03/09/12 – Pepe Escobar – The Scott Horton Show

Okay, welcome back to the show everybody.
I'm your guest host, Zoe Greif.
The show is Anti-War Radio, and I am pleased as punch, and I mean that, I mean it, to welcome our next guest, Mr. Pepe Escobar, to the show.
Hey Pepe, how you doing today?
I'm fine, thanks for having me.
Always a pleasure to be with you guys.
Oh, well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, sir, because you know so much about so many places that I've never been and I wonder about.
So, you want to talk about Iran?
Why not?
Okay, where do you want to start?
Do you want to start with the Oscar-winning movie that I happen to have seen and is so, so very good, or do you want to talk about the AIPAC convention that just happened, or the Iranian elections that just happened, or what do you want to talk about, sir?
Look, let's start with both, in fact.
I so wish that millions of Americans would be able to see A Separation, the film that won Best Foreign Movie at the Oscars, which is in fact the best movie of last year, or the best few years, for that matter.
I agree, I agree.
Because this is what, more or less, life is in Tehran nowadays.
And it's fantastic, because we don't hear one single word directly related to institutional politics, but it's all about politics.
How politics is hovering behind the lives of these people.
And their decisions are also influenced by politics.
One of the decisions is, should I leave the country with my daughter?
This is as political as it can be without touching it directly.
Yes, Pepe, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to make the point, for the benefit of the listeners, that Iran has very tight censorship over their movies, do they not?
And for this script to get past the censors just only proves how subtle and effective it is in saying so much without directly saying it, as you're alluding to.
Exactly, and in fact it's a miraculous factor.
Many other movies, like I've been watching Iranian movies for the past 20 years or so, and many movies that are even more political than that, or totally apolitical, this one, without touching about politics, went through the censors and they probably didn't even notice what was in front of them.
It reminds me of a little bit of Beckett, a little bit of Harold Pinter, a little bit of Dostoevsky, and in terms of cinema there's an Antonioni touch, there's a Bergman touch, but the most important thing is that it's real life, and it humanizes Iranians in a way that we, in this hysteria for the past few months, and in fact since 2004-2005, still with Cheney and Rumsfeld, people think that, okay, we have to attack Iran because they're an existential threat and they're a bunch of crazies run by mullahs.
And people disappear completely from this narrative.
And the great merit of this movie is to say, look, these are real people, they do not necessarily condone what's going on in their country, they are very well educated, they know what's going on, and if there is a strike, there's going to be casual collateral damage, and these are the people who will be collateral damaged.
Exactly, just like in Iraq, remember when Iraq was dehumanized, especially in 2002, early 2003, and then it took years for Americans to understand that civilians, the middle class, just like the American or European middle class, was being killed in Iraq as well, victims of war, or victims of the crossfire between the occupation and especially the Sunni guerrillas.
And if there is a strike in Iran, I hope not.
In the long run, remember the Iran-Iraq war, it lasted eight years.
They actually have experience in fighting a long, drawn-out war.
And even if there's not a land invasion, which we all know is absolutely impossible, even the Pentagon knows that, but the repercussions, and the crossfire, in fact, and the operations by special forces inside Iraq, which have been going on, as we all know...
All this covert action that you're talking about, blowing up...
Exactly, these are acts of war.
Infiltration of provinces in Iran, or Sistan-Balochistan, or Khuzestan, for instance.
Killing a scientist in broad daylight in Tehran.
And now the oil embargo, which is an act of economic war.
This is absolutely crazy.
How does the oil embargo work, Pepe?
How does the U.S. over here get to tell Iran whether they can or can't sell oil?
I'm a little bit confused as to the mechanism.
But this is a special feature of American exceptionalism, right?
When you are a hyper-power for too long, in the case of the U.S., maybe not too long, let's say the past 50 years, but you lose track of how the real world works.
So you come up with a concept of international community, which nowadays is Washington, London, Paris, maybe Ankara, Turkey, and the six GCC members, the Persian Gulf Monarchs.
This is what international community is all about nowadays.
You think, okay, we can impose our will over a developing country.
And you don't know that this developing country happens to have very close commercial trading and energy ties with, among others, Russian China, the biggest powers in Eurasia, Turkey, India, a BRIC member as well, and most of the 120-plus non-aligned countries of the non-aligned movement, NAM. So this means what?
