>> spoke about his book at politics and prose bookstore in washington, d.c. this event is 45 minutes. >> well, i'm always happy to come to politics and prose. i never get as good audiences in any bookstore i speak in as in this one. and as barbara said, this is the third time i've had the pleasure of speaking here.

i came to this book in a police car way. -- peculiar way. i was teaching at beirut university as barbara mentioned. i was asked to do some research and i responded i can't do any research on soviet-middle east policy. see if you have any literature and see if you can make some of the contradiction and i realized many knew none of the history of the politics, culture or anything else of the middle east. they knew no mideastern language than i do. and i never claimed i knew russian but because of the generosity of our government in translating a huge volume of materials from the russian current digest of the soviet press and an english-speaker like myself had access to pretty

much everything that was published in russia. all the public stuff was there. and i was sitting in beirut and i had access to a lot of the middle eastern materials so i started working on this topic and as i started working on it i realized most of the things that were written are not written by people who didn't know much about the middle east and most of the stuff was written from a perspective which privileged either moscow or america saw things. that's very important and i treat that with a great deal of attention. but i try in this book to look at how the cold war impacted the middle east from the middle eastern perspective and what we may still be living with? that's the main lesson that i took away from this book. a lot of stuff that happened in the middle east as a result of the cold war. most of it very negative.

some of it not entirely negative are things that were completely ignored. in the way that the cold war was studied and treated in the middle east. by and large people looked at it in terms of advantage. this worked out to the advantage of the united states or this didn't or this worked out to the advantage of the soviets or this didn't. most of these things incidentally whether they worked out to the advantage of the united states or the soviet union did not work out to the advantage of most middle easterners and that is one of the major points that i try to make in this book. the competition between the superpowers, whatever it may or may not have done for them did not have good consequences in many respects for middle easterners. there's a chapter in this book write talk about how conflicts in the middle east were affected by the cold war. they weren't started by the cold war but how they were affected and by and large they were affected in a very negative fashion. they were exacerbated. they were made worse. they were envenomed. they were made much, much more violent in some cases. and i deal with the israeli

conflict, the lebanon war of 1975 to 1990 and the iran/iraq war as my case studies and what i try to show in the chapter that i devote to this is that the superpowers for reasons that, you know, may have seemed perfectly good in washington or in moscow, in fact, were using these conflicts as means to get at one another. in the case of arab/israeli conflict started in the 1960s. before that the united states and the soviet union were on the same day and 1948 both supported israel. 1976 both supported egypt. they were in conflict with one another but the conflict had not yet become polarized along cold war lines in the '40s and '50s. that is what is, in fact, happened. both sides were getting first-line weapons from their superpower patrons. the war of attrition, the war that was fought after the '67 was infinitely more destructive

in terms of the sheer destructive power of the weaponry used. the 1973 war involved one of the largest tank battles in history, the largest tank battle since korsk and very, very extensive damage. my point here is that these conflicts in the region were, in fact, made much worse by the way in which they came to track with the cold war as in the case of the arab countries they came to be aligned with the soviet union. in the case of israel, it came to be aligned with the united states. and i argue the same thing in looking at both the lebanon conflict and the iran/iraq war. the iran/iraq war is probably one of the least honorable case studies in the way in which the cold war affected middle eastern

conflicts. both superpowers supported both continents at different times during this war. the united states not only supported iraq in a variety of ways and encouraged its allies to support iraq in a variety of ways, united states also saw to it antiaircraft and antitank missiles were shipped to iran during the reagan administration in an extension of;t what was known as iran contra. soviet union also supplied a large part of the weapons that the iranians used and they switched sides quite frequently and i go back and talk about how this affected this american/soviet involvement not just in the eight-year iran/iraq war in the in an '80s but in earlier phases of conflict between iran and iraq. it's not a cynical power but involved a variety of people in the middle east getting trampled

