Remarks by General Chuck Wald, Former Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command, to the Conference; The Iranian People’s Uprising for a Democratic Republic - Panel 3: The Right US Policy on Iran—June 30, 2023
An excerpt of General Wald Speech at the Conference; The Iranian People’s Uprising for a Democratic Republic—Panel 3: The Right US Policy on Iran
I’ve spent most of my time in the Middle East, actually in the military. I think a seminal moment was when the Secretary of State Under President Obama said “We’re going to pivot from the Middle East to China.” When you pivot, you turn your back on something. When you turn your back on something, you evidently don’t think it’s important enough to pay attention to, or don’t feel like it’s a threat or anything else. And our partners in the Middle East didn’t think that was a very good idea.
When that decision was made, it was frustrating to me to turn our back on the Middle East, for example. And the reason is that you can’t wish foreign policy.
In the Middle East, the biggest issue we still have obviously is Iran. The Middle East hasn’t gone away. This thing about having a non-paper agreement just makes me angry. It’s cynical, it’s phony. It’s a way to get out of I don’t want to bother with Iran anymore.
We have the capacity to pay attention to the Middle East. We have the capacity to build partnerships continue with that. I’ve spent like I said a lot of time there.
The beauty of the MEK is that what happens if the Iranians go away? From a governmental standpoint, you have a backup. They’re called the MEK and NCRI. You have a viable option. The good news is there’s an alternative to it, if the Iranian regime were to go away, which I hope it does, the current one, and a good alternative, which would be in our interest.
And so, we as a country should not be at this point acquiescing to the Iranians on some kind of nuclear agreement that is actually going to arm up the Iranians.
[ Ссылка ]
Conference; The Iranian People’s Uprising for a Democratic Republic
Panel 1: Disinformation and Its Impact on Western Policy on Iran
Panel 2: The Alternative
Panel 3: The Right US Policy on Iran
Panel 4: European Policy on Iran
