All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I'm the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, guys, on the line, I've got Dave DeCamp, News Editor at Antiwar.com.
Welcome back.
How you doing, Dave?
Good, Scott.
Thanks for having me.
All right.
Well, I don't want to be too broad here, but what is the goddang deal?
No, that's too broad.
How about this?
Let's start with Iran.
Give me everything up to date on the Iran talks and where we are in them and what is happening and what's going to happen.
Well, so yeah, there's been a lot going on there with Iran.
Last week, the indirect negotiations between the US and Iran restarted in Vienna to revive the nuclear deal.
The goal is to revive the JCPOA.
The way that they're negotiating it, Iran sits in a room with an EU official and the remaining JCPOA participants, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany, and they talk some stuff out and then they send a diplomat over to the US.
They're at like a different hotel down the street and then tell them what Iran is saying.
So that's how the negotiations are.
Last week, the US was accusing Iran of not taking the negotiations seriously because the last rounds of negotiations, they wrapped up way back in June, about five, maybe even six months ago now, when Iran's new president was elected, Ebrahim Raisi.
And the US and the last Iranian government, they reached a draft deal that lifted most sanctions on Iran because the US doesn't want to lift all the sanctions that Trump put on the Biden administration.
They're refusing to do that.
They reached a draft deal that would lift most major sanctions, but they kind of remained far apart.
Some pretty key details.
And one of those details was the US wanted to add kind of a line into the deal that said Iran agrees to discuss, negotiate further issues, such as their ballistic missile program and what they call their destabilizing activity in the region, or their support for proxies in the Middle East.
So Iran saw that as a way for the US to back out of the deal.
Again, if they rejoined, they want a guarantee that the US isn't going to leave again, like Trump did in 2018.
And I know you interviewed Trita Parsi about this.
She had a huge story in Responsible Statecraft before the talk started that Biden rejected a way forward by refusing to guarantee that he would stay in the deal during his first term in office.
He couldn't even guarantee that.
So the negotiations come back.
Iran's new government puts in a few proposals.
From what I understand, they're asking for more sanctions relief than the original deal and probably some guarantees.
And this is just unacceptable to the US and their Western partners in these negotiations.
And they're accusing, like I said, Iran of not taking it seriously when it's really, they just want them to go to that deal, that draft deal and say, OK, yeah, we agree.
But that's not going to happen.
And in the meantime, I mean, the US is imposing new sanctions on Iran.
So the talks last week, they wrapped up Friday.
And then this week, today's December 10th, Friday, they restarted in Vienna yesterday on Thursday.
And in between that period, the US put new sanctions on Iran, on Iranian law enforcement agencies and some Iranian officials.
And they've been talking to Israel about preparing to launch attacks on Iran openly.
And Biden, the White House said yesterday that Biden, it's one of the top stories today on antiwar.com, below the Assange story, is that Biden ordered his team to make preparations for other options if diplomacy fails and the deal isn't revived.
So all these threats and sanctions and pressure, that shows to me and to Iran that the US is not serious about reviving this deal.
So I'm not really sure what's going to happen next.
I don't know if this is just part of the US trying to increase their leverage in the talks or if they made a decision to kind of sabotage the process to make Israel happy.
Because I also, I think a big part of what's happening here is that the US, you know, even though they're still very much engaged in the region and supporting Saudi's war in Yemen and in Iraq and Syria and occasional drone strikes in Somalia, they kind of, the US kind of wants to step back and focus on China, but they probably want to leave Israel and Saudi Arabia happy.
So part of me thinks that maybe they are just going to scrap this deal and keep Iran under these major sanctions, you know, the way it has been for the past few years.
Well, you know, in a sense it does make sense because the high toll is not making nukes as you reported, nukes.antiwar.com, William Burns, the head of the CIA, confirmed that, reaffirmed that again just this week.
And so really, unless they're really worried, Dave, that the high toll's going to pull out of the NPT and, you know, do like Kim Jong-il in 2003 and, you know, kick the inspectors out of the country and try to start making nukes, which I don't think that, and I sincerely doubt that they really think that that's a danger, then, eh, maybe they can just keep it at the status quo.
They have Iran good and strangled in the name of this weapons program that doesn't exist, even as they reaffirmed that it doesn't exist.
