General David Petraeus Says It's Iran That Keeps Him Up at Night

By Linda Killian, the Thomas Jefferson Street blog

President Barack Obama’s Tuesday announcement that the world leaders participating in the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington have agreed to destroy or secure all nuclear materials over the next four years is welcome news but not totally reassuring, There are still plenty of threats to U.S. and world national security and this non-binding agreement doesn’t address them.

However, the summit of 47 nations, the first ever large meeting of world leaders focused on how to keep nuclear materials away from terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, was a good first step. According to the State Department, it was the largest gathering of government leaders called by a U.S. president since the United Nations was founded in 1945. Experts say there is enough nuclear material in the world--2,000 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium--to make more than 120,000 nuclear weapons.

“It is increasingly clear,” Obama declared, “that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security.”

"Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations," Obama said. "Just the smallest amount of plutonium--about the size of an apple--could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people."

It’s a real and frightening possibility and the sobering truth is that whatever the countries attending the summit try to do to secure their nuclear materials, two of the world’s most dangerous rogue states--Iran and North Korea--weren’t in attendance and probably aren’t very interested in limiting the spread of nuclear materials. In fact, they are working as fast as they can to develop them and are the most likely suspects to deliver nuclear materials into the hands of al-Qaeda or other terrorists.

The same day that Obama was meeting with the world leaders, General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, was across town at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars discussing other security threats facing the United States.

Petraeus is in charge of U.S. command in 20 countries from Egypt to Pakistan, most notably the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as troublesome as those hot spots are, he admitted that what most keeps him up at night is worrying about Iran and what that nation is up to.

Not only is Iran trying to develop nuclear capability, it is smuggling weapons into Iraq, providing arms to the Islamic groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and it is involved in other terrorist operations. “All of this adds up to considerable concern for our partners in the region--in the Arab world and Israel,” Petraeus said.

Since U.S. diplomatic efforts have been rebuffed by Iran, our next option is going to the United Nations Security Council seeking harsher sanctions and penalties, something Obama discussed with China’s president and other leaders at the summit.

Congresswoman Jane Harman, Chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, was sitting in the front row at the Wilson Center and asked Petraeus about our strained resources abroad and our priorities. We’re spending $100 billion a year in Afghanistan alone, she said. Shouldn’t we be paying more attention to countries that could pose more imminent threats including Yemen and Somalia, she asked.

Petraeus admitted that the United States has not focused enough on Yemen, an apparent incubator of terrorism, until recently. But of course, we’re stretched pretty thin. As troops are being withdrawn from Iraq over the next six months they will be added in Afghanistan. Petraeus is undoubtedly hoping he can be as successful in Afghanistan as he was as commander in Iraq after the surge.

In the spring of 2007 at the height of Iraq’s violence there were 220 attacks a day--now down to about 15. And in the recent Iraq election, Petraeus said 60 percent of the eligible Iraqis voted. However, he admitted it’s far from smooth sailing there. “Is there political drama in Iraq right now? Absolutely,” said Petraeus, adding that you might call what is going on there “Iraqracy” rather than democracy.

Was the whole thing worth it? Petraeus reveals a bit of skepticism when he says that for what it has cost the U.S. for one year in Iraq, we could have purchased 10 years of the country’s oil production.

And just as he discovered in Iraq, Petraeus acknowledged that the problem in Afghanistan is a thorny and difficult one that will not be solved easily or quickly and probably not by military means. “You can’t kill or capture” your way out of the problem, he explained.

So what is a military man to do?

If all we needed to solve the world’s security problems was overwhelming force, we would have crushed al-Qaeda long ago. But it is far more complicated than that and Petraeus understands this. He looks at problems like those in Iraq and Afghanistan largely as political issues to be solved and that’s what makes him such an effective warrior.

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