Even if you impose an oil embargo, going to start in three months, all these countries who have energy and trade ties with Iran, they are already reorganizing it, and they're not going to cut off these ties.
This is more or less what Russia, China, and India have been telling subtly, not so subtly, the Obama administration, and Turkey as well.
They're going to pay for their oil in yuan, in rubles, in rupee, in gold, you name it, via third banks in third countries, via smugglers.
So, you know, it's absolutely impossible to impose this embargo.
The countries who are going to impose the embargo, which are the European Union, the ones who are most vulnerable will suffer the most, the Club Med countries, especially Greece, because Greece imports a lot of oil from Iran.
So you need to find an arrangement.
And if there is a common EU position, you cannot just digress.
You cannot strike your own parallel deal with Iran.
So Britain and France are not going to suffer much, because they import very little Iranian oil, but the Club Med countries will.
So look at the stupidity of the whole thing.
You slap an embargo where your allies are going to suffer.
And your allies go after you because they don't have an independent foreign policy, which is the case of the European Union.
Brussels, in fact, is a joke.
You only understand that when you work there.
When you go there, when you work there, you see those idiots crossing the European Union headquarters with those folders in eight different colors, in eight different languages.
They cannot even settle down on what kind of steak they're going to eat.
It's absurd.
But they have to follow.
They follow what Washington says, and they follow what NATO says, which is based in a suburb of Brussels itself.
Exactly.
So there's no independent foreign policy.
Catherine Ashton, the so-called foreign policy chief, she doesn't know anything about how the world works.
She doesn't even know how the European Union works.
Can you imagine the rest of the world?
So these people are taken as a joke by Moscow and by Beijing.
In fact, in Beijing, I heard this directly, which is something very unusual from the part of Chinese analysts and think tanks.
They say, look, we never considered the European Union to really be a player in international relations.
What matters for them is what Washington says.
All right.
Well, here comes the music.
We're about to be interrupted again, but I'm talking with the great Pepe Escobar.
More on the other side of his knowledge and expertise and perspective.
This is Antiwar Radio.
See you on the other side.
Okay.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm your guest host, Zoe Greif, and I'm talking with the invaluable Pepe Escobar.
And I didn't really introduce you right, Pepe.
My bad.
Let me do a little bit better.
Pepe Escobar is a globetrotting journalist who has interviewed newsmakers in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reported from Iran and China.
This guy has been there and done that, and he knows what's what.
And we're having a delightful discussion.
I wanted to follow up on a point that – or ask you a question or make a point about the movie Separation, the Oscar-winning film out of Iran.
It's such a good movie.
I recommend that everyone see it.
But my question is, Pepe, am I just wishfully thinking or is it actually a legitimate idea that Americans and Europeans and maybe even some Israeli citizens will see this movie and realize, hey, these Iranians are just trying to live their lives and walking around, calling each other on their cell phones, trying to chase down money, just like I do.
They're not burning American flags.
They're not even concerned with politics or nuclear anything.
They're just trying to live their lives like me.
Hmm, maybe we shouldn't blow them up because they're people too.
What do you think about that, Pepe Escobar?
Look, a lot of people actually – I read some reports about Israeli audiences who were mesmerized by the movie, in fact.
In Europe, it was a huge success.
In the U.S., it's a pity because it's been showing – I think it was showing in New York, LA, Chicago, and that's it.
If you are in the Midwest or in the Deep South, you won't see this movie.
It's a distribution problem in the U.S.
Oh, that's too bad.
It's only hysteria.
It's only bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.
And there are no humans in the story.
And this would be a real impact.
Of course, it's not going to happen.
So, coming back to reality, we depend nowadays from the good graces of President Obama not to have a war.
This is what was more or less proved this week.
I think we've got to give some credit to Obama, at least, for his good cop, bad cop game with Israel.
He emphasized the loose talk of trying to involve the U.S. in a new war.
At the same time, he still left all options on the table.
This is very, very serious.
You cannot go into a negotiation with Iran.
It's going to happen in the next few weeks.
The five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany are going back to the table with Iran.
And, okay, let's restart the negotiations.
But if you have the military options still on the table, if you have the sanctions on the table plus the sanctions that are going to be implemented in three months, you ask Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20%.
And you say, look, this is it.
Accept it.
And then we start talking.
This is the rollover-and-die approach to diplomacy, right?
It cannot possibly work because you're not respecting Iran as a player.
