NSN-POMED Event: Experts Discuss The New Middle East, Iran And The United Nations [VIDEO] Posted by The Editors

Yesterday, the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly opened in New York, the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors convened for its second day, and reports out of Iran suggested modest yet significant progress on human rights and nuclear talks. Against this backdrop, the National Security Network and the Project on Middle East Democracy hosted a panel discussion of how the democracy movements sweeping the Arab world are interacting with regional dynamics to create new opportunities and challenges for the U.S. – and how this is playing out at the United Nations.

Watch the video here.

The discussion featured Dr. James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, who reviewed AAI’s recent six-nation polls on Arab attitudes toward the U.S. and Iran; Geneive Abdo, fellow at The Century Foundation and the National Security Network; who discussed the internal politics of Iran and the country’s standing within larger regional dynamics; and Ted Piccone, senior fellow and deputy director for foreign Ppolicy at the Brookings Institution, who assessed the UN’s role, as demonstrated by how it has reacted to and influenced the Arab uprisings. Moderated by NSN Executive Director Heather Hurlburt, the panelists drew on their deep analytical expertise and field experience in the Arab world to explain how the international community can be most effective at supporting the Arab Spring and reshaping the global community for the better. 

Selected transcriptions from the call available after the jump. We will be updating with more transcripts over the next couple days, so if you're looking for more, go ahead and bookmark Democracy Arsenal. You can also check out POMED’s post on the event here.

 

This is not a full event transcript, but an extensive transcriptions of event highlights: 

PICCONE: The UN has really been a great instrument, in many ways, for what US goals are, and I think this administration has very effectively used the UN to achieve what it set out to do.  It’s really hard to line those things up.  And, of course, what you say is heard not just in Washington but all around the world, and lining those things up and finding the right messaging is a very tricky thing to do when it comes to public diplomacy.  In terms of the positive side of the equation for the US: If the Arab states, as they evolve, have more buy-in to the UN system and the international rules of the game, starting with some of the basic values of democracy and human rights, then I think that will be a big plus for the US.  That fits with our overall arching strategic view that a world made up of democracies at peace is good for the United States.

--

ZOGBY: There has been a steady erosion of Iran's favorability rating over the last five years, and today they're as low as they are in large measure because Iran is seen in its own right instead of being seen as the counterpoint to American policy. [...] If you look at Iran and you ask questions - ‘what do you think about Iran's behavior in Bahrain?' or ‘what do you think about Iran's involvement in Iraq?' or ‘what do you think about Iran's behavior in Lebanon?' -- people began to focus on Iran in just its own right, what it's doing. Henceforth, Iran's favorable ratings are very low, and its favorable ratings are low because its behavior in the region is viewed as interference and counterproductive.

--

ABDO: We’re here to talk about the UN-and he [Ahmadinejad] is one of the last, I guess, authoritarian figures still standing.  He will come to the UN. There had been a lot of discussion about whether he would come or not.  He will make an appearance at the UN.  [...] What I think is important to realize about whatever he says at the UN is that he himself, as a political leader, has been marginalized in Iran. The regime has completely isolated him and his political faction, and they're making preparations so that his faction is not allowed to win any seats or is even allowed to run in the upcoming on parliamentary elections, which will be in March.  So, I guess, in the context of the Middle East - of Middle East relationships - I think it's important to remember that Ahmadinejad has been marginalized and also it's important to remember that as president, he never had very much power. So, the kinds of policies I’ve talked about in Iran’s relationships with its neighbors, these are regime policies-they don’t depend necessarily on one man.  I mean, they largely depend on Khamenei, but, believe it or not, there’s kind of a rule by consensus within the regime.  So, it’s important to understand that Iran’s policies don’t depend on the president, and that whatever Ahmadinejad says at the UN is not to be taken so seriously because he’s been marginalized.  And I think a specific example of that has been his comments on Syria over the last few days.  The New York Times ran a huge story, which was a bit misguided, about how the Iranians now are criticizing Assad on his human rights record.  But yesterday, Ahmadinejad retracted those statements.  So, you can see that he was talking out of turn, and the regime’s policy toward Syria has been a very consistent one, as have their policies in the region in general.  They are having a little problem now with the Arab Spring, but they are continuing to pursue their policies that they have had in place over the last thirty years.

--

ABDO: I think that we sitting here underestimate the power of even statements that come out of the administration. And the Iranians, for example, take very seriously any public statements made about their poor human rights record. And there has now been appointed a special rapporteur for Iran that will investigate Iran’s human rights violations and there is now a lot of back and forth to whether he’ll be allowed to go to Iran. But it seems the Iranians are going to permit this in the end and they’re already sort of scripting what his trip will look like. We’ve been told that they're making Evin Prison, which is sort of a notorious prison look like a bed and breakfast now and they released political prisoners. So you see it does have some effect. The simple appointment of an investigator who is going to look into the human rights violations in Iran has already created a changed regime behavior in a very small way and a very scripted way, but it’s made a difference.

--

ZOGBY: One of the great ways of diminishing Iran and its role in the region and its attractiveness of the alienated and disenfranchised and the angry is to move that agenda [on Palestine] forward and solve it. That’s what the Saudis know, that’s what General Petraeus knew, that’s what General Schwarzkopf knew, that’s what Jim Baker knew, that’s what we’ve historically always understood on a leadership level, but our politics always gets in the way of us doing something to make that happen.

--

PICCONE: I think a lot of it depends, quite frankly, on what happens in the elections in the US after 2012.  You have certain voices in the Republican Party, and we see it very clearly in the [Rep. Ileana] Ros-Lehtinen legislation that would take this in a very different direction, that would assert very strongly a muscular US unilateral point of view that will really hurt our ability to work through the UN and other multi-lateral mechanisms to support these kinds of transitions in the rest of the world.  So I think that’s really going to be one of the critical issues to watch in the race to see how that plays out next year, because you really do – again, depending on who the nominee is and the emphasis – but I think it’s there, it’s in the cards right now that you’re going to set up a real debate on US foreign policy and what role it should play going forward, and the UN is kind of a pretty key component of that debate.

--

PICCONE: I think the Security Council reform story is pretty brief at this point, although it’s going to take a long time to play out, which is that it’s still on the agenda very much.  We have Japan, Germany, and India and Brazil at the door.  And that has become such an important issue for those states – in particular Brazil, where it determines a lot of the other things they do in their foreign policy.  I think a lot of people felt that their effort to work with Turkey on Iran was an example of Brazil’s effort to show that they belong on the Security Council – that they can play with the big boys, and that they can be taken seriously – backfired for them.  But I think that it’s an issue that will not go away.  I think there are various behind-the-scenes discussions and negotiations going on about different formulas so that you would find a way to get some of these states on the Security Council but without a veto, and would they be willing to accept that, etc.  But I still think it’s going to take many years before that solution is found, but it’s not going to go away, and they’ll keep at it.

Image: NSN

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