All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
It's Anti-War Radio.
And our next guest is Jasmine Ramsey.
She's an Iranian-born journalist and editor of IPS News' DC-based U.S. foreign policy blog, LobeLog, at lobelog.com, and of course, at antiwar.com and here on Anti-War Radio.
We're huge fans of all things Jim Loeb and associated.
Welcome to the show, Jasmine.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good.
Thanks for having me.
Well, thank you very much for joining us.
The piece at alternet.org.
I guess maybe it was originally at Loeblog.
I don't know.
But anyway, it's at Alternet.
It's called 10 Myths About Iran and Why They're Dead Wrong.
So I'll try to keep my talk to a minimum.
Maybe we can do five myths per segment here.
We got about 10 minutes.
So we can hopefully you can sort of take your time to go through them.
But I wanted to start off with a myth that you left off, which is Iran is not just a shape on a political map, on a computer screen or a piece of paper in front of you.
It's an actual place with people on top of it.
That's right.
Yeah, I mean, well, that was sort of how I started it.
It seems that the way that Iran is represented in the media these days, it's always about the nuclear issue.
And oftentimes, the idea that it's a threat is associated with it.
So the idea of Iran being a country with over 70 million people, diverse and complex and an interesting society, all that gets lost.
And so a lot of sort of myths and incorrect representations get spread about it because of that, I think.
So I just wrote sort of a general piece trying to clear up some of those myths.
All right, well, do tell.
Okay, well, I mean, obviously, the first one is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.
The reason I put that one is because the last poll that I found, it was from two years ago, but 71% of Americans have said yes to the question of, do you think Iran currently has nuclear weapons?
Now, that could have changed.
And recent polls suggest that maybe Americans are much more informed now because they are talking about whether diplomacy should be pursued, or threats of war should be pursued to slow down Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions.
But just to clear that up, it absolutely, we don't have any evidence to suggest that it does have a nuclear weapon.
And one that sort of follows along with that is that Iran is on this lightning speed path towards getting a nuclear weapon.
And I mean, that one is also, we have to unpack it because the idea is that it's the prevalent suspicion, again, is that it's trying to obtain breakout capability, or the ability to produce a weapon in a relatively short period of time, should it make the decision to do so.
But then the question is always whether it would or if it even wants to make that decision.
And right now, we don't have anything to indicate that it does want to make that decision.
And, you know, that is also something that's been expressed as a red line by the US.
And, and yeah, so I mean, and there's a fatwa from the Iranian Supreme Leader that says, for religious reasons, Iran does not want a nuclear weapon, you can choose to take that for what it's worth.
But there should be, as one Cole had argued previously, if you want to say that that's not true, then you should offer evidence to support the claim that he's that he's lying.
Mm hmm.
Well, and isn't it just amazing how you can even have now in Haaretz, the head of Mossad saying in almost exact language of the American intelligence agencies, that we think that they have not yet made a decision to begin making nukes there.
Basically, everybody agrees with Gareth Porter.
And what he said all along was it's all just about achieving at most breakout capability.
And yet, somehow, the narrative continues on TV still says the same thing.
The pundits and the radio show hosts and everybody continues on as though we haven't all known for years, that at least the official intelligence agencies say that this isn't really true, all this hype.
Right?
I mean, well, the thing is, we have to be clear that Iran has not been fully absolutely 100% cooperative with the IAEA.
And so it also leaves room for suspicions to persist.
It doesn't.
But I mean, it's also operating within its own calculations and how far it wants to go.
Well, and within the safeguards agreement, they're only not cooperating with all the extracurricular activities of the IAEA mandated by the Security Council, rather than their treaty obligations.
That's true.
But then there's also the idea of confidence building measures.
So one thing that's sort of floating around a lot in the media right now is the fact that during the last IAEA delegation visit, just for talks, I don't think they were specific for inspections.
The request was to visit a military site, Parchin, and the Iranians had said no.
So that became a big issue.
One, but Gareth Porter from IPS had reported that they had said that they wanted to clear up some issues before they let them in.
So it wasn't that they would never let anyone in that they just wanted to have some issues cleared up.
On the other hand, you know, that makes people suspicious.
