Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am R. James Woolsey and I’m honored to testify before you today on this important issue.

By way of background, I have served in the federal government on five occasions, holding Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations, most recently as Director of Central Intelligence for two years during the first Clinton administration.

Today, I am Vice President of the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where I work principally in the field of energy.

I also serve as co-chair of the Committee on the Present Danger, a bipartisan organization that seeks to stiffen American resolve to confront and defeat what we call “Islamist totalitarianism,” or “militant Islamism,” and the terrorism it breeds. The other co-chair is former Secretary of State George Shultz. We are an organization of over 100 former White House officials, Ambassadors, Cabinet Secretaries, academics, and other foreign policy experts who have come together to educate free people about this threat to the United States and the free world; to counsel against appeasing terrorists and the states that sponsor them; to support policies to confront this menace; and to encourage the development of civil society and democracy in regions from which the terrorists emanate.

I am pleased to talk to you today about why we must use every possible tool in the fight against this menace.

The Iranian Regime

Mr. Chairman, the Iran Crisis now enters its 28th year. The totalitarian and corrupt regime in Tehran does not differ in any fundamental way from that which took power in the aftermath of the collapse of the Shah’s regime in 1979.

To be sure, in the late nineties, at the beginning of the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, for a year or so the optimistic could believe that the forces of moderation might make substantial progress in Iran. But the crackdown in the spring of 1998 on students and journalists, including the imprisonment and killing of many, should have signaled clearly that these hopes had been dashed. Khatami was always a creature of the regime. He had passed the test of regime approval to be permitted to run for President, a test honorably failed by dozens of more truly reform-minded and brave Iranian political figures. He made no substantial changes in the nature of the regime during his tenure.

Now the camouflaged mantle of “moderate” has passed from Khatami to Ali Rafsanjani who, during his own Presidency, was responsible for the execution and imprisonment of a great many regime opponents and the murder abroad of a large number as well. If President Khatami might be compared to Prime Minister Kosygin in the Soviet Union – a man labeled “moderate” largely because he didn’t use excessive rhetoric and smiled more than his colleagues – then Mr. Rafsanjani’s current characterization as a moderate or pragmatist might be compared to the image of Mr. Andropov that the KGB successfully sold to much of the world’s press: the evidence for Mr. Andropov’s moderation was that he listened to jazz and drank Scotch. But Mr. Rafsanjani, like the more notorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened the destruction of Israel; has been responsible, as noted above, for many deaths, and is also famously corrupt.

The regime’s threats to destroy Israel and, on a longer time-scale, the United States are part and parcel of its essence. Recent official statements to this effect represent not a shift in policy. Iran’s regime has defined itself for nearly 30 years by its fundamental hostility to the West, and especially Israel and the United States, which it calls the “Little Satan” and the “Great Satan,” respectively.

This fundamental hostility is now enhanced by a circle of fanatical believers around Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi in Qum, a circle that includes Ahmadinejad himself. This group expressly promotes the idea that large-scale killing should be welcomed because it will summon the return of the 12th Imam, or “Mahdi,” a messianic figure who disappeared in the 10th Century, which in turn will lead to the end of the world. Recently the Islamic Republic’s Broadcasting web site has begun to assert that the world is in its “last days” and that, as the world ends, Jesus will appear with the Mahdi, as a Shi’ite and as his lieutenant. This rhetoric is not limited to a small circle. Rafsanjani, for example, has utilized it as well. To those of us in the West, of course, it sounds bizarre. But, we ignore such ideology at our peril. As Enders Wimbush wrote recently in the Weekly Standard, “Iran’s leadership has spoken of its willingness – in their words – to ’martyr’ the entire Iranian nation, and it has even expressed he desirability of doing so as a way to accelerate an inevitable, apocalyptic collision between Islam and the West . . . .” Those in decision-making roles in the Iranian regime who believe such things are certainly not going to be very inclined to negotiate in good faith with us about Iraq, about Iran’s nuclear program, or indeed about anything at all. Even deterrence is questionable as a strategy to contain a nuclear-armed Iran, much less arms control agreements.

