The transcript of Jim Webb on Meet the Press this morning is now available. Here are a couple of highlights.
1. On Iran's nuclear program and what to do about it, Webb said:
I think what, what we have right now is a way--a process in place where we can really start to explore with the Iranians what their intentions are. This is the, the value of opening up the dialogue in, in the way we're going to see in, in the coming week. And I, I have two very important concerns right now with respect to the Iranian situation and also to others. The first is we're going to, we're going to face this situation with other countries in the terms of nuclear power proliferation around the world, where we're going to be seeing these sorts of challenges. And the other is it's very important now to get the international community writ large involved in tightening the, the way that we talk to countries like Iran about the situation. And China is key. We've seen European nations step forward here. You know, this was--we say this was United States and its allies, but it was basically the United States, the UK and France, with Germany coming in later. We had a good, strong statement from Russia for the first time, with the, the hint that they might agree with sanctions. But China, as always, has been neutral. And China's become Iran's greatest trading partner. They have been giving Iran approximately 30 percent of the gasoline that it's been receiving right now through shell companies. And let's not forget that China enabled Pakistan to become a nuclear power.2. On Afghanistan, Webb said:
I think that the president is taking the right approach here by, by examining carefully where to go forward. And you're seeing that from all his top advisers as well. Because the real question for us right now is, as a country, are we going to formally change from a counterterrorism policy to a counterinsurgency policy? And if you're moving toward a counterinsurgency policy, you have to have a couple of things. One is you have to be able to move the people that you're trying to win over toward a valid system. And, and Afghanistan, it is questionable whether there is a valid national government. And secondly, you have to be able to do so in a way that you have a clear end point for the, the involvement of your own military.I'll have video as soon as it's available. Meanwhile, you can read the transcript here.
And here's the situation we're in. We're talking about increasing the United States' military presence; you may reach a tipping point where they become viewed in historical terms as an occupying force. At the same time, we're saying we want to grow the Afghan national army and police force to 400,000 people. Now, Afghanistan has never in its history had a valid national army larger than about 90,000, and that was only for a brief period right before the Soviet invasion. So can they grow their military into--and, and their police force into a 400,000-force with a viable government? And before we jump forward with a, a total formal change in policy, we need to be examining what is achievable.
