Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again, you've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN, like, say our name and say it, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, it's the great Gareth Porter.
He is the author of Perils of Dominance about the war in Vietnam.
And of course, the absolutely indispensable Manufactured Crisis, the truth behind the Iran nuclear scare.
He writes for Truthout and Truthdig.
And here's one in the American Conservative Magazine.
Why evidence of Iran's role in the attack doesn't matter.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm fine.
Thanks, Scott.
Glad to be back.
Happy to have you here.
So in a nutshell, you're saying, hey, I don't know, Iran might have bombed those Saudi watchman jammers.
But the point is something different than that.
No.
Well, the point is not whether or not Iran did it.
The point is that, you know, I do think that Iran was behind it.
I don't think that there's any question that they had a huge role in this.
And that this is part of a broader strategy that Iran has been undertaking for the last several months to get the United States government to take seriously the threat that Iran can pose to it in the Persian Gulf, specifically in the Strait of Hormuz, to the whole traffic of oil from the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, to the rest of the world.
And, you know, this is not the primary issue at this point.
I think the problem here is that the media and the political elites are, as my friend Kelly Vlahos put it, sucking up all the air from the political atmosphere, the political system, to talk only about this question of is Iran guilty or not.
Whereas the issue that ought to be discussed right now is what is the United States going to do about the fact that Iran is refusing, is going to refuse, to accept peacefully the U.S. assault on its economy, which is aimed at essentially bringing it to its knees.
And the fact is that Iran is not going to accept that and that this is part of that broader problem.
And that's not being discussed to any degree at all.
I mean, it's very much in the background.
So that's what I was trying to get at.
I'm not sure that the headline really conveyed that very, very well.
But that was my thought.
And that is what I think needs to be really focused on at this stage.
So, in other words, what Robert Higgs calls truncating the antecedents, they just leave out everything that matters about the context.
But so I wonder if the context truly is Iran and the sanctions against their oil exports, or whether what's really at play here is just the war against the Houthis and whether the Houthis have done this with or without Iranian support.
Look, I mean, the Houthis obviously have legitimate reasons to do this, as I point out in my article.
And they do have a weapon that, you know, in theory could have done it.
But, you know, there are lots of complications here that I don't think we really want to get into.
But we can if you really want.
I want to.
Make it as complicated as you can, Porter.
I'm listening.
Well, OK, but here's the here's the broader point that I'm trying to make at this moment.
The Iranians obviously also have a major interest in this outcome.
Why?
Because this is the most stunning piece of work that Iran or Iran and the Houthis, if you will, have been able to undertake to show that they are capable of having a major impact on the world's oil economy and the logistics of it.
And so one must take that very seriously, particularly since this is part of a broader strategy that Iran began, in my view, and I think the evidence is very strong for this, last spring with the very minor attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranians are pursuing a strategy that is is aimed on one hand at not giving the United States an easy accusation against them.
And on the other hand, making it clear to the United States government that it that it does have the capability and the will to cause major damage to the traffic of oil from from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the world.
And this, of course, is their only option, their only way of responding to what is a threat to the very existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And so so that's that's really the point I want to primarily emphasize here.
So I mean, yes, I mean, there there there is this Quds One weapon that that the Houthis have displayed and which would have the effect of potentially of of causing damage to the Saudi Arabian oil facility.
But there but there's the problem of distance, the problem of range.
And, you know, what we're going to see, we're already seeing, but we will continue to see in the coming days, is the Trump administration's intelligence and other officials coming forward with the argument that that the Houthis could not have done this because, A, they don't have the technical capability to to arrange such a an attack.
And B, and more importantly, they're going to argue that that the the the instrument, the the weapon in question does not have sufficient range to reach the oil facility from the territory controlled by the Houthis.
And and they will be able to make a credible case, which is going to be difficult to refute in this instance.
Well, at the same time, though, I mean, the counterfactual is, as they're claiming, at least, that there were a bunch of missiles fired from Iran from southwestern Iran across the Persian Gulf to hit these oil refining facilities.
And that, oops, caught us completely unaware.
The Americans could only claim that after a full day had gone by or so.
But at first they were saying the missiles must have come from Shiite-controlled, Iran-friendly Iraq.
So it sort of seemed like they're making up stuff.
Look, they still don't they still don't know where it came from.
I mean, they don't have the ability to trace that.
They don't have the it appears that they don't have the capability to document the charge that that it came from Iran or that it came from Iraq, for that matter.
And so they are basically arguing on the basis of inference.
I agree with that.
They're arguing the basis of inference.
But but from my point of view, it's it's not the primary issue.
