“In the United States, Iran is nothing but a whipping-boy. Few Americans have any real use for Iran. Most of us, what we know and remember about Iran are things like the hostage crisis in 1980, or they think about the Iranian attacks in Lebanon, or on the Khobar Towers. So you don't get a whole lot of political mileage in the United States by going out and advocating better relations with the Iranians.” ThinkingRealRememberPoliticalRelationCrisisIranianHostage Author:Kenneth M. Pollack
“The real concern is that Iran would do what Pakistan did. Pakistan wanted nuclear weapons, like Iran, purely for defensive reasons - to defend itself against India. The problem was that once Pakistan acquired the weapons, it allowed the country to be more aggressive. So they stepped up their support for the Kashmiri terrorists, and it led very quickly to the Kargil crisis in 2000, which almost sparked a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.” WarRealCountryReasonProblemSupportConcernCrisisTerroristAggressiveNuclear WeaponsNuclear War Author:Kenneth M. Pollack
“More likely, there were probably some real divisions within the Iranian government - some groups wanted to ally with al Qaeda against us, others didn't want to have anything to do with that. So I think that debate resulted in no decision being made for awhile. The problem was they left the al-Qaeda folks in Iran in the hands of their intelligence services and Revolutionary Guard, who didn't really keep an eye on them - and may not have kept an eye on them on purpose.” ThinkingRealProblemEyePurposeDecisionDebateRevolutionaryAl QaedaIranian Author:Kenneth M. Pollack