under foot and i pointed out how the kurds suffered in a way the soviet union dropped them and then used them and from the way in which the united states at different times used them and then dropped them. i quote a horrified aid to then-secretary of state kissinger as exclaiming that the united states had abandoned the kurds 1975 algiers agreement when the shah of iran and saddam hussein came to an accord over their border dispute and suddenly iran and american support for the kurds stopped and kissinger replied to this aid covert work should not be confused with missionary work. this is an example -- i cite other examples of other cynicism on the part of soviet union. this is an example of how small peoples, how small countries got caught up in the cold war. i talk in another chapter about

how the cold war had an impact on democracy in this region. now, let me start by saying something about a widely held myth about the middle east and it's something i talked about in an earlier book of mine, "resurrecting empire" there never was democracy in the middle east. this is a region that has been plagued by autocracy or authoritarian government. there's a kernel of truth to this. in that certainly since the '60s or the '70s the middle east has been a black hole where democracy is concerned and mr. autocratic government developed where any other part had, agriculture, cities, states, empires, centralized governments for several how years, the middle east had all of these things so the first powerful centralized governments developed in the mesopotamian river valleys and e-i didn't want -- egypt. and it is true that for the last

few decades the middle east has been plagued by what we can kindly call a democratic deficit. but, but this is also a region in which there was an enormous effort to try and bring about a transition to democracy. this is a region in which there n constitutional governments and, in fact, constitutional governments were established long before they were established in spain, in portugal, in most countries of eastern europe. the ottoman constitution of 1986 and the iranian constitution of 1906 is an example of the desire to see limits on the power of the executive, a desire to see some form of representative government, a constitutional government. it is also a region that has a tradition of at least certain forces in those societies struggling to achieve some form of democratic government and in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s from the sudan into the '50s from the sudan to egypt to lebanon, to

syria to jordan, to iraq to iraq you had democratic governments. what was the impact of the cold war from the 1950s onwards on these democratic governments? well, it was not positive. and what i try and show not only in iran where the united states and britain overthrew the last parliamentary constitutional regime that iran has ever known but also in countries especially small weak countries like lebanon and jordan, the impact of the cold war was almost entirely negative insofar as the possible development of democracy in these countries is concerned. so the second -- the second argument that i make in this book, the second argument i make in this book although democracy does not flourish in the middle east today certainly, there were efforts to establish democratic governance and the cold war certainly did not contribute to them, which is not solely to blame our government. it's also to blame the soviets and the colonial powers which played very much the same role

in early days in undermining democratic experience whether in iran or other countries of the region. turkey and other countries of the region. i think the last thing -- the last point i want to leave you with has to do with both the lasting impact of the cold war and something i called the iranian cold war which is a leftover or a lasting impact of the cold war. the cold war i discovered when i worked on this book, i didn't really realize it before this, caused the development of patterns, of behavior on the part of the united states and the soviet union which i think policymakers in washington and in moscow have not really, really gotten rid of. what am i talking about? i'm talking about a focus on

rivals in the region rather than on the domestic politics of the countries concerned. when we look at a country like lebanon, all we're thinking about is iran and who might be a proxy for iran? who might be an agent of iran. there was a statement made in jerusalem about hezbollah as an agent of iran. this is an old cold war pattern, folks. this is not something that this administration or this frustrate has come to ab initio, just out of a sudden conviction, out of a sudden conversion. this is an old pattern of seeing local conflicts solely through the prism of whatever major rivalry is involved. the soviets in the battle days were no better. the russians today are no better. i would guess the iranians aren't much better insofar that they are a rival but this is a terribly destructive pattern. it leads us to see solely in in

terms of whatever major great power conflict or whatever other major conflict we're engaged in in this region. and it means that we tend to ignore the actual realities and specificities of the countries involved. in the case of lebanon, in 1958, for example, president eisenhower having issued the eisenhower doctrine said the united states would go to the aid threatened by international communism invoked this doctrine to send about 20,000 american soldiers and marines to lebanon. the possibility of international communism taking over lebanon in 1958 was new. the involvement of international communism, arab communism or lebanese communism in the 1958 civil war was nil. it was minuscule, it played almost no role in the politics of the country. international communism was not concerned. and yet this is what the president invoked in his intervention in lebanon, which was completely unnecessary.

