Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio, I'm Scott Horton.
I'm joined on the phone by Mohamed Sahimi, he's a professor of, I forget, chemical chemistry or something at USC, and writes for us at antiwar.com.
You can also find his writings other places on the web.
Welcome back to the show, Mohamed, how are you doing, sir?
It's good to be back in your program, Scott.
Well, thank you, I'm very happy to have you here.
One of my favorite critics of America's Iran policy, you are, as you well know, and focused on all the parts that I think are the most important too.
So right now I want to start this conversation, at least Mohamed, with a discussion about the sub-state terrorist group, private army, whatever it is, I don't know, Jandala.
Now I want to preface one thing here, which is that this is really a correction for the audience.
I have said numerous times on this show going back over the last few years that Jandala, that America's backing against the Iranians, is the same Jandala that Khalid Sheikh Mohamed used to be the head of.
And yet, I interviewed a reporter from the Asia Times who said that that was not correct, and that, oh man, what was that guy's name?
I'm sorry, I forget the name of the Asia Times reporter, but he said that no, there are two different groups that are Jandala, and one of them is the one that Khalid Sheikh Mohamed used to be the boss of, but the one that America supports to kill Iranians is a separate group altogether.
So, that's a correction for what it's worth, assuming he's right, but I'll just let you take it from there.
What do we know about Jandala?
Well, let me first say, you probably talked to Pepe Escobar from Asia Times?
Oh, no, well I have talked to Pepe numerous times, but that's not who I'm thinking of.
He's a Pakistani gentleman.
In fact, you know what, go ahead and I'll look up his name, I have it on my list here somewhere.
So, what I wanted to say is that it is actually true that there are two Jandala.
One is the one that operates in Iran, but uses Pakistan, which is on Iran's border in southeastern Iran, as its base to attack Iranian security forces within the province of Cistan and Balochistan, and the other one is associated with radical Islamic groups in Pakistan, and probably Afghanistan.
So, there are two of them, but the one that is in Iran is supported and funded by Saudi Arabia, and also most likely by the United States.
Back in 2007, when Dick Cheney traveled to Pakistan to talk to Pakistani leaders, one of the subjects that was brought up was the support of the CIA and the United States for Jandala and its terrorist operation within Iranian territory.
And after he came back to the United States, instead of referring to them as a terrorist group, which is what they are, he referred to them as guerrilla, to give them some sort of legitimacy, you know, aligning with the liberation movement, for example.
But Jandala has about 1,200 hardcore members, and they are funded, as I said, by Saudi Arabia, and have killed a large number of Iranian policemen and security forces, and in addition, a large number of civilians in Cistan and Balochistan province of Iran.
And let me also mention this, because some of your listeners may know about this.
There is no question that the central government in Iran, not just the present central government, but for decades has had some discrimination against some ethnic minorities in Iran.
But these are all problems that have existed in Iran for decades, and compared to many other countries, they are relatively minor.
But what the CIA and Saudi Arabia and other countries that are opposed to Iran have done is taking advantage of this discontent among some ethnic minorities in Iran, in order to try to stir up, you know, chaos and dissent in Iran, and to destabilize the country in order to advance their agenda.
And Jandala is a perfect example of it.
As I said, it has killed a large number of civilians, it has, in one case, it kidnapped a large number of policemen and took them to the other side of the border with Pakistan, and killed a large number of them.
In fact, it beheaded a large number of them.
And then in several other cases, several very large explosions took place in the province of Cistan and Balochistan, which not only killed security forces, but also killed a large number of civilians.
The central government has actually realized that it has to start a program of reconstruction and improving the lives of ordinary people there.
And one of the explosions happened just when a representative of the central government was in the provincial capital of Cistan and Balochistan, Mizahidon, talking to local leaders about how to start the reconstruction and aid program in order to improve the lives of ordinary people when the explosion took place, and not only killed him, but it also killed a large number of local people that were talking to the representative of the central government.
So that's what we have in Cistan and Balochistan.
And in fact, and of course, as is well known, its leader was captured by the Iranian government, so the circumstances of his arrest is not clear, and he was executed recently in Iran for all the terrorist operations that he had led.
