01/12/16 – Trita Parsi – The Scott Horton Show

Superior blends of premium coffee.
Roasted fresh in Zionsville, Indiana.
Darren's Coffee satisfies the casual and the connoisseur.
Scott Horton Show listeners, visit www.darrenscoffee.com and use the coupon code SCOTT at checkout for free shipping.www.darrenscoffee.com Because everyone deserves to drink great coffee.
Alright you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, it's my show, the Scott Horton Show.
It's libertarian foreign policy mostly.
Introducing our friend, Trita Parsi from the National Iranian American Council.
Welcome back to the show, how are you doing Trita?
I'm doing well, how are you Scott?
Happy New Year.
Yeah, happy New Year to you too man.
I'm doing good, I hope you're doing good.
Congratulations, I don't know if, you know, with all we talked about last summer about the nuclear deal, I don't know if we actually did a victory lap.
I know I talked with Reza and Gareth and a few others, but I don't know if I ever got a chance to actually congratulate you for your success, in due no small part to your hard work and your colleagues there at NIAC, that this nuclear deal became possible.
First of all, all the false narratives had at least much weaker legs to stand on, because of you guys' work in undermining the propaganda, all the warmongering propaganda.
But then, plus of course, all the affirmative work that you're doing in constantly pushing for peace and understanding between our two nations.
So, thanks.
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
And thank you for all the work you've done in getting the message out and make sure that the debate became more nuanced.
I mean, if we had a mainstream media that actually brought into the debate several different perspectives, I'm sure that we would have been able to avoid a lot of different crises that the United States has gotten itself into.
Sure.
Think about what a long way we've come.
I mean, it used to be that every single David Sanger article in the New York Times just referred offhand to Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.
And now they've had to way, way, way climb down from all that nonsense.
And now we've got the nuclear deal and now, hey, it's New Year's.
So, I need a real update from you about just how much of this deal has been implemented by the two different sides at this point.
Yeah, indeed, indeed.
We've gone a tremendous distance.
Remember, there were a lot of question marks.
A lot of folks were nervous that the Iranians wouldn't be implementing it correctly.
The Iranians were nervous that the IAEA would not give them an approval on the work they had done and the fact that the past military dimensions issue was put to rest.
So, now we're at a situation in which within the next couple of days, hours actually, the Iranians may have completed what they had committed themselves to do in order for sanctions to be lifted.
And this can be announced any day this week, actually.
And that's a huge step because the last step of all of this is for the Iranians to take out the core of the Arak reactor and fill it with cement.
And that work has already begun and that can be finished within the next couple of days.
By the way, can you help me clarify because there are conflicting news stories about this.
One that says, hey, they filled it with concrete and the other that says, no, Iranian official denies.
And I think the latter was from the AFP.
It wasn't just some crankery.
Yeah, no, I think what has happened is that they've begun that process and whether that will be finished today, tomorrow, or the day after is the issue.
I think in the beginning, some people had gotten the impression that it had already been completed.
It's not been completed.
And at the end of the day, there's been a couple of instances of this kind in which some stories have perhaps been a little bit ahead of themselves.
But it actually doesn't matter because nothing is finalized until the IAEA goes in there and verifies it.
That's when we know it's been done.
Right.
Okay.
And so now, and you're saying this is the last thing to do on their checklist?
On their checklist before sanctions are lifted.
Then there's obviously additional checklist that will go on for some time on other issues.
On the permanent inspections and all that.
But this is what they have to do to basically get it started.
And so now let's go down this list here for a second.
You say the Iraq core, they're filling that with concrete.
And that is, and can you help me with this too?
Can you clarify the difference between what they're doing with the Iraq and the Bushehr reactors?
They're shutting one of them down or they're both going to be running as light water reactors now?
Is that it?
No.
So Bushehr is actually kind of outside of this issue.
I think there may be some additional inspections taking place.
But Bushehr has not been a core nonproliferation concern.
Because it's already a light water reactor.
Is that it?
Exactly.
And they already had an agreement with the Russians that has been going on for some year in which the spent fuel is actually taken by the Russians.
And it's never kept inside of Iran.
So that's not really been a main issue.
Iraq has been an issue because that would have provided the Iranians with a plutonium path towards a nuclear weapon.
And that's now, within the next couple of days, going to be closed with them filling the core of the reactor with cement.
Right.
Okay.
And then the uranium stocks, they had a stockpile of, I forget how many kilograms, of low enriched uranium, electricity grade U-235, 3.6% U-235.