as soon as the american troops landed and vendors started selling them ice cream on the shores, everybody realized that this was not a country threatened by international communism. whatever was going on there, the troops were very quickly withdrawn and an international mediator came to a deal with the egyptians which led to the reestablishment of a lebanese parliamentary government which was acceptable to most lebanese. and so this is an example of an american intervention which i show in this book did degrade in some ways the lebanese parliamentary system, lebanese self-reliance, the ability of the lebanese to deal with their own conflicts. i talk about the same thing happening in jordan and i could give you other examples. this is a cold war pattern which i don't think we've entirely shaken. the way in which the united states has related to lebanon in recent years doesn't differ very much. from that of the height of the cold war. instead of seeing hezbollah and other parties in lebanon, parties and actors in lebanon, as lebanese factions engaged in

conflict over political goals that have to do primarily with a lebanon and lebanese issues, we and other actors have tended to see them as no more than proxies for either the united states, the majority, the government in lebanon, or for iran and syria in the case of hezbollah and its allies. this did a great injustice to what was actually going on in lebanon. it went we did not really see what was going in lebanon and more importantly, it involved the united states in capacity baiting that conflict in a variety of ways. i actually experienced this when i was in lebanon in may of the past -- of this past year, of 2008. when the lebanese government got into a showdown of hezbollah when led the country to the brink of a new cold war. the united states did not precipitate but i think american support for the majority parliamentary government at that time played a very negative role, as i'm willing to surmise did iranian support for hezbollah. so our engagement in what i call

a new cold war with iran has extended patterns of behavior that go back to the cold war which i don't think have served united states' interests in the sense we're not seeing what's going on. if we intervene in a country thinking it's from international communism, we make ours a laughingstock and we operate blindly which has been the case for senior united states policymakers insofar as the middle east is concerned to the extent to which they have been blinded by this new cold war with iran just as i would argue they were blinded by the old cold war with the soviet union. that is not to say there are not people working within the ranks of our government who haven't seen these things clearly. you can read the memoranda and you can read the cables of peoples in the state department and people working here in washington who saw these things perfectly clearly but up at the

top it was cold war considerations that predominated. one of the worst examples that i found in my own research was a case going back to 1971 where the secretary of state went out to the middle east and discovered in his discussions with president sadat, 1971, mind you, that egypt was prepared to enter into a peace treaty with israel and that it wasn't necessarily going to condition this on all the other arab countries following suit. egypt was ready in 1971, eight years before an egyptian/israeli peace treaty was signed. according to the documents i found, secretary of state rogers and his assistants came back to washington and were stone walled by the president and the national security advisor who said oh, no, no, we have to get the soviets out of egypt. that's our primary objective. we're not going to give sadat this and the matter died there. the end result was the 1973 war, one of the most dangerous of the

arab -- probably the most dangerous of the arab-israeli wars. certainly the most destructive with the possible exception of lebanon actually in 1982 where 17,000 people were killed. and the united states and the soviet union coming to the brink of a nuclear confrontation at the end of that conflict. all of this could have avoided were it not for the cold war blinkers which afflicted the president and the then-national security advisor. let me conclude by talking about this new cold war with iran. it's very hard to shake old habits. and, obviously, iran is not the soviet union. there is an ideological element to our confrontation with iran. but the soviet union was a huge power. bordering the middle east with enormous capabilities for projection of power, with powerful fleets, enormous armies, huge nuclear capabilities and very large armies.

and a great deal of ideological influence in the middle east especially in the 1960s. iran is a very small, relative weak country. they can't even produce enough gasoline. this is not a highly developing country but a developing country. with a relatively low g.d.p. per capita with a relatively low g.d.p. with domestic problems with very limited force projection capabilities. with a lot of influence, however, in the region and which is opposed to u.s. policy in a variety of ways. there are reasons for this. one of the reasons is the very difficult and painful history of american iranian relations going back to our participation in the overthrow of the last freely elected parliamentary government in american history and our support for the regime that followed following the 1979 regime revolution. be that as it may, what we have, i'm afraid, have fallen into, certainly under the last administration, is thinking of