And this is one of the things that they want.
Why that deal that the Brazilians and the Turks struck with Iran in 2010 worked?
Because they sent their foreign ministers and then the president to Tehran.
They discussed for almost a day, nonstop.
In the end, they had a deal.
And the uranium would be enriched and taken out of the country to Turkey and then back to Iran.
And they were respected as players.
The problem is the mistrust between Washington and Tehran for the past 32 years is insurmountable.
And we need a goodwill gesture from the part of the U.S. And still what Obama said this week is not exactly a goodwill gesture.
It's diplomacy backed by sanctions.
It cannot possibly work.
Speaking of the sanctions, Pepe Escobar, can you tell me anything specifically about how these sanctions work?
I mean, does it prevent the average guy on the street in Tehran from being able to buy rice or cooking oil or gasoline for his car?
I'm just a little confused about how these sanctions actually operate on the ground.
Do you know anything about that?
Exactly.
That's a very good question, because theoretically, the sanctions would squeeze the regime.
No, never.
I remember Iraq very well.
You remember the oil for food sanctions in Iraq in the 90s, right?
Oh, yeah, of course.
Wow.
In terms of subsidies for the general population, food subsidies, subsidies for buying gas, for instance, they disappear.
So it's the average Iraqi at the time and the average Iranian nowadays that suffered.
The problem in Iran is compounded by the fact that the Ahmadinejad administration, in terms of economics, is a total disgrace.
So now they are squeezed, the general population, they're squeezed by the incompetence of the Ahmadinejad administration running the economy, plus the sanctions that are already in place.
So what will happen to Stalin in June if the oil embargo really works?
The oil embargo is not going to affect the system around the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard.
These are the people who actually control the country and the economy.
It's not going to affect them.
They're already making deals with China, with Turkey, with India, and with other Asian countries that buy from them, including Japan and South Korea, US allies.
But the people in the street, they're already being affected because the Ahmadinejad administration had to cut off subsidies.
So the inflation is enormous.
The price of basic foodstuff is huge in Iran.
And there are some discrepancies.
They import meat from Brazil, in fact.
The Brazilian meat is much better than the Iranian, but the Iranian meat costs more than the Brazilian meat.
How do I explain that?
Nobody knows.
It's completely crazy.
It's major mismanagement.
It sounds like they have an economic basket case situation going on.
Totally, totally, totally.
And this is the fault of Ahmadinejad.
In fact, this was one of the reasons that Ahmadinejad was horrible in the polls in these latest elections.
Because people actually voted against his people.
Because in terms of economic mismanagement, they are in a class by themselves.
Apart from the propaganda by the Khamenei people who actually won the election, and the revolutionary guards who now control, I would say, almost 80% of their parliament.
So now it's set in stone.
It's the supreme leader's will, and the clerics around him, the revolutionary guards, they control the whole thing, they are unified, and they're going to be very tough to negotiate with.
But still, we need a deal in terms of the nuclear dossier.
So if the US and Europeans come to the table, still pressuring is not going to happen.
If there is a goodwill gesture, there's a very good possibility of a deal being struck within the next few months.
And there's another component to this, which is the politicization of the IAEA, which used to be under ElBaradei, a very technical body, very competent.
And nowadays, everything that they say is political.
And the intelligence that they capture is fed by the Brits or by the Israelis.
And this is a nuclear body.
It's basically technician.
But they are being dictated by politics.
This cannot go on like this.
And Yukiya Amano, the head of the IAEA, is considered a joke by people in the industry itself.
Yeah, I'm a little confused, Pepe, because the IAEA reports continue to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material according to the non-proliferation treaty.
And yet I keep seeing headlines that get twisted and spun this way and that about the IAEA is asking questions about Iran's program, satellite photos prove that there's a truck with dirt in it driving around.
All this propaganda.
I mean, it's hard to see the real truth of it.
What's going on with the IAEA?
Why are they contradicting themselves, it seems?
Because now, with the Yukiya Amano administration, he's basically a puppet of Washington and the Brits and the French, basically.
So everything that the IAEA says nowadays, you have to take it with a pinch of salt.
All right, Pepe.
I asked you a question right up in front of the break.
I'm sorry.
No problem.
But thank you so much for that interview.
That was great.
It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you.
All right.
Have a great day.
Likewise.
You too.
Take care.
Thank you.
Bye.