But then, am I correct that I read that they have converted all they need to fuel rods and plates for their reactors and they've shipped off all the rest to Russia?
They've shipped it off and that issue seems to be essentially completed as well.
And as a result of this, we're going to have a scenario pretty soon in which the IAEA is going to confirm all of this and then the Europeans are going to lift their sanctions and the president is going to start waiving a lot of the American sanctions that are on Iran.
Well, we're going to get back to the sanctions in a second.
I just want to make sure we check off our checklist here.
Now, the comm facility, Fordow, this is the secondary enrichment plant.
Have they completed the conversion to a research facility and ceased all enrichment there?
It seems like that has already been done.
Again, we're waiting for a final confirmation from the IAEA.
My impression is that the last big step has been the Arak reactor and that's what they're working on right now.
So, in other words, the journalism says that the work at comm, the Fordow facility is done.
We just don't have it in the official IAEA paperwork yet.
That's my reading, yes.
And again, the way the deal has been structured is such that nothing really is going to happen until the IAEA comes in and verifies it and the IAEA has been given complete access to these steps at least when it comes to the implementation on the Iranian side.
And what was kind of interesting in the negotiations was that the Iranians, for several reasons, partly because of a pride issue but also because of a mistrust issue, negotiated in such a way so that, yes, they will take a lot of these steps first before sanctions are lifted.
But the decision to lift sanctions was taken already back then on adoption date back in October 18th of last year.
So, if the Iranians do this and the IAEA approves it, then the U.S. and the EU have already made a decision that sanctions are going to be lifted.
It's not going to be reviewed again.
It's not going to be a situation in which Congress can step in again.
The decision has already been made.
It's just been pending a verification from the IAEA that the Iranians have done what they should be doing.
Right.
Okay, and now, this is kind of interesting.
I mean, I'm sorry.
I know that this is all kind of, you know, old hat and silly to you.
But, you know, for people listening who, you know, they got to deal with their dad and their uncle arguing about these things.
There was a huge scandal last summer about how the Iranians are going to have the ability to drag out the inspection of the Parchin facility for 24 days, which would be enough time for them to cover up all their nuclear weapons work.
And this was huge last summer, right?
Well, whatever happened with that?
The 24 days and the Iranians dragging out and abusing their end of this deal, Trita?
Nothing really happened.
Part of that was not just about Parchin.
Part of it was also the fact that if there is any evidence that emerges that the Iranians may be having an additional secret site, the additional protocol gives the IAEA access to sites that are not declared.
But it's not as if we can just jump into the car and drive there.
They need to request access.
And the Iranians need to accept it.
And there's going to be a review process of 24 days in which they may have some objections.
They may be able to prevent evidence that counters the evidence that would suggest that there's any activities going on there.
The fact that it would take 24 days is something that some folks in Congress really jumped on and tried to make it sound as if that was a major deficiency in the agreement.
And that's completely ridiculous.
Because if there is anything taking place of nuclear nature, rest assured, the traces of that will stay for years, not just for 24 days.
In fact, when it came to the Parchin site, the activities that seems to have taken place there were taking place before 2003.
We're confident that we could actually be able to trace those activities because of the radiation, et cetera.
All right, hold it right there.
We'll be right back, y'all, with Trita Parsi from niacouncil.org after this.
Hey, Al, Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State.
In The War State, Swanson examines how Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy both expanded and fought to limit the rise of the new national security state after World War II.
If this nation is ever to live up to its creed of liberty and prosperity for everyone, we are going to have to abolish the empire.
Know your enemy.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson.
It's available at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com in Kindle or in paperback.
Just click the book in the right margin at scotthorton.org or thewarstate.com.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Man, some of the insane things I read during these breaks.
You have no idea.
Talking with Trita Parsi from the National Iranian American Council about the implementation of the Iran deal, the Iran nuclear deal.
And the one more technical thing I wanted to ask you about the Iranian side of the implementation of the deal here was about the expanded inspections under the additional protocol and the subsidiary arrangements.
Trita, if I understand correctly, the deal calls for the IAEA to be able to monitor and inspect the mines and even the centrifuge facilities where there is no nuclear material but where they make the centrifuges so they can help keep track of them and this kind of thing.
Do you know if they've gone that far in implementing that part of the deal where the IAEA has gone ahead and installed monitor equipment?
Already on adoption day, the Iranians started implementing what is called the additional protocol.
And these are measures that are included in the additional protocol.
So things have really moved pretty fast and positively.
