07/01/14 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, I'm Scott Horton here.
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All right, y'all, welcome back.
So that was cool.
That was David Stockman.
And I kept him through the break.
And then I kept him a little over the top of the hour there and then finally had to go, man.
But I'm going to have him back on the show.
I'm going to read that book too.
One of these times, I'm going to take a month off when I win the lottery or something and catch up on my book reading.
I swear.
Anyway, that whole thing will be at ScottHorton.org soon.
Next up today is our good friend Gareth Porter, the Martha Gellhorn Award-winning journalist for Interpress Service and Truthout.org and author of the book, Manufactured Crisis, The Truth About the Iran Nuclear Scare, and a good friend of mine and the show.
Welcome back, Gareth.
How the hell are you?
I'm fine.
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for doing the journalism that you do and showing up on the show to talk about it too.
I appreciate it.
Glad to be back.
All right.
U.S. demand for deep centrifuge cut is a diplomatic ploy.
Now I guess I should, I don't do this often enough.
I should preface this conversation with, hey, everybody, listen up.
This is really important.
Even though it sounds boring and technical, this is about one of the most important issues in the whole wide world.
Not that it's a real issue.
It's a manufactured crisis.
There is work being done right now to put this manufactured crisis behind us, and whether that can be accomplished or not is huge mongas.
So it's really important.
So now we're going to listen to Gareth Porter explain about U.S. demand for deep centrifuge cut is a diplomatic ploy.
Please do.
Well, you know, the first point I want to make is that this article represents certainly a partial change of interpretation, on my part, of what is happening in the talks.
I mean, I certainly began the last few weeks with the assumption that the Obama administration was serious about the idea that it had to have a lengthening of the so-called breakout period, meaning the time that it would take Iran to enrich enough uranium at low levels so that they could—I'm sorry, to enrich enough uranium at weapons-grade levels so that they could build one bomb.
That's the concept of breakout timeline.
So I assume that it was true that the Obama administration was demanding a lengthening of that timeline from the current supposed two to three months to something more like six to 12 months, because this is what Secretary of State John Kerry said back in April when he was testifying before Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
And there are other leaks—I shouldn't say leaks, but, you know, there was an article by Robert Einhorn, or more than one piece by Robert Einhorn, which made the same point.
And the point of all this was supposedly that the Iranians are going to have to accept a deep cut in the number of their centrifuges, because that would be necessary in order to lengthen that timeline.
Now it turns out, as I document in this latest story, that it's not really necessary for the Obama administration to demand such cuts.
It's not necessary for Iran to agree to such deep cuts in the number of centrifuges in order to get the timeline to somewhere between six and 12 months, because, in fact, the administration and Iran could agree on arrangements that would ensure that the timeline would be increased to somewhere between six and 12 months without really cutting the number of centrifuges that Iran is actually operating right now.
And that's what we talked about, that you learned in your interview with the Iranian foreign minister, was that they're willing to oxidize all of their enriched uranium gas to therefore make it impossible to enrich further, or at least without— Well, that's true at one level.
There are two different levels here that one has to take into account.
One level is that you're right, the Iranians have put on the table a proposal that would say we will make sure that there is no buildup of a low-enriched uranium UF6 stockpile that could then be used for higher-level weapons-grade enrichment.
And that proposal would indeed have the effect of making it possible for Iran to maintain a higher number of centrifuges.
But beyond that, we now know that the calculations that would have been available to Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration when they were making decisions on these negotiations would show that all they had to do was to reduce the stockpile to a level of like 1,000 kilograms so that there would be no possibility of a breakout in less than about 6 to 12 months.
So they knew well ahead of time, quite apart from the Iranian proposal, they knew that all they had to do was reduce the stockpile over time to close to zero or even to 1,000 and they would get the breakout timeline that they were supposedly so concerned about.
And so that's the new element in this story, that in fact the administration knew quite apart from the Iranian proposal that it was not necessary to demand these cuts.
There was a way to do it simply by reducing the stockpile.
And that could be done, you know, in various ways.
The Iranian proposal certainly offers one way to do it, but, you know, all they had to do was to negotiate with the Iranians, we'll reduce the stockpile, you can keep the roughly 10,000 centrifuges that you're already using and the ones that you haven't used.
And as I point out, the Iranians have had about 9,000 or so centrifuges that they either installed or put in place in Fordow or Natanz, but have not used.
They've simply not actually enriched any uranium at all in those, with those centrifuges.
And so clearly what was going on here was that these were part of a negotiating stance on the part of the Iranians.
The Iranians were hoping to trade them off for presumably being able to keep the 10,000 centrifuges that they were in fact using.
And so that's the kind of deal that would really be feasible if the United States was simply interested in a breakout timeline of 6 to 12 months.
Right.
Well, so here's the thing.
I mean, obviously they're dishonest and everything, but is it clear exactly what the ploy is?
Whether they have to have something to keep arguing about up till January 20th and maybe a little bit beyond for the politics of things?
Or is this a ploy to sabotage the damn deal?
