04/06/07 – Ivan Eland – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com and Chaos Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas, I'm Scott Horton, and this is Antiwar Radio.
And I do believe I have the Independent Institute's Ivan E. Linda on the phone.
Is that you, Ivan?
Yeah, that's me.
Alright, good to talk to you again, sir.
How are you?
Good, thanks.
Good to have you on today.
I'm interested in your article that you wrote.
Kudos to Pelosi for going to Syria.
And I guess it's kind of a lesser mentioned topic when people are talking about the wars in the Middle East.
All the focus tends to be on the war in Iraq and the possibility of war with Iran.
And yet, also I think it sort of goes without saying that if we bomb Iran that that somehow means war with Syria as well.
So I was interested to see you focused on that.
And before we get into the specifics of what's going on in that Middle East policy there, I wanted to give you a chance to focus on what you actually talk about in your article is really the power and the authority of the United States Congress to decide policy, not the President of the United States.
Well, the implication and the President, not that I think Nancy Pelosi has been the best diplomat because that's not her job, but the implication from the President is that we should all be speaking with one voice.
And that this entire foreign affairs is entirely his purview, so the Congress should fund the war, shut up and let him manage everything and also not go and talk to Iran and Syria.
And I think all of that is false.
Under the original way that the framers created the Constitution, they actually gave more powers to the Congress, in fact many more powers, than the President.
And of course over time this has eroded with the imperial presidency and now we have this notion, which comes from a Supreme Court, well some comments the Supreme Court Justice threw in during the 1930s, which don't have binding effect that the President is the sole spokesman for the country in foreign policy, which is absolutely nonsense according to the Constitution.
Okay, well let me stop you right there on that court case.
That's interesting.
I guess it wasn't quite as clear in the article the way you just said it there, that in this case, United States versus Curtis Wright, that the comments made by this Justice weren't even part of the official opinion of the case, is that what you just said?
Right, right.
There's a legal term for that.
We don't need to get into it, but it didn't have legal binding.
It was just kind of thrown in there.
And of course the founders would have frowned on the Justice's comment, but the President and modern Presidents and that sort of thing have adopted this because it's in their interest and no one ever contradicts them and says, hey, look at the Constitution.
I mean the only unilateral power that the President really has as Commander in Chief, of course this President tried to widen that out, but it was taken very narrowly by the framers when they first mentioned it, was to command the forces during wartime and also during peacetime, but that didn't mean nationalizing steel mills as Truman tried to do.
The Supreme Court in that case ruled correctly saying that he's not the Commander in Chief of the country, he's the Commander in Chief of the armed forces.
Outside of that, he can also nominate ambassadors and high-level foreign policy officials, but of course they have to be confirmed by the Senate.
His treaties that he makes have to be confirmed by the Senate.
And then of course on the other side of the ledger, we have the power to declare war, which is the Congress's power to raise armies, the power to maintain a navy, to call up the militia if there's an interaction or an invasion, to make the rules of the armed forces, etc., etc., to govern trade with commercial nations.
So we see that the Congress has many, many powers.
There are two shared powers and then there's two for the executive, which I just mentioned.
So if you tote them up on the ledger, the Congress has more power in foreign policy.
And so it's not really true.
So Pelosi has a right to go over there and talk to people.
And in fact, I think she's attempting to do at least what the Bush administration has failed to do, and that's talk to Syria and Iran adequately.
The only way we're going to get out of this quagmire that the Bush administration has gotten us into is by reaching some sort of a regional agreement with the surrounding powers in Iraq, not to go in and try to devour the country after we pull out.
Because we are going to pull out, and I would predict we're going to pull out either later this year or early next year before the election.
And by any chance, did you see Gareth Porter's article on AntiWar.com this morning about that all the bluster against Iran is actually just cover for doing what James Baker said, and that is opening direct talks?
Well, I didn't see the article.
I usually agree with Gareth, but I think that direct talks are the thing that we need here at this point.
And I think Pelosi might have actually helped us by back channeling some stuff.