And so they never really needed the JCPOA in the first place.
And so, you know, in a perverse way, I mean, at the time when they did it, they needed it to really take the threat of war off the table.
But, you know, I don't know.
And I guess like you're saying, they are threatening war, but there's nothing to go to war over.
Just, you know, if Iran fails to get back in the treaty or, well, the deal, or actually they're the ones who are actually still part of the deal, we're the ones who aren't, but they're not abiding by some of the restrictions and all that.
But you could never gin just that up as an excuse to attack them.
I don't even think the Israelis would.
So yeah, I don't know.
I think you're right that they're going to let the talks fail and then they're probably going to hope that Godunov will stick.
And then I don't know, what is the Ayatollah supposed to do?
Start making nukes?
I don't think so.
But he doesn't really have many other choices, many other cards to play, it doesn't look like, you know?
Yeah, no, it's tough.
Another thing, too, is that there were some reports yesterday that there's a U.S. delegation going to the UAE because the UAE recently sent one of their top officials to Iran and kind of a sign of like a rapprochement that they might be easing, you know, warming ties.
But the trip is all about making sure that they comply with U.S. sanctions because there's some UAE banks still doing business with Iran and the U.S. is going to go threaten to sanction them to tighten that up.
And Israel is not happy that the UAE is talking to Iran either because they normalized with them back in 2020 and a big part of it was to kind of isolate Iran.
So and that's another thing, too.
So you said like, what is Ayatollah going to do?
One lifeline that he has had is oil sales to Asia, to China, and the U.S. is also working on getting China to cut those off.
But I don't with the way things are going with China now, I don't think they have they're going to have any motive to stop trading with Iran.
So I mean, that's kind of going to be the option as as they do that the U.S. is going to push Iran closer with China and Russia and as they are dividing the world into these blocks.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's funny because there have been signals by the Saudis that, well, jeez, if the Americans aren't going to just, you know, absolutely jump at our beck and call, Biden was sending some signals that he didn't want to, that they said, boy, we better start talking to the Iranians and not just like through the Qataris or in the fact they backed off the Qataris and they started, you know, going attending talks in Baghdad.
And as you're saying now, they're talking about bringing Iranians to the UAE.
It's sort of the same thing, you know, all over the place, actually.
Well, you know, what if we quit messing around in East Asia at all?
Maybe the Taiwanese and the Chinese government in Beijing would just make a deal and there wouldn't be, you know, any kind of violent conflict at all.
Maybe same thing all over the place.
Maybe the entire, you know, sectarian civil war in the Middle East, as it's played out since 2003, really could come to an end if America would just butt the hell out for a while.
Yeah, I mean, it's a good point.
They've been talking a lot, the Saudis and the Iranians.
And you know, that's another part of the reason why I think Biden is still backing the Saudis so much in Yemen.
And you see Congress is kind of abandoning any efforts to end that war.
There was a bill introduced by Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders in the Senate to block a missile sale that Biden just approved to the Saudis.
And it fell pretty, pretty, you know, in a pretty major way.
It was about, I think, 67 voted against it and like 20 something senators voted in favor of it.
And that's a big shift from just a few years ago when Trump was in, you know, these bills were passing, not by a wide margin.
And Trump was able to veto them, but they were passing.
And there was also an amendment on the NDAA from Ro Khanna that explicitly called to end support for the war there, you know, no loopholes, even though they probably could have figured out some loopholes.
But it was a really good amendment and that got gutted from the NDAA as it did.
You know, all the good stuff always gets taken out in conference.
But yeah, so they and there was a story recently that the Saudis, because the U.S. took some Patriot batteries out of Saudi Arabia recently to put them over in Asia.
And apparently the Saudis are begging, pleading, as they put it, to sell them some to replenish their what they have, their Patriot batteries.
So I see the Biden, you know, that's probably the next arms sale to the Saudis.
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the whole thing, right, where it was it was sort of symbolic anyway, right, air to air missiles.
I guess it could be used to help enforce the blockade, but it was mostly like just a sign of American congressional impatience with the Saudis or not.
And then they voted to let them slide some more again.
In fact, if you remember when the Senate did pass the War Powers Resolution in 2018, that was when the UAE pulled their main army out and, you know, left only their al-Qaeda integrated militia on the ground there and they're still involved.