Well my guess is, we don't know the answer to that for sure, but my guess is from the total context of the negotiations, that what the administration is aiming for is to use their demand for the reduction, a steep reduction in centrifuges.
And by the way, you know, apparently there was some mention in the draft that was submitted by the P5 plus one of as few as 500.
In other words, it appears that the French were allowed to insert their demand for as little as 500 centrifuges to remain as part of the deal.
That was part of the proposal that was submitted by the P5 plus one in June.
So I mean, you know, I don't think that was the only, I think there was another figure of somewhere between 2000 and 5000.
But in any case, you know, the point is that I think that the United States is really using the threat of, you know, maintaining that position as a ploy to get the Iranians to give up or to significantly alter the insistence that they must have the right to support the Bushehr reactor with their own indigenous enrichment capability and even future indigenous reactors when and if the such such reactors come online.
And this, of course, would be, you know, a much larger number of centrifuges that would be required.
So that's what I think the administration is really aiming for.
And they're running to give up this demand and return for concessions on the longer term part of the deal.
All right.
Hang tight.
More with Gareth Porter in just a sec, y'all.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, and this is my show, The Scott Horton Show, and I'm talking with Gareth Porter from Interpress Service, IPS News.net, author of the book Manufacture Crisis, where he completely and totally, seriously, completely and totally debunks all the hype about Iran's so-called quest for nuclear weapons that never did exist.
Manufactured crisis.
And anyway, so this article is called US Demand for Deep Centrifuge Cut is a Diplomatic Ploy.
And the point being, they don't need to cut down their number of centrifuges that they have so much as they need to use the uranium they've enriched.
Go ahead and convert it to fuel rods and start putting it to use and reduce the amount of the stockpile down to make it where it's the same difference.
If the question is, how long would it take them to have enough 90 percent uranium to make a nuke?
And that would be supposedly a year is what's tolerable.
And you're saying they could have it either way, and they've acknowledged that they could have it either way.
And so their insistence on the destruction of all of these extra centrifuges.
You're saying is really a sticking point that the Americans are sticking to unnecessarily and they know it.
Yeah.
I don't have to.
My favorite.
My favorite paragraphs in this piece, Scott, which I'd love to have a chance to mention is the great irony that David Albright and Ali Heinemann, co-authoring a piece dated June 3rd, warn, you know, they just, they're terribly eager to warn the American people against any deal that would trade off reducing the level of centrifuges in return for reducing the level of the stockpile of low enriched uranium.
But in the process of doing that, they actually admit precisely the case that I'm making in my piece, which is that even if, you know, if the stockpile were reduced to zero, they would have well over a year.
But even if it were reduced to, if it remained at 10,000, I'm sorry, I think I got it mixed up there.
1000 would be six months and zero would be closer to a year.
So that's what they have admitted in their piece, warning against precisely this kind of a deal.
I thought that was a great irony.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Well, no get away with it too, except where you're concerned and me here.
All right.
And now, so, well, let me ask you this about the politics of it, and I know that's not exactly what you're focusing here on, you know, what they say in DC, but are you qualified to answer?
Do you think that is the proverbial Council on Foreign Relations still behind this thing or not?
I mean, is the American foreign policy establishment, are they nodding at each other and saying, all right, we should go ahead and go through with this nuclear thing?
Or is it really just another screw job like 2005?
Well, I don't think that there's a complete consensus by any means, but I think that the, that most of the Council on Foreign Relations people are saying, yeah, we can, we can have a deal here.
To some extent, you know, I think that they, they don't understand what's really going on at a technical level in the talks.
Well, is the deal an end in itself or is it, are they like me saying we could get this issue out of the way so we could have a little bit, maybe more normal relations with Iran in the future, even in the longterm?
I think it's, I think it's both a desire for some calm in the relationship and it's also a matter of recognizing that if they don't get a deal, that the cost is, the cost and risk are going to be high.
I mean, in other words, this is not a costless option at all.
So, so I think, you know, this, this revelation that in fact, when, when Kerry said we're going to demand an increase in the, in the breakout timeline from six to 12 months, he was really opening up the way for a deal that would allow the Iranians to have 10,000 centrifuges.
That puts an entirely new light on it.
And I think that means that, that they do in fact want to have a deal, even though we're not out of the woods yet.
I mean, you know, I, I think that it remains to be seen whether they can work out a deal on the, on the longer term that, you know, the, the longterm settlement, which is what are the Iranians going to be allowed to do six or seven years from now or 15 years from now?
But you know, as, as Frank, Frank von Hippel, the former White House senior person on science and technology said when he was briefing people in Washington DC last week, he said, you know, if we put, put off the decision on whether Iran can have 50,000 or a hundred thousand more centrifuges for several years, you know, the situation is going to look very different.
And I think that's precisely right.
So all they have to do is say, this is a two-stage agreement and that will, I think, take care of it.
Now that doesn't of course deal with the problem of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
They're going to howl and scream and, and make this look like the worst sort of sellout since Yalta.
Right.
I mean, we can count on that, but my, you know, I, I now have a different feeling for the way in which the administration is going to be balancing these things off now that I understand what that Kerry remark was all about.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I guess I would just feel better about it if Obama and Kerry were adverse to failure, but since that seems to be their speciality.