Sometimes the administration doesn't want to talk to these countries.
She may have even tried to help set up something.
Who knows?
But the president was criticizing her, whereas a Republican delegation talked to the same guy, Assad, who is the leader of Syria, a few days before, and she had a Republican member of her delegation when she went on the trip.
The White House actually ham-handedly handled this whole episode because they originally started criticizing her, and then they found out, well, there are Republicans over there too.
So then the president starts criticizing all members of Congress for talking to these groups.
And he even reasserted that falsehood in his statement, right?
That foreign policy is up to me, not them.
Yes.
Well, of course, the president likes to say that, and the media largely goes along with it without looking at the original Constitution and that sort of thing.
So, you know, Pelosi, as I say, as a congressional leader, she certainly has a right to go talk to foreign leaders, and she's only trying to do what the Iraq Study Group report suggested a long time ago, which is common sense, that if you're over a barrel, you've got to talk to these countries because that's the only way we're going to get out of Iraq.
Well, you know, Dick Cheney attacked her too, accused her of bad behavior, I think was the quote, because she went and told the Syrians that, hey, I talked to the Israelis and they wanted me to tell you that they're open to peace negotiations.
And then Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, came out and said, I did not say that.
Well, of course, you know, he could have actually, she's disputing that, and of course, he could have set her up too because he's beholden to the administration because they're very big supporters of his.
And of course, Pelosi is a supporter, but probably not as much as the Bush administration is, of Israel.
So, you know, if the Bush administration told them to set her up, they probably would, but she could have gotten it wrong too.
Who knows, but the real issue is here, does she have a right to go and do this?
And as I say, she's a news speaker, she's not a diplomat, but the trip could have had some very beneficial effects in backchannel communication.
And, you know, it's not our duty to solve the Israeli-Palestinian question in the first place, so I think she was trying to be helpful there.
But, you know, I don't want to sing her praises too much here because I don't think she's that good of a diplomat, but that's not her function either.
So what I think is really true here, and the reason for her visit was, and this is very clear that Harry Reid back here in the United States also has done some things to show that this is going to be, they're going to go after Bush and they're not afraid of these charges because they just don't stick anymore.
You know, the American people think we should talk to Iran and Syria, and she's reading the public opinion polls and that's why she's over there because she knows she can get away with it.
And the Democrats are now challenging Bush because they know that the public is on their side.
Reid, back here at home at the same time that Pelosi was over there, he has now signed on, he said, to a bill to cut off funding as of next March for the troops.
And he's also, you know, he told the president that in defense of the Democrats that he's not a king, he's a president.
And I think that's certainly true, and I think that Congress is now behaving that way, and I'd like to see some, you know, the checks and balances system work here a little bit.
We hit for four years, we had the, well actually six years, we had the one-party control and we saw how that worked out.
Yeah, not so well.
Right, exactly.
Well, so what is there to be discussed with the Syrians besides negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinians?
I guess the accusation that's been made over and over for the past few years is that the Syrians are letting a lot of foreign fighters come through their borders and into Iraq to fight against Americans.
So I guess I wonder whether that's a real problem and, you know, whether Syria can be expected to do anything about that if it is.
Well, there's certain things that don't add up with that.
First of all, one of the reasons that Iran and Syria are friendly is because they both have Shiite governments.
And those Sunni, those fighters...
Well, the Syrians, isn't Assad a Alawite?
Yes.
Which is, I guess, a majority Shiite population at least, right?
Well, it's a Shiite government with a majority Sunni population.
Oh, I see.
So Alawite is a kind of Shia?
I'm sorry, Ivan.
Alawite is a type of Shia, then?
Yes.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Thanks for clarifying that.
Anyway, well, the basic problem is, this is probably a technical point, the basic problem that we have here is that those fighters may not be, it may not be the Syrian government is doing this on purpose.
It could be that their border just leaks.
I mean, the U.S. can't control the border from the other side.
The Iraqis can't control the border from the other side.
I mean, Assad could tell them, well, if you're so concerned about this, you should be stopping them on your end, too.
