 2003. And I think they want to avoid that type
of a comparison.
AMY GOODMAN: Can
you talk about this proposal that came to the US? You have Karl
Rove who knew, the very close relationship between -- well, it
was Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice who went with President Bush
to South Korea, just them together. Do you have any awareness or
knowledge of President Bush knowing about this?
TRITA PARSI:
Well, according to many people that I have interviewed in the
Bush administration, they did have a discussion about this at
the highest level in the Bush administration, and basically the
hard line of the Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld basically ensured that
they would not proceed with the negotiations. In fact, they
actually reprimanded the Swiss ambassador for having delivered
it.
And the argument by the hardliners, the hawks
in the Washington -- in the White House at the time was
basically that Iran is weak and it’s giving this proposal
precisely because of the fact that it is fearful of the United
States and that the US can achieve more by taking on the Iranian
regime and just removing it than by negotiating. So we had this
situation in which, back then, because of America's strength,
the Bush administration argued that it could not negotiate.
And we have the opposite situation right now.
Now, the Bush administration is saying that because it’s weak,
it cannot negotiate. But if you can’t negotiate when you’re
strong, because you’re strong, and you can’t negotiate when
you’re weak, because you’re weak, that basically means that
you’re not interested in negotiations at all.
AMY GOODMAN: I
wanted to read you a clip by Gareth Porter, “Rove Said to Have
Received 2003 Iranian Proposal.” And it says that “the
identification of Rove as a recipient of the secret Iranian
proposal throws new light on the question of who in the Bush
administration was aware of the Iranian proposal at the time.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied in Congressional
testimony [last week] that she had seen the Iranian offer in
2003 and even chastised former State Department, National
Security Council and [Central Intelligence Agency] official
Flynt Leverett for having failed to bring it to her attention at
the time.
“At a Capital Hill conference on U.S.-Iran
relations Wednesday, sponsored by the New America Foundation and
[your organization, Trita Parsi] NIAC, Leverett responded to
Rice's criticism by saying it was ‘unthinkable that it would not
have been brought to her attention’ and [demanding] an apology
from her.”
TRITA PARSI:
Well, I would agree that it is absolutely unthinkable that a
proposal of this importance would not have reached the Secretary
of State or at the time the National Security Advisor,
particularly mindful of the fact that Flynt Leverett, who was at
the NSC at the time, did see it -- his wife Hillary Mann, who
was also at the NSC, did see it -- who had a discussion with
Colin Powell about it, according to his testimony at our
conference two weeks ago. So I find it highly unlikely that they
did not see it. I frankly believe that it’s beyond unlikely that
they didn't see.
But, again, I think it’s partly because of the
fact that they’re fearful that if there are going to be any
negotiations down the road, not negotiations that they
themselves choose to have, but they’re basically forced to have,
that they don't want the result of those negotiations to be
compared to what they could have achieved back in 2003.
AMY GOODMAN: What
has Ney said about this -- I mean, now disgraced, involved with
the Abramoff scandal, in jail -- what are his comments?
TRITA PARSI:
Well, I can't speak for him, but I think there may be some
indications from him in which he will come out with his side of
the story, as well.
But let me say one thing about the impact that
this has had on the Iranians, because I was in Iran back in
2004, doing interviews for my book, which has a lot of details
about this proposal. And what was really interesting is that
when the Iranians put this on the table and they were basically
offering significant policy modifications in the hope that this
would be able to open up a new chapter in the relationship with
the United States, when the United States, when the Bush
administration did not even respond to it, that left Tehran with
the impression that the US does not necessarily have problems
with Iranian policies. What the US’s problem lies is with Iran's
power. So if you can’t give any concessions to the Bush
administration that would be able to change the nature of this
relationship, then why give concessions to begin with? And that
is part of the reason why Iran's position has strengthened and
hardened so much over the last couple of years. It’s mainly
because of the failure of the Iranian government to be able to
reach an understanding with the United States by offering
concessions. So now they’re trying to do the same by playing it
very, very tough.
