so they ran ahead and turn around. so they come off the plane behind me and have this kind of glow about them and these extraordinary landscapes of space and all of them their faces just glowed. they had a tremendous look about them because the arctic is in many places very special and respond to it. ..

>> guest: well, i'm also a senior research fellow at the secret national affairs. for such of the organization on foreign relations. london. >> host: what are the topics or subjects you research? >> guest: pretty broad. broader foreign policy and research security issues. >> host: what is your

background? ready jupiter school? >> guest: i'm actually australian, although certain way no one can hear that. a drop in this country. i went to school in oxford when i studied history and in paris when i started the and master relations. since then i've bounced around a bit in europe, but eventually made it back to london. >> host: are you the prices of researching the third of? >> guest: well, gosh. i've only just published are about to publish the second one, but yes of course. i think writers always have another idea tucked away in the back of their mind. as more than one idea. two or three ideas i'm playing around with trying to figure out which will work as books which i can do now, which maybe i should

do. is certainly a few ideas i like to write about. >> host: the author is charles emerson. 1913: in search of the world before the war. you are watching the tv on c-span 2 and london.

>> and now hoover institution senior fellow abraham sofaer talked about his book, "taking on iran." in his book on mr. sofaer argues the u.s. should stand up russia cnet durand by confronting the revolutionary guard corps and is

very good, which he says have attacked the u.s. and israel with impunity for the past 30 years. this is about or two minutes. >> host: "taking on iran" is the name of the bug. the author is abraham sofaer, a senior fellow at the hoover institution. dr. sofaer, is the current strategy of sanctions working against her in quite >> guest: resort near putting pressure economically, but it's hurting the people of iran more than it is hurting the iranian revolutionary guard corps and they are really our enemy, so the answer is no. >> host: in your book you spend time takenaka irg c. who are they? >> guest: they were created under the new iranian constitution in 1979 with the

assignment of defending the islamic character of derating revolution. they have an enormous amount of asset responsibilities. they are very radical. they control many defense industries. they have their army, air force and navy. they control the missile program and they are under the ayatollah in charge of the nuclear program. they also have a quds force they call it, which does assassinations and other interventions abroad in right now they're quds force is the group that is helping us ought to stay in power in syria. >> host: we will get to their exportation of that in a minute, but what's the relationship with the president of her man? who controls what? >> guest: the president has his own areas of power, but the

irg c. is after both to the ayatollah and the president is under the ayatollah also, but could not warty irg seat to do something the ayatollah taught them not to do or vice versa. >> host: what is the goal in your view or policy? wish we be looking for? >> guest: we should look at the two basic options we are considering now. i'm alternative would be what i advocate we need very much. in the two options we consider now are both highly undesirable. one is to attack iran's nuclear program into preventer ran from having nuclear bombs and that is what the president has promised he will do.

of course president clinton promised he would do that with north korea and he didn't do it wisely so because it would not have been sensible to allow a million south koreans to be killed in an artillery barrage in exchange for preventing north korea from having nuclear weapons. anyway, the president has promised to prevent iran are not in a nuclear weapon and that suggests an attack. it a very costly. it could cause a lot of civilian deaths and it could fail. it would be regarded as illegitimate and illegal but most of the world. it would fail because a band that plays the npt, the non-proliferation treaty and proceedings secret to develop a nuclear weapon. the other option is to try to

contain the nuclear iran. that is equally, perhaps even worse than the option of attacking a nuclear program because it is going to lead to the weapons up in the middle east and will destabilize that part of the world. tehran is a threat to israel denies that in fact israel should be wiped off the face of the earth here say you could have a major war between two nuclear powers. both options are very undesirable nsa failed to consider a fair plan that some ibook does. >> host: what is the third way? >> guest: the ways to change our policy relating to the irg c., which is one of indulgence

and passivity. we've allowed to sponsor the killing of americansldiers, rines from lebanon, airmen in saudi arabia, soldiers in iraq and the nato soldiers in afghanistan. we've allowed the irgc to work with hezbollah and other in iraq two armed men to kill for that purpose and that is illegal in today. reset or shut up to the irgc a long time ago. but we did stand. but we did stand up and made a big difference to israel to negotiate effectively as a result. so we should stand up, defend ourselves from the irgc sponsored attacks and then through that show of strength, and make serious negotiation