Okay, now, there's a bunch of things to try to go over there.
First of all, the name of the reporter I was trying to think of is Syed Salim Shahzad from the Asia Times, who originally sent me straight on there.
So that's that footnote taken care of there.
And then, so, actually, let's stay on footnotes for a minute here.
You know, you've described kind of what madmen these guys are, you know, abducting and murdering people and blowing up mosques and creating all this havoc all over the place.
But how is it that you're under the impression that the CIA and or the Joint Special Operations Command or any other part of the American government are working with these guys, Mohammad?
First of all, there is no way for a small group like Jundala to be able to carry out such large operations that kills a large number of people each time they carry out such an operation within Iranian territory without having any foreign support.
That's the first fact.
Secondly, the Jundala, and more generally, the Baluch, who live in both in Iran and Pakistan, are Sunni Muslims, not Shiites.
And some of them are, in fact, belong to the Salafi branch of Sunni Islam, which is basically what Saudi Arabia advocates in the Islamic world.
Third, Saudi Arabia has long been opposed to Iranian government, not just during the Islamic Republic, but also during the Shah of Iran before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, except that at that time the Shah was an ally of the West, and therefore the differences and the opposition within the Saudi royal family against Iran was under the surface.
In addition, I co-organized a symposium on Iran relationship at the University of Southern California in October of 2008, in which we had Robert Baer, the former CIA agent who was operative in the Middle East for 25 years.
And during his talk and the exchange that he had with the audience, he specifically mentioned that the CIA probably provides support for Jundala.
And he said that should not be any surprise because Iran, for example, provides support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the United States retaliates by providing support to groups like Jundala.
And Jundala is not the only group that operates within Iran and carry out terrorist operations, but there are other groups in the Kurdish area that we can talk about after the break.
Okay, great.
That is Mohammed Sahini we're talking with on the phone here, everybody, Antiwar Radio.
He's a professor of chemical engineering at USC and writes for pbs.org as well as antiwar.com.
We'll be right back after this.
You can watch the LRN studio cam and chat with other listeners anytime at cam.lrn.fm.
That's cam.lrn.fm.
I'm about to have a nervous breakdown.
My head really hurts.
If I don't find a way out of here.
I'm gonna go to jail.
All right, y'all.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Wharton, and on the line I have Mohammed Sahini.
You can find his articles at original.antiwar.com slash sahini, spelled just like it sounds.
He's a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California here in LA.
The article I'm looking at right now is from last October, the 21st, 2009, Jandala and the Geopolitics of Energy.
One thing that this article does, Mohammed, is it really goes through and lists all the footnotes.
Now, you just said you heard from Robert Baer, the former CIA agent, in person that he told you at a symposium you held at USC, but I wanted to also go ahead and mention for people so that they know that there are real sources of information from this when they hear crazy, impossible things like America supporting Salafi suicide bomber types.
Andrew Coburn broke the story of the Democrats spending the money on this in counterpunch last spring.
And then he was followed up quickly by Seymour Hersh, and then The Telegraph in England, and then Brian Ross at ABC News, who is not a credible reporter at all, but because, in fact, he's so close to the intelligence community.
And when he comes out with something like this that makes them look pretty bad, it makes me think, well, maybe it is true.
Of course, if he's saying something like, ooh, Saddam Hussein did the anthrax attack, everybody double-check his work.
Brian Ross, I don't want to give him too much credit, but he's, you know, another in this giant pile of footnotes that says that America is supporting, you know, basically al-Qaeda of Iran.
Isn't that right?
Yes, and as you mentioned, I listed all that information in the October 2009 article, but I just wanted to mention that not only all those credible sources exist, but I also heard it personally from Robert Barr, the former CIA agent.
One point that I would like to point out is that although Jandala claims that it supports the rights of the Baluchi minorities in Iran, and does whatever it does on their behalf, it actually does not enjoy any significant support within the Baluchi community in Iran.
