Re Gore foreign policy. Any comment on the following WSJ lead editorial?
"Gore's Secret Pact"
Lead editorial, Wall Street Journal,
Oct. 18, 2000
The fifth session of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, in
June 1995, lasted three days. When it was over, the Russian Prime Minister
and the American Vice President emerged to announce their accomplishments
to the press -- more than a dozen agreements. Among other things, Mr. Gore
happily reported that Russia would cease its deliveries of conventional arms to
Iran within a few years time. "This is significant, very significant," Mr. Gore
declared.
Those were encouraging words.
Russian arms sales to Iran have
repeatedly topped the list of
proliferation concerns of intelligence
officials in the U.S. and Israel. If
Russia was serious about cutting off its
old ally, then this indeed was progress.
As we now know, Russia wasn't
serious at all, nor was Al Gore. What
Mr. Gore did not reveal at the press
conference, nor subsequently to
Congress, was that in exchange for
Russia's agreement to cease weapons
sales by 2000, Russia had been given a
free pass to sell conventional weapons
to Iran until then. We say "free"
because the weapons allowed would
likely have triggered sanctions under U.S. law, specifically the 1992 Iran-Iraq
Arms Nonproliferation Act, co-sponsored by then Senator Al Gore and Arizona
Republican John McCain.
The agreement did not appear on a list of Gore-Chernomyrdin accords the
White House released. Congress was not informed or given access to the
document or its annexes. Indeed, nothing further was heard about the secret
agreement until its leak to the New York Times last week.
Mr. Gore's chief foreign policy adviser, Leon Fuerth, argued last week that the
deliveries permitted under the agreement did not meet the 1992 act's definition
of "advanced conventional weapons" or change the balance of power in the
Persian Gulf. Laying aside any issues of corruption, just the sheer strategic
implications of these actions are daunting enough and worth thinking seriously
about.
Russia was in violation of the letter and spirit of the 1992 law before Mr.
Gore's pact, and most certainly afterward as well. Cumulatively, it has shipped
Iran three of the new generation of Kilo class submarine -- the most advanced,
quietest, diesel-electric submarines built in the world today. Then there are the
wake-homing torpedoes, which are designed to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.
Add to the list other items delivered after the 1995 agreement: MiG-29 fighter
jets, SU-24 fighter bombers, strategic bombers, jet trainers and anti-ballistic
missile systems -- hardly garage sale leftovers as the Gore camp's spinners
have tried to describe the equipment. The Gore-Chernomyrdin pact was a coup
of major proportions for Moscow.
Mr. Gore -- and State Department Russia expert Strobe Talbott -- seemed
unwilling to entertain the repeated warnings of Iran's rapid weapons buildup.
According to Iran specialist Kenneth Timmerman, in March 1995 the Joint
Chiefs of Staff delivered a confidential draft presidential finding to the National
Security Council concluding that with the Kilo class subs (from Russia), fast
attack boats purchased from China and wake-homing torpedoes from Russia,
"Iran has the capability to close the Strait of Hormuz in less than four hours" to
shipping and to the U.S. Navy. The White House ignored the warning.
In March 1998, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urgently sent
cabinet minister Natan Sharansky and security adviser Uzi Arad to meet with
Mr. Gore and other Clinton Administration officials to convey Israeli
intelligence on Russian involvement in Iran's missile program. To these and
other warnings, the Administration always made clear that such issues would
be resolved best through the blossoming Gore-Chernomyrdin special
relationship.
Alarmed at the steady stream of intelligence conveying Iran's growing
capabilities, Congress has tried repeatedly to bolster the nonproliferation
controls. Connecticut Democrat Joseph Lieberman, who has since become Mr.
Gore's running mate, co-sponsored legislation to strengthen the sanctions
regime and impose new reporting requirements on the Administration. The
White House has tried to frustrate these efforts throughout.
To what end? On July 15 (as Israeli officials had been warning for years) Iran
announced that it had successfully test-fired an upgraded version of its
Shahab-3 missile, with a range of more than 800 miles. On Sept. 21, after Iran
conducted a test launch of another new technology missile (this one
unsuccessfully), Robert Walpole, a National Intelligence Council official, told
the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on proliferation that "The
probability that a missile with a weapon of mass-destruction would be used
against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most of the Cold
War, and will continue to grow."
To evidence of Iran's rapid weapons buildup, of Russia's consistent breach of
its international treaty obligations as well as its private commitments, of the
way Mr. Gore circumvented Congress and breached the spirit and probably the
letter of his own non-proliferation bill, the response from the Gore camp has
been a giant shrug of the shoulders. A White House spokesman offered that
since the Gore-Chernomyrdin pact had been mentioned at the end of a June
1995 press conference it was really public. The Administration still refuses to
let Congress see the agreement.
It's the kind of legal sophistry we're used to by now. But what a window the
Chernomyrdin deal is into how the man who wants to be the next U.S.
President would conduct the nation's business. |