And this is, again, something that many of the critics were so skeptical about and probably a bit arrogant in their criticism.
And I think there's certainly things that you can be critical of this deal.
But I think it was a mistake by the critics to focus on minor details that they blew out of proportion and misrepresented.
I think the real concern that they have is that making this deal with Iran essentially ensures that there is a Western acceptance that Iran is a major power in the region and that the United States is no longer going to pursue regime change and that it's accepting and trying to accommodate the fact that Iran is a major player in the region and has to have a role and a space in the region that is commensurate with that geopolitical weight.
That's the key thing that a lot of folks in Israel and Saudi Arabia strongly oppose.
They don't want to see this shift in balance of power and they don't want to see that in fact countries all the time are trying to make sure that their position and that their influence is retained internationally.
But these arguments were not the ones that were presented.
The arguments that were presented were really hollow and rather superficial and oftentimes flat out false arguments.
Right.
Well, and that's a good explanation for one because it never really was what they were worried about.
Right.
Well, we're worried about losing our power and influence.
We don't want you to normalize relations.
Cold war between you and him forever is a pretty difficult stance to take publicly.
So might as well make up something.
But then.
So, yeah, when you talk about kind of the hollowness of the arguments against it, like, for example, on the inspections, oh, they're going to drag out the inspections.
Oh, they're going to fight.
They're going to they're going to take up to 24 days on every little thing and this and that all went.
All those arguments went against the basic truth, which was the Iranians really want this deal and they have virtually no incentive to cheat.
They're the ones who weren't making nuclear bombs all along.
And all they were trying to do is get us to acknowledge it.
And then, as you say, sort of somewhat, you know, come to their terms and negotiate.
And as as your colleague Reza Murashi said on the show, it's not the sanctions that brought them to the table as much as it's their centrifuges that finally brought us to the table.
They built up their program so big that it would be big enough to negotiate away and still have some left.
And it worked.
To a certain extent, I think it did.
And I think, you know, sanctions have had its role.
I think that the role of sanctions, though, in the narrative in Washington has been blown way out of proportion.
And reality is the Iranians did expand their nuclear program while we were sanctioning them.
And a realization came in the White House that if if things remain the same, the Iranians would be reaching a nuclear weapon much sooner than the U.S. could completely bring the Iranian economy down to its knees.
And as a result, this was not a winning game.
There needed to be an exit.
There needed to be an attempt at diplomacy in which the leverage sanctions had provided could be tested.
And that's the route that the president eventually chose, much to the anger of the Israelis and some hardliners in Washington who actually wanted a permanent state of conflict with Iran, a permanent state if not war, a permanent state of containment with Iran.
All right.
Now, so the Saudis, I mean, well, we only have so much time, but they they certainly have launched their war in Yemen in the name of the Iranian alliance with the Houthis, which the best I can tell scarcely exists at all.
Gareth Porter showed that even the couple of so-called arms shipments that the U.N. claimed when he went back and looked closely at them, they were bogus in the first place.
One of them, in fact, was a shipment from Yemen to Somalia.
Hadn't come from Iran at all.
And so, but they've been bombing the hell out of Yemen for almost a year now in the name of the Houthis being an Iranian proxy.
And then now they've started the new year with this group of executions, including Nimr al-Nimr, who was the highest ranking Shiite cleric in the Shia part of Saudi Arabia.
And this led, of course, to the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
And then the Saudis and other, I don't know all, but at least some of the other GCC states have now suspended their diplomatic relationship with Iran.
And, you know, I don't know what, man.
You could spin this very good or very bad or just give us straight down the line what you think this all means.
Is this, is it possible that maybe everybody's going to step back and cool off now or this is just the beginning of things getting worse and worse here?
It's another escalation fabricated by the Saudis in the hope of making sure that they can stop Implementation Day, they can stop the United States from resolving its issues with Iran.
Because that's, again, what they're afraid of.
What they're trying to do is to force the United States to come in and take Saudi's side against Iran and by that force the U.S. back into a posture in which it is all out trying to confront and contain Iran in the region.
That's what the Saudis are looking for.
I think Yemen was part of that.
Certainly, this provocation with these executions is also part of that.
You mentioned Yemen.
Let me just tell you something interesting.
I'm writing a book on how the Iran deal came about and I was interviewing an Iranian official who told me that, you know, I didn't even know the Houthis were Shia until two years ago.
So the idea that this is some sort of a Sunni-Shia thing and that the Iranians are that tight with the Houthis, et cetera, is countered publicly by U.S. intelligence who have leaked it to the media that they don't see it that way at all.