There's two sides to the border there.
But, you know, we can't even control the Mexican-U.S. border, and we have all these border patrol agents all along this border, and it's a heavily patrolled border.
And, of course, it's like a sieve.
So I'm not sure that Assad could stop these fighters from going across if he wanted to.
And I'm not sure, you know, like he has this alliance with Iran, and these are Sunni fighters, but yet the Shiites are who the Iranians are supporting in Iran.
So Iran may not want these fighters to go through there either.
Now, whether he's doing it on purpose, I don't know, but certainly talking to him would be a good idea to solve this problem.
You mentioned what other issues.
Well, we have Israelis held by Hezbollah, which, of course, the Syrians have a great influence with Hezbollah.
We also have the Brits, up until yesterday, who are being held by the Iranians.
And, of course, this alliance allows back-channel communication.
So there are a number of issues that Pelosi could have helped out with, and who knows, we don't know if she helped out with the release of the British captives or not.
And, of course, the big thing is what to do about Iraq, and whether we could get some sort of an agreement for outside powers not to meddle in there at all.
That may be an impossibility, but I think we at least ought to look into what each of the powers surrounding Iraq want, what's their interest, and find out if we can somehow reach a negotiated exit to Iraq.
So I think talking to Syria certainly doesn't hurt anything.
It's not like we're losing anything by doing it.
This is Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Ivan Eland from the Independent Institute.
He's the author of the book The Empire Wears No Clothes.
And he also writes a column for Antiwar.com every week called The Empire Has No Clothes.
And I wanted to ask you if you know about this, and this is something I'm always having trouble with, of who is out hawking who.
A lot of times it seems like the Israelis are trying to make a peace deal with somebody, and then America comes in and messes it up or, you know, urges them to be more belligerent.
And then other times it seems like the Americans are trying to get something smoothed over, and the Israelis try to make things more difficult.
I guess the last one of these was the former situation that I heard where the Israelis had a peace deal, the ink was dry, they were ready to go, and had a peace deal with Syria.
And America came in and vetoed the whole thing just a couple of months ago.
Yes, well, the U.S. looks out after U.S. interests, and sometimes they differ from the Israeli interests.
And sometimes, even when the two countries' interests coincide, or at least the alleged interests, we're not really helping Israel.
Like when we allowed them to bomb Lebanon over some minor kidnapping and killing of a couple of soldiers, they escalated and, of course, we supported that.
So, you know, keeping the two sides apart may be in the U.S. interest, or at least what the Bush administration, you know, thinks is the U.S. interest.
And very frankly, the U.S. pursues a hard line both toward Syria and Iran.
And, you know, it's almost as if it's a macho thing rather than a reasoned position.
So, yes, I think there are contradictions, and we can't always assume that the U.S. and Israel's interests coincide.
That is the real interest.
And I think, in many cases, we should probably take a more neutral approach in the Middle East rather than simply going along with Israel.
So, I don't necessarily think that the two sides should be, or the two countries should always be in unison.
But, you know, if the Israelis are trying to make peace with the Syrians, we should be all for that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I wouldn't want the Israelis to decide, you know, that we should get in more wars, but if they're trying to get us in less wars, I guess I can go along with that.
And now, let me get back to Iraq.
And you said, I believe, in part of your first answer there, sir, that America's leaving Iraq.
We can't stay.
And, you know, I think you said you think it'll be by at least this time next year.
What about all those permanent bases?
Are those to be abandoned?
Is it the case that those were built under the theory that we were going to be able to stay forever, but now that theory has changed?
Well, I should clarify what I meant there.
I think we're going to see a movement to withdraw most of the combat forces from Iraq, because all the politicians, both Democratic and Republican, know that the public will focus on that for the election in 2008.
We'll probably still have some sort of a presence there, unless the situation just deteriorates, you know, whole hog.
And then we have to, you know, run out, because I'm not sure, I think they're still holding on to the fact that they can, even the Democrats are holding on to the fact that we might still be able to keep some bases there.
