For Pacifica Radio, June 30th, 2019.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
All right, you guys, welcome to the show.
It is Anti-War Radio.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
I'm the author of the book, Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the editor of AntiWar.com.
And speaking of which, today's episode is dedicated to the memory of Justin Raimondo.
For many years, our editorial director and head writer there, who died of lung cancer on Thursday.
If anyone is interested in reading Justin's obituary and other articles about him, they're all up at the top of the page right now at AntiWar.com.
All right, you guys, introducing Elijah Magnier.
He has been covering war since at least Iraq War I in 1991.
I only recently learned.
And all of the Middle Eastern war since is a real expert.
And I think we all know has a lot of great stuff coming out of the war in Syria about who's whom and who in that one.
And lately, he's been writing about the situation between the US and Iran, some incredibly important pieces.
They're all at EJMagnier, and that's I-E-R, EJMagnier.com.
Here's one.
Iran has warned to target Arab countries in case of war.
The US, like a lion in a Persian story.
Well, I guess that's going to be the first question, second.
This one is called Iran and Trump on the Edge of the Abyss.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Elijah?
Hello, Scott.
Thank you for having me again.
Very happy to have you here and to read your stuff, man.
I've been learning a lot lately here, got to say.
So let's start with the lion.
What's the Persian story you're referring to here?
Well, it's an old story about the behavior of a lion.
And in the 80s, Imam Khomeini was dealing with President Carter about more or less the same crisis between the US and Iran.
And he told the story that Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the actual leader of the revolution, repeated.
And he said the behavior of the US can be compared to the story of a lion in Persian fable.
Carter most probably didn't know about this story.
Although it pains me to compare Carter to a lion, this is what Imam Khomeini was saying, the story fits him perfectly.
And this is where the leader, Khamenei, he's saying the story fits today with Trump.
And he says, when the lion faces his enemy, it roars and breaks wind to scare his enemy.
And then the lion ends up by shaking his tail, hoping for a mediator.
Today, the US is mimicking the lion's behavior.
So it is shouting, launching menace and threat that's comparing to roaring, just to scare the Iranians.
But on the other hand, it's continuing to call for mediation and talk, and just to, at the same time, it's saying, we're going to attack you.
Our attack is going to be massive and to the level of arbitration.
And that is compared also to breaking wind to the Iranian.
So it's saying that all these are words in the air and words nothing.
Mm-hmm, well, yeah, that's pretty good take.
I mean, overall, I think you and I have talked about this before, but certainly seems to be the case here that so much of our Middle Eastern policy in this entire century long has been about trying to figure out how to get at Iran some other way than attacking Iran.
Persia's just too big, too many mountains, too many people, too long and hard of a slog to really do an invasion or a war of regime change of any kind there.
And we can't get away with a coup like 53.
And so they thought if they got rid of Saddam, then that would give them sway and influence over the Iraqi Shia majority.
And then that would give them influence over Iran.
Oops, that backfired.
Then they thought, well, if we help Al-Qaeda target Assad in Syria, that'll help bring Iran down a peg by weakening their Arab ally Assad there, their other one after Maliki at that point.
But nope, that backfired and only improved Iran's position inside Syria, made Syria more dependent on Iran than ever before, in fact, and Hezbollah too.
And so we could go on to Yemen and what have you, but so much of this is in the name of trying to spite Iran and get at Iran because of the fact that they know that they really can't have a war.
They know that even in the event, as you're talking about in this article, in the event of an air war, nevermind sending in the army and the Marine Corps, which no one is talking about, they know that it's completely off the table, but even a massive air war would include a massive, at least missile war and other forms of war on the part of the Iranians back against the US and they know that.
Yes, that's absolutely correct.
So what the Iranians are saying, we are going to target US bases.
If they attack us from the Emirate, we are going to attack the US in the Emirate and the Emirate itself because the hosting country is also responsible and should be held accountable.
If they attack us from Saudi Arabia, the same from Bahrain is the same.
From anywhere they attack us, we're going to respond against the US bases and against the hosting country.
Now, when Trump talks about a massive airstrike and not sending boots on the ground or men, the Marines on the ground, I mean, he's really not being very straight with the American people because Iran has thousands of missiles base spread all over the country and it is impossible for any superpower to destroy over 3000 to 3600 missile locations all over the country in 24 hours.