And I would I would argue that we should not get hung up on that.
I hear you.
You know what, though?
I mean, it's always like this because there's always the real reason for whatever they're doing.
And then there's always kind of the fake reason.
And we got to debunk all of them.
Right.
We got to explain that this isn't about weapons of mass destruction.
This is about expanding American military hegemony.
And this is about what the Likud wants and these other things.
But as long as we're talking about weapons of mass destruction, let me tell you, those aluminum tubes are not for centrifuges.
You know what I mean?
We're always in that where we have to confront these narratives on all their different levels.
So I think it's really important that we clarify that the best they have so far is implications.
And then we are meant to infer that at the same time as you're saying, hey, the Iranians have a reason for doing something like this.
It's very much what Elijah Magnier said on the show last spring with a whole early summer going on with the pseudo attacks, somewhat attacks on those tankers, that listen, Iran has a real motive to show that they can destroy or cripple a zillion dollar ship for a dollar seventy five.
And that with that ability to fight asymmetrically, you better not mess with us, because as weak as we are, we can still find all kind of creative ways to hit you that you can't defend against.
And that makes sense, too.
Precisely, precisely.
And there's more to that narrative than what you've suggested.
Obviously, the whole shoot down of the U.S. drone near or over Iranian territory, whichever it was, I'm prepared to believe that it could be either one, that that shoot down was clearly calculated to send this message as well.
And they did indeed send that message at the time.
Yeah.
And that was in the aftermath.
People don't remember.
That was in the aftermath of the controversy over the attacks on the tankers was when the drone attack happened.
Shoot down.
Yes, yes.
Right, right.
So so the Iranians have been very carefully calibrating a set of actions.
On the hand, they can deny, but on the other hand, clearly signal to the U.S. government.
Decision here and to the White House, particularly that that they are not going to stand for what the United States is doing, they will resist militarily and that they have the tools to do so.
That's the message that they've been sending us.
Right.
And so, again, you know, yes, of course, if there's information that can really refute this, I'm all for putting it out.
But at the same time, I have the feeling that at this point we're we're in a different it's not just a feeling.
I have an analysis that that indicates that we are in a different place in this instance than we were in the case of the WMD argument that was made to invade Iraq.
Because in that case, you know, Saddam Hussein did not have the the credible certainly did not have the motive to to do what the U.S. government was claiming that.
So so really what what I think we need to do is look at the larger picture.
And one of the things that I have in my mind in that regard is is that this reminds me very much of the situation that was taking place right before the United States began the bombing of North Vietnam in 1965.
I see Donald Trump now in very much the same position that Lyndon Johnson was in in both 1964 and 65, but specifically in the early months of 1965.
He was being pressed by his advisers at that point, Robert S. McNamara and McGeorge Bundy and others in his administration, but particularly those two, to begin the bombing of North Vietnam.
And, you know, we have a president today who is in similar under similar pressure to begin a to begin to respond militarily to what we see happening in the Middle East.
And, you know, in in 1965, the issues were that the Viet Cong were responding to the growing military presence of the United States in South Vietnam with beginning to carry out attacks on U.S. bases, particularly in Central Central Vietnam.
And the McNamara McNamara and Bundy were insisting that it was time for the United States to respond to this with bombing of North Vietnam, that we couldn't wait any longer.
And LBJ was trying to hold out.
He was trying to he was he was hoping that something would take place politically in Saigon that would allow him to escape from that pressure.
He wasn't he wasn't actively trying to negotiate a settlement, but that was in part because he was being told by his advisers at that point, particularly the secretary of state, Dean Rusk, that the North Vietnamese weren't interested, even though that was totally untrue.
And and he was falling for it.
And therefore, he went ahead ultimately and began the bombing under this false impression.
Now, I'm afraid we have a very close parallel here with Trump because he's being told as well by his advisers that the Iranians are not interested in negotiations.
And they, of course, have refused to agree to his offer to sit down with them at the United Nations with a very, very limited U.S. offer of of some immediate relaxation of the sanctions in return for talks.
But that is not sufficient for Iran.
They need to have a fundamental agreement in principle that the United States is going to back off its effort to kill the Iranian economy and and do so in the context of a an understanding with Iran that it's no longer going to be treated in the same way that it has been since the beginning of the Trump administration.
And so I think we're at a point where there has to be a more fundamental diplomatic move by the United States.
There has to be a change fundamentally in the entire approach to diplomacy on the part of this administration.
That's going to be tough.
But I think that is the way out of this dilemma.
Just as it was in 1965, there should have been negotiations then.
That would have prevented the Vietnam War.