And but then there's also the issue that Iran's nuclear scientists are being assassinated.
So they have their own security concerns.
I mean, the question is, how did these names get out?
Where did these assassins get those names?
When you have people visiting your military sites, I mean, just imagine the U.S. allowing an inspection or agency to come in.
So I mean, we were actually just talking about how they won't let the U.N. talk with Bradley Manning without a minder in the room.
That was the last interview.
So there you go.
There's your answer.
They would never allow it.
Right.
And then there's also I mean, the thing is, it's not Iran is not just a nuclear intent country.
I mean, it's a it's a complex country.
It has a divided society.
It has its own domestic political issues that it's dealing with, just like the American government does.
And a lot of what it does based a lot of its foreign policy decisions factor in its own domestic considerations as well.
So, yeah.
And then there's something else that all Americans should definitely know is the idea that is often touted by militarist advocates that Iranians hate Americans because they often fight, you know, the death to America and everything.
I mean, that that stuff does happen in Iran, but it's not like a widespread thing.
It's not like before people sit down to eat dinner, they chant that.
It's a political display and it's very specific related to issues of foreign policy, historical issues that have affected Iranians and their perception of American and British foreign policy.
So it's never to Americans.
Iranians don't wish harm on Americans at all.
In fact, American culture is dominant in Iran.
If you walk through the streets, it's all over the place.
Well, now, and you talk about this, whether or not they want to preserve their regime or whether, I guess, the way the war party would say they're just, you know, bent on the apocalypse and bringing back the 12th imam to fight Jesus in the ultimate grudge match or something like that.
Right.
I mean, that's that's a myth that's really circulated circulating about Iran, the idea that it's a suicidal regime.
And there are arguments to be made that it does have messianic qualities about it.
But as far as its actions have gone historically, it's it's operated in a very calculated way.
And this is the, you know, top U.S. and intelligence assessments have have have stated this.
So Dempsey, General Dempsey recently stated that Iran is a rational actor, and he was really chided by the Israelis for that and, and people on the right in the American policy circles.
But they have they've been they're interested in self preservation.
I mean, up until this point, everything that they've done has been geared towards that, that doesn't mean that everything that they do is right, or especially in the way that Americans perceive their actions, but they are not interested in attacking others, they haven't launched a war, the war with Iraq was in response to an attack.
So yeah, I mean, they're interested in preserving the regime.
And that's one reason why maybe they wouldn't pursue a nuclear weapon, because everything changes.
I mean, it there's, there's just so many factors that need to be considered.
And Colin Kyle, who used to be the Pentagon's top military advisor to the Obama administration, very, until very recently had actually made the point that the Iranians actually might be in a better position to never actually get the weapon, but to give at least the illusion that they are, that they are pursuing one or the capability of one, so that it puts them in a better bargaining and negotiating position.
Right?
Well, because the truth is, they're not really the Persian Empire anymore.
And haven't been for a long time, what they're working on is trying to maintain their independence from ours.
That's really, you know, what's going on here.
I'm sorry, there's the music playing.
We got to go out to this break.
Sorry, cut you off like that.
But we'll be right back with Jasmine Ramsey from the low block, right after this to talk more about myths on Iran, perpetrated by the war party, I guess kind of goes without saying, but there's a lot of them.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti war radio.
Talking with Jasmine Ramsey from IPS news, the low blog, Jim lobes blog.
We're a lot of great writers, right?
And we're talking about her article 10 myths about Iran and why they're dead wrong over at alternate.org.
And one thing where we got stuck on the other side of the commercial break there was Oh, one thing I thought of anyway, was Seymour Hersh's article Iran and the bomb from last May, 2011, where he talks about how the CIA's conclusion was that the reason that they did the reason behind their conclusion that Iran gave up any investigation into nuclear weapons back in 2003, was because we took care of Saddam Hussein for him.
And he was the only reason that they were even considering making an atomic bomb, we might back Saddam's invasion of their country again, or something like that.
But as far as going up against the United States or Israel, one to one when we already have these massive nuclear arsenals makes no sense whatsoever.
And they never meant to.
And that was why in 2003, they said, Well, as long as Saddam's gone, we'll just go instead with a policy of Hey, our hands are up our uranium sitting right here.