So if this is going to take several days or several weeks, Iran will have the time to launch back and then cause a serious casualties among the Americans and their allies in the region.
So inevitably, if you call on Iran, Iran is going to retaliate.
And so far, Iran is only being on the defensive because it is considered that the economic sanctions are an act of war.
Am I right?
I know they have satellite guided this and that too, but isn't it the case that to take out the surface to air missiles that you need special operations forces on the ground with laser designators to target?
That is one, but it's also possible to do it via cruise missiles.
When you identify the target, this is what Iran did when they bombed thousands of kilometers away, the location of ISIS in Syria, launching missiles from Iran and also against the Kurds in Iraq.
So if we're talking about cruise missile, it is impossible to intercept whatever the interception missile system is good and whatever system you have, a cruise missile flies on very low altitude and reach the target and closes all its electronic.
So the disturbance is immune to any disturbance anyway.
So in other words, the Navy and the Air Force actually could have an argument that they could do an air war without even having to send in special operations forces to take out the anti-aircraft.
I'm not saying that's a compelling argument to me or anything, but I'm just saying that could be part of their argument is that no literally zero boots on the ground.
Yeah, that's true.
They can do that, but at the same time, they will receive the same.
They will receive the same cruise missile against them.
So it is a tit for tat.
They can destroy, let's say, because they are stronger 100 location and Iran can destroy in exchange 10, but these 10s are going to be very hurtful.
You know, I had a guy who was, I think he was, well, anyway, he was a experienced Navy guy from the Cold War days.
And he told me that the Americans knew for many decades even, I think, or certainly for many, many years that they could fight, nevermind submarines, but in terms of surface ships anyway, that the Americans could fight the Soviets from way over the horizon.
And they had such a longer range to hit Soviet ships in a way where they just had absolute superiority on the seas.
And that they know that if in the event of Iran, they're not going to have an aircraft carrier within cruise missile range.
They're going to be way, way over the horizon in a way to protect their boats.
But the thing about that is, what are they going to do about the bases in Bahrain and Qatar and Kuwait and Iraq and Afghanistan?
You can't, and Saudi Arabia.
You can't sail those away over the horizon.
They're stuck right there across the Gulf, right in crosshairs, already targeted probably.
Yeah, well, here I'm going to give you another two points.
First, that is possible to do if your enemy, in this case, Iran, is doing nothing in watching you destroying the country and just watching until you finish.
And this is not going to be the case.
But we're not talking only about targeting U.S. bases in the Middle East.
We're talking about Iran with the capability of 2,000 kilometers missiles.
Who says in case of a large war that the U.S. bases in Europe are going to be spared?
I mean, so far, Europe is not offering anything to the Iranians.
And I'm here not speculating, Scott.
Hey guys, a quick programming note for you.
If you signed up for the Just the Interviews feed at the Libertarian Institute, you're probably going to need to go over and sign up at scotthorton.org instead, or at least if you're on iTunes there.iTunes has canceled the Just the Interviews feed from the Institute, I guess just because it's redundant with the scotthorton.org feed.
So either go over to scotthorton.org and sign up for Just the Interviews there, or stay at the Institute and sign up for the other podcast feed, and then that way you'll get my show plus the great Kyle Anzalone, Pete Raymond, and of course Patrick McFarlane and Keith Knight as well.
That's all at scotthorton.org or libertarianinstitute.org.
Well, and so what about, let's get to the ships here, because obviously the American government's version of the story is that Iran did it, which makes that angle very suspicious.
And then there's all kind of anomalous things here.
They blame a mine, but you have all these explosion marks are from quite above the waterline.
And I think all six cases, I don't know, I may be overstating it, but then you have the owner of the Japanese ship saying, we were hit by a flying object, not a mine.
On the other hand, you make the case in your articles that this is just absolutely part and parcel of Iran's strategy against the United States, that they're showing that they are masters essentially of asymmetric warfare, that this is the very least of what they can do to resist American domination if it really comes to a war.
And so is that just a correlation, that you just think it really makes a lot of sense that they must have done it, or you know that they did it?
Well, let's put it this way.
First of all, Iran is a primary suspect.
Second, Iran is not afraid for people to say the Iranians are behind the attacks.
Third, there are no proof that Iran did it, and that suits Iran.
And fourth, Iran is saying again and again and again, if we don't export our oil, nobody's going to do it.
Nobody's going to export this oil from the Middle East.