In fact, when their leader, Rigi, was captured by the Iranian government, from the information that I gathered and the conversations that I had with several people, I understood that the Baluchi people in Iran, province of Sistan and Baluchistan, were actually relieved that he had been captured, because they thought that that would put an end to the terrorist operations that his group was carrying out in Iran, province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
But I should mention that although he was captured, but we recently had another big explosion in that part of Iran, which killed, again, several civilians.
So the operations have continued, although the leader, Rigi, was captured and executed by the Iranian government.
But he doesn't enjoy the support that he claims to have, and in fact, there are some conservative and neoconservative publications in the West that make such claims that Jandala actually enjoys wide support among the Iranian Baluchi minority, but he doesn't.
It is pure and simple.
It's a terrorist organization supported by the West, and in addition to the West, by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries, probably in the Persian Gulf, who are on board with the Iranian government.
Well, Mohamed, you know, Seymour Hersh, after he wrote his article, I think it was Preparing the Battlefield, was his article where he talked about Jandala, and he did a press conference, or not a press conference, but, you know, a symposium at a university or something where he was up on the stage, and he kind of waxed philosophical about this for a little while, and he talked about how, well, here's how Americans can understand this.
Reverse the roles, and pretend for a minute that the Iranians were looking at America and said, oh, okay, well, here's how to break up America.
We'll put our support behind, you know, this weird sect of Christian identity neo-Nazis, you know, like the kind of guy, Eric Rudolph, that did the Olympic Park bombing and the abortion clinic bombings.
We'll support those guys, which there's only, you know, 10 of, and which the other 300 million of us hate and have no tolerance for whatsoever, but the Iranians, you know, basically the example being, it would be really dumb of them to try to do that, right?the Confederate flag or whatever.
That is a marginal group anyway, and in fact, is the most patriotic group of American nationalists that you could find, right?
It would be working class southern white guys who still like the Confederate flag.
They're not going to betray America for a foreign country in a million years, no matter what their internal dissent problem is.
The idea of a foreign country coming and supporting, you know, the Confederate flag association or whatever, it's just laughable and ridiculous, and that's basically what the United States is doing in Iran, is backing the most marginal groups to cause trouble, but what good could it do other than maybe, you know, empowering the hardliners in the government?
Oh, exactly.
And maybe that's the purpose.
Exactly.
I think that's one of the purposes.
I mean, in addition to supporting these terrorist groups, imposing sanctions and make threats of military attacks in Iran, what people don't realize, or at least some people don't realize in the West, is that the only thing that these things do, like imposing sanctions, supporting terrorist groups, and threatening Iran with military strikes, is to make the hardliners in Iran to be in much tighter control, because they can justify, and if we put ourselves in their position, we can probably understand why they do it, they can justify whatever they do under the guise of threat to national security and territorial integrity of Iran.
And let's face it, that is a justifiable excuse, because after all, a point of supporting terrorist groups that operate within Iran, like in Cistan, Baluchistan, by Jundallah, or some Kurdish group in Kurdistan, is to basically try to break up Iran, or at the very least, to destabilize the central government so that it would be in a much weaker position, and so that that hopefully will lead to their downfall, the way the West looks at it.
So what Seymour Hersh talks about is a perfect analogy.
They support groups in Iran that have no broad support, they are totally marginal, and they give them guns, they give them funds, they train them in order for them to carry out terrorist operations within Iranian territory.
Now let me again emphasize, what I say is not in support of a guy like Ahmadinejad, whom I oppose, but rather is in the framework of non-intervention in the internal affairs of another country, and being an anti-war activist, a peace activist, that don't want to see any new war in the Middle East, particularly against my native land, Iran, where I come from.
So this is not in support of Ahmadinejad, but in support of peace, and in support of being an anti-war activist that I am.
Right, and yeah, people should understand that, and it's actually a shame that we even have to make that clear, that you're not some representative of the regime, you're part of the expat community here that lives in Los Angeles, which is I think 99% against the Ayatollah regime there, you know, and of course including you.