And I know the Bush administration still holds on to that, but I think it's rather unrealistic because you can't have bases, workable bases, that are for projecting power elsewhere if they're threatened by insurgents and chaos surrounding them.
So I predict that those probably will eventually have to come out, too.
What I mean by the withdrawal, though, is these combat forces, what the politicians are really trying to do is they're trying to make the war go away from the U.S. media.
And of course, if the media thinks, well, the problem is solved, then there'll be less coverage.
This actually happened, a similar situation happened in Vietnam, where Nixon started the Vietnamization program, protests died down on campus, and of course media coverage of those protests died down until the invasion and the secret war in Cambodia fired it up again.
And the reason is that people thought this Vietnamization program, well, it's over, we're going to get out, we're going to turn it over to the Vietnamese, and people thought, oh, problem solved.
Okay, I guess I'll go back to studying instead of protesting or whatever.
Well, the same thing is true now, if they can get our presence down to just occupying fortified bases, the public will forget that they're there, of course, unless the chaos gets so bad that the bases are getting overrun and that sort of thing.
But I think the bases are not viable because I think the chaos is going to get that bad, so I think you'll eventually see the bases go by the wayside, too.
I think both parties would probably like to keep them at this point.
Yeah, if they can.
And really, that gets to the heart of our situation here.
A lot of different commentators from across all kinds of spectrums, including even Richard Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations, have said that the era of American dominance in the Middle East is over.
There's a brand new era taking shape, the post-American era, and who's going to be the new headman, Iran or the Saudis?
Which side is Syria going to be on?
And all these kinds of questions seem like they're up in the air now.
There were reports recently, I believe, of new cooperation between the Saudis and the Syrians, maybe trying to get them to switch back to the Arab League side.
Your thoughts on any of this?
Well, I think one thing is clear from this.
We don't know how this is going to shake out in its entirety.
If there's a civil war in Iraq, different countries are going to take different sides to that conflict.
But I do think we have seen a 400-pound gorilla turn into an 800-pound gorilla in Iran.
We have removed the biggest rival to the Iranians in the area, the Iraqis.
So now we see Iran's tentacles penetrating into Iraq, and the government of Iraq is actually a fundamentalist, Islamic, Shiite government.
And we're supporting it, and so is Iran.
And so it's ironic that we don't get along with Iran so much when we're actually both supporting the government.
And in fact, the Iranians are also supporting the militias that hold up the government, the Shiite militias who are beheading people and that sort of thing, and torturing and leaving them on the street, etc.
So it's very interesting.
Certainly Iran is the big winner of this.
General William Odom, who was a very conservative National Security Agency director for Ronald Reagan, was against this war from the very start because he thought that it helped our main strategic adversary in the region, and that was Iran.
And I think he was proven right.
He's absolutely correct.
And any person would have known that this was going to happen if they would have just thought about it a bit, because when you remove the counterweight to a country, the other country that remains, Iran, gets stronger.
And you know what's funny about that?
You say anybody could have known.
There's actually a Tom Clancy book that came out, I guess, in the summer of 2001, where somebody, a secret Iranian agent, shot Saddam Hussein in the back of the head, and in a matter of days, Iran controlled all of the south of Iraq.
And they just rolled right in, welcomed.
And so, yeah, you're right.
Any doofus could have known this, for sure, because security guards and firemen, and God knows who was sitting back, kicked back with their legs up, reading Tom Clancy, and read all about it two years before it happened.
Right, and I think it's just amazing that the administration, with all these so-called experts, I think they were vainly driven by ideology in that they just wanted to take out Saddam, and they really didn't care what the consequences were of it.
Now, let me ask you this.
I talked at the beginning of the week with an Iraqi-American named Sami Rasouli, who said that if America left, that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party, that is the main Iran-backed factions, that they would have to leave immediately, that all they control now is the Green Zone, and if they weren't being propped up by America, it wouldn't be so much that Iran won the war, it's just that the Shiites interacted.
Well, I think, you know, we can say that the Iranians don't have any influence, but I think they do.