That's very clear.
So disregarding who did it, the message is there.
You want to prevent us from exporting our oil, there is no oil export from the Middle East, and 15 to 20% of the world oil export is going to be neutralized in the Gulf.
So it does make sense, right?
I mean, first of all, it doesn't make too much sense as a false flag, I guess, because it's not enough to start a war over.
It does make more sense, as you're saying, as a demonstration of Iranian power on the very low end there.
But haven't you written that you have sources inside the Iranian government who have confirmed to you that yes, indeed, they did it?
Well, I've never said they did it.
I said, Iranians are not afraid to say they have done it, although yes, in a way, I am saying they are behind it.
Secondly, it is not enough to start a war, as indeed you said, rightly, because Iran did not inflict any human casualty.
In the first case, the sabotage act was against tankers in territorial water that belonged to the Emirate.
So that is very local and nobody can complain about it, but the Emirate should look after its own security.
And the second one also didn't attack U.S. personnel and the damage was against ships, not against people.
And the implication for Iran to say we've done it, it means they are responsible for the act and they inevitably have to respond in case of it to pay the compensation for the damage and they are not respecting the international water.
This is why Iran is not officially saying we are behind it.
But I can tell you, Iran is not afraid for people to say they are behind, they are the primary suspect, although there are not evidence to confirm that Iran did it.
Yeah, it really is kind of a mystery because people are pointing out that not just the president, but the Ayatollah himself was sitting down with the Japanese prime minister at the time that a Japanese boat was being attacked.
Then I think Bernard at Moon of Alabama pointed out that actually that boat was flagged Panamanian and that whoever hit it might not have realized that it was owned by a Japanese company.
Although to attack anything while they're sitting down with the Japanese prime minister seems to be a pretty big deal.
It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that the IRGC would do to embarrass the supreme leader.
To embarrass, I think you may have even written this or treated Parsi, somebody was right.
Sure, to embarrass Rouhani, yeah.
I mean, IRGC hates Rouhani and they love embarrassing him, but to do that to the Ayatollah seems a pretty big deal.
At the same time, for the Ayatollah to have ordered it and to have it happen while he's meeting with the Japanese prime minister, bringing sort of kind of a message of peace would seem like a pretty big affront too, especially to the Japanese with their honor code and all that kind of thing, no?
Well, there are several points in what you just mentioned here.
First of all, the Ayatollah, there are many, I mean, there is a misunderstanding about the power of the Ayatollah.
The supreme leader has the power over the entire country, but he's not someone who is following step by step every single decision.
He gives the guidelines and the details.
It's up to the people on the ground to decide how and where to act.
Secondly, in an act of war, it depends on the opportunity.
So when the opportunity present itself, then the attack can take place.
And a third, what did Japan bring to the Grand Ayatollah of Tehran?
Nothing.
Japan came to say, we want to mediate for the liberation of five Americans who are captured in Iran, and we would like the tension to deescalate.
I mean, these are words, Iran can't do anything with these words.
Iran wants to know if Japan is going to buy the oil.
And the Japanese prime minister said, I can't buy your oil.
So what on earth you are doing here to just mediate for U.S. citizens who are prisoners in Iran?
And we have offered the U.S. to mediate for Iranian prisoners that are in the U.S., and this demand was denied.
And the last point I would like to say, Rouhani and the IRGC today are in a perfect harmony.
Although there is a difference between the two sides, between the pragmatic and the more radical, but we saw Trump pushing Rouhani to extreme because first of all, Rouhani did everything in his power to convince the Grand Ayatollah to allow him to negotiate with the Americans.
And after a long effort, the Ayatollah accepted, and Rouhani was showing his victory.
They even made a statue to Zarif at the foreign ministry in the street of Tehran for him managing to conclude the nuclear deal with the Americans.
And people were happy, finally they're going to have good relationship with the Americans.
And then here you have Trump saying, I'm going to tear this agreement apart, I don't want it.
So Rouhani felt really disappointed, not by the Grand Ayatollah or by the IRGC, but by the Americans with whom he has negotiated for years to get at the end of the day, just a deal that is suitable for everybody and where Iran is not going to get this nuclear bomb.
And Iran never said, I'm going to get my nuclear bomb.
And just to give a small details, it was first the Americans who offered the first reactor, nuclear reactor to Tehran University at the time of President Eisenhower in 1953.
