All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our first guest on the show today is Robert Naaman.
He's policy director at Just Foreign Policy.
That's justforeignpolicy.org, right?
Yeah.
And you can also find him at the Huffington Post.
His latest piece at Just Foreign Policy.
I think it's his latest one.
Uh, linked today at antiwar.com is called does APAC want war?
Lieberman capability red line may tip APAC's hand.
Hmm.
Uh, welcome back to the show, Robert.
How are you doing?
Good.
Good to be with you.
Okay.
So, um, yes, uh, there's this resolution going through the Congress and, uh, the goalposts are being moved.
Usually the goalposts are moved, uh, further and further away.
In this case, they're moving, they're being moved back closer again, I think for where's the red line for Israel and, or the United States to start a war with Iran over their nuclear program.
What exactly are we talking about here?
Well, the red line, uh, as announced by the president of the state of the union address and other us officials is that the United States won't allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, but the Israeli government in the American Israel public affairs committee want the red line to be when, uh, preventing Iran from acquiring the technological scientific capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.
So-called breakout capability.
That's correct.
And the, uh, what's extremely dangerous about that in addition to moving the red line closer to us, um, is that many experts think that Iran already has the technological and scientific capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.
If you get, if you look at, uh, statements of us officials cited in the New York times or experts like Anthony Cordesman, uh, they think Iran's already there.
So if you move the red line to the point where Iran has technological capacity, you're essentially moving it to a place indistinguishable from the status quo today, essentially saying that the causes belly for war already exist.
And, uh, that's extremely dangerous.
And it would represent a major escalation for AIPAC, which Washington post is called the national rifle association of foreign policy, only more powerful because of its deep breach into both political parties.
The, uh, that would represent an escalation because even though obviously AIPAC for a long time, their top priority has been, uh, pushing more confrontational US policy with Iran.
They've stopped short of openly calling for war.
If you look at what they've, they've advocated, their emphasis has been on, uh, extreme tension, which, you know, it can, can lead to more itself, but, uh, calling openly calling for us to bomb Iran or for Israel to bomb Iran with us blessing that that significantly ratcheting things up.
And this is coming upon us because the, uh, AIPAC policy conference is, uh, March 4th to six, so in a couple of weeks and, uh, Netanyahu will be in Washington.
So we may see in the next few weeks, a big, uh, ratcheting, uh, up.
And it is, has been predicted that this, uh, Lieberman Graham bill that would move the red line to capability, uh, may be an ask of the AIPAC policy conference, which means there are thousands of activists will be on the Hill, lobbying senators and representatives, uh, in favor of, uh, moving up the red line.
All right.
So first of all, in there, I think it's really important.
Um, as you put it, uh, Anthony Kordesman says he thinks that the breakout capability has already been achieved.
Others agree with him.
Others haven't said that yet.
The point being that breakout capability doesn't really mean anything.
It's just a metaphysical concept.
You could really count all the uranium ore in the ground in Iran and say that, well, if they enrich that all the way up to weapons grade, then that would be, uh, you know, you can call that breakout capability or what if they bought a bunch of centrifuges from Pakistan, but never turned them on, that could still be breakout capability too, if they were to turn them on and if they were to begin enriching up to weapons grade.
So now all of a sudden you have this red line that's, you know, uh, completely gray basically, and can be manipulated like weapons of mass destruction means atomic bombs or a little mustard gas, you know, where, uh, these issues get conflated and that becomes the basis, uh, as you're saying.
Um, but then also, uh, as you point out and really highlight in, in the piece when they say in this resolution, it's, it's sort of, I don't think you make the direct comparison in the piece, but might as well have the, it's sort of like the Iraq liberation act of 1998.
It wasn't really declaring war.
It was just saying, but we will soon kind of a thing.
And so in this case, they're saying for them to have this capability with no real definition, uh, is against the vital national interests of the United States.
And that, as you say, is a term of art, meaning that, so we must do something about it.
That's right.
This is a phrase recall that when the, uh, us intervened militarily in Libya, there was a big debate in the United States over whether the intervention was a vital Nash quote, final national security interest of the United States.
That's a, that's a Washington phrase.
It means something that the United States should be willing to go to war for.
So that's what these senators are saying when they say that preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability is a vital national interest in the United States saying that the United States should be willing to go to war to try to prevent it.
And you're right.
It's a, it's not a, you know, it's not a technical legal term, nuclear weapons, capability, fuzzy term.
So it means that the, anytime they want, they could say, okay, well, if we don't strike now that Iran is going to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
Now, this wouldn't really be binding on Barack Obama, but it certainly does help.
Um, well set the stage sort of like the Iraq liberation act did.