That was a totally needless war.
It could have been prevented with negotiations in 1965.
And a deal would have been better for the United States than what was done in 1973 by far.
So so that's that's the kind of analysis that I think applies to the current situation, which I think tells us that that what is terribly important now is for anti-war people to unite around the same kind of program that should have been put in place by the United States.
That was pushed in 1965 by anti-war people.
Now is the time to negotiate with North Vietnam.
Now is the time to negotiate with Iran.
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Well, you know, John Bolton is gone.
And, you know, I think I'm not exactly sure how clear this all is or what all are the things going on in Mike Pompeo's neurons or, you know, some of these things are unknowable.
But it seems like the Trump idea was we'll give a maximum pressure and then they'll come to the table and they'll sign some deal.
He was daydreaming that hadn't quite worked out that way.
But at the same time, I think we've talked about this before in pretty good detail that Pompeo and Bolton both, that their idea was not so much that they would force the Iranian regime to give in, but that they would force it to crumble under the sanctions that were being placed on Iran under the name of forcing them to give in on adding missiles to the nuclear deal or whatever it is.
Not that they were going to do necessarily a CIA regime change coup, although I'm not saying that's out of the question.
All options are on the table, as they always like to say.
But they seem to think that just the economic war would succeed in bringing the regime to its knees and then we could deal with whoever comes next.
Which, of course, wouldn't work and isn't working.
But it's essentially, in other words, though, they've created this policy that's just led them into a cul-de-sac and they don't know what to do without having to give in too much to the Iranians to save face.
I think that's about it.
With Bolton gone, Pompeo is still there and, of course, still represents that point of view as best he can without completely sacrificing his relationship with Trump, which, of course, he's not going to do.
And so that weakens the force behind that tendency that you've correctly identified as really hoping to be able to push Iran into a position where there would be, if not classical regime change through a CIA covert operation, then regime change through the Iranian people basically voting in a new government or going to the streets and forcing the government somehow, this is their view, not mine, of course, forcing their government to accept a fundamental change in its policies and change in personnel as well.
So I think that's been very much weakened.
I don't think Trump ever was really behind it at all.
And so that opens up more space for real diplomacy to happen.
But at this moment, the problem is that Trump has nobody around him to be able to develop a diplomatic proposal.
It has to come from outside.
And so the conundrum here is how to reach Trump from outside with the kind of diplomatic proposal that would work for him.
Well, that's what the French have been working on, right?
Let me say one more thing here, actually.
Daniel Larison at the Ron Paul Institute has said, you know, the one obvious solution here, because obviously the Ayatollah is not going to sign a whole bunch of new restrictions and everything, but also Donald Trump doesn't just want to go right back to the nuclear deal that he never should have left in the first place, essentially, as is either.
So the solution is go back to essentially the same deal, but make it a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
And then that way Trump can save face, but still essentially concede that this whole thing, he never should have done it and that it hasn't worked and that we better go back to the deal we had because it's better than nothing.
Look, I think that is the right direction, but I think it needs to go beyond simply, you know, a different name given to fundamentally the same framework.
I think there has to be a really new framework for a deal between the United States and Iran, and it should go beyond the nuclear issue to include regional issues.
And this is an opportunity really for the United States, for Trump to play the role of peacemaker.
And of course, you know, to do so in a context which involves, you know, the sort of putting aside the danger of war with Iran, but also addressing real issues of problems between Iran and Saudi Arabia and between Iran and Israel, particularly between Iran and Israel.
That's the heart of this problem, because the Israelis are on the offensive militarily, supposedly to prevent the Iranians from turning over more precise weapons to Hezbollah.
And maybe there is something to that.
But I think it's mostly in the the febrile minds of the Israelis rather than in reality.
And I think that there's room there for real diplomacy, but nobody in the world is really playing the role of doing anything diplomatically about that very, very dangerous situation.
The Hezbollah has held off the Israelis now for, what is it, 13 years and counting, the first time the Israelis have really been deterred by anybody since the early 1980s, basically.
And, you know, it may or may not hold unless there is some external intervention that prevents the Israelis from becoming really adventurous in the future and trying to continue to escalate and finally attack full bore against Hezbollah.
So my vision would be to go big and go long here.
And for somebody to get to Rand Paul, who appears to be still on good terms with Trump, unless I've missed something.
Has there been a story saying that they're now at odds or something?
No, no, I don't think so.
I mean, there was a story in The New Yorker where Trump told Rand Paul, I think it was Rand Paul's idea to say to Zarif, hey, you are invited, that's Iran's foreign minister, you're invited to meet in the White House with Donald Trump.
