07/08/15 – Reza Marashi – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, Scott Horton Show, live here on Liberty Radio Network, noon to 2 Eastern, 11 to 1 Texas time, which is what really counts.
On the line I got Reza Marashi.
He's in Vienna, Austria.
He's also from the National Iranian American Council.
That's niacouncil.org.
They do a lot of great work there.
Go and look them up.niacouncil.org.
Welcome back to the show, Reza.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me back.
Very happy to have you here.
Obviously you're covering the nuclear talks and I just finished rereading Gareth Porter's article here.
I don't think he'd mind if I call them Eeyore.
He's been such a downer on this thing.
Obviously he's number one greatest on the facts in the whole world when it comes to this.
Wrote the book on the Iranian nuclear program, but has been so pessimistic that Obama and Kerry are going to be able or have the will and the capacity to make sure and get this freaking thing done and yet his latest deal is, hey, alright man, this is looking pretty good.
So Reza, please tell me the good news.
Yeah, I do think things are looking pretty good.
Look, the reality of the situation is it's not done until it's done, but I think we also should acknowledge the tremendous amount of progress that's been made by all accounts that I've heard so far.
The deal itself is 20 pages long and it's been completed and then attached to the 20-page deal you have five annexes.
So all together, deal and all five annexes, that's 80 pages.
Four of those five annexes are reportedly done.
So now they're working on one final annex and they're not even haggling over the content that is in the annex.
They're haggling over the wording and the sequencing and the scope and the depth of the various issues within that annex.
So when the two sides say very openly and very publicly they've never been closer to sealing the deal.
They're actually telling the truth.
Yeah, all right.
Now, so what was outstanding most recently and does it look to you like it's been taken care of here, the outstanding issues of the last couple weeks?
Yeah, I mean look there's been a variety of issues, but most recently there is this issue of an arms embargo that was written into a former UN Security Council resolution on Iran.
And I mean former as in it's currently on the books, but in a comprehensive nuclear deal they will rewrite the UN Security Council resolution to cut some things out and leave some things in.
One of the haggling points here is that the Russians and the Iranians wanted the arms embargo taken out of any future UN Security Council resolution.
The Americans and the Europeans want to leave it in.
More specifically there's this idea of depleted uranium being used as armor-piercing munitions and Iran's ability to potentially export that stuff if and when a comprehensive nuclear deal gets done.
Bloomberg News has a great story on this and I would encourage everyone to read it.
Finding some kind of middle ground, finding some kind of compromise where Russia is allowed to sell arms to Iran and Iran agrees not to hand over destructive munitions to Hezbollah, for example, is the gray area and they need to work out the kind of wording that will allow both sides to go home and claim victory and I think that's what they're in the process of trying to do.
Get the US Army to buy up all their DU munitions.
Well I mean you can't rule out the possibility that you know maybe that's something that could happen later on down the line but dotting the I's and crossing the T's when it comes to this one issue I think is the biggest remaining obstacle and then you get down to brass tacks of really just you know comma here period there, dot this T, cross this I. They're close.
Well now Garrett says the possible military dimensions has been solved and we know that's basically a conglomerate of the forged so-called Iranian laptop, the alleged studies documents and a couple of other accusations that of course the Iranians have always denied the legitimacy of the information in the first place and have never been able to confront the documents in person and never even shown the alleged studies for example and yet this has you know been you know pretty dangerously I think an outstanding issue where they're you know made to admit when did you stop beating your wife kind of a thing when there's no real evidence that they ever were and yet now it looks like according to Garrett that the IAEA has announced because the Americans asked them to that oh yeah the PMD don't worry we're gonna go ahead we're gonna have that resolved by December no problem we just have a couple of more I's to dot and T's to cross and that'll be no big deal so we really dodged a bullet on that one right?