I mean, how many times did we hear in 2002 and 2003 that, listen, even Bill Clinton had signed this thing, making it the official policy of America that we want regime change, that kind of thing where, you know, the, the groundwork is laid, the, uh, every, every possible flavor of sanctions has been tried.
Uh, it's a lie, but still they would claim negotiations have been tried.
And so now we have no choice really.
Our red lines have all been crossed now by them.
That's right.
The, uh, this bill, uh, if it's passed by the Senate and the house would not technically force president Obama to do anything, but even if it's not passed, it's a form of political pressure at, uh, the Israeli government and the American Israel public affairs committee.
They're trying to surround the administration, uh, with, uh, war rhetoric, uh, and of course, you know, we also have the Republican, except for Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidates, uh, pushing the same, uh, aggressive rhetoric.
They're trying to surround and pressure the president into adopting their line, which is different, uh, from the line that the administration has adopted so far.
And, um, I don't want to gloss over, although maybe we won't have time to really get too far into it before this break creeps up on us here.
Uh, but, uh, I do want to let you get back to the role of the American Israeli public affairs committee in this, uh, their power and influence on Capitol Hill and, you know, what that has to do with the price of tea in China, which, you know, if this war goes off, it may very well affect the price of tea in China and everything else.
With, uh, the, uh, energy consequences and, and other likely, uh, things that could happen, uh, you know, once the dominoes start falling and, and, uh, the, uh, explosions start going off.
Um, but as you say, at the beginning of this piece, Robert, uh, AIPAC always denies that they want war.
They're always saying, Hey, we want sanctions so that we never have to have a war.
We want to solve this thing with, you know, uh, measures short of war.
And so if a war ever does break out, don't look at us.
We were trying to avoid one.
That's what they've said so far.
Well, we'll see in the next few weeks, if they're, uh, ratcheting things up.
All right.
We'll be right back on the other side with Robert Naiman from just foreign policies, their policy director, their just foreign policy.org.
And you can also find a great archive of his at the Huffington post.
We'll be right back.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
Santi war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm on the line with Robert Naiman from just foreign policy.org and the Huffington post.
And we're talking about, uh, his latest piece is called, does AIPAC want war?
And, uh, it's about Joe Lieberman's new bill in the Senate.
And I think there's a house version too, right?
Uh, as of the most recent press reports I've seen, there is not a house version yet, but I certainly expect one.
Yeah.
Well, it won't be long anyway.
And by the way, you know, I'm, I have trouble, uh, following up on every one of these.
Did they ever pass the resolution that forbid any diplomacy with Iran from now on?
The house passed a bill that it didn't forbid any diplomacy, uh, with Iran.
It, uh, forbid, uh, diplomatic contact between the U S and officials that designated a threat.
Uh, so it left a wiggle room in there.
It left a wiggle room in there.
And it's not a law because it was just passed the house, but it was clearly a, um, again, a form of pressure, uh, from the house on the administration, uh, against the use of diplomacy.
Right.
But in that case, luckily you're saying there, there was no, uh, corresponding Senate version.
Correct.
And in fact, the, you know, Senate is still nominally controlled by a Democrat and, uh, the idea of prohibiting diplomatic contact is not well looked upon by democratic senators.
So can you tell us a little bit about, I guess, first of all, for people unfamiliar, uh, what, however you measure it, uh, you know, what is exactly, uh, the amount of power and influence that the American Israeli public affairs committee has, uh, among other lobbies, for example, uh, on Capitol Hill and what is, you know, in the recent term, more or less, uh, last few years, kind of history of, of their role in these kinds of resolutions coming out of the Congress, uh, so hawkish on Iran, pushing for sanctions, et cetera.
Well, they're considered one of the most, uh, powerful lobbies in Washington.
And in the realm of forum policy, they're, uh, unique.
There are other policy, you know, there are other also lobbies, anti-abortion lobby, pro-gun lobby, and so on.
These are domestic, uh, lobbies.
Um, so they're really in a class by themselves and you won't see recent, uh, indicators, you know, this late recent round of tension between the U S and Iran, this recent escalation started with the passage of a bill by the Congress that required president Obama to impose new sanctions against Iran central bank and to try to cut off Iran, uh, oil exports.
This bill was promoted by AIPAC passed the Senate 100 to zero.
So that gives you, I mean, that's the kind of, uh, lopsided result that one tends to see when AIPAC is on the case.
And this, you know, latest round of tensions was the, the, the thing that induced some Iranian officials to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz if their, uh, oil exports was cut off.
So, so, uh, AIPAC is having tremendous influence on, uh, U S policy and, uh, driving the, uh, the escalation between the U S and Iran.