I mean, certainly Iranian Shiites and Iraqi Shiites are different groups, and in fact, the Iraqi Shiites helped fight the Iranian Shiites during the Iran-Iraq war.
So, these are not identical groups.
One's Arab and one's Persian.
The Iranians are Persian, the Iraqi Shiites are Arab.
And so, you know, there's differences, and there's also factions.
The Shiites are ridden with factions, and we've had violence among the Shiite factions in Iraq, so it's not a clear-cut situation.
But certainly, Iran, one way or the other, is going to get influenced, because if that part of the world gets too unstable after the U.S. leaves, the Iranians might even invade Iraq to get more influence over the chaos.
And of course, Turkey could do the same in Kurdistan and that sort of thing if things get really bad.
So you can see all these outside powers, and then of course the Saudis would jump in to support the Sunnis.
I hate to say it, Ivan, but you almost sound like George Bush.
Obviously, you speak much better English than he does, but it sounds to me like what you say could very well be used as an argument that we have to stay there to prevent these things.
I'm fully willing to admit that there could be chaos, and he's making that argument that I just made, but the problem with that is I think we've lost this war.
We're going to have chaos one way or the other, and I think that the U.S. needs to get out of there and try to negotiate some sort of a partition before the chaos gets too great.
I think there still might be a possibility, although I was for partitioning the country or creating a loose confederation where the regions would have autonomy about two years ago, and if they would have done it, then I think it would have worked.
I'm not even sure my own plan will work now because they've waited so long.
And of course the State Department bureaucrats have an aversion to allowing the Iraqis to have true self-determination, which they would probably end up either decentralizing or partitioning the country.
But I think that's really the only way out at this point.
Otherwise, if we don't want to even bother with that, we can just get out.
But I think we're going to have to live with the chaos and try to minimize it because I think it's already here.
And the President can make this argument, but it's sort of like, well, are you going to keep your finger in the dike until the cracks start?
Either you take your finger out and run is your best chance, or keep your finger in the dike and watch the cracks in the dam and get killed with water and cement falling on you.
So I think the former is better, and it's our only chance.
But while we're getting out, I think we could try at least to negotiate some sort of a partition or a loose confederation.
Okay, Ivan Elon from the Independent Institute.
If I were the President of the United States and I made you my new Secretary of State or National Security Advisor, and I said to you, Ivan, tell me, broad view, the future of American foreign policy.
What's to be done?
You have two minutes.
Go.
Well, in my view, what we really need to do is, of course, get out of Iraq and get out of Afghanistan because we've lost a sense of what we're supposed to be doing.
We're supposed to be getting bin Laden, now we're interdicting drugs and nation-building.
And I think that would set the pattern for a reassessment, getting rid of this interventionist foreign policy, which brought the 9-11 terrorism in the first place, and going to a more humble foreign policy, less interventionist foreign policy all over the world.
Once we get out of these Muslim countries, this will reduce the jihadist terrorism, simply because the main trigger for this is non-Muslim occupying forces on Muslim lands.
This happens in Chechnya, it happens in Palestine, it happens in, of course, Afghanistan and Iraq.
It happened in Afghanistan during the Soviet era.
So this is what drives the jihadists.
And to say that these people will follow us home is not really true, because they're going to be preoccupied with their own civil war and killing Shiites because they're Sunnis.
So I think a more humble foreign policy, a less military intervention overseas, the empire does not equal security.
And in my book, The Empire Has No Clothes, U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, I go into this at great length.
I have a chapter for liberals, a chapter for conservatives, and a chapter for everyone else on why empire violates the principles of all three of these groups.
And I think conservatives in particular should read it, because this empire leads to big government, and it leads to less security, not more security at home.
Very well said.
I'd have to agree with that wholeheartedly.
And again, you're proving what's already happening, this new realignment in America, left and right and libertarian all coming together to oppose Leviathan at home and empire overseas.
So I want to commend you on that, and thank you very much for your time today.
Ivan Eland from the Independent Institute, author of The Empire Wears No Clothes.
Thanks, Ivan.
Thanks.