The Iranian regime does not restrict itself to hideous speech. As President Bush, General Petraeus, and General Caldwell have noted, the regime is helping terrorists infiltrate into Iraq and providing material support to attacks on U.S. forces It is clear, for example, that the increasingly effective Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are not so improvised any more – many now include sophisticated shaped charges that penetrate armor. And they are of Iranian manufacture. Over the years, directly and through its controlled assets such as the terrorist group Hezbollah, Iran has killed and murdered hundreds of Americans and large numbers of Israelis, French, and Argentinians as well. Torture has often also been part of the picture. General Petraeus said last week that

The Iranian involvement has really become much clearer to us and brought into much more focus during the interrogation of the members — the heads of the Qazali network and some of the key members of that network that have been in detention now for a month or more. This is the head of the secret cell network, the extremist secret cells. They were provided substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies as well as run of the mill arms and ammunition, in some cases advice and in some cases even a degree of direction. When we captured these individuals — the initial capture, and then there have been a number of others since then — we discovered, for example, a 22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala. It also detailed — there are numerous documents which detailed a number of different attacks on coalition forces, and our sense is that these records were kept so that they could be handed in to whoever it is that is financing them. And there’s no question, again, that Iranian financing is taking place through the Quds force of the Iranian Republican Guards Corps.

The Persians invented chess, and if I were to characterize Iran’s international behavior today in those terms, I would say that they are actively deploying a number of pieces. One might call their nuclear weapons development program their queen – their most lethal and valuable piece. No one should, by the way, discount their intention to obtain nuclear weapons. The traces of highly-enriched (not just fuel-grade) uranium, their deception, their heavy water plant, and other indicators brand their program as one designed to develop nuclear weapons even in the absence of their rhetoric about destroying Israel and ending the world. The Sunni states of the region have become extremely alarmed at the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons program and six of them, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have recently announced their intent to move toward nuclear programs themselves, though they say that the purpose is electricity generation. Needless to say, no one should believe that six states, several with substantial oil and gas reserves, would simultaneously determine that these reserves are inadequate for their energy needs and that they can only obtain adequate electricity by moving to develop nuclear power. In fact, of course, Iran has launched a Shi’ite-Sunni nuclear arms race in this volatile region.

No degree of international disapproval -- or sanctions such as the tepid ones that are achievable through the UN Security Council in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition to strong ones – will convince this regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. And even if Iran would need two or three more years to develop enough fissile material through the operation of its own centrifuges to fashion an entirely home-built nuclear weapon, one must not forget its co-conspirator, North Korea. North Korea’s principal exports today are counterfeit American currency, heroin, and ballistic missile technology – the Iranian Shahab and the North Korean No Dong and Taepo Dong essentially constitute a joint missile development program. Why would North Korea refrain from selling Iran either fissile material or a crude nuclear weapon? Either is easily transported by air. Such a purchase would substantially shorten the time before Iran could have a nuclear weapon.

Iran moves four chess pieces of lesser value from time to time in part to keep the United States and Israel off balance, in part to protect their nuclear queen. The first three – Hamas, Hezbollah, and Moqtadh al Sadr’s forces in Iraq – might be described as pawns; The fourth, Syria, perhaps rises to the level of rook, since it is a nation-state and has a mutual defense treaty with Iran. Iran cares little that the Alawite Syrian regime needed special Iranian theological dispensation to be regarded as part of Shi’ite Islam or that Hamas is Sunni. Iran’s regime, dating back to the training that it’s of the very Shi’ite Revolutionary Guards provided in the early 1970s in Lebanon by Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah, is quite willing to work with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, that have all sorts of different ideological DNA.

Some believe that Shi’ites will not cooperate with Sunnis, or that either will cooperate with secular groups – that, for instance, there could have been no collaboration between secular Baathist Iraq or Shi’ite Iran with Sunni al Qaeda. Seventy years ago, conventional wisdom told us that Communists and Nazis would never cooperate, and then came the Stalin-Hitler Pact. The Iranian regime doesn’t just appreciate but more or less lives the old Middle Eastern saying: “Me against my brother. Me and my brother against our cousin. Me, my brother, and our cousin against the stranger.”

Some Suggested Courses of Action

Given the nature of the Iranian regime, what should we do?

