11/26/13 – Trita Parsi – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And looks like our one and only guest today Will be, uh, Treta Parsey.
That's alright, that's a good one.
Uh, Treta Parsey, he's the founder and the president of NYAC The National Iranian-American Council, That's ni a council dot org just back from Geneva, Switzerland where he was covering the Successful for now at least Iran talks welcome back to the show trade.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well Thank you so much for having me Well, you're very welcome.
Very happy to have you here on the show, and we only have a short amount of time I know you're very busy.
So, um, I'll just go ahead and ask a real quick three-part First of all, could you tell us very briefly the form of the deal?
I know people are as you know, people are lists are hearing a lot of spin about What a terrible deal this is or some so if you could just give us a very brief outline Which would obviously dispel that in a moment and then I'd like to hear about your optimism Which I know you have about the prospects for peace here in the success of a long-term deal and then I would Reference if we had a minute at the end your peace and Reuters about the future of Iran that hangs in the balance with this Foreign deal with the United States.
So the floor is yours.
So yeah, first of all, did this is quite an achievement?frankly, this is a great deal because We have taken a very complex issue divided it into created a first phase in which the Iranians give most of the confession And they're seizing the most sensitive activities that they're doing and essentially by stopping 20% They really don't have much of a path to a nuclear weapon They're not expanding the program during this period to getting rid of their stockpile of 20% in rich uranium And for that they're getting some minor sanctions relief And then we have to go to the second phase and the second phase the Iranians are going to have some additional Limitations to their program, but they are not going to completely eliminate it and they are going to Agree to much more intrusive inspections and Then in for that they're going to get first of all essentially a recognition that they have a nuclear program and secondly They're going to get most of the sanctions lifted the ones that are nuclear related and that is you know, a smart process Towards getting this resolved those people who are shouting out Munich and surrender have absolutely no clue what they're talking about Particularly mindful of the fact that many of them were in favor of the Bush administration's approach And it was the Bush administration's approach to actually enable the Iranians to expand their program as much as they did Okay, and then you know later in the show I'm actually going to go through and dispel the individual myths So John Glazer has done a real great job of that over at anti-war comm today about oh You know the right-wingers are saying that they're getting a bunch of taxpayer money out of the Treasury rather than some of their own money Back just little stuff, but we can skip that Yeah, talk to me about you what you think about the prospects for a final deal here I'll go ahead and preface that a little bit with Gareth Porter's reporting is he's focused mostly on The negative tone of some of the statements from the State Department now that well, we'll see whether we can do this where jeez Why are they sounding so negative the you know, just a few days after Achieving so much and he says, you know It's hard for government departments to give up dominance over another state like they have here Look there's going to be problems on both sides and there's going to be folks in the In the bureaucracy who probably would prefer that things are kept the way they were kept in the past Which is that you know, essentially there's no progress But if that happens if there would be a violation of this deal from the American side I think we should be very clear what will happen But they will fall apart and a lot of countries that have been supporting the sanctions will stop supporting the sanctions because they support the sanctions because of the belief that Iran was in the wrong and Because Iran had not done what it should have done They agreed to sanction that country.
But if we have a situation now in which Actually, there is a solution and then the u.s.
Violates that deal because some of these Spoilers on the American side then the entire sanctions architecture and whatever it is that At this point we believe gives us leverage will fall apart So we have very strong incentives to make sure that that doesn't happen And unfortunately, there are those who have strong political incentives to make sure that this happens because they actually don't care about the national Interest of the United States.
They just want to make sure that they create another path towards a war in the Middle East Yeah, on the other hand this really is huge, too I don't want to undersell at all It seems like if the president was determined enough to see this thing through the way he has there's at least I don't know What kind of odds would you give they really really wants to make sure it gets done in April now?
And this is not he doesn't want to let it fall apart like the temporary Freeze from o3 to o5 and and proceed, you know further down the path of conflict Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's the fact that a historic deal has been made and at the same time the Administration has to go out there and defend it against accusations of Munich.
Yeah, it's ridiculous Look at what the Iranians are doing the Iranians actually gave more concessions in this round and they're celebrating it on the streets in Iran Because they realize it won something and they don't have any hiccups to be able to to express that Instead of celebrating what the u.s.
Has won We are in a situation in which we're under some sort of illusion that we've lost something.
It's absolutely bizarre It's really bizarre, but it also shows the difficulty of actually conducting effective foreign policy right now because you have Constantly maximalists that are accusing every positive step of being not good enough and as a result, it's a betrayal That's what paralyzes the US government because it doesn't dare to do anything It's better to do nothing than to do something and be accused of betrayal Right.
You have this piece yesterday in Reuters blogs dot Reuters comm Iran's future is now.
What do you mean by that?
Well, it was their title what my title was was that this is so much more than just enrichment This nuclear deal at the end of the day will not just determine what number of enrichment they will have etc but rather Will help determine who decides what Iran is in the next few decades Will Iran be defined by people like Ahmadinejad and their confrontational style and their angry and Upsetting rhetoric or will it be defined by the moderate constructive and much more open approach of Rouhani and Zarif?
This is not just about enrichment This will color every other field that of Iran's interaction and if you have an Iran that actually is much more Defined and guided by the values and principles of Rouhani and Zarif.
It's going to be a game-changer in the Middle East Not just because of issues such as Syria or collaboration in the Persian Gulf resolving Afghanistan and Iraq But also internally in the sense that this is going to give a huge boost To those inside the country for so who for so long and so courageously have fought for greater political freedoms That's why they're celebrating in Iran right now.
They realize this is much more than just a nuclear deal Right.
All right, everybody.
That is Trita Parsi He's the founder and the president of the Council or pardon me the National Iranian American Council.
That's NIA Council org.
Thanks very much for your time.
I really thank you so much for having me.
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