So it's not Iran having a nuclear capacity or not, it is the Islamic Republic that is anti-Israel that is not allowed to have a nuclear capability.
Well, and that's really the key, right?
Not a nuclear weapon or nuclear weapons program, but a nuclear capability at all, even a latent nuclear deterrent, like a civilian electricity program that could be reconfigured.
Even that is, quote, this is from Scott Ritter's book, Target Iran, where he talks about the Israeli intelligence officers and policy makers saying, for Iran to have any nuclear technology is tantamount to them having a nuclear weapons program.
And so, wow, what a great magic word that you can just do whatever you want with, tantamount.
This and that are tantamount.
Set it on fire.
Yeah, indeed.
And now, so here's part of the problem too, I think, Elijah, and I'm not sure if you agree with this or what, but I'd be happy to hear your take.
But I think part of the problem is, is that Trump is really dumb.
And he started out with attacking the nuclear deal, essentially just for political purposes, to be the most stark in the Republican primary campaign on this very high-profile Obama arrangement, so-called accomplishment, that he was trying to tear down.
And of course, you have massive Republican Party financiers like Sheldon Adelson, who represent the Likud Party and their interests in the country, who, of course, are hawks on this and were against the deal all along.
And it seems to me, he thinks the policy is good cop, bad cop till we get a better deal, whereas the bad cops in his administration are actually really just deliberately sabotaging negotiations in order to pick a fight.
What do you think of that?
Well, I think, first of all, Trump had a good team before with Tillerson and Mattis around him.
And there were people with a lot of common sense in trying to bring some sense to Trump.
And second, we see that Trump is kicking everybody out and firing everybody, and now surrounded with Pompeo, who is telling the American people, I lie, we are taught to lie, we lie all the time.
So how people can believe anything Pompeo would say?
And then we have another person, who is John Bolton, National Security Advisor, who just, his favorite song is, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
And that is not diplomacy.
And the third, when the Trump administration is putting sanction, imposing sanction on the Granada, who doesn't have any account, not even in Iran, and can you imagine outside Iran or on Zarif, is not only to sabotage the negotiation, but it's just, there is no sense in the decision that are taken by the White House.
I mean, these decisions just make people disrespect the United States and say, who on earth is leading this country?
And this is not going to go anywhere.
And the last I'm going to add, is when someone like Trump tell the Iranians, I threaten you with total obliteration, and so he's hinting toward using nuclear weapons against them, that is against the law.
And how can you imagine a country like Iran or any other country to say, okay, we give up on all our defensive missiles, we're not going to have missiles, and you can annihilate us anytime you want.
It doesn't make sense.
There's no room for logic even, even for amateurs in foreign policy.
Hmm.
Well, and you know, he's under the influence of these liars too.
He doesn't know the first thing about anything.
So they gave him a talking point that 2,000 out of the 4,500 Americans who died in Iraq War II were killed fighting the Shia.
And then therefore every bomb that they set off was an Iranian bomb.
So the typical propaganda line there, which is already way out of proportion is 600, but that just magically becomes 2,000.
Don't forget, Iran killed 2,000.
In other words, half of the American casualties in Iraq, even though they were backing the same side as us in that whole thing against the Sunni side there.
This kind of propaganda where, you know, also, of course, there's the Israeli forged so-called smoking laptop that was pretended to be smuggled out, stolen from an Iranian scientist.
The whole thing was a hoax.
But in there are essentially fake blueprints for a nuclear warhead, which Gareth Porter, and in fact, even David Albright poured cold water on this when David Sanger at the New York Times tried to push it.
Even David Albright, of all people, said that, no, this is all wrong.
And Gareth later showed that, in fact, at the time that the document was forged, the Iranians were already working on the later version of the missile that had an entirely different shape, nose count, a more bottlenose rather than a conical tip on the end of it.
And so the whole thing was, you know, clearly a fraud.
It couldn't possibly have been real, but it's very simple and easy to imagine that that would have been one of the talking points that John Bolton would have told Trump, that, oh, yeah, we have these blueprints where they're working on nuclear warheads for these missiles, even though, of course, what they represent is an entirely different thing, a defensive threat with conventional explosives.
Well, if we look at what's happening today in the Gulf, and let us assume that is Iran behind all these attacks, just a matter of assumption.
Iran didn't need nuclear weapons to stop the flow of oil into the world.