I think so you know I mean that could have been a real problem if hey you guys have to admit everything that these forged documents accuse you of yeah I mean look it was a real problem until very recently so there's no doubt about that and I think it took some pretty serious compromising on the part of the Iranians and the p5-plus-1 in order to find a mutually acceptable solution yeah and yeah right because they didn't say like the Republicans would accuse them the Democrats they didn't say oh never mind the PMD they got the IAEA to admit that well whatever is supposedly of concern here can be resolved by us in short order yeah it's a matter of mapping out a mutually acceptable solution and formula to address the issues the IAEA says it needs to address but also without violating Iranians Iranian sovereignty espionage concerns and making sure that this process has a beginning a middle and an end the Iranians don't want it to be open-ended and I think that apparently they found a solution that both sides can live with and they should both be applauded for that right now so what's all this talk about well we still need a couple of more days now because at that point it seems like if they're this close they should just sign the dang thing instead of giving the war party more talking points about what a joke this is I saw him yesterday on Twitter saying oh yeah whole Brooks ghost open-ended diplomacy on this issue forever we don't ever need a final deal as long as we're still negotiating always well I think at the reality of the situation is that there's a segment of the politically elite in Washington that have always been opposed to a nuclear deal with Iran so regardless of what the actual contents of a deal are they're gonna oppose it that's not the issue at hand the issue at hand here is fence-sitters particularly in Congress because the American public are smart enough to know that this deal is going to be a good deal no American government would sell out American interests and to try to get a nuclear deal but getting people in Congress to approve the deal and make sure that we don't violate the commitments that America has made as a part of this deal it's gonna be critical going forward and I think that the administration and people who are like-minded are gonna go out there and and just be honest with the American people about what this deal is and why it's a good deal if in fact they're able to seal it and hopefully the rest will take care of itself well now so another supposed controversy anyway was the sanctions relief and yet I guess it was pretty apparent at least since the framework was announced that well as you guys are implementing your thing we can you know de-implement the sanctions you know in that way but it's going to take some time it's not just a matter of flipping a switch or signing a piece of paper and and the TV portrayed that as a real conflict that they were demanding all sanctions be relieved immediately and the Americans were saying that that's impossible it's not going to happen but they've already found their compromise there it sounds like to huh sounds like it and that's that's that's huge we shouldn't discount how important that is what this I think the most important point to take away here from the sanctions issue is that it's very easy to put forward sanctions impose sanctions it's very difficult to undo them the reality of the situation is that now that the United States and Iran are negotiating the United States have been put in a position where it's incredibly difficult to undo sanctions and that has eroded America's negotiating position more than I think most people would have originally assumed so there is a little bit of luck here and that we were able to reach some kind of solution with Iran on the issue but you know it sounds like both sides feel good about it and that's the most important thing that's an interesting fact though that you know despite all the talk about oh all the sanctions are what brought them to the table even though they've been trying to come to the table since way back you know 12 years ago and what have you on this stuff that actually as you're saying there's so many sanctions it actually made the negotiations more difficult because of the difficulty in undoing them absolutely look it's it's it's a sexy talking point to say that sanctions brought Iran to the table it's an inconvenient truth to acknowledge that 20,000 Iranian centrifuges brought the United States to the table yeah the previous the previous American position was we won't negotiate with Iran until they stop enriching uranium well Iran never stopped enriching uranium but the both sides were escalating the conflict the US and Iran were escalating the conflict up to a point where they were essentially running out of options to escalate the conflict further short of war so the truth of the matter is both sides blinked we in the United States have a propensity to emphasize and highlight how Iran blinked while downplaying the compromises that we've made but I think it's important to highlight the compromises that both sides have made so that the American people know that diplomacy requires compromise dialogue in a sustained fashion that allows for win-win outcomes if America gets a victory at the expense of some other country's interests or security that's not durable security for America right well and you know we're just a minute over time here and I'll let you go but it kind of goes without saying in our discussions because we've talked about this so much but it shouldn't we should mention for the people who aren't that familiar that the Iranians are really giving up a lot of their nuclear program the one that they've established overall this time the 20,000 centrifuges you just mentioned they're reducing that down to 5,000 right yeah the Iranians have made a tremendous amount of compromises and I think US officials would acknowledge that openly as well the limitations the technical limitations they're going to be making to the nuclear program are are vast and the entire production and supply chain of their nuclear program will be monitored from start to finish unprecedented most transparent nuclear program in the history of the world after these inspections go into place period full stop yeah all right well hey man thanks for coming back on the show and thanks for all your great work on this issue and for covering the talks from Vienna there I'm addicted to your Twitter feed over here and I'm keeping up with the meals you're eating and everything here as I'm I'm much appreciated my diets have gone to hell in a handbasket but we're gonna fix that when we get back to America all right well listen man thanks again I appreciate it Cheers all right so that's the great Reza Marashi's at niacouncil.org the National Iranian American Council niacouncil.org he's also at the Iran talks in Vienna we'll be right back hey y'all Scott Horton 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