04/04/16 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, shall I introduce you to our good friend Gareth Porter, author of the book on the Iranian nuclear program, Manufactured Crisis, the truth behind the Iranian nuclear scare, and, of course, a million great articles for Truthout and Middle East Eye and AntiWar.com.
We run pretty much all of it, all this old IPS news stuff and everything else.
The great Gareth Porter.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Gareth?
I'm fine.
Thanks, Scott.
Glad to be back.
All right, so I think everybody in the world knows that the Iranians have completely bent over backwards to live up to their end of the nuclear deal.
All that smoke that was blown last summer about how, oh, they're going to exploit all these loopholes to sneak their secret nuclear weapons program out the back door of their military bases.
And all these things have come completely to naught.
The Parchin facility has been inspected.
The IAEA routinely celebrates Iranian cooperation with the new and improved and expanded terms of the additional protocol and the subsidiary arrangements, etc., etc., etc.
So then the other side of the deal is America and the EU and the U.N. and the sanctions.
And could you please give us a progress report about where we're at with that?
Well, I'll do my best, Scott.
I mean, this is this is, in my view, and I think it's fair to say in the view of others as well, more complicated than any of the actual nuclear related issues that were part of the agreement or that were in the negotiations.
And that's because of the vast array, frankly, of of sanctions which the U.S. government has imposed on Iran over the years, really going back to the early to mid 1990s.
And most of these sanctions, of course, had nothing to do with the nuclear program.
They were imposed over various issues, real or imagined.
And I would argue essentially that they were all very issues.
Many of them, some of them had to do with with terrorism and some of them with human rights and all these in quotes.
But I mean, the real reason, of course, was that the Israelis and their followers in the United States wanted the United States to punish and isolate and weaken Iran.
And the various administrations since then have been very willing to do exactly that.
And so this is really the fruit of of the domestic politics of the United States surrounding the issue of Iran, which all have to do with Israel.
But I mean, the effect of this is to create a whole set of sanctions which really have nothing to do with the agreement itself, nothing to do with the issues of the agreement itself, but which affect the the Iranian economy, obviously, and particularly their ability to do business with banks and businesses outside the United States.
Now, of course, you know, they're not going to be able to do business with U.S. institutions because of the sanctions that apply to domestic institutions are still on the books.
And and the Iranians knew that all along.
So that's not really an issue.
But what is an issue is the effect that the sanctions that still remain on the books have on the understanding the willingness of banks and businesses abroad to do business with Iran.
And part of it has to do with the fact that so much business in the world, whether banks or other companies courses through major banks in the United States, and that that's a serious problem, obviously, for Iran.
And again, they they were aware of this.
So as a result, one of the things that the U.S. agreed to do, and it was an absolutely critical issue.
And I talked to the Iranians about this in Vienna.
They were very clear about this, that they were demanding that the United States had to agree not just to cancel the sanctions that were explicitly mentioned in the agreement, the the unilateral sanctions and, of course, the U.N. sanctions.
But that the United States government had to educate, inform the banks and other business institutions around the world that it was now OK to do business with Iran.
And and they didn't go into detail about it, but it was it seemed very clear that the U.S. had to carry out a very vigorous campaign of education around this issue.
And I think that's really what we're what is at issue now in terms of the of the Iranian complaints and the defensiveness of the Obama administration.
And it's my view that the Obama administration wants to do everything within the letter of the agreement that it was required to do.
And it wants to convince the Iranians that it's doing that.
And so it's it's done a number of things.
It's done a lot of things.
But whether the effect is going to be what the Iranians would like is another question.
I can't address that, except that we know that there have been complaints on the Iranian side and that issue is not a simple one to resolve, obviously.
Yeah.
So I think that's where that issue stands in terms of of the the problem of lifting sanctions going beyond the the the letter of of the agreement.
Yeah.
So I saw a statement by the Ayatollah or well, what was, you know, reporting purporting to be a statement of Ayatollah anyway, Gareth, saying, you know, the sneaky Americans, you know how they are.
And here they go.
They're not living up to their side of the deal.
They've they've found their loopholes and and they're going to do this.
And I guess you're saying the Obama administration is kind of going the the well, not the extra mile as part of the deal, that they would educate business on how you can now do business with Iran now and etc.
Except that the point is, there's still so many American sanctions that it basically sort of makes that besides the point or it makes it not amount to the sanctions relief the Iranians were expecting.
There are a lot of nuances here that have to do with, you know, what the expectations were, you know, the meaning of of of what various obligations was how it was understood on both sides.
And and I'm quite sure that that there is a that there are differences in terms of exactly what each side expected would be done.
And I mean, that's that seems to be inevitable.
But I mean, I guess what the point that I would make is that from the Iranian point of view, they are bound to be suspicious that the United States did not do enough.
They were not sitting in the boardroom when, you know, meetings were held, obviously.
So so they are not they're not able to judge directly.
I don't think what what happened, but they are bound to be suspicious and rightly so, because as as I've said elsewhere, you know, the United States wants to convince Iran that it is doing, you know, it is fulfilling its obligations under the agreement.
But at the same time, it clearly, you know, does not want Iran to recover fully economically.
I mean, the United States wants to keep Iran as weak as possible.
So therefore, there is a conflict of interest between, you know, the United States overall posture toward Iran and their obligations and carrying out their obligations under this agreement.
So that's bound to produce some degree of ambiguity and conflict over this issue.
Yeah.