Those who attacked the tankers needed a very primitive magnetic mine to stop the tanker and just send a message that this is possibly going to be the case of many other tankers.
So you really don't need excessive firepower to convince the enemy or to send messages abroad.
And also during the war, we can see today with the Yemeni and the Saudis, the Saudi with all their modern weaponry, the modern U.S. jet, the weapons from the Great Britain and France, they're fighting people, miserable people, like the Houthi in Yemen, who are trying to develop themselves, defend themselves.
And after four years of war, the Houthi are imposing a new rule of engagement on the Saudis, and they're hitting one airport against airport.
So if Saudi hit Sana'a Airport, the Houthi will hit Nijran Airport or Abha Airport in Saudi Arabia.
So you really don't need nuclear weapons to fight your war.
And another point I would like to go back to on the Iraq war and the Iranian killing 2,000 men.
Now, first of all, Bush declared Iraq and occupation, the U.S. forces in Iraq as occupation forces.
And in Europe, as in the United States, you really understand what resistance mean against the enemy or against the occupier.
The Iraqis stood against the Americans because the Americans didn't learn how to deal with the Iraqis.
And the first thing Paul Bremer said, dismantling the whole army and put 400,000 men in the street without any security and anything.
So inevitably, it's going to be an insurgency against the occupation forces.
While today, we can see the government of Iraq, of Adel Abdel Mahdi, saying the Americans are here under the Iraqi request, they are under our protection, they are our guests, they are supporting us, and we want them to stay.
There are no longer occupation forces.
And the other day, when there were rockets fired against the American embassy or close to the American embassy, it was the government of Iraq who said, we deny, we reject such an act, we are against it.
This country is not a battlefield for Iran or any other party, even if they are Iraqis.
So things have changed from occupation forces and what the Iraqis did, attacking the occupation forces.
And today, the Americans are forces requested to stay by the Iraqi government, unlike Syria, where there are still occupation forces, consider occupation forces, because they are there not under the request of the government of Damascus.
Well, I mean, America's been fighting, whether you technically call them occupation forces or not, they've been fighting in alliance with, at the behest of, the Bata Brigade since 2003.
I mean, you mentioned Al-Mahdi, he's from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Hakeem faction.
All the previous prime ministers before him, Amiri, Maliki, and Jafari, they were all from the Dawah party.
These are all Iran's best friends, not that they're total sock puppets or anything, but these are exactly the people that the Ayatollahs wanted America to put in power there.
Yeah, but don't forget that in 2014, not 2014, 2016, 17, and 18, the US forces backed Hadi al-Amiri, the Hashd al-Shaabi, and all the pro-Iranian groups with their jet against ISIS.
Right.
And they were fighting alongside one another.
I can tell you, Iran doesn't need to do much in the Middle East to gain power.
I guess not.
Sit back and watch the Americans do it all for them.
Exactly, just to collect behind the American mistakes.
The Americans interfere in Iraq and they overthrown Saddam Hussein and they gave the power to the Shia in the country, but then they've turned the whole country into a mess and they refuse to help the government of Baghdad when ISIS occupied 40% of the country.
They literally refused and watched ISIS growing and expanding.
That was a big mistake when the Kurd, the best ally of the US, Massoud Barzani, comes out and say, it is only Iran who supported us and stopped ISIS on the Gate of Erbil.
Otherwise, ISIS would have occupied Kurdistan.
When the prime minister of Iraq said exactly the same.
So, I mean, when you want to change the regime in Syria and Iran move forward to support the regime in Syria and the US and around 50 or 60 other country supporting regime change and helping all these jihadists and takfiri, including those responsible of 9-11 to flock into the country and support the regime change to create a huge Islamic state in Syria and to create a failed state.
And all that Iran managed with the support of Russia and the Syrian army to defeat it and to regain power.
And of course it will have power.
It's just collecting behind the American states.
All right, so now back to the current crisis for a minute here, Elijah.
You write that Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of an all-out war in the Middle East.
So does that translate also to real kind of command and control cooperation with them and coordination in the event of a war breaking out that you guys shoot these missiles here and you guys blow up that thing there?
And also, when you say Afghanistan, are you talking about Hazaras or who are Iran's allies in Afghanistan?
In Afghanistan, Iranian diplomats were killed and the Taliban were occupying the country and were killing every single pro-Iranian in Afghanistan.