Now, I guess it was Scott Ritter years ago who said that rather than plan a, B and C, this is all just step one, two, and three, you know, first we pretend that we tried to negotiate with them, then we say that, uh, well, we tried the most crippling sanctions we can come up with and that still didn't persuade them, so now we have no choice but to go to war.
Is that really all these, uh, you know, talks and, and whatever so-called negotiations and, and sanctions are all about really is just laying the groundwork for saying, you know, like they did about Saddam, we've tried everything and he's just too crazy to negotiate with.
Uh, I think that's, it's part of the story.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily the whole story, but part of the story, there has been some, uh, attempted at diplomatic engagement by the Obama administration, but it's been too limited.
You know, there's a, uh, you know, decades of history of enmity between the United States and Iran, starting with the CIA overthrow of the democratic elected government of Iran in 1953.
Um, so, you know, the small baby steps aren't necessarily going to, uh, turn things around, um, and, uh, unfortunately the Obama administration, I think largely for domestic political reasons, moved too quickly from its initial, uh, efforts at diplomatic engagement towards, uh, the sanctions track and part of it, uh, I think is that, you know, whenever there is an attempt at diplomatic engagement, you have to ask the question, well, how serious is this, you know, negotiated agreement means compromise doesn't mean, uh, here are my demands, you know, sign here and the, no, uh, no outside analysts or, you know, hardly anyone can, uh, you can find it.
We'll say, well, we think that, uh, diplomacy and sanctions is going to force Iran to completely abandon its nuclear program.
A diplomatic settlement is much more likely to look like, uh, the West agreeing that Iran can have a nuclear program and Iran agreeing to having, uh, very aggressive inspections by the international atomic energy agency.
And until now, the U S and Western policy is, uh, not clarified.
You know, what is the real bottom line?
Sometimes they say that their bottom line is to, uh, compel Iran to cease enriching uranium.
In other words, having its own, uh, domestic nuclear fuel production at all.
Well, you know, nobody thinks that that's serious.
So if that's, if that's your diplomatic bottom line, then you don't have a serious diplomatic engagement.
I think Murray Rothbard wrote years ago that he couldn't find a single example in history where sanctions worked at changing the behavior of the sanction nation, the way that the sanctioners wanted it, not one.
Can you think of it?
There is, they fail more than they work.
And the, uh, I mean, one partial exception I would say is the sanctions against apartheid, South Africa.
I think the, the, that exception, I think points to an important component.
After all, not all sanctions are the same.
You have to ask, you know, what are the sanctions and what are the goals in the case of the sanctions against apartheid, South Africa, the goal was, uh, to bring about a non-racial democracy in, uh, South Africa, from which the, you know, black African majority was no longer excluded.
This was seen worldwide as a legitimate goal.
It was embraced throughout Africa.
It was embraced in the international community.
It was embraced in the United Nations.
And, you know, it was a goal that had the support of the majority of the South African population.
Well, this isn't, this situation isn't like that at all.
But certainly the goal of preventing Iran from having any nuclear program at all isn't seen as, as, uh, internationally legitimate.
It's not seen as legitimate, uh, in Iran.
The, the, the desire, uh, the belief that Iran should have its own, has the right to, uh, its own nuclear energy, uh, program is, uh, held across the political spectrum, even people who don't like the government, even people who support the green movement, supported the opposition in the last presidential election, believe that Iran has a right, uh, to have a nuclear program and under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Iran has a right to a peaceful nuclear program.
So, uh, the question here, I think is not just, uh, do sanctions work, but do they work to force the government to adopt a policy, which, uh, people in that government in that country, uh, believe is their right and their, you know, as a, as a consensus political demand, and that is what, uh, some people are trying to do here is to, is to compel the Iranian government to adopt a policy, uh, considered to be, you know, an imposition of foreigners against the will of, uh, Iranian public opinion.
And of course, another part of the story is that, you know, some people in Washington have an explicit goal of regime change.
The issue isn't really Iran having a nuclear program, it's with the Iranian government, and this is a wedge that they want to use to try and overthrow the Iranian government, but if they could replace the Iranian government with the government friendly to the United States, perceived to be friendly to the United States, then they don't really care if Iran has a nuclear program.
Um, this of course is again, not a legitimate, uh, goal, not a legitimate, uh, national security interest in the United States to go around overthrowing other people's governments, whether we like them or not.
And their policy has gotten us into a lot of trouble, uh, in the past, for example, with the CIA overthrew the Iranian government, democratically elected Iranian government in 1953.
All right.
Well, we're all out of time, but that's a good place to leave it.
Thanks very much for your time.
Robert Naiman, everybody from Just Foreign Policy.
That's justforeignpolicy.org.
Thanks.