But now, so here's the thing too, you know, as long as we're on that point, Mohammad, it seems to me like the real bottom line here is that it doesn't have to be this way at all, that the entire, never even mind the Clinton era of the dual containment policy and all this insanity, back when Dick Cheney used to complain about the sanctions, before he was the vice president, back when he was running Halberd, but even just the 21st century, even just post-September 11th days, everybody knows, Flint Leverett's been on this show, we've talked about this for years and years, everybody knows the Iranians and the Americans were getting along famously, at least with the State Department.
After September 11th, there was a million people turned out to do a candlelight vigil in downtown Tehran after September 11th, and we could have had a complete reset of American relations, no hard feelings, let's work this out, the same thing even with Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein had proven himself to be a loyal puppet 99% of the time.
They could have said to him, look, you know, you're not a jihadist type and they're the ones that we're mad at now, and so as long as you promise to keep Al-Qaeda out of your country and, you know, be a good little dictator, we'll let you stay the dictator.
He would have taken them up on that, and we could be friends, we could have the absolute reverse of the dual containment, we could have the America-friends-with-everybody policy in the Middle East right now, and our only enemies would be, what, a dozen friends of Osama Zawahiri still hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan somewhere, if they even exist anymore at all.
Yes, I mean, in addition to what you said, and Iran did play a very important role when the Taliban regime was overthrown in Kabul, Afghanistan, in April 2003, right after the United States invaded Iraq, the Khatami administration, the administration of a really good, moderate Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, presented a comprehensive proposal to the United States in which it talked about putting all the issues on the table and negotiating them so that the differences between Iran and the United States can be addressed by diplomatic means through peaceful negotiations after several decades of hostility.
Iran has offered to put significant restrictions on top of what it already has on its nuclear program.
Iran has proposed that it would help Hezbollah in Lebanon to put down its arm and become a completely political organization, and Iran has offered help in several other aspects, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where Iran had a very significant influence.
But the Bush administration, that was the time that George W. Bush had just landed on that aircraft carrier and had declared a mission accomplished, so they thought that they could do the same thing with Iran, so they rejected the proposal without even studying it carefully to see what Iran had proposed.
And when that was rejected by the United States, the hardliners in Tehran became stronger and the position of moderates and reformists in Iran became weaker because, after all, the moderates had made these very comprehensive proposals in which they were trying to address all the issues that are supposedly important to the United States, and the United States had rejected any negotiations.
So invasion of Iraq and rejection of Iran's comprehensive proposal did wonders for hardliners in Tehran, and in fact, that was the beginning of the end for reformists being part of the government and part of the power hierarchy in Iran, and put hardliners...
Yeah, well, I got another one to add to that, which is, July 2005, George Bush actually came out on TV, and his administration had been doing this for two or three days, and then Bush himself went on TV and said, hey, people of Iran, you better not elect a conservative, you better not vote right-wing if you want to get along with us, and the people of Iran all went and voted, it was the biggest turnout for Ahmadinejad they could have ever hoped for, and his people actually gave statements to the world press, it was in the BBC and elsewhere, where they were literally quoted laughing, like parentheses, laughter, as Ahmadinejad's people say, thank you, George Bush, for your get-out-the-vote-for-Ahmadinejad campaign that you did the other day, wonderful.
Oh, absolutely, and in fact, George Bush, because of what George Bush said, and because of the strong sense of nationalism in Iran, because Iran is a very old nation, has existed for thousands of years, so sense of nationalism in Iran is extremely strong, and although, let's say the majority, the large majority of Iran do not like the conservatives and hardliners in Tehran, but when it comes to intervention of another country, particularly the United States, that has a long history of intervening in Iran's internal affairs from the 1953 coup all the way to the present time, of course they would react the way that they did in 2005, when they voted for Ahmadinejad and elected him president.
Now, the interesting thing about it is that Bush was telling people not to vote, and also was saying that the Iranian president has no power, has no legitimacy and no power, but right after Ahmadinejad was elected president, they turned around and started making him the most powerful man in Iran, which he wasn't, at least at that time in Iran, because the country wasn't in the situation that it is today.
In other words, when there was a moderate face on the presidency, Khatami, a guy who I don't really know all that much about, but was seemingly reasonable, quote-unquote, for the Americans to work with, they would marginalize him and say, no, it's all about the evil Ayatollah.