the middle east in very much the same bipolar neocold war terms that we thought of it in terms of which we thought of it in terms of the cold war from 1945 until the disappearance of the soviet union in 1990, '91. i would argue that had been just as destructive particularly in the middle east as was the cold war. that had just as much -- that is having just as much of a negative impact for the middle east in terms of envenoming conflicts, in terms of hindering the development of democracy. let me leave you with a point that i think is worth stressing. insofar as the united states and the soviet union engaged in stoking conflict, iran-iraq, lebanon, arab-israeli instead of resolving conflict because these conflicts because proxy wars in their rivalry with the war, to the extent did they contribute to the strengthen of the executive and the weakening of

the possibility of middle east countries moving in the middle east countries, countries like some of the arab countries who had weak democratic conditions. if you think a little bit about the history of the strongest, longest lasting democracies, united states, britain, france, and you think about the extent to which executive power was agrandized in world war i under president wilson, under lloyd george in world war ii under winston churchill, under president roosevelt, you will realize that countries with the most powerful democratic traditions, with the strongest traditions of legislative restraint on the executive have seen an enormous accretion of executive power. this is not something we should be surprised at. the founders of this republic and i cite president madison at the end of this book talk about this is an enormous statement.

if that is the case in the most developed, strongest constitutional governments in the world, imagine the impact of war on countries with weaker democratic traditions. imagine the impact of constant involvement even in a cold war on such countries, countries like turkey or iran. countries like syria or egypt. even israel which has a democratic system, how has constant war or involvement in constant confrontation weakened the possibility of restraint on the executive on what we -- on what a very prescient author called the national security state thatm developed during o cold war in this country. these are countries that have national security states. these are countries whose executive has been strengthened and strengthened again and strengthened again by constant conflict. now, obviously, we didn't start these conflicts in most cases but we did exacerbate them. we did much less to solve the arab-israeli conflict than we did to profit from it, have our

arms industries profit from it and have our weapon systems win in wars in which they were used, the same is true of the soviets. they profited. they profited from it. they exploited it. instead of, i would argue, doing all that might have been done no word to resolve these conflicts this has been very, very negative for the countries of this region and this mini cold war has had much the same effect. i'm not going to say democracy is going to sprout all over the middle east. autocratic governments will use any excuse to spend money on security sores and so forth but one of the major props, the national security justification disappears. the moment that these kinds of conflicts can be resolved. think about it for a moment. it doesn't mean that the power of the state will necessarily shrink. even in advanced constitutional governments like our own. this is a problem. but i would argue to the extent to which we can contribute to resolving some of these regional

conflicts to that extent can we lend support to the idea that autocratic government isn't the only approach and finally, i think we can do ourselves a service. there is very little, i would argue, to be gained by looking at things in terms of a monochromatic black and white us and them prism and understanding everything in this region in terms of our conflict with iran. there are differences between american interests and iranian interests, how those are resolved is another issue. and i'll be happy to talk about that in answer and chez the fact that we have turned every conflict in the middle east whether in palestine, lebanon, iraq or elsewhere into a proxy war between us and iran is a poverty of imagination and understanding of how this region really functions and has not served the united states. i don't think american influence has grown. and i think actually iranian influence has grown. so it hasn't even served the objectives that it was supposed to serve.

let me leave you with this. this is a book of history. it's an essay in which i try to not just talk about the cold war but talk about some of the lessons of the cold war for the recent past. and i hope that this is a kind of book that will give readers a sense of not just what might have been done differently or why what happened happened but what might be done differently in the future. thank you very much. [applause] >> i'll be happy to take some questions. yes, ma'am. >> can you come up to the mic. >> and whoever wants to line up behind the lady in the red hat. the mic's over here. [inaudible] >> you're not wearing a red hat, lily. there's a lady behind you with a