And then he said, OK, well, I have to go ask the bosses if that's OK.
But the ask was made.
And then before the bosses back in Tehran could answer, Trump came out and gave a statement about what scum they all were and how they were the greatest backers of terrorism in the world and what have you and scotched the whole opportunity.
Even though, Scott, as I'm sure you know, it turns out that, well, maybe this is not something that has been registered, except in my tweets, but it turns out that Bolton added Zarif's name to the list of people to be on the list of those under sanction because of their connection with IRGC, I guess, after Trump himself had approved it.
And Trump, according to what I understand people saying who have been in the White House, Trump was livid about this.
He was terribly angry.
So, I mean, it's more complicated is all I'm saying.
Yeah.
Well, and remember everyone's reaction, how absurd that was and including Iran's reaction.
What do you mean in the middle?
You just said you want to try to talk to me and then you put sanctions on the foreign minister.
OK.
Right.
Right.
I remember Zarif's rather comical comment when he was told that he'd been invited to visit Washington.
He said, well, this is a rather strange way of inviting somebody.
Right.
Yeah.
Which, you know what?
Sabotage by John Bolton is the Occam's razor explanation.
So no surprise that that's what the reporting is saying now.
Now, the other problem here, it's a huge one, is Democratic Party politics, where they're saying, you know, if you watch, you know, liberal media channels like MSNBC and CNN, their narrative, and then we're hearing this from Democratic politicians as well, that, you know, look, everybody, John Bolton says that Donald Trump is dangerous because he wants to talk to Kim and he wants to talk to the Ayatollah.
When we all know that the safe thing to do is start more wars instead.
Well, I mean, to be to be more precise.
Why does he love dictators so much?
What they were saying was that he was very, it was too soft on the Taliban.
And Kim Jong Un, they actually didn't, at least the ones I saw, were not saying the same thing about talking to Iran.
So, you know, I think that they're not going to put up much resistance here, if there is indeed an initiative on this.
I don't think they're, I mean, yeah, they're playing partisan politics.
And it's very, very nasty and doesn't help at all.
Believe me.
I'm quite sympathetic to that, to that point.
What was the reporting about John Bolton's big lunch that I was, that they were referring to?
Where they're going, see, Bolton says he's dangerous.
It's like, yeah, Bolton is the most dangerous guy in government or up until the other day.
And if you listen to his criticism, he's saying that Donald Trump ain't dangerous enough.
And that's what's so dangerous about him.
So get your act together.
Seriously.
And the Democrats did kind of embrace that in a way that was really, really horrible.
Just beyond any censure, as far as I'm concerned.
But in the end, I don't think they're going to put up any effort to stand in the way of diplomacy at all.
So that's not my worry.
But too, though, I mean, the Iranians don't have much incentive to deal with this guy.
It's still probably only a 60-40 bet he'll be reelected.
And, you know, as they have put it, I mean, this could be just a constructed statement, but it also completely reflects reality.
When they say that, look, there's no point in trying to deal with this guy.
You can't deal with him.
They don't elaborate, but what they mean is, of course, all of his premises are crazy and false and all of his demands are completely unreasonable.
And we couldn't trust him to fulfill his own word, never mind Obama's word, which he canceled as soon as he was sworn in.
So forget it.
Like, they'd be crazy to try to deal with this guy right now.
Well, I would agree up to a certain point.
Obviously, everything that you said is quite accurate, and they have said things along those lines, and they're quite correct.
However, there are mitigating circumstances here.
That is to say that if Trump were able to embrace a set of proposals that would differentiate what he wants from what the Obama administration wants, then he would be able to do that.
So, you know, this is a more complicated situation that we're into.
And I don't think that the Iranians would pass up an opportunity if there was a, you know, even a minimum chance.
I'm not sure minimum, but I didn't think it was a minimum chance.
I absolutely think that they would go for it.
At this point, there is nothing.
And I don't think that the French proposal at this point is what they need or what they're looking for.
The French are just too spineless.
They are not ready to really stand up to the United States sufficiently, in my view, to make a difference.
It's going to have to come from somewhere else.
I know you'll love it.
The great Ron Paul.
Get it at libertarianinstitute.org and amazon.com.
It sounds like something that a Roman proconsul would have read to his defeated victims in Gaul.
Absolutely.
These are the terms of your conquest.
If it weren't so tragic and dangerous, it would be hilarious.
I agree.
But now, you don't have to go through the whole list, but they're saying, give up your medium range missiles, get rid of all the sunsets in the JCPOA.
You know, so in other words, restrictions on their centrifuges that were to last for 15 years shall now last forever, this kind of thing.