But then, when Ahmadinejad became the president, then, eh, the Ayatollah actually looks kind of moderate and reasonable compared to this guy, so now they decide, in the media we're talking about, to just marginalize the role of the Ayatollah, Khamenei, and focus on Ahmadinejad, who has a big mouth.
Precisely.
I mean, Khatami, you said you don't know much about him, but let me tell you, he's a good man, he has never been involved in any case of crime or corruption, he's highly respected in Iran, and he's now one of the leaders of the opposition Green Movement in Iran.
And he did want to have a dialogue with the United States, he proposed dialogue of civilization, he wanted to improve the relationship with the United States, and as I said, his administration made a comprehensive proposal in April of 2003 in order to address, by diplomatic negotiations, all the issues of concern to the United States, and of course in Iran.
I mean, Iran also has several legitimate grievances against this country.
It's not just, I mean, we should not forget that just because a guy like Ahmadinejad is impoverished in Iran, does not mean that Iranians and the Iranian nation do not have legitimate grievances against the United States.
They do.
This country has imposed sanctions against Iran and Iranian people for the last 30 years.
People talk about as if the sanctions just started, that's not true.
The sanctions started back in 1979, and in fact, over the past three decades, these sanctions not only have hurt ordinary Iranians, but have also consistently helped the hardliners in Tehran to gather more and more power, and justify whatever they do, under the guise of threats to Iran's national security, sanctions, and military threats.
So these sanctions have been counterproductive.
They have been in place in decades, although they are tightening them now, they are making it more stronger and more difficult to handle.
But these sanctions have always existed in Iran for the past 30 years.
And the most important reason, in my view, is that the American government, the US administration, do not want to see a country in the Middle East that is politically independent of Washington, and does not carry water for them in that region.
That's the most important reason.
So even if, let's say, tomorrow we wake up and we have a totally new administration, a totally new government in Iraq, which is totally democratic, but is not a sort of puppet of the United States, the United States will still treat it the way it is treating the Iranian government today.
We have to remember, for example, when it comes to Iran's nuclear program, moderate reformists, and the Green Movement, and the Democratic Movement, they all support Iran's nuclear program.
It is not as if, for example, the opposition leader, Mousavi, comes to power tomorrow, he is going to stop everything regarding Iran's nuclear program.
No.
They don't.
They support this program because they consider it as Iran's national right.
The only difference between them and Ahmadinejad would be that they would set aside Ahmadinejad's rhetoric regarding various issues, for example, Israel and Holocaust and so on, and try to reach some sort of accommodation with the International Atomic Energy Agency away from rhetoric and away from slogans and so on.
That would be the only difference.
Otherwise, they support Iran's nuclear program so long as it is in the framework of Iran's recognized rights under nuclear non-proliferation treaty and safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
So that's the root cause of all this hostility towards Iran.
They don't want to see an independent Iran making decisions for itself in Tehran and not in Washington.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm talking with Professor Mohamed Sahini from the University of Southern California.
He writes for Antiwar.com at original.antiwar.com slash sahini.
And well, there's all kinds of different directions we can go with this conversation.
Well, here's here's where I want to go with this now, Mohamed.
It seems like more and more smart people that I respect say that Obama, but most importantly, I guess, never mind him, is the opinion of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of the Navy, and the Army and the Marine Corps, too.
They don't want war with Iran.
They've already decided they don't want war with Iran.
They're already looking at a way to, I mean, obviously, the military guys can't exactly make the deal to avoid whatever progress is made with the nuclear program.
But they're basically, they don't want war, is what I'm trying to say.
That's what everybody keeps saying.
It's not George Bush and Dick Cheney anymore, thank goodness.
Joe Biden is bad enough, but he's not that stupid.
So the question now seems to be, according to Paul Rogers at the Oxford Institute, for example, Philip Giraldi on this show in the past and in writing at antiwar.com, as well as quite a few others, Gareth Porter, I know, the concern seems to be maybe Netanyahu will go ahead and start the war and maybe Netanyahu will just say to Obama, look, you have to fight now.
They're sinking your ships.