If they had a better record, we would all feel more secure, that's for sure.
Yeah.
But, you know, again, you know, the bottom line of this is that it's a manufactured crisis.
The, all their nuclear facilities are capital S safeguarded facilities and all their uranium is accounted for and always has been.
So this really only is, to me, a matter of dotting eyes, crossing T's, shaking hands and quit being such a jerk, everybody.
And let's go on.
I think that's fair enough.
And I would just add two more talking points, Scott.
One, as you say, the, the facilities, the nuclear facilities are all safeguarded, but the Iranians are prepared to do is to go beyond that and say, yeah, you can, you can come and visit all of our places where we, we work on centrifuges, which are not part of the regular safeguard agreement, but you know, that goes beyond, which is one of the UN resolution demands too, which is good.
That's right.
So, so they're willing to go well beyond that in terms of openness to verification and surveillance by the IAEA.
And the second point, maybe the three points that I have, the second point is that, that Iran is, is not going to clearly, you know, regardless of what the breakout time is, they're not going to declare to the world, okay, here we go now, we're kicking out the IAEA, we're going to pay no attention to them.
We're just going to start taking the low enriched uranium out of the safeguarded facilities and take it into a, some secret place where we will start, you know, to, to enrich to weapons grade levels.
It's, it's, it's the stupidest thing imaginable.
And it has been called stupid by both, you know, people are more reasonable, like Jim Walsh at MIT and people who I think that are not so reasonable, like Gary Samor, who was, you know, he was an extremist in his view of, of Iran and his, you know, his, his, his view of Iran is extremely paranoid.
Well, and at the same time, though, I mean, they're no more likely to create a secret program because how in the hell could they get away with it?
If all the nuclear material is safeguarded, how are they going to divert it without the IAEA being able to say, hey, we can no longer verify the non-reversion of declared nuclear material here?
This whole idea that there's a secret sneak out, as Samor puts it, is complete baloney.
I mean, you know, it's just not feasible.
The U.S. intelligence community does not really take it seriously.
And it's part of a position that is much closer to the Israeli position.
Of course, that's what David Albright always talks about.
It's always...
Which, you know, it goes to the tile of your book and the whole point here, which is that this is a manufactured crisis, that whenever they're really talking about an Iranian nuclear weapons program, it's only innuendo.
They don't really have a narrative where, yeah, they're going to go ahead and kick the inspectors out like North Korea and do it in front of everybody kind of thing, because they know they'll get bombed off the face of the earth before they'll be able to put a single one of them together.
And then, on the other hand, they're not going to be able to sneak out, like you're saying, without getting caught anyway.
And so...
Scott, I would go even further than what you just said.
I mean, I don't totally disagree with what you said, but I think I would go further by saying that even if the Iranians did not believe the military option was credible, and I think it's possible that they don't believe it's credible.
I think it's quite possible.
I don't think that would change their calculus at all, because what the Iranians, particularly under the Rouhani administration, really want is to integrate their economy with the global capitalist economy.
I mean, that's always been the Rassanjani faction's aim from the time Rassanjani became president in 1989.
And the first thing he did was, of course, to name Hassan Rouhani as the secretary of the National Security Council, the Supreme National Security Council.
To cut a nuclear deal with the Americans.
Well, that was what came later.
But yeah, I mean, that was what, I mean, Hassan Rouhani was given the portfolio of dealing with the nuclear issue in 2003, under Khatami, after he replaced Rassanjani.
But the point is that that was still in line with the whole thrust of that faction's policy, which is to reach an accommodation with the United States and with the West.
And the United States, of course, wasn't interested in that under Clinton nor Bush.
And Obama continued that policy of the Bush administration in many ways, although not completely.
So that's really the fundamental fact that I think we should be understanding.
And it's not part of the political discussion of Iran at all.
That's simply been ignored, that fundamental fact.
All right.
Well, I'm sorry that we're so far over time, because I wanted to ask you about what you think what's going on in Iraq will have to do, or what effect that'll have on the current Iran nuclear negotiations, help or hurt, that kind of thing.
Well, I think it's going to help for sure.
I mean, absolutely.
There's no question about the fact that the U.S. and Iran have interests that are much more closely aligned now on Iraq.
It's absolutely...
It's not a danger that that'll be too obvious, and so they'll have to sabotage one thing to do the other or something stupid like that?
You mean that there's a political problem in recognizing that?
Yeah, like, okay, look, we got to fight with Iran and Iraq, but at least we're going to blow up the nuclear deal.
I'm trying to think like a Democrat here.
They do have a political problem in taking that position, but that is the logic of the situation.
And that's why I say over the next six or seven years that there's certainly, you know, unless a weird sort of right-wing Republican takes office, in which case all bets are certainly in question, if not off, you know, I think we can say that the logic of the situation is leading towards an easing of tension, at the very least, between the U.S. and Iran.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I'm so over time.
I got to go right now.
Bye.
Thanks.
Bye-bye.
That's the great Gareth Porter, everybody.
Hey, y'all.
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