AMY GOODMAN: I
wanted to get your response, Trita Parsi, to Seymour Hersh’s
piece in The New Yorker, that the Pentagon has
established a special planning group within the Office of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan an attack on Iran.
TRITA PARSI:
Well, I think that these are things that we’ve been hearing
quite a lot here in Washington for quite some time now. And it
is quite likely -- it is also quite likely that the Bush
administration is using the revelation of this and this
flourishing of articles saying that the Bush administration is
about to strike as a pressuring tactic against Tehran, this
psychological warfare that seems to be going on right now. But
one of the elements that I think we’ve seen very clear evidence
for is this shift in the US's policy in the Middle East, in
which it is now increasingly siding with the Sunni states and
even turning a blind eye to their extensive support for al-Qaeda
and jihadist groups, including in Iraq, groups that are killing
Americans far more than the Shiites are, and pursuing that, not
in order to stabilize Iraq, but in order to weaken Iran and
re-establish the type of balance in the region that they feel is
more beneficial to the United States, but is also the same
balance that has been creating a war in the Middle East every
five to ten years over the last fifty years.
AMY GOODMAN: Let
me follow up on this point, because it is certainly a key one.
Seymour Hersh, in The New Yorker magazine, reporting that
the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia are pumping money for
covert operations in many areas of the Middle East, including
Lebanon, Syria and Iran, in an effort to strengthen
Saudi-sported Sunni Islam group and weaken Iranian-backed Shias.
Some of the covert money has been given to jihadist groups in
Lebanon with ties to al-Qaeda. So, supporting the Sunnis over
the Shia and working with Saudi Arabia to funnel that money.
TRITA PARSI: And
basically says that the United States is not trying to resolve
the civil war in Iraq. Rather, it’s taking sides in the civil
war. And ironically, it’s taking the same side as al-Qaeda is
doing.
AMY GOODMAN: And
the second part of the story, that John Negroponte, Seymour
Hersh reports, may well have resigned his post as National
Intelligence director, because of his discomfort that the
administration's covert actions in the Middle East so closely
echoed the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
TRITA PARSI: I
think one thing to keep in mind in all of this is that the
United States does have legitimate grievances with the Iranian
government and the policies that they have been pursuing. But
the problem is that the line that the Bush administration is
pursuing is only making matters worse in the region right now.
It is further destabilizing the region. It’s further making it
more difficult to be able to find a solution to Iraq. The only
solution that I can see is to actually bring all the parties to
the table. And that, of course, also includes not only the
Iranians, but also the Saudis.
Part of the fear that countries, such as Saudi
Arabia and Israel have, is that if the United States strikes a
bilateral deal with Iran, it will come at the expense of
countries such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. And that’s what
they’re trying to prevent at this stage. But it’s only adding
more fuel to the tensions in the region. And that’s why I think
the Iraq Study Group's recommendation was the most effective
one, the most successful one, if the United States can bring all
the parties to the table in order to find a multilateral
solution to the problems in the region.
AMY GOODMAN:
Trita Parsi, why come out with these documents right now? This
is years later. This is, what, some three, four years later.
TRITA PARSI:
Well, I was holding this document for quite some time. I did not
come out with it until I saw that Flynt Leverett had, because
Flynt was in the White House at the time, and I was basically
someone who was an advisor to a congressman and I happened to
see it. Part of the reason why I decided to come out, speak
about it and also provide a document to a lot of journalists was
because I was very fearful last year that the Bush
administration was getting very close to military conflict with
Iran and that the talk in town was that the Iranians are not
interested in a deal, that the Iranians would never negotiate, a
lot of these false assumptions about Iran that I felt was just
helping hawks being able to bring this situation closer to
closer to war. And I wanted to make sure that people knew that
there have been substantial negotiation proposals, negotiation
proposals that could be pursued once more in order to be able to
find a peaceful solution to what is taking place between the
United States and Iran. And I did so, mindful of the fact that
there seems to be a lot of people in the White House that have
the military option as their first option, not as their last
option.
AMY GOODMAN:
Trita Parsi, I want to thank you very much for being with us.
Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American
Council and is author of the forthcoming book, Treacherous
Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United
States.
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