But within the realm of or, you know, not not bad enough to to really lead to a breaking of the deal, you don't think, though, easily resolvable.
It's not going to lead to a breakdown of the deal.
And I'm pretty sure I don't think it's in the interest of the Iranians to try to pick it apart to the point where, you know, it falls apart.
I mean, they they they have certainly gained.
They will gain economically from the deal, even though it doesn't go as far as they would like it to go.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
And and furthermore, I think politically they are gaining by their ability to deal with Europeans in much more satisfactory fashion than they could before the agreement was reached.
And there's no doubt in my mind they recognize that as a huge gain for themselves.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, yeah, that's kind of been the hope.
Once we get these markets open and you start getting more and more vested interest invested in the new status quo in peace and trade, then the better off we all are.
You know, then, of course, one has to recognize that there are huge differences politically between and among various segments of the political elite in in Iran.
I mean, there are people, including the supreme leader himself, who are very not just suspicious of the United States, but are not interested in having this agreement lead to closer relations with Iran.
So and that's different from my understanding, certainly of the viewpoint of Zarif and I think Rouhani as well, that they would like to see this agreement lead to other forms of cooperation.
And I think that it would be in Iran's interest to see that happen.
I think that that's a that's a big sort of gulf between two different views of that question.
So, you know, the people who are much more negative about any possible future cooperation with the United States are bound to make more of this than those people who would like to, even even if it's limited cooperation, you know, to to various issues surrounding Iraq and Syria, possibly, they are much more willing to give the United States the benefit of the doubt.
All right.
And now I'm sorry to waste your time with this, but if you give me just one more minute, missile tests, missile tests, we're all going to die.
And they wrote that they hate Israel on the front of the missiles, too.
How do you like that?
Well, yeah, assuming that that is accurate.
And I don't at this point have any basis for saying that it's not true that there wasn't a an anti-Israel logo or saying on the on a missile or more than one missile.
I believe it was originally reported by Fars News.
So that either means it's complete BS or it must be true, whichever you like.
Well, I mean, I think it's probably true.
And I think this reflects the not just the the the actual politics, the political views of of the IRGC, which is in charge of these missile tests, or at least has a great deal to do with them.
But but it also, you know, it seems to me very clear that it's in the interests of the IRGC to do their best to to screw things up in terms of relations between Iran and the United States to the maximum degree possible, at least in regard to, you know, making sure that that things don't get too cozy.
With regard to U.S. presence in Iran, which they would regard as a as a very big danger to the system in Iran.
So in other words, you're saying that America's hawks, when they freak out about stuff like this, they're serving the interests of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps?
Absolutely, yes.
I mean, they are aligned perfectly or not perfectly, but not perfectly.
But to a great extent, the the the pro-Israel hardliners in this country are very closely aligned with the anti-American, most extremely anti-American hawks, if you will, in in Iran, which is, you know, among them are the IRGC.
And so, I mean, we've seen this happen, of course, time and again over the last couple of years.
We know that the that the hardline Republicans who, you know, maneuvered that crazy letter sent to to the Iranians were counting on that effect, precisely on that effect.
They were looking for their allies to speak up and do something that would somehow make it easier to defeat the the agreement in the United States.
So, you know, all this all these these dynamics on both sides really do fit together quite well.
What a shame.
Well, you know what?
They were overcome, those hawks on both sides, in order to get this deal in the first place.
And as you say, despite the troubles, it looks like it's sticking for now.
So, you know, let the hawks squawk.
We have to wait for somebody to be elected president before I think we really start worrying about about what what's going to happen to this agreement.
Then I think then we should start worrying.
Yeah, I'm not sure who's left, who'd be worse than any or better than any of the others at this point on this issue.
Do you have an opinion on that?
Or is even Bernie better than any any of the others on this?
I think Kasich and Sanders would would be very strongly supportive of the agreement.
And I think the other candidates in varying degrees would be somewhat or extremely threatening to to the agreement.
And, you know, again, I think I've said on your show previously that in the end, I suspect that even a Ted Cruz, who would be the worst, would bow to the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and and agree that this is too dangerous for the United States to rip it up and start over again.
So Kasich is actually good on it.
Is that right?
I'm not saying he's good.
I'm saying that he is much he's he's least he's he's least crazy on the Republican side.
I guess he did say something in the debate about, well, it is a deal.
It's on paper.
We have to see how it goes.
And that's what you're referring to, right?
He's he's not a crazy he's he's not surrounded by people who are dying to go to war with Iran.
I'm not ready to say the same thing about Ted Cruz at all.
And Trump, who knows who knows what he's going to think?
I mean, I you know, I just he's he's too much of a question mark.
Cruz is fouling around with Michael Ledeen and Frank Gaffney.
Exactly.
Exactly.
He's he's the thing, the closest thing to an absolute threat to this to this agreement.
And with with Hillary, I mean, you know, one would have to be afraid of, you know, sort of nibbling around the edges of it to the point where, you know, it would create it would create some severe problems.
Yeah, at least.
Yeah, at least.
All right.
Well, listen, I'll let you go.
Thank you again for coming on the show, Gareth.
I sure appreciate it, man.
Thank you, Scott, as always.
All right, so that's the heroic Gareth Porter.
He writes at Middle East Eye and at Truthout.org.
And you find his archive going back for years and years at Original.
Antiwar.com slash Porter and buy his book, buy two of them and give one to your local library.
Manufactured Crisis.
The truth behind the Iran nuclear scare.
Thanks, y'all.
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