Certainly, the Iranians are supporting them but the idea that there's some sort of a proxy or that Iran is making the decisions for them is completely contradicted by the intercept of communications that the U.S. intelligence has managed to get.
Now, let me ask you about that certainly.
I'm not saying you're wrong but do you know for a fact that they're even sending them money or anything?
I think there's evidence that, you know, they're sending various things and I've seen good indications that there's some weaponry that may also have been sent and even if that's the case, it's not necessarily very surprising that the Saudis are funding and arming so many different things around the region and unfortunately, the Iranians are as well.
The difference though is to believe that the Houthis are acting under the influence and guidance of the Iranians.
That's where things start to go really wrong because if that were to be the case, then the war in Yemen is a Saudi-Iranian war.
It is not.
It is an internal Yemeni matter that has been going on for quite some time, actually, that the Saudis decided to get involved in and the pretext that they use is to say that they're doing it to fight the Iranians.
Well, and even Obama himself admitted out loud that the Iranians, that he knew that the Iranians had warned the Houthis, hey man, don't invade and conquer the capital city because that is going to be a bridge too far and you're going to piss off the Saudis and you're going to provoke an invasion, which is exactly what happened.
Exactly, and the U.S. has intercepted that communication and knows that the Iranians advised against doing so and the Houthis did it anyways because the Houthis make up their own decisions.
They're not depending on the Iranians nor are they, you know, particularly oriented towards the Iranians.
Well, now, but Trita, if the Saudis are really serious about scotching the nuclear deal, they're going to have to start a war with Iran because nothing short of that is going to get Obama to throw this deal in the trash.
I don't even know if that would cause Obama to throw the deal into the trash because this is a major achievement.
It's probably the most historic foreign policy achievement of the president.
It is significantly enhancing security in the region and for the United States and the idea that one country who's supposed to be an ally can make a decision for the United States who it can and cannot make deals with should be unacceptable to any U.S. president.
Yeah, it's amazing.
Well, and especially when, and this is, you know, really partly Obama's fault or to a great degree Obama's fault for cooperating and going along with this war in Yemen this whole time is he could have just as easy said to the Saudis, hey, we did this Iran nuclear deal for you.
Now their civilian program is more safeguarded than ever and that'll be good enough for many, many civilians unendingly for a year as like a sop to them over their hurt feelings over making a deal with Iran apparently.
And, yeah, I think even though the support of the U.S. to the Saudis on who in Yemen is somewhat limited is still way too much.
That is, it's another senseless war in the region.
The U.S. should have nothing to do with it.
In fact, it should press the Saudis to end it.
Yeah, I mean, it's flying, but still, if Obama wasn't helping them do it, they wouldn't be able to.
Anyway, I'm keeping you over.
Thanks very much, Trita.
I really appreciate you coming back on the show.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, too.
All right, y'all, that's a great treat of Parsi.
He's at the National Iranian American Council, niacouncil.org.
We'll be right back.
Hey, I'll check out the audio book of Lew Rockwell's Fascism vs.
Capitalism narrated by me, Scott Horton at audible.com.
It's a great collection of his essays and speeches on medieval history to the Ron Paul revolution, Rockwell blasts our statist enemies, profiles our greatest libertarian heroes, and prescribes the path forward in the battle against Leviathan.
Fascism vs.
Capitalism by Lew Rockwell for audio book.
Find it at audible, Amazon, iTunes, or just click in the right margin of my website at scotthorton.org.
Hey, y'all, guess what?
You can now order transcripts of any interview I've done for the incredibly reasonable price of two and a half bucks each.
Listen, finding a good transcriptionist is near impossible, but I've got one now.
Just go to scotthorton.org slash transcripts, enter the name and date of the interview you want written up, click the PayPal button, and I'll have it in your email in 72 hours max.
You don't need a PayPal account to do this.
Man, I'm really going to have to learn how to talk more good.
That's scotthorton.org slash transcripts.
Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for liberty.me, the great libertarian social network.
They've got all the social media bells and whistles, plus you get your own publishing site, and there are classes, shows, books, and resources of all kinds.
And I host two shows on liberty.me, Eye on the Empire with Liberty.me's Chief Liberty Officer Jeffrey Tucker every other Tuesday, and The Future of Freedom with FFF founder and president Jacob Hornberger every Thursday night, both at 8 Eastern.
When you sign up, add me as a friend on there, scotthorton.liberty.me.
Be free.liberty.me.