possible. >> host: year of experience negotiating directly with ukrainians correct? in my capacity? >> guest: as legal advisor to the state department under george shultz and jim baker and i connected the negotiations with iran. there were negotiations over claims, the claims included a lot of military things and nicely developed good relationship, myself and the person i negotiated with was a member of a 10 person patrolling body in the iranian government. we were able to tackle other issues as well and i think we can negotiate effectively with iran, but we must do so with a background of strength and with policies -- negotiating policies

that are more analogous to what we did with the soviet union into what we do with iran. >> host: abraham sofaer, you worked with george p. schultz senior fellow for policy at the national security at the hoover institution. where the secretary shall a little while ago with one of his rules of him was if you are going to point a gun at somebody, be prepared to use it. >> guest: that's absolutely right. we've escalated the verbal war to a ridiculous point, but would not use the.net all virtually. would set the nuclear armed iran unacceptable. we say iran supports the terrorism is unacceptable that we have the option, military option on the table. the president said he will prevent a nuclear undermanned the vice president most recently said the president isn't

laughing. a lot of words to express, do with the latter ran to kill about a thousand american soldiers in the last 30 years it may have not pushed back adequately. really timely pushback was in 1987 in the cold february day pushback you think about sugar rain in speed boats in one area and ship, the arraign and scott thomas savage. they stop putting mines in the polls and stopped firing missiles at u.s. flag kuwaiti vessels. so we made our point in iran if anything is more a day to negotiate as a result of that strength than before that exercise. other than i would've done

nothing. a year and half, two years ago, if all we did was the day the officials we knew were responsible if we indicted osama bin laden twice. didn't do any good. that said she have to do with radicals who want to kill americans. if you let them kill americans, milk of war. >> host: at the beginning of our discussion he said we should not attack. attack would be bad. how do you negotiate or operate a position of strength if you're not willing to use military force? >> guest: is different to attack facilities in iran and to exercise self-defense against the irgc. the nuclear facilities i can spread and very well defended.

including alienation whereas attacking a form of self-defense would be regarded as legitimate, targeted. there's plenty of targets, convoys right now into afghanistan to help kill nato troops. we could take out a convoy on the iranian side of the border and make a point. it's a much more limited, targeted at cavity and it shows the iranian government will not tolerate this strategy of using the irgc to attack us and make it are difficult if not impossible to achieve strategic purposes and places like iraq and afghanistan. >> host: in your book, "taking

on subset then you have a book 30 years -- >> guest: that's exactly right. it starts at jimmy carter. it was striking is a member of the reaganite frustration where you're standing up to the soviet union. was that all the right things, but what did we end up doing? reluctant to kill marines through hezbollah and then we said we would not negotiate with terrorists who may engage in the iran-contra affair. but did not cover ourselves with glory. we did the right thing and negotiate from strength and in a meaningful way. the five negotiating principles don't apply any of those principles vis-à-vis iran. it just doesn't make sense.

i frequently mention that papermaking under the government, i told secretary schultz, we should apply to iran the policies would apply the soviet union. he agreed with me and i'm honored he wrote the forward to this book. >> host: what are the five negotiating principles? >> guest: the first is you have to have rhetorical restraint. don't sing things unacceptable and accept them. and don't make a fool of the person you're negotiating with and make it more difficult for them to make concessions by pounding on your chest and claiming you achieve something. he would not cry when the soviets did things he wanted them to do. the second history that like a sovereign nation. that doesn't mean you have to accept them our respect them, but she have to engage them

diplomatically the way diplomacy works with sovereign states we link -- relinked her willingness to talk to iran to their behavior. their behavior is terrible, but the behavior of the soviet union was equally bad if not worse. what happened i was secretary schultz of ronald reagan decided instead of linking willingness to talk, we have to stand up the skies and they they do something wrong and refusing to talk does not deter an enemy. standing up to an animate as

potentially in and makes hakim are possible. i believe if we stop linking our willingness to talk with, we'd be march the talking and they'd be more willing to talk to us. then the fourth thing is a broad agenda peer when iranians are interested in a lot of things. we never talk about that stuff in the negotiation. always talk about is what we want and they feel we don't want to give them anything until they give us what we want. that's not the way we negotiate the soviets. including nuclear arms, but also including human rights and regional issues. lots of other things.

every time our leaders not, they had a few things, agreements to sign, momentum as a result of a broad agenda we do not have the koran. there is no momentum and not a speech at the and final point. the context in which you negotiate. we have to be one to talk to the arraign answered in the secret any, private meeting. even commercial leaders. what we do is have the permanent five plus germany can we sit down iranians for at a very high level with. very better to do. it's on television. we say were going to demand this, demand not. they're going to stop enrichment

and they get up and say were not going to stop enrichment and we're going to talk, boers not going to do any of the things they say they want from us and they cannot bear talks and reassure the public they haven't done anything. that's not the way to achieve progress. you've got to have sophistication, expertise with commitment to change things and changing things means you have to figure out solutions. with not manage to do that. those are negotiating principles for years with their principal enemy in the world and there's no reason we should use the same in negotiating with iran. >> host: if iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, would they be willing to negotiate?