But that was when they pulled their guys out and first sent their guys to start talking with the Iranians to send put a guy right on the plane to go to Tehran to talk.
As soon as the Senate said, hey, we're getting sick and tired of this, even though, as you said, Trump vetoed it anyway.
But they were like, wow, we're, you know, treading on pretty thin ice here.
Maybe we need to start backing off.
So now, as you're describing, the American Congress is telling them, don't worry about it.
You guys can do what you want.
Yeah.
That's something I'm pretty sure Soleimani, when he was, you know, killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, that he was there.
He was supposed to meet with some Iraqi official who was giving him some messages from Iran.
So you see what the U.S. does when they talk.
Yeah.
All right.
So essentially, I guess I read a thing that said, well, the Iranians are saying that what the Americans are saying is unacceptable and it remains to be seen whether that's just their first kind of opening gambit or they're really mean that that.
Come on, guys.
This is not going to go anywhere.
And I guess in that context, this is just, I guess, presumed to be, you know, taken as the first round before the second round, where they don't expect too much to happen at this point anyway.
Which this isn't the first round, right?
This is like the fifth round, but I guess they're starting over.
Yeah.
You know, I'm not really, I don't think that they are really starting over because, you know, the headlines that you see are that Iran's taking a stance.
They say the U.S. position is unacceptable.
But if you actually, you know, really read into it, you see Iran's negotiator.
He said, we submitted these proposals.
They're based on the earlier rounds of talks and the draft deal that they reached then.
But we added some stuff that needs to be negotiated.
And that's what we're doing here.
So they're signaling that they're open for negotiation.
And then the U.S., on the other hand, is just saying this is, they're not even, you know, they're not offering us anything that we can possibly accept because we don't, it just comes down to the fact that they don't want to lift sanctions.
Yeah.
All right.
So how about the latest from Ukraine?
I was cribbing from you when Dave Smith interviewed me last night.
But I says, looks like the worst is over and Joe Biden and his government are backing down.
Is that right?
That's what it seems like.
So yesterday, there was this article in the AP that said, you know, quoted State Department officials, I think, you know, unnamed sources that said they've conveyed to Ukraine that they're not going to, there's going to be no NATO membership for at least a decade, which means, you know, this is not something that's happening anytime soon.
We're not even really thinking about it.
Which is about like 95% of the way to what Putin said was, I want to guarantee that you're not going to bring Ukraine into NATO.
Say it.
And he twisted their arm behind their back and they said it.
OK, good.
Yeah.
Because, and right before all this, in October, Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, he went to Georgia and Ukraine.
George is another prospective member.
In 2008, NATO said, yeah, you guys can join one day.
Austin went there and said, you know, the door is open to a NATO membership.
And this was actually right before this whole recent escalation happened.
So yeah, because, I mean, that is like kind of the major red line.
And he's also been warning against NATO sending missiles to Ukraine that could target Russia.
I don't know if they really have any plans to do that.
But they are arming Ukraine.
I mean, that is very provocative.
The UK, in the fall, they signed a deal to give Ukraine more warships.
They're helping them build a military base on the Black Sea.
You know, the U.S. is still saying they just delivered some small arms to Ukraine as part of a weapons package that was, you know, signed off on the last NDAA.
And for 2022, they're giving 300 million in military aid to Ukraine.
I'm not sure what weapons they're going to be sending.
But you know, there's been reports that the U.S. is considering sending them Stinger missiles and helicopters that were going to go to the Afghan government, the, you know, former U.S.-backed Afghan government.
So there's been a lot of this stuff going on.
Let's either that or give it to our local sheriff's department, right?
Or do they give them to the Ukrainian Nazis?
Sorry.
Yeah.
And there's been, you know, a huge escalation in the U.S. and NATO presence in the Black Sea this year.
And that's a big part of why Russia, how Russia is reacting to all this.
I read, I double-checked some stuff I wrote about earlier this year.
In 2020, according to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Navy had 55 sea days in the Black Sea.
And I haven't been able to sit down and figure out how many sea days they've had this year.
But my bet is that it's been a lot more than 55 days.
It seems like, you know, they send a U.S. destroyer in there.