red hat. >> i don't think they're working. but anyway, you can hear me. >> i can hear you. pull it down toward you -- yeah, the other one, too. there you go. >> all right. during the iran-iraq war my sister was a physician in tehran. >> uh-huh. >> and repeatedly she was puzzled that there were no journalists from western europe or the states trying to cover, write any articles or do anything could you tell me what your take is why that didn't happen? >> well, i don't know about the specificity by journalists in particular did not go to tehran to report on that war but there was an enormous bias in favor of iraq in the west. iran's regime was seen as extraordinarily dangerous. the iraqi regime, the same iraqi regime which we spent the last couple decades demonizing had been built up as a reliable potential ally of the united states. and for most of that war the united states and its allies in

western europe channeled enormous support to iraq both in terms of weapons, though, the soviets were supplying most of the weapon systems but also in terms of support for iraq in building and producing chemical weapons to be used in violation of international law against iran. probably one of the shabbiest episodes in western democracies. >> i want to thank you for your book, this took and your research. i have two question/comments. one, the point about us and them and labeling hezbollah, hamas as a proxy for iran. could it be that it's more -- if you do that, then you don't have to listen to what are their real concerns? >> yeah. >> and it makes it easier for negotiators from united states or israel to say, you know, we won't even talk with you. when if you did, you realized they are a credible group and

you have valid concerns and you had have a -- >> i'm not sure it's that simple. >> the second point is the -- is the -- i was very interested what you said 'cause we had a speaker here a few weeks ago that had done a lot of research -- i can't remember his name on kissinger -- you mentioned the egyptians came forward. >> right. >> he also mentioned the foreign minister said we can stop this '73 war and his interpretation, which made me uncomfortable was that kissinger and nixon were so preoccupied with watergate that they couldn't look at this and i wonder if it's more a calculation that they knew israel would prevail and take quite a significant chunk of planned and that rather than stop it, just let it go? >> uh-huh. >> thank you. >> patrick tyler has done some research. his book came out just as mine came out.

i have it now and i started reading it and it's fascinating. he had access to materials i didn't have access to. i did not do the same kind of primary research that he did. i didn't do the kind of freedom of information. i primarily used documents that the cold war history project has produced. and that the national security archive has produced. but i discovered about the 1973 war that kissinger was guilty of an act of great cynicism in that at the height of the conflict when he went to moscow to negotiate with the soviets, a means to end of war, the soviets were quite exercised by the fact that it was clear that israel had crossed the canal and was about to decisively defeat the egyptian army, kissinger said, i'm happy to help you resolve this conflict and, in fact, security council 336 was passed and 337 was about to be passed with the support of superpowers and he had them stop at tel-aviv

in which he basically said to the israelis, i'm sure that if something happens while i'm on the way back to washington, if you keep rolling, in other words, if you keep advancing, you know, you're not going to hear about it from me. the soviets and another thing to the israelis. this led directly to a nuclear confrontation in which the soviet union-moved nuclear warheads and paratroop divisions to a state of readiness and the united states moved troops in -- i just spoke to an officer yesterday who was one of the -- one of those people mobilized who was about to be sent to the middle east and we moved our forces to a defcon 3 which is and a half stages to nuclear war. this is enormous irresponsibility on the then-secretary of state in my opinion. it infuriated the soviets and it's an example of this gaining of advantage at the expense of

the other -- in which case it was at the expense of world peace as well as envenoming relations between the egyptians and the israelis. kissingers has many achievements on the disengagement of the nuclear war in 1973 and 1974 but this is something i don't think renowns to the credit of the secretary of state. yes, sir. >> yeah, this is about that nuclear armament for iran. >> uh-huh. >> as we have seen, whether that's new or not, india or pakistan possess nuclear weapons. >> right. >> and as it stands, those are just accepted responsible nations, so-called responsible nations. and then we saw pakistan and india go to war just a few years

ago. threatening each other and they were told not to. is it a wise policy now to allow iran, knowing that -- >> to allow -- >> allow iran or to allow po persist or to go ahead with the nuclear armament? knowing that iraq and iran fought each other with the chemical weapons and how iran is threatening other countries in the middle east? and the religious fundamentalists are threatening each other. and now they're trying to contain that but from what i get from yours, it's all a superpower ideology, of course, that is true during the cold war. >> so let me try and answer your question about iranian -- the iranian effort to acquire