When Bush decided to occupy in Afghanistan and thought it's a matter of a month, like every American president say at every war, he start but he never finishes, Iran started to support the Afghan people in their insurgency against the Americans.
And that is only after when the Americans started to impose sanctions on Iran and make the Iranian life difficult.
Because before that, I remember Ambassador Crocker and the U.S. Ambassador used to meet with envoy of Qasem Soleimani in Iraq to attack the Taliban and to receive the full support of Iran against Taliban in Afghanistan when the relationship was at its best level.
But then everything changed.
Today, Iran hosts the Taliban like Qatar, like the Taliban who talking to the United States and also negotiating with them.
Iran also has a footprint in Afghanistan, has allies there and is supplying them with everything they need, exactly like Iran has allies in Iraq and has allies in Syria and in Lebanon.
And what I meant by the operational room is not you go and attack this target or that target, it is important to coordinate and to make sure that messages are sent from different parts, from different country.
So if the U.S. want to start a war, the U.S. will understand that this is not going to be limited to the Iranian geography, but it's going to expand into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
And the response is going to be from all these countries and maybe simultaneously, maybe not, depending on the intensity of the war, if the war breaks.
Well, you know what?
You hear all the time, or at least some of the time from critics that there's a concern that there could be Hezbollah attacks against targets in Europe too.
Well, to make it very simple, we all know that Netanyahu came out, it is in all newspapers, it was published in the time of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and other Western newspapers, where Netanyahu brag about it was him who convinced Trump to tear apart the nuclear deal.
So why go and attack Europe?
I mean, Israel just next door to Hezbollah.
They just need to attack the person or the country or the government who is responsible to bring the U.S. to the verge of war or to start a war.
So why going to Europe to go through all this trouble to attack a country or a continent that is not declaring animosity against Hezbollah, even if the UK put Hezbollah on the list of terrorism?
So they just have Israel next door to attack.
Yeah.
And in Iraq, they have U.S. bases all over Iraq.
They have in Afghanistan, they have U.S. bases.
In Yemen, they can attack the Saudis that are American allies.
So why go to another continent and bother when they have all their strengths and power and all the logistic in Lebanon to attack Israel next door?
And especially with the air base at Qatar and the Navy base at Bahrain.
I mean, even if the whole fleet is out to sea, they can still bomb the hell out of that base, which would cost the Americans a lot to try to replace it anyway.
And then all the guys in Kuwait, how many troops are in Kuwait right now?
Must be more than 10,000.
Yes, there are around 50,000 all over in the Middle East, but between 35 and 50.
But just to tell you, I honestly don't think there's going to be a war.
Yeah, me either.
For all the reasons that we're talking about, it's just, if you were the Secretary of the Army, you would have to be telling the President that this is just too much, right?
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we just don't wanna do this.
The Air Force might talk a big game, but essentially, escalation dominance, we don't have it, they do.
I don't think the common sense is stopping the war.
I think what is stopping the war today is Trump electoral campaign.
This is what is stopping the war.
All right, well, I guess we'll take it.
I mean, part of that is that the American people, even without knowing the details, are just finding it harder and harder to believe in this stuff.
You know, we went to war against 400 bandits 20 years ago, and haven't been able to resolve this problem yet.
It just keeps getting worse.
And you don't have to be any kind of expert to see that something is not right here.
Not only that, it is not to underestimate the power of your enemy.
In this case, Iran.
If Iran is your enemy, Mr. Trump, Iran is not going to sit and watch.
The power of Iran, Iran is the strongest country in the Middle East.
Iran has allies where no other country in the Middle East has allied.
The U.S. doesn't have allies in the Middle East.
The Saudis are afraid of the U.S. because the U.S. is the one who is keeping the Saudi regime in place.
The Emirati is the same.
The Bahraini is the same.
Otherwise, if the Americans hold on to their principle of democracy and ask this country to abide by democracy, they will not last one day.
Not because if Iran is going to attack them.
Iran doesn't need to do anything.
Are the population asking for democracy and election?
There is one family governing Saudi Arabia since decades, and even their passport is called by the name of this family.
These are not the U.S. ally.
When Trump calls the Saudi and say, I want $500 million today, and he get the $500 million, not because he's an ally.
It's because they are afraid of him.
So, but Iran has ideological ally.
Iran has non-ideological and secular ally, like Syria.