And, you know, in fact, even if we go back to 2007, Dick Cheney and David Wilmser went around deliberately leaking a plan to end run George W. Bush and for Cheney and his neocons to make a deal with the Israelis to go ahead and start the war and force George Bush into it.
And I guess the same question is, you know, still floating around.
Only now, instead of having Ehud Olmert in there, we got Benjamin Netanyahu in there.
And I guess the question is, do you think that Netanyahu's got the insanity or the courage or however one might spin it to go ahead and do something crazy like start bombing the heck out of Iran in order to drag America into a war?
Well, when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, anything is possible.
I don't think he and his government are rational people.
I think they view the world in a very extreme, narrow, narrow way.
And in fact, what you express is the fear of many people like myself.
I agree that many people in the United States, prominent people, whether they are politicians or military leaders, don't want a military confrontation with Iran.
But the fear of people like me is that Israel will attack Iran.
And because it cannot handle a war within Iran by itself, it will drag the United States into this conflict.
And if that happens, then the war will spread quickly to the entire region in the Middle East, because Iranians will respond, Iranians will not be like Iraq.
No matter how much you bomb Iran, one bombs Iran, they can respond because they have assets, they have possibilities all over the Middle East.
And that will be a catastrophic war, both for Iran and the Middle East, as well as the West and the United States.
That's our greatest fear.
But I should point out one thing.
President Obama met with Netanyahu a couple weeks ago, and at the end of their meeting, he said that, well, the United States recognizes that Israel and Israel alone can decide what the requirements for its security are, or worse to that effect.
In other words, basically the president gave Netanyahu a go-ahead to do whatever he wants.
Well, when you give an extremist radical leader like Netanyahu a green light to do what he wants, then you should also be prepared for whatever he may do.
And there have been all sorts of reports about how Israel is preparing attacks against Iran from, for example, Republic of Azerbaijan in northwestern Iran.
Or you have to also remember that Israel has a very strong presence in the Iraqi Kurdistan part.
Israel and Kurdish people in Iraq have had a long-term relationship going back several decades.
And Israel has also sent its nuclear submarines to the vicinity of Iran.
So there have also been all sorts of maneuvers and reports that Israel is preparing to attack Iran.
Well, you know, it's just like the run-up to the Iraq War II, where it's years and years in the making.
You know, Ron Paul gave a great speech back in 1998 saying, this is the path to war, we've got to stop this, you know.
And you know, you talk about these sanctions, I don't know how much you know about them or how comparable they are to the sanctions against Iraq, Mohamed.
But the sanctions against Iraq killed a million people.
It took an advanced oil-dependent economy that their entire population, their entire division of labor, their entire system of food production and distribution and importation was all based on oil money.
And they just strangled them.
And it was a genocide.
And I don't know whether, I guess Russia and China have insisted and made sure that these sanctions against Iran have bigger exceptions to them.
But if these new sanctions amount to anything like the sanctions against Iraq, we're talking about a blockade, which under the laws of nations is an act of war.
We're talking about America using terrorists to blow up mosques full of people.
At the same time, we're laying a blockade on them.
And then, you know, I don't know, say whatever you want about that.
And then also, but please elaborate about what kind of things Iran could do to American interests in the region over the long term, because after all, it would be an asymmetric war that, you know, they don't have the kind of firepower that America has to bring to bear in any set battle.
But then again, they can always avoid set battles, right?
Yeah, of course.
I mean, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Major General Mohamed Ali Jafari, who's a hardliner, he's an expert on asymmetric war.
In fact, when he was appointed in September of 2007 as the overall commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Pentagon sources described him as Iran's equivalent of General David Petriot.
So that goes to show the level of respect that they have for the guy.
And the guy, as I said, is an expert on asymmetric war.
If a war breaks out in Iran, first of all, Iranian agents and forces and their allies in Iraq will attack the remaining U.S. forces in Iraq, who are now in a much weaker and more vulnerable position than they were like a few years ago.
Secondly, Iran has major allies in Afghanistan, which will make life very hellish for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
No, wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry to interrupt you here, but specify who are Iran's allies in Afghanistan?