The bomber flights too, right?
Bomber flights, yeah.
And I don't know the exact figures on that.
Hopefully some people do some research on that.
But in November, the Russian defense minister, well, the U.S., they held this big, I forget what it's called, but it's a big bomber exercise.
And they did it in the Black Sea.
And the Russian defense minister said, you know, several U.S. bombers flew within 12 point, about 12 miles of Russian territory.
It was probably Crimea, would be my guess.
So yeah, I mean, this is a big part of it.
And the U.S., you know, I think it was Latvia, they say that they want, you know, all these countries, Eastern European countries, the Baltic states that border Russia and Poland, other countries in the region, they're like asking NATO and the U.S., they're kind of begging them to give us more weapons and send more troops.
So all this is happening.
Oh, another pretty major aspect of that AP report was that it said the U.S., Biden might, it didn't say that they are, it said they might push Ukraine to, how they put it was seed autonomy to the Eastern Donbass region.
So since 2014, you know, after the U.S. back coup in Kiev in 2014, the Eastern region there, the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, they declared independence and there's been a war on and off.
And in the Minsk protocol that was agreed to in 2014 as the first attempt at a ceasefire that kind of failed.
And then they eventually agreed to one in 2015 that has held relatively well.
There's been some big flare ups, but it's been a stalemate pretty much for, since 2015.
But in that Minsk protocol, you know, Ukraine agreed to give them some degree of autonomy.
I don't know if it was clearly defined, but the fact that the U.S. is kind of, if they are, and I bet that they are because this is the State Department to AP, it's anonymous sources, but you know, they wanted to get this message out there.
You know, that would really serve to deescalate in the region if Ukraine, you know, left them alone more in that region.
No question.
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All right.
So boy, this always happens.
Sounds like the Americans kind of provoked something of a crisis.
I mean, the buildup of Russian forces.
I saw, I think it was Gilbert Doctorow's piece where he said, boy, are they climbing down from the numbers of Russian troops who were even so-called massing there anyway.
Maybe there was some equipment, but apparently far fewer soldiers than they were claiming in The Washington Post when they kicked all this off at the beginning of last month there.
But that, you know, it looked like Putin played that card, you know, a minimal card pretty well.
And Biden eventually, after talking tough, did the right thing here.
I mean, these are pretty substantive concessions on his part here.
You know, when it comes to, especially that last point, maybe, the part about, well, no.
First of all, promising that they won't bring Ukraine into NATO for 10 years.
But then also, yeah, we're going to go ahead and lean on Kiev to live up to the Minsk two deal and provide this strong federalism and autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk.
I mean, that's a pretty big concession.
And I think you reported, too, that Biden, I guess, did a press conference and was asked specifically, would you send troops there?
And he said, no, I would not.
So that's good.
Oh, and then I don't know how political this is or whether it's just the plain truth or what.
I would, you know, my bias is I never believed in the threat in the first place.
So this just sounds right to me.
But still, maybe it was said for a political reason, as you reported here on the 7th, that William Burns, the CIA director, has essentially contradicted the story his men put in the post and said that now we don't really even think they're going to invade at all now or at least we have not concluded that we think that they're going to or however they phrase it with their medium confidence or whatever it is.
So so that's all pretty big.
Seems like maybe if they hadn't held all those war games in the Black Sea, then we probably wouldn't have had this problem in the first place.
Oh, and the Baltic and the Oshkosh Sea and the rest.
But, you know, all's well that ends well, Dave, at least, you know, thank goodness that Joe Biden is weak and, you know, not dumb enough to play tough guy here, you know, beyond the line.
I mean, it's funny, isn't it, to see Antony Blinken talking tough, just not very believable.
Like, oh, yeah, well, I'm I'm Joe Biden's guy.
So that'll, you know, that'll inspire their fear in you.
And people are just yeah, no, not really.
So good.
The last thing I want is Putin taking them seriously and starting to react in kind, you know, or any worse than he's done here.
But I guess also it's the Ukrainian politicians who have really, you know, pushed this narrative from the beginning.
So wouldn't it you that told me the other day that when when they started pushing this, the Americans at first denied it before they picked up the story and started pretending to believe it, too?
No, actually, it was the other way around.