Iran has a friend in Iraq, non-ideological.
Adel Abdel Mahdi, the prime minister, is not holding on to his religion.
He is a businessman.
He is a prime minister.
He's an expert in finance, and he's not religiously bound.
So Iran has ally, the Houthi are not Shia.
The Houthi are Zaydi and closer to the Sunni rather than the Shia, but they are their allies.
So Iran has allies in the strongest country in the Middle East.
You're not going to fight with Saudi and the Emirati against such a country and expect this country not to retaliate.
Right, that should be noted for the American audience too, that to a man, every single Iran hawk also said we must get rid of Saddam Hussein in brackets for Iran.
And so it seems like if that was the rule that, sure, you can be an Iran hawk as long as you didn't support war against Iraq, then fine.
Then that would be the end of the argument because there would be nobody left on the hawk side.
But so let me ask you this, what do we do now?
Because Trump can't just go back to the deal and the Ayatollah clearly is not going to sign a better deal and let Trump win this thing on those grounds.
And so we're kind of stuck.
And you talk about those electoral pressures, but pressures in DC and among donors and these kinds of things, rather than voters, all of those kinds of pressures can really lead toward proving what a tough guy you are and not letting that Ayatollah push you around and all this kind of deal.
And it seems like all of those kind of incentives can backfire and turn right around.
And we don't really have another way out of this.
I mean, Trump didn't give the Ayatollah another out other than bowing down and kissing his feet.
If you read the Pompeo speech at Heritage and they keep adding conditions.
You have to give up all your missiles and probably sink your boats and whatever else.
There's no way they can give into this thing.
So what do you think is going to happen now?
Well, obviously there is very clearly bad advises to President Trump at the White House for the thing that putting imposing sanction on the Grand Ayatollah who has no property and no intention to go to Las Vegas or go to Disneyland and to go around New York shopping and to put a sanction foreign minister that is the gate of the diplomacy.
So Trump is ill-advised in this matter.
Now, what is the way out?
I think Trump is a businessman and as a businessman and he wants to be reelected, I will not be surprised to hear that Trump is going to freeze the sanction for another six months.
That's one.
Two, China already is defying the U.S. and is starting to buy the oil and China started to buy oil from Iran and they have started with 1 million barrel the other day and they are buying the Iranian oil.
And third is Trump and President Putin met during the G20 in Osaka.
And I think Putin is capable of taking on him things and then propose to Trump the way out because Trump is stuck and he wants a way out.
So the only way out is to somebody else to say, hey, take it on me.
I'm going to offer the solution.
I'm going to deescalate and find a way out for everybody and let everybody comes out as a winner and nobody is lost in this battle.
And let us live, allow the Middle East to get rid of this war shadow upon that is floating for the last few months.
So these are the possibilities.
Iran sells its oil and give the damn about Trump.
Trump will see that his sanctions are not working.
Then he will move forward and arm himself with pragmatism and propose a way out.
And the other chance is Putin to come forward with a plan agreed with Trump and is also agreed with the Iranians.
These are the possibility.
But the end of the day, Iran today no longer trust the Americans.
Iran today no longer trust the Europeans because the Europeans signed a contract that is a nuclear deal agreement and they're not capable of holding to their word and their bound.
So your word is your bound and your signature is your bound doesn't work anymore.
The Europeans are just offering words to Iran and Iran is no longer trusting the European.
But that doesn't mean Iran is going to go toward building a nuclear bomb.
Iran doesn't want a nuclear bomb and doesn't need a nuclear bomb.
Iran has its classical firepower, the missile that are capable of hitting anywhere and is waiting for the world to decide.
Otherwise, Iran is going to pull out partially on the 7th of July and is going to start pulling out gradually until it completely pulls out in a year from now to more or less around the 8th of May, 2020 before the election, 2020, before a Trump election to make sure they contribute to his defeat.
All right, you guys, that's Elijah Magnier.
He's at ejmagnier.com.
That's I-E-R, ejmagnier.com.
Iran and Trump on the edge of the abyss is one.
And also Iran has warned to target Arab countries in case of war.
Thanks again, Elijah.
Thank you, Scott.
All right, you guys, and that has been Anti-War Radio for this morning.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
Find my full interview archive, more than 5,000 of them now going back to 2003 at scotthorton.org.
I'm here every Sunday from 8.30 to 9.00 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA.
See you next week.