Because this is, of course, part of the smear coming out of the WikiLeaks dump from the other day.
Well, the group that overthrew Taliban in Afghanistan, that entered Kabul in Afghanistan, was a northern alliance that had been supported and funded by Iran for many years.
At the same time, a faction of the conservative groups in Afghanistan, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who lived in Iran for several years, is very active in Afghanistan.
And in any possible war between Iran and the United States, that group, I am sure, will support Iran and will carry out operations against NATO forces on behalf of Iran.
So Iran already has a very significant presence in Afghanistan.
Well, let me make sure I understand you right.
I heard you, certainly, about Hekmatyar.
Did you say they supported the Taliban, or they supported the northern alliance types that fought the Taliban?
No, no, no.
There are two groups.
The northern alliance was against Taliban, but they are still there, and they have certain differences with Hamid Karzai.
The Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a sort of fundamentalist Islamic group, not of the Taliban type, but they are a fundamentalist group.
But they were also in alliance with Iran during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, Hekmatyar moved to Iran and lived in Iran, and then went back to Afghanistan when the Taliban was removed.
But now Hekmatyar is part of the opposition in Afghanistan against Hamid Karzai.
Although, is it okay if I keep you till the bottom of the hour here?
That would be fine.
That would be fine.
Okay, great.
I'm talking with Mohammad Sahimi, professor at USC and writer for PBS and for Antiwar.com original.antiwar.com.sahimi, and when we get back, we'll talk more about Iran and Afghanistan and America and Iran after this.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show, it's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Mohammad Sahimi, original.antiwar.com.sahimi, he's a professor of chemical engineering at USC and an expert, obviously, on Iranian foreign policy issues.
And now I think we, I had like three outstanding questions and kept interrupting you to go off on tangents here, Mohammad, so in the last 10 minutes, I'm just going to try to be quiet and let you wrap up.
The subjects were the new sanctions, how bad they really are, whether they amount to a real path to warfare here or already a declaration of war under the old international law anyway.
How the Iranians might be able to fight back against us.
And then at this point, I interrupted you to ask you more specific questions about Iran's influence in Afghanistan.
I think hopefully people are familiar with the fact that the Iranian government almost invaded Afghanistan to regime change the Taliban themselves in 1998, when I think a dozen Iranian diplomats were executed by the Talibs, and they had a very bad relationship.
They helped America there, Ahmadinejad was in Kabul shaking hands with the mayor of Kabul or maybe now just the mayor of his palace, Hamid Karzai, a few weeks back.
But also those WikiLeaks document dump, and at least the spin, I haven't been able to read through all the documents yet or anything, but at least the spin in the New York Times is Iranian influence and support for, I guess they don't even really say, but the implication is support for the Taliban resistance to America in Afghanistan.
So I was hoping that you could address the truth or lack thereof on that point.
Well, first of all, Taliban have been a bloody enemy of Iran in particular, and Shiite in general.
Taliban are fundamentally stoning groups, who even do not consider Shiites as true Muslims.
And as you pointed out, in 1998, when Taliban was in power, they killed nine Iranian diplomats, because of which Iran almost invaded Afghanistan.
So there is no truth to Iran and Taliban actually having close relationship or cooperating.
But having said that, it would be unwise for Iran not to have some sort of contingency plan in place in Afghanistan, so that in case it is attacked by the United States, it can stir up trouble for NATO forces in Iran, in Afghanistan.
And as I pointed out before the break, Iran already has allies within Afghanistan.
One group was the Northern Alliance that was allied with Iran during the Taliban power, and it was basically the group that entered Kabul and overthrew Taliban.
And there is also a stony group led by Golgodin Hekmatyar, who was one of the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and was supported by Iran.
And when Taliban came to power, Hekmatyar moved to Iran and lived in Iran for several years, and he went back to Afghanistan after Taliban were overthrown.
Now, the group led by Hekmatyar is one of the groups that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has been trying to negotiate with in order to bring more fundamentalist groups into his government and make it sort of a broader-based government in Afghanistan, so that hopefully peace will prevail in Afghanistan.