But there was a lot more of that.
Cease all aid to Hamas and Hezbollah forever.
Is that on there?
Well, this was central alongside the idea that they should give up their ballistic missile program, essentially, which is comically enough.
The other major piece here was this entire notion that the Iranians could possibly imagine even talking about ending their assistance to Hezbollah.
I mean, Hezbollah is their deterrent.
Now, does Pompeo understand that?
Probably not.
Probably he doesn't.
But I'm sorry, that's no excuse.
I mean, this is so clearly off the charts that virtually nobody outside the administration really believed that that was anything but a non-starter.
So, you know, it was a ridiculous set of demands.
And I'm not even sure at this moment, I don't think, in fact, that Trump still believes that that is the starting point at all.
And so I think that we're now in a different place than we were a year ago.
Really quite different.
And that this is not a completely hopeless situation, except for this situation that exists in the White House itself, where he's now replaced Bolton with Bolton Light, somebody who was at CSP, the outfit that is associated with Bolton as well.
They have the same viewpoint, the same pro-Israeli stance.
So he offers no improvement over Bolton whatsoever, as far as I can see, except that he may not be as clever at maneuvering as Bolton was.
Yeah, well, it sort of seems important, but maybe it's not.
But kind of seems like Trump has deliberately appointed the kind of weak person to be the Secretary of Defense and another.
And I don't mean, you know, I'm sure they have many roles in their lives where they're stunning successes and everything.
But compared to a personality like Donald Rumsfeld or Robert Gates or something, this guy is not quite big enough to fit those kind of shoes.
And sort of same thing here, right, where Bolton Light is actually probably, hopefully not as capable of or maybe wouldn't dare to strong arm things the way that Bolton would.
For example, you know, sabotaging talks with Iran by putting sanctions on their foreign minister without permission or something like that, you know?
That sounds right to me, Scott.
I think you're right about that.
I hope that that's how it works, that at least, you know, as bad as he might be, that he wouldn't just go off doing things on his own.
I mean, Bolton famously invoked Libya as the model for American negotiations with North Korea, which Trump even tweeted about that, like, yeah, that wasn't very helpful, which it wasn't.
Since, of course, you know, Gaddafi was lynched and murdered on the side of the road.
Yeah.
But let's face it, the real problem here, fundamental problem, is that Trump and his nominations for the most sensitive positions are still, as they have been subject to the rule, certainly they have been for the last year and a half, have been subject to the rule that they must be pro-Israeli, they must be approved by Israel and its minions in Washington.
And I think that leaves us with a real serious deficit of freedom of action, unless there's some way to get through directly to Trump with ideas that certainly would appeal to him.
And speaking of the other regime change, maybe, everybody cross your fingers and hope, but don't count on it, but maybe the end of the Netanyahu regime in Israel for another war criminal, a guy who murdered a bunch of innocent civilians at Netanyahu's behest, in fact, in Gaza in 2012 and 2014.
And yet, again, is probably in political terms, no Netanyahu in terms of his ability to force his way hell or high water, which is what Netanyahu is renowned for.
That seems to me to be a net gain without being able to identify just how much of a gain it is.
No question that the situation is not quite as bad with Netanyahu out.
Which he's not yet.
And in fact, there was a report that in the Times of Israel yesterday, that Avigdor Lieberman had already kind of signaled that he was going to side with Gantz and give him the first chance to form a government there.
But then he denied it today and said that that's not true.
He has decided no such thing.
And in fact, I talked with Yossi Gervitz, who's an Israeli blogger and writer over there, writes for Mondoweiss.
And he was saying, I think that they're going to have a big meeting with the president, Rivlin, on Monday to decide who gets to try to form a government first and this and that kind of thing.
And nobody's going to know what's going to happen till then.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, anyway, I think we're still stuck with a situation that is highly problematic.
Only there is this, as I say, there's this slight or somewhat more than slight possibility for something to happen if there was a way.
If there was a way, and I emphasize the if, to get into Trump an idea that would appeal to him and that would serve the purpose of peace.
All right, man.
Well, thanks very much for your time, Gareth.
I sure appreciate it.
Glad to do it as always.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, you guys, that's the great Gareth Porter.
He is at TheAmericanConservative.com.
Why evidence of Iran's role in attack doesn't matter.
And as he said, it's not exactly the most apt headline, but hey, it's an important piece and I think you'll like it.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at LibertarianInstitute.org, at ScottHorton.org, AntiWar.com, and Reddit.com slash ScottHortonShow.
Oh yeah, and read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan, at foolserrand.us.