Oh, it was the other way around.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
The U.S. was the first to say, oh, there's a massive Russian buildup and Ukraine said no, no, there's not.
And then a week later, they were like, oh, yeah, there is.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, the buildup.
The buildup.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the same one we're worried about, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good.
Yeah.
And that's another important thing is that, you know, they're not like amassed along the border looking into Ukraine.
You know, they're at bases in the region.
One of the bases, I forget the name of the Russian town it's in, but it's closer.
And this is based on, you know, the reports in Western media that are like, oh, satellite footage shows all these extra troops at these bases.
One of them is closer to Belarus than it is to Ukraine.
And in the one in Crimea, it's on the Black Sea.
It's not on the border.
So it's just not what they've made it out to be.
But there definitely was some sort of more Russian military assets in the region, you know, in this past month.
Yeah.
All right.
That is an important point.
I forgot about that.
That William Burns, the CIA chief, kind of just contradicted all these reports.
He said, no, we actually said we don't we don't know if he's going to invade.
And all the reports said U.S. intelligence has concluded they're invading in early 2022.
Maybe even by January.
So there was like at the beginning of the week blinking, too, because before.
This kind of de-escalation or what appears to be a de-escalation happened.
You know, the U.S., the line was, you know, there's going to be consequences.
We support Ukraine's territorial integrity and will, you know, like just vague comments that suggest maybe the U.S. would intervene.
We stand with them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What?
And then Blinken was the first to say, what would you do if they invade our sanction?
Well, we're going to these sanctions, they're going to really hurt them.
And that was kind of the first signal like, OK, they're kind of stepping back here.
Right.
And now, look, this is a huge test for the Republican, you know, right now, whether they're going to go along with kind of the Ted Cruz narrative about, oh, Biden is weak and not tough and we need someone tough and strong.
In fact, Donald Trump, I saw somebody post on Twitter, Donald Trump put out an email saying, yeah, Putin doesn't fear Biden like he fears me because I'm such a tough guy and Biden's so weak.
Even from Trump himself, that's the narrative.
So, you know, I'm sure you saw the Tucker Carlson bit where he took a great position on this the other day.
And there are some more, I guess, Bannon also complained about it.
But yeah, they're good on Russia.
Yeah.
Well, and that's something.
But it's also, I guess it raises the question of, I mean, obviously there is a schism here between, you know, a Republican senator on Fox saying we ought to, you know, at least threaten to use nukes and be ready for absolutely anything.
And and Biden's weakness is his problem.
And what we need is real strength now versus the exact opposite take.
The question is, like, how much tension is going to be generated by this division, though, whether the people on the right who, you know, were the America first are going to turn right back into George W. Bush conservatives again or whether this, you know, non interventionism is going to stick.
And I mean, hey, Carlson's got the biggest cable TV news show in the country, the most influential one.
And he is you know, he represents the thinking of a lot of people on the right nowadays.
So I don't want to sell him short.
I want to see what happens.
But I hope they fight about it.
It should be.
It's definitely something worth fighting about, for real.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the opposition to the Russia stuff is pretty strong on the right.
The issue, I think, is is that they're all pretty bad on China.
You know, I hope that they can apply this logic to Taiwan when, you know, the next time that that stuff escalates, you know, because, you know, that's where we're headed.
Go ahead and talk about that.
What are all the latest developments out of Taiwan and China?
Well, Taiwan, there hasn't been too much big developments in the news lately that I've that I've been following.
I mean, of course, there's been stuff going on.
But with China, you know, the U.S. is doing this diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics and a few of their allies are following them.
But on Thursday, our name of human rights, which, yeah, it's got to be the most ridiculous thing because of our next subject, Yemen.
I'm gonna have to get a couple of words from you on that.
To have the butchers of Sana'a be the ones condemning China's human rights record right now is pretty rich.
But anyway, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Well, also, it's all the countries.
It's the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada that followed the U.S. when they invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now not going to Beijing because of some Muslims or something that aren't being treated right.
What is the average human from country X supposed to think about this?
Oh, yeah.
Well, the Americans sure stand for democracy and human rights.
I try to say that without cracking a smile, you know, he believes that.
Well, yeah.
And Biden's democracy summit, it was today and yesterday.