nuclear weapons assuming that is what they are trying to do. i think we have to look at this in terms of two issues. one is the issue of nuclear proliferation generally and this relates to the faithlessness of the existing nuclear powers in terms of trying to build down their nuclear arsenals. i was quite taken by the president's answer in his first press conference to a question by helen thomas about the israeli nuclear arsenal which is enormous and is matched with delivery systems of the highest technological sophistication. it doesn't have the bomb but it has the means to deliver things accurately. i was struck by the president's response which dodged helen thomas' question which talked about the united states and russia and other countries building down their nuclear arsenals and about nuclear nonproliferation in the middle east as a means of approaching this question. now, he didn't say this is what we have to do vis-a-vis iran. and he didn't say anything

directly about israel. i would suggest, however, just as israel may well feel -- and does, feel threatened by iran in the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons i'm sure iran feels not threatened by israel's nuclear weapons and it's capability that american bases surround iran from every direction, every country that borders iran harbors american military bases. i'm iranians feel threatened that the previous administration passed through congress and it was reported in the papers a bill appropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars of covert activities inside iran. i think that the way of dealing with this has to involve both speaking to the deeper fears, not just of israelis or americans but also of iranians. and i think that the people have the most to fear from iran or for that matter of israel are in the region. it's not the united states that has to fear iran in the first instance.

iran may conflict with our interests but it doesn't affect us and the united states has to address those. secondly, the united states has to address the nuclear issue not just with a narrow focus on iran. we may believe the iranians are particularly irresponsible. they are not entirely and others in the middle east are not entirely mistaken in perhaps feeling that israel is not entirely responsible in its use of force. and people in the region may well be afraid of that. and i think we have to speak to all of those fears. i mean, we have a special relationship for israel and a specialty for israel but we're not israel's lawyer. we should consider ourselves our lawyer of the united states and its interest and we should pay attention to the interest of the allies whichever they may be but i think we have to consider how you diffuse the situation. and i think this nonproliferation approach, difficult, though, as it may be is the second element in this and the third element has to do with seeing in areas where you can diffuse the tensions between

the united states and iran. this includes iraq where actually there's been a certain measure of cooperation between the united states and iran. this includes afghanistan where the secretary of state herself and i think ambassador holbrooke have both talked about the possibility of coming to understanding with iran. but this also includes much more contentious areas, palestine, lebanon, and so forth. i'm not suggesting that a grand bargain will be easy with iran. it will be very, very difficult. the diffused structure of power in iran, the extremely irresponsible nature of the president of iran. he shoots his mouth off in ways that can only, i think, envenom the situation. he may or may not be elected in june. he's not the primary decision maker. he's one of the people who has a share in making decisions. it's the supreme guy who is, in fact, the decision maker but he tends to support mahmoud ahmadinejad in many instances.

it will not be easy to ensure the iranians that would help iran from developing nuclear weapons but in a way which addresses their fears iran's vast nuclear arsenal and d.o.d. a grand bargain is we have to do this in a way that doesn't threaten american allies. there are countries in the gulf, israel, other countries which do feel threatened from iran. maybe they exaggerate the degree to which they feel threatened but there is a genuine -- there is a genuine problem there. and the united states can't, as it were throw out the baby of the bath water. that is not the right metaphor. the united states can't ignore those concerns in trying to diffuse the third element of that triad vis-a-vis iran. thank you. perhaps we'll let someone else ask a question. >> we've got time for two more questions. we got three people in line. three more questions. >> make the questions brief. >> there are two. the first is regarding actually what you've talked about so i

don't have to go into a lot of detail. >> yeah. >> but sometimes the statements of the conflict with iran could be propaganda and framing of it rather than misunderstanding. but the interesting thing at that point -- >> you're already not brief. >> no, but i'm being brief compared to what i normally do. >> you get one question. >> would you talk -- would you talk about how israel got the bomb? in other words, did we look the other way? >> yes. >> did it cooperate? and the fact of the matter, in 1948, the local interests in that area were totally overlooked by all the superpowers and a lot of the deals were done without their interest. >> right, but the second part -- quickly, what -- what -- what are we going to -- it's quick. it's quick. what are we going to do in the future when all these tectonic