>> guest: it would get new ballgame. is true we might well negotiate. eisenhower and truman both reject that the attack on the soviet union before they had nuclear weapons for all the reasons i mentioned an even worse he wants to go the soviet union or china and prevent them from having a nuclear weapon. you have to have the whole population regarding the populations of the soviet union or china is untenable idea. we might be forced to negotiate with them after they acquire nuclear weapons, but it's going to be a terrible much more difficult problem. henry kissinger says he think about the complexity of keeping the roads safe in the cold war

with two nuclear powers facing off against each other and you multiply that any times over and start getting an idea what we have to face if we let iran have a nuclear weapon because they're going to cause the sunni states to get nuclear weapons and have the saudi's and turks, egyptians on the nuclear weapons and that is going to make any kind of arrangement to stabilize the world and the world itself that much for difficult. so let's hope we don't have to get to that point. my book is about trying to have another way, another path reemphasize ltd., discrete strength through forests within iran, but discrete moment of

force against a highly unpopular entity within the state. an entity that is true binnacle with the people and very corrupt and everyone knows it. if we attack them, it's not anywhere near as damaging to our standing as if we attack the nuclear program. so that would give us the leverage we need, externally and internally. we need the political leverage and then i would advocate we do talk to them in an in-depth effect manner that we know how to do it. we've done it. >> host: abraham sofaer, what do you think the rationale was after the marine bombing in beirut not retaliating? >> guest: there were several

reasons given at the time. one must pretax, the notion hezbollah was not supported by tehran and the irgc. we knew that was not a valid oid a pier at cat weinberger said he did not want to have to basis. the president did and somehow between one meeting and another decided not to attack. after we told the french who would attack, it was a big disappointment to the french, to the lebanese and secretary schultz. he was absolutely embarrassed by the whole situation. and it did set the tone of

weakness that we were never able to rebut and never try to rebut because we did not respond when soldiers were attacked. we did not respond when soldiers are killed in iraq. our military repeatedly said publicly the iranians were supplying the risks with weapons aimed at destroying american armored vehicles and tanks are not enabled or ran not only to kill americans, but increased influence within iraq which now is probably greater than ours. it was not a good strategy because it enables or ran to

walk away with that engagement. victoriously left. they are there. we never struck back and they look strong domestically and within iraq as a result. now they do the same thing in afghanistan and we are letting them do it. all of this is damaging our effort to convince them we are credibly going to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon. i don't see how they could be convinced that we honestly would follow through and prevent them in the history of weakness. 30 years of terror, 30 years of weakness you've got to overcome what deeds, not words. you've got to point the gun and pull the trigger.

>> host: what should be our response if israel would attack iran? >> guest: i hope it doesn't come to that obviously. the book is written about the united states. i'm not in israel. i know what israel has to face with the prime minister of israel has to face every day if iran gets a nuclear weapon, you can have another holocaust. there's only 15 million left in the world. the germans killed 6 million in the second world war. so if you could have another holocaust, we jewish keep track and if someone is the prime minister of israel at the time of a nuclear attack on israel, however unlikely that may be, and that is something he don't

want to be written down in history for tissue repair and did nothing out of it. so the pressure on israel is tremendous season game. i still believe iran does not want how the war. i believe that having had so much to do with the iranians i talked to, members of the cabinet from the people who were ambassador to the u.n. but there are elements within iran that almost want to create a sense of desperation and anxiety. it helps them domestically, make them look like they're really radical and of course it terrifies those people outside the country who are worried that something will happen. so what should we do?

first of all, we are doing the right thing by trying to convince israel no attac iran at this point. but we need to really get something going that some alternative to a major attack. here it is and this is the best i can do. secretary schultz approved. henry kissinger has written a blurb on the back. he approves the idea. i'd like to see the united states try it. in the meantime if were going to do that, i would really hope israel does not attack iran because that is going to lead to an ongoing dynamic between these two countries. who knows when it would end even if there is no nuclear war, there would be an ongoing war of terrorism. it would just multiply the problems israel faces