Henry Sokolski

Among Sokolski's recent works is an October 2005 volume co-edited with Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy called Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran. The book, which was published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and partially funded by the Department of Defense, is based in part on the results of a working group on Iran convened by NPEC. According to the introduction, the first third of the book "reflects interviews with government officials and outside specialists and the work of some 20 regional security experts whom NPEC convened in Washington to discuss the commissioned research that is contained in this book." The second part addresses the question of "Tehran's Nuclear Endeavors: What's the Worry?" and the third part focuses on "what can be done" about Iran.

The study concludes that "Ultimately, nothing less than creating moderate self-government in Iraq, Iran, and other states in the region will bring lasting peace and nonproliferation. This, however, will take time. Meanwhile, the United States and its friends must do much more than they are currently to frustrate Iran's efforts to divide the United States, Israel, and Europe from one another and from other friends in the Middle East and Asia; and to defeat Tehran's efforts to use its nuclear capabilities to deter others from taking firm action against Iranian misbehavior."

To achieve these ends, the report suggests the following:

• "Significantly increase the diplomatic costs of Iran ever deploying nuclear weapons or of any of its neighbors following Iran's model of 'peaceful' nuclear activity by getting the international community to insist on a tougher view of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]."
• "Make Russia, Iran's key nuclear partner, a willing backer of U.S. and European efforts to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions, and a backer of nuclear restraint in the Middle East more generally."
• "Reduce the vulnerability of Middle Eastern oil and gas production and distribution systems to Iranian-backed terrorist attacks that could significantly increase energy prices."
• "Force Iran into choosing between backing free passage of energy commerce in and out of the Gulf or becoming an outlaw in the eyes not just of the United States, but of Europe and Asia."
• "Strengthen U.S. and allied support of Israel by cooperating on a positive Middle Eastern nuclear restraint agenda that Tel Aviv could pace by deeds (rather than negotiation) and highlight the problem of large nuclear facilities located in Iran and the Middle East more generally."

Sokolski has been NPEC's executive director since its creation in 1994. His wife Amanda, a senior program manager at American Committees on Foreign Relations whose writing (like her husband's) has appeared on the Weekly Standard's website, has served as deputy executive director. According to NPEC's website, the core questions addressed by the center include: "Why might a 'little' strategic weapons proliferation be so intolerable? Where has U.S. nonproliferation policy been effective; where has it failed; and how does this history relate to our current problems? Does it matter for U.S. nonproliferation policy what new security alliance structures are established to replace Cold War arrangements? Should we employ Cold War arms and export control concepts for nonproliferation purposes? Is it more realistic to monitor dangerous strategic technology that we want to prevent from being militarized than to try to discourage these activities or does monitoring these activities, in effect, make them legitimate?"

NPEC's list of publications includes works from scholars representing a broad spectrum of the foreign policy elite, including a study by American Enterprise Institute scholar Thomas Donnelly entitled "Bad Options: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Live with Loose Nukes," which describes a hypothetical scenario in which U.S. forces, working in tandem with allies in the Pakistani military, "reclaim [a captured nuclear] facility, render it safe, and attempt to recover whatever has been pirated away;" a presentation by respected proliferation expert George Perkovich entitled "A Realist Case for Conditioning the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal;" and a letter to Congress called "Current U.S.-India Deal Violates NPT," which includes signatures from both hawkish and moderate experts, including Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Victor Gilinsky, John Holum, Daryl Kimball, Christopher Paine, Henry S. Rowen, Lawrence Scheinman, and Leonard Weiss.

Sokolski has been associated with a lengthy list of hardline and neoconservative-led advocacy outfits, including the Hoover Institution, the National Institute for Public Policy, and the Heritage Foundation. He was also a signatory to several open letters published by the Project for the New American Century, including its September 21, 2001 letter to President George W. Bush, which argued: "Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."

Government Service

Education

Institute of World Politics, Faculty page, Henry D. Sokolski, www.iwp.edu/faculty/facultyID.28/profile.asp.

Right Web Profile, Project for the New American Century: Signatories, rightweb.irc-online.org/charts/pnac-chart.php.

Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson, eds., Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, October 2005, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=629.

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