problems. but when we're structured in a way in which we're set up for the past as opposed to really what is occurring right now? >> i will answer your first question. >> thank you. >> and it's actually a good question. because how israel got the bomb is a story which actually does not involve blaming the united states. the united states eventually looked the other way when it realized israel had the bomb but a lot of the information that's come out makes it clear that after israel had developed the bomb essentially with the support of france, and this is a deal done in 1956 under the socialist government of france by the current president of israel, peres. wherewithal to build a nuclear weapon. the israelis as far as the best information i could see deceived the united states. but in the atmosphere of the cold war that developed around the middle east in the 1960s, american policymakers eventually

when they realized what had happened chose to look the other way. probably not an entirely good thing in many respects. thank you. one quick question from you and one quick question from the last questioner. >> russia seems to be less concerned about iranian nuclear capability than we are. and i wonder if you could address that. >> good question. russia very much seems to have disparate estimation than a lot of the alarmist prognostications in terms of weaponizing, going to a situation where they have nuclear weapons. the russians seem to think the timetable is much slower and that there's much more time. they may be right. they may be wrong. i have no idea. my guess is the russians probably have as good intelligence as we do. they may or may not. my guess is that the russians probably have a lot more reason to be concerned about iran having a nuclear weapon because

they border -- or they're very close to iran. so my guess is that they probably think that iran is a country is going to take a lot longer to develop a nuclear weapons capability than the more alarmist estimates that we heard out of some corridors in washington and from the israeli defense ministry in tel-aviv. the broader question you asked is interesting. i think the russians have a very different view of russia than we do. they are not averse of seeing a strong independent country. this regime for all of the offensive aspects of it is the first government in modern iranian history which is not under the domination of a foreign power. this is the first time in modern iranian history that there's an iranian government that is not under the thumb of the british or under the thumb of the czars or under the thumb of the soviets and the americans and the british during the world war ii when the country was occupied or under the thumb later on of the united states during the era of the shah. and i don't think the soviets -- there you are.

freudian slip. i don't think the russians are entirely averse to this especially given the fact that the southern -- the southern fringe of what used to be the soviet union is now made up of independent states. having a powerful independent iran which is not on entirely good terms with the united states seems to me suits them and this is a way cold war patterns haven't entirely disappeared. listen to the rhetoric out of moscow. it's not under george w. bush had cold war rhetoric, russia had some pretty frosty rhetoric also. >> okay. last question. >> briefly, taking your point that the u.s. has kind of created this mini cold war with iran, if it were to except your thesis, how would that change it's negotiating strategy vis-a-vis hamas, hezbollah, and israel? >> well, i think we have to

start looking at hamas and hamas of the creation po hoops of the israeli intelligence service which fostered the muslim brotherhood for a decade and a half from 1967 to 1987 when it turned violent. hamas is a creation of the occupation. i hate to quote enud barak. i believe a footnote in saying we created hamas in the sense our occupation -- sorry, he was talking about hezbollah. we created it by our occupation. hezbollah by our same token it was not a creation of the russians. it was one of the few organizations anywhere that believes in some of the quite peculiar authorities that the islamic regime sponsors. the leadership of hezbollah is very much in tune with that. which means that they are very close to the your honor. i don't want to be -- i don't want to be misunderstood.

when say they are not clients and agents of the iranians that doesn't mean they are not close to the iranians. the fact that hezbollah didn't fire any rockets in israel that the 22 days gaza was pilloried on israel. and not on some iranian plan for destabilizing the middle east or whatever one might say. so i think that one has to look at these things within the context of each of these countries. qatar and turkey somehow managed after these may events to cobbled together a government. knock on wood and let's hope foreign powers will avoid meddling sometimes more than they do. would that solve some of the problems caused by hezbollah? perhaps not. perhaps we have to actually get a lebanese israeli peace treaty. the momen