First, because I am convinced that the Iranian regime is fundamentally incorrigible, and because I am not ready to propose military force to change the regime and halt its nuclear program, I believe we should opt for trying to bring about, non-violently, a regime change. The hour is late because we have wasted much time trying to engage and negotiate with the regime. Nor is a non-violent approach guaranteed to work, or without risks of unintended consequences. But I am convinced that it represents our least bad option. We should state clearly that we support a change of regime in Iran because of the irremediable theocratic totalitarian nature of the current regime as it has been demonstrated over nearly 30 years, together with its interference with the peace and security of its neighbors – especially Iraq and Lebanon – and its nuclear weapons program. I also believe that restiveness among Iranian minorities – Arab, Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluch – and the sullen opposition of many young people indicate that a policy of stimulating regime change stands some chance of success. In a poll taken at the behest of the Iranian government some three years ago, over 70 per cent said that they wanted improved relations with the United States. The Iranian government, of course, imprisoned the pollsters.

Second, we should indeed engage, but with the Iranian people, not their oppressors. Along the lines of recommendations by the Committee on the Present Danger and by Iran experts such as Michael Ledeen, we should target sanctions – travel and financial – on the Iranian leadership, not on the Iranian people, and draw a sharp line between them. One possibility is to seek to bring charges against President Ahmadinejad in an international tribunal for violating the Genocide Convention in calling publicly for the destruction of Israel. Our precedent would be the charges brought against Charles Taylor, while President of Liberia, for crimes against humanity before a special international tribunal in Sierra Leon. Iran’s protectors in the United Nations would doubtless block the establishment of such a tribunal, but clarity and principle have a force of their own. Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents then in the Gulag have told us of the electrifying effect of President Reagan’s declaration that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire.” We also should engage in ways similar to the techniques we used in the 1980’s to engage with the Polish people and Solidarity -- by communicating directly, now via the Web and modern communications technology, with Iranian student groups, labor unions, and other potential sources of resistance.

Third, Iran’s economy is driven by oil exports. This leaves it vulnerable to several measures. Although Iran has reaped substantial financial rewards from today’s high oil prices, we have begun to have some effect on its oil production by our campaign to dry up its oil and gas development. The Iranians are very worried about this. Deputy Oil Minister Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian recently said in an interview that:

“[i]f the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran . . . and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within ten years there will not be any oil for export.”

At the appropriate time we could move toward a step that, although drastic, is potentially very effective relatively quickly – namely, cutting off Iran’s imports of refined petroleum products. Iran has built no refineries in many years and must import around 40 per cent of its gasoline and diesel fuel.

Fourth and finally, by moving toward technology that can reduce substantially the role of oil in our own economy and that of the world’s other oil-importing states, we can help deprive oil exporters, including Iran, of much of their leverage in international affairs. As Tom Friedman of the New York Times puts it, the price of oil and the path of freedom run in opposite directions. The attached op-ed piece of mine, published in the Wall Street Journal on December 30 of last year, notes the possibility of plug-in hybrid vehicles soon making it possible for consumers to get around 500 miles per gallon of gasoline (since almost all propulsion would come from much less expensive electricity and renewable fuels, the latter mixed with only 15 per cent gasoline). This may seem an extraordinary number. But when General Motors recently joined Toyota in the plug-in hybrid race to market and unveiled its new Chevrolet Volt, one of its executives used a figure of 525 miles per gallon. Five hundred and twenty-five miles per gallon should give Iran a bracing degree of concern.

That’s what our government can do. But I want to end on a note about what individuals and institutions in America can do.

Individuals, pension funds, foundations, universities, and other investors make decisions every day about where to invest their dollars. Companies need those investment dollars in order to expand. With terror-free investing, investors would steer clear of public companies that do business in Iran. U.S. companies already face restrictions on how much business they can do in Iran and other terror-sponsoring states, so terror-free investing is really designed to change the behavior of foreign-based companies. Some of them have decided to stop doing business there. If more do the same thing, that would increase the financial pressure on the Islamic Republic, which suffers from a weak economy and needs foreign investment, to change its ways. Terror-free investing won’t solve all the problems that Iran presents. But it’s an important part of a comprehensive program of pressure on the regime, and engagement with the population, that could, over time, generate the regime change that we should seek.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you. That concludes my testimony. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have.