But these are allies of Iran, and in case the United States attacks Iran, I'm sure that those groups will support Iran in any sort of plan that Iran may have.
At the same time, we know that the Shiites that are in power in Iraq are all allies of Iran.
After all, they lived in Iran for over a decade.
They were trained, funded, and supported by Iran.
And when the United States invaded Iraq, they came to power.
And all these important Shiite groups have very close ties with Iran.
In fact, Moqtada al-Saad, who is an Iraqi nationalist and a Shiite, he lives in Iran.
He doesn't even live in Iraq.
So in case Iran is attached by the United States, Iranian allies, and in addition to Iranian agents themselves, there are many, many reports, and I have very good firsthand information about thousands of Iranian agents that have moved to Iraq and waiting for the time if the United States attacks Iran.
You have to remember, there was a large Shiite population from Iraq that moved to Iran during Iran-Iraq war, and afterwards, because the regime of Saddam Hussein was pressing Iraqi Shiites, and a large number of them moved to Iran, and they lived in Iran for years.
And after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, they moved back to Iraq.
Let me ask you this.
The Badr Brigade, the Badr Corps of the Supreme Islamic Council, now the Supreme Islamic Council apparently has lost a lot of influence since the death of the father, Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and his son taking over.
It seems like inside the Iraqi National Alliance now, Saad is by far dominant over them, at least in terms of numbers.
But they were the core of the Iraqi army anyway.
I wonder if you know whether the Iraqi army now, whether most of the officers and so forth, are they not people from, I mean, specifically the people running the Iraqi army, are they not the Badr Brigade?
Oh yeah, of course, because in fact, one of the grievances of the Sunnis in Iraq against the Shiite government was the fact that they purged all the important Sunni officers from the Iraqi army and replaced them by their own people.
And many of these people are the same people who were actually trained by Iran during the time when Saddam Hussein was in power.
So obviously, Iran's loyalists, or Iran's allies, I should say, exist in Iraqi armed forces.
And I'm not saying that if the United States attacks Iran, the Iraqi army will enter the world, but I'm saying that Iran has a very significant presence in Iraq due to the support that it provided for the opposition to Saddam Hussein for over three decades, going back to before the Iranian Revolution.
So if Iran is attacked by the United States, all these forces, or at least some of them, will become active and will take actions against U.S. forces in Iraq.
And these are just two examples.
Iran can attack shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf that carry 70 percent of the oil that reaches from Persian Gulf to the international market.
Iran has, of course, a strong alliance with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is obviously a very powerful military force in southern Lebanon.
The majority of population in Bahrain, where the headquarters of U.S.
5th Fleet is located, are Shiites.
Bahrain is ruled by the Sunni minority, but the population is Shiite.
And in fact, before, in the 1960s, Iran always claimed Bahrain as one of its provinces.
Forty-five percent of Kuwait's population are Shiite.
Saudi Arabia has a very significant Shiite minority, about 10 to 15 percent, most of whom live in eastern Saudi Arabia, where all the major oil fields are.
Yeah, so while we can definitely see why the military doesn't want to do this, remember Gareth Porter wrote that thing a couple of years ago now about, actually it was something that originally turned up in the Washington Post, about escalation dominance.
The military doesn't want to get in any fight where they don't think that they can dominate every decision and every escalation and every direction that the fight goes, and that they don't believe that they can have that against Iran.
And so, all right, bumper music's playing, we gotta go, but I think it's worth pointing out here that, so the Americans don't want to do it, except for the war party, the Israel lobby, and the neoconservatives, and the government of Israel, and that's why this remains a danger, despite, well, and that's why we have to keep arguing about it, that's why we have to keep contradicting them, because even though it seems unlikely, there still is a group of people in this country who are pushing hard for it, and trying to, you know, normalize the discussion of the consensus that something must be done, and Iran must be bombed eventually, and so forth, and it will be a disaster, and so anyway, just thank you, Mohammed, for your time on the show, and all your time working on this issue, and writing the articles you wrote, they're extremely useful, and thanks again.
Thank you for having me in your program again, Scott.
All right, everybody, that is Mohammed Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering at USC, and we'll be right back.