And this was also the day that we found out that Assange, you know, the U.K. judge approved the extradition of Assange for doing journalism.
The U.S. is trying to put him away for almost 200 years for that.
So the hypocrisy is very obvious there.
But I think kind of the most interesting thing this week related to China is on Wednesday, the House passed a bill called like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act or something.
And it's a pretty major piece of legislation because it would pretty much ban all imports from the Xinjiang region, which is and there's a lot of American companies with interests there.
So it would create like a presumption that every every good in Xinjiang is made by forced labor.
And these companies would have to like appeal it.
And it would be this whole thing to keep doing business there.
And it passed.
It was something like 428 to one.
And the one was Thomas Massey.
He's the only one that votes against these bills.
He's voted against, you know, other legislation that calls for sanctions on Chinese officials for Hong Kong or other stuff.
He's always the only one that votes against it.
So it shows kind of how it's very bipartisan, this thing.
But yeah, this bill would be pretty, pretty major if they cut off all imports from that region.
And it would probably hurt the Uyghur Muslims a lot more than the Chinese government, you know, that they're the ones involved in the industry there.
But and all over a completely ginned up case, I mean, obviously, the persecution of everyone who lives under the dictatorship in Beijing, including them.
But oh, look, they passed out contraceptives.
That's genocide.
And these are the butchers of Yemen saying this at the same time, too, taken completely credibly.
No proof required.
Everybody knows Saddam Hussein has a giant human shredder in his basement that he uses to kill his dissidents.
Yeah, and the genocide narrative has just kind of been accepted by everybody now.
You know, everybody just uses it like offhand, like China's committing a genocide.
And interestingly, there was a recent article in AP that said that all the young Uyghur men that were in the camps are not in them anymore.
You know, it made it seem like what was going on in Xinjiang is still very nefarious and some level, I'm sure it is.
I know it's a surveillance state there.
But they, you know, even like Western media is saying that the camps are closed, you know, they're closed now.
But the genocide narrative is just out there for everybody to repeat.
Yep.
Well, never again.
I guess we need to start a nuclear war in order to prevent the passing out of all this contraception stuff.
Yeah.
All right.
And now on the China thing, it's funny, man, obviously, there's so much hype about Taiwan and whether China is going to invade it or not, you know, kind of a reflection of the same thing going on with Russia and Ukraine there.
It's quite obvious to anybody, you know, somewhat critical of this stuff that, well, there are people with vested interests in America hyping this up because they're trying to make money selling, you know, fear and or weapons, whatever it is.
So that all makes sense or just, you know, studies to the think tank donors.
But so that'll make sense.
But there is an argument.
You know, Lyle Goldstein says that he thinks China is going to invade Taiwan just because they've been building up the capability to do so.
And so, gee, some point seems like that's going on.
Obviously, there's a lot more things to take into account.
That's essentially his case there.
I read another great piece by Peter Van Buren, who I talked to on the show last week, two weeks ago, whatever, about this.
He wrote another one for Responsible Statecraft about how, man, they're not going to do it.
The Americans are going to have to gin up a phony excuse for war with China if they want one, because the Chinese just have no incentive to do this.
And then you link to the most reasonable thing I've ever read in the New Republic that said the same thing.
And so I just wonder whether, you know, I know you're keeping a close eye on this.
Is there any real indication?
Oh, I guess one more thing.
That New Republic piece said, look, the Chinese stance is Taiwan better not declare independence.
And you don't want to know what we might do if you do that.
But we're not building up an invasion force just to take the place.
We're building up enough to deter you from declaring independence.
So you don't make us do something we don't want to do if we understand each other kind of thing.
I mean, it is a standoff, right?
So but anyway, all that to build up to the big question to you is what's going on in the world?
Is there actually any, you know, substantive change in the politics between Taipei and Beijing right now that would lend you to believe that there's something afoot here other than ship sales?
Well, I think what changed is the U.S. position on it and how they view Taipei and Beijing now.
Because, you know, since 1979, the U.S. recognized Beijing as China, kept informal relations with Taiwan and has armed them.
And that's been the status quo.
But if you look at the past few years, I mean, there's been like just a major increase in U.S. military activity in the area.
