At 3:00PM this afternoon I participated in an editorial conference call with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad (former ambassador to Afghanistan and later Iraq). During the call, Ambassador Khalilzad addressed a broad range of topics, including repression in Zimbabwe, Burma’s military junta, political concerns about President Karzai in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s new government, sanctions against Iran, and the status-of-forces agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and Iraq.

Zimbabwe:

Khalilzad noted that he had just left a UN Security Council meeting on Zimbabwe to take this call. He noted that there was wide agreement that Zimbabwe was in crisis, violence was being used against political opponents, and that the country was being “mismanaged economically.” He also expressed concern that humanitarian organizations are being denied access to operate in certain parts of the country — and even “restricted assistance to orphans — 160,000 of them.” He said that the U.S. hoped for “fair and transparent elections” and an end to political violence against opponents of the regime, but that “trends were not good.”

No offense, Mr. Khalilzad, but with headlines like “Robert Mugabe’s militia burn opponent’s wife alive,” I’ll say that’s quite an understatement.

Myanmar

Asked how he would characterize cooperation by Myanmar’s military junta in efforts to bring relief to the Burmese people, Khalilzad said that the government’s response “showed negligence towards the well-being of the people of Burma,” and that blocking of access to aid workers and equipment was “shocking…lives that could have been saved were lost…because of the policies of the government.”

Although in my opinion this was his strongest statement of the entire call, he immediately moderated it: “In recent days the government has opened up more, allowing in some experts, some aid, some assets…it’s more positive compared to the initial period but still insufficient.”

He concluded by saying Myanmar’s level of cooperation was “mixed” in the recent period, and that he was “reluctant” to press for UN Security Council resolutions against the Burmese government because it could cause the regime to backtrack and cut off even the tiny amount of humanitarian support that they have allowed thus far.

Afghanistan

Khalilzad was asked if the people were “losing faith” in Karzai as a leader, and if Karzai was really “the guy to do what we need done?” The ambassador responded that it was “up to the Afghan people to decide that,” and while he conceded that “certainly Afghanistan is going through a difficult situation,” he insisted that the U.S. has achieved “a lot of success there against extremism and terror,” despite the current challenges.

He mentioned a meeting today in Paris that was to review the Afghanistan Compact — an agreement between Afghanistan and the international community — and said it was an opportunity for the international community to “recommit itself” to Afghanistan, including pledging more financial support. He denied that there has been a “softening” of support internationally for rebuilding Afghanistan, and said that the U.S. was willing to pledge $10 billion of the $50 billion that Afghanistan is seeking in foreign assistance.

Pakistan

Khalilzad fielded questions about the highly controversial incident on the Afghan-Pakistani border, in which Pakistan claims 11 of its troops were killed at a military outpost (although the U.S. military has declassified and released footage of the incident from an unmanned aerial drone which indicates there were no other structures in the area of the bombing). The ambassador said that he had nothing more to add about the incident.

On the political side, Khalilzad believed that it was important for the government of Pakistan to “ensure that its territory is not used by extremists and terrorists,” not only against its own people, but also against Afghanistan. He said that the U.S. was “working with the Pakistani government to make sure that the mutual interests of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the international community in the fight against extremism is “dealt with in a way that doesn’t worsen the problem.”

Iraq

Another guy jumped in and asked the question I was going to ask on this issue: namely, what is the U.S. planning to do if U.S. and Iraqi negotiators fail to come to an agreement on a bilateral status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) for continued U.S. military presence in the country? The only alternative would be to extend the UN’s Chapter 7 mandate that currently covers U.S. presence in Iraq — a step that Khalilzad pointed out that Iraq had said they will not ask for.

The mandate is reviewed every six months — in their last presentation, the Iraqi delegation said that it would be their final renewal of the mandate and that they would seek to work out a bilateral framework and SOFA with the U.S. instead. Khalilzad they were still awaiting news about ongoing negotiations, and that there was “always the option” of seeking a renewal of the UN mandate if necessary, but that “we are not there yet.” He was confident that there is “commitment on the Iraqi side and on our side to reaching an agreement.”

On political progress in Iraq, Khalilzad said that despite criticism, there has been some significant progress on the political front in Iraq and “we must recognize that and give Iraqis credit,” but that “it is important to recognize that they still have a significant distance to go.”

He pointed to successes such as de-Ba’athification reform legislation, which was an issue that had divided many Sunni Arabs. Many “thought it had gone too far, and had lost their jobs, access to retirement…but now it has been reformed in a way that is broadly accepted.” He also praised the government for setting a framework and timeline for provincial elections, now scheduled for this fall.

As for areas that still needed attention, he identified the hydrocarbon law – “how to divide oil resources in a way that is acceptable to all parties.” A framework had been agreed in February 2007 but still hasn’t been finalized. “This is one of the most important issues that still needs to be done.” He noted that “issues about ministries, issues about Kirkuk still remain, but I think they’ve made progress. We would like to see that progress sustained and built on.”

Iran

This was the longest segment of the call. Concerning possible Security Council action against Iran because of continued defiance over their nuclear program, Khalilzad emphasized that the Security Council has already expressed itself in three separate resolutions demanding Iran to comply. He noted that the Russians have already offered to provide Iran with nuclear fuel for their reactors, but the Iranians still have concerns about this plan. “We understand that, we are willing to deal with them,” he said. But given the record of the Iranian regime, he explained, it is “simply too dangerous” for the world to just accept the Iranians’ word, and “if their intentions are peaceful,” they should have nothing to fear.

Khalilzad also pointed out that the IAEA recently released a report critical of Iran, and that the 90-day period that the Security Council gave Iran to respond after the last resolution has passed, without Iran giving any indication that they are willing to come into compliance. While Russia and China “may not be as alarmed as we are” about Iran’s nuclear program, he insisted that “all members of the Security Council have a lot at stake,” in this issue – not only is it not in anyone’s interest to see a region which “already is the source of many problems and very unstable” to add the issue of a nuclear Iran into the situation…but also ”the credibility of the Security Council is at stake.” [I'm not sure it's got much left at this point anyway, but it will lose whatever still remains if it fails to prove that there are consequences -- any consequences -- for flaunting UNSC resolutions.]

On the recent statement by an Israeli official that Israel “will attack Iran” if it acquires a nuclear weapon, Khalilzad agreed that it’s “not surprising that Israelis would have an acute sense of threat” considering Ahmadinejad’s threatening posture and statements towards Israel.

Khalilzad insisted “diplomacy was the preferred course of action” and that “the President has said that we are in a diplomatic phase right now.” But perhaps the most interesting of all his comments was his answer to the question of whether or not Iran had actually shown any willingness to engage the U.S. and the international community:

While claiming that the Iranians did want to engage the U.S., he admitted that “engagement has so far not been productive in terms of getting results.”He again reiterated that there have been three Security Council resolutions ordering Iran to stop its nuclear program or face consequences, and that it was really more like “Iran versus the world than Iran versus the United States.” If Iran does not come into compliance, Khalilzad argued that the price of defiance “has to increase” or the Security Council risked losing all credibility.

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No kidding.

This is something that has really bothered me about much of the discussion concerning Iran’s nuclear program — everyone seems to suggest that if only we made a sincere effort to “engage Iran” diplomatically, we could “compromise” and reach a solution. The two problems with this widely held theory are that 1) we (and the Europeans) have been making that effort consistently for several years now and 2) it has basically gotten us nowhere.

Ahmadinejad remains defiantly committed to pursuing a nuclear program, and there’s little reason to think he’ll suddenly change his mind when the U.S. inaugurates a new president in January – no matter who he is.