Spy planes, I mean, almost doubled this, actually more than doubled in 2021 compared to 2020, you know, U.S. spy plane flights in the South China Sea and near China.
And just the attitude towards Taiwan, one of the U.S. diplomats at the de facto embassy in Taipei said recently, in the past three years, the U.S. view on Taiwan has changed.
They no longer view it as an issue, as a problem between U.S. and China relations.
Now it's viewed as an opportunity, as a way to counter China.
So they're taking steps to increase, you know, diplomatic ties.
There's more congressional delegations going there and they're going on military planes.
They're encouraging other countries to boost ties with Taiwan and, you know, they're sending a lot of warships through the Taiwan Strait, selling them more weapons.
The open secret that there's U.S. military trainers in Taiwan, it's been an open secret for decades, is now not a secret anymore.
Just out in the open, Taiwan admitted that there's U.S. troops there.
And this stuff, I would, you know, the diplomatic stuff and the relations that are forming, I think makes China angrier than the U.S. spy planes and warships in the region.
It's a really sensitive area for them.
I don't think that they have any plans to invade anytime soon.
Maybe if they keep building up the capabilities in response to the U.S. arming Taiwan, it's possible.
But I really think that if the U.S. was no longer involved in this conflict and stopped backing Taiwan the way it does, I think that China would never invade Taiwan.
They would cut some deal for autonomy.
And I think that's all they really want.
You know, they might try to get more control there.
But Taiwan is, everybody points to Hong Kong, but Taiwan is very different than Hong Kong.
It's a big island.
They have a military.
They're isolated enough.
And another thing, a reason why China wouldn't and doesn't want to invade is the trade relationship.
You know, they have a huge trade relationship.
People travel between Taiwan and mainland China all the time.
I'm not sure, you know, things might be different now with COVID, but it's not in Beijing's interest to invade Taiwan.
But they're also not going to sit there and let the U.S. start forming a real formal relationship with Taipei.
Because like you said, the independence thing.
So it's just the U.S., in my view, the U.S. is the one stoking the tensions there.
All right.
Now, real quick, tell me about what's going on in Yemen.
I know there's a big battle going on for Marib now.
Yeah.
So, I mean, the battle over Marib has been, you know, raging kind of all year.
And lately the Saudis, they've been bombing Marib and Sana'a and others.
You know, there's really been a surge in airstrikes.
And Jason wrote this up.
There's a group called the Yemen Data Project.
They track all of the Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.
They put out monthly reports.
And you know, the month of November, it's a pretty big surge.
It said it was the highest monthly figure since mid-2020.
They estimated about 29 civilian casualties.
And they also said about 28 percent of the airstrikes hit civilian targets.
So, you know, what we were talking about earlier, about how the Senate is kind of letting Biden and the Saudis just continue this with this loophole, oh, defensive, quote unquote, weapons.
You know, there's been just a major surge in airstrikes.
I mean, this is, the war is just, you know, it shows no sign of slowing down.
And nobody's really reporting on it.
I'm sure that there's been similar airstrikes that have killed, you know, civilian, just targeted civilians.
But we're just not hearing about them.
And yeah, like I said, the amendment is out of the NDAA.
So I'm not really sure what's next.
And they, you know, everybody's been focusing on the $650 million missile sale.
You know, it's air to air missiles.
But the Biden administration also approved the $500 million deal to continue maintenance on Saudi helicopters.
They're still maintaining their planes.
And they're going to continue maintaining their helicopters, including attack helicopters that they can use in Yemen.
And that's the support.
That's what's really vital to keeping this war going on, because pretty much all experts agree that if the U.S. stopped maintaining that air force, they would have no choice but to negotiate something with the Houthis and stop bombing the hell out of the country.
And really just a stern phone call, too.
The president's on the line.
He wants you to knock it off right now.
Ought to be enough if he really meant it and they knew he meant it.
And of course, you know, step one, withholding all the support that they're providing.
All right.
Well, I'll let you go.
I know you got so much work to do as always, but everybody, please keep your eyes on news.antiwar.com.
Dave and Jason holding it all down for you there all day, every day.
Appreciate it, bud.
Thanks, Scott.
The Scott Horton Show, Antiwar Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A., APSradio.com, antiwar.com, scotthorton.org, and libertarianinstitute.org.