It's not weapons grade.
And so don't shoot.
Right?
I mean, I'm not going to pretend to be a nuclear expert.
And there's lots written on this.
And it's very complicated.
But as far as actual evidence goes, the evidence is and this is, I mean, there's there's some intelligence from the IAEA that says that there has been there's suspicion of activities that have been relevant to the creation of nuclear weapons, but that they're not actually, you know, engaging in a full out scale nuclear weapon program or are even close to that or have even made a decision to go that far.
That's what the evidence is on it.
And I mean, it's really important to go based on evidence rather than suspicion when we're dealing with possibly the consequences of something one of the one of the most catastrophic wars that we could see in in a long time, much worse possibly than than Iraq, any and as well, it would it would endanger Israel security, it endangers the US for security in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and it sets off sort of a whole chain of events that we want to avoid.
So I think sticking to the evidence of what's available out there right now is really important.
And at the same time, not saying that we know everything about its program, because we don't, and we can't claim to, right, we just know that, well, the American and Israeli intelligence agencies judge with high confidence that they're not making nukes that, you know, anything in that IAEA report, whether the Americans or the Israelis put it in the report in the first place or not, their official conclusions are contrary to that.
They say that nothing's happened there along those lines since 2003.
Yes, the main line that people seem to be focusing on is that the IAEA and other organizations keep emphasizing that it's clear that a nuclear armed Iran is neither imminent nor inevitable, which is why the issue of diplomacy and negotiations and talks, and all that are so relevant now.
And there are talks expected to happen in a relatively short time.
And there's a lot of optimism expressed right now about conditions that might make it possible for something to move forward with those talks, to reach, maybe to get closer to a settlement with Iran's nuclear program.
But it's also important to realize that, again, Iran is not just a nuclear issue.
I mean, one thing that I was talking about in the article that I did is the idea that there's this group right now, it's called the Mujahideen-Khal, and it's MEK, PMOI, NCRI, it has all these different names, I don't know why, maybe in an attempt to confuse people.
But there's a lot of commercials on TV and news TV, really expensive ads that are paid for in in outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, saying that this group is Iran's main opposition.
And that's another myth, if it's a myth.
I mean, I'm not sure if people are buying it.
But it really needs to be tackled, that they do not have any support in Iran, no significant support.
They were a group at one time prior to the revolution that was popular.
And they had sort of a mix of Marxist-Islamic ideology.
And what happened is they were brutally repressed by the current government, and many of them were exiles.
And they basically set up shop near the Iran-Iraq border.
And from there, they conducted a whole lot of reported human rights abuses against their own members.
It was reported that they helped Saddam Hussein repress the Kurds.
And near the end of the Iraq war, they actually tried to invade Iran with tanks and everything.
So they actually fought against their own country.
And in a way, you could argue that they fought against their own country.
So they don't have any support in Iran.
They're not Iran's main opposition.
And they're currently getting a lot of former high-level officials to stand up and advocate for them.
And they're lobbying to get off the foreign terrorist organizations list that they're on, because they have been put there by the US.
And they allegedly conducted terrorist attacks inside Iran that killed American citizens.
So they're calling themselves Iran's main opposition.
We have former Bush officials saying that these guys are the hope for regime change in Iran.
And meanwhile, they have no support in Iran.
So that's something that I think people should be really clear about.
Well, and there's shocking news this week, actually, that a former governor is under investigation.
Ed Rendell is under investigation by the Treasury Department for being a paid spokesman for this listed terrorist group, designated terrorist group.
Yeah, I mean, Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post did this big piece on them, actually, about the payments.
And she was saying that millions have been spent on getting payments for high-level officials.
Now, the question then becomes, were they paid to advocate?
Or did they just charge in speaking fees?
So then the legal issues come along.
But David Cole had also written about that, saying, does this count as supporting a terrorist group?
And that was also responded to.
But yeah, I mean, they pay people.
The question is, you know, are they paying them to advocate?
Or is it just speaking fees or whatever?
But there's definitely lots and lots of money being spent.
And this is a very well organized group.
And their lobbying efforts have gotten them delisted from the EU and UK terror lists.
And now they have their sights set on the US.
And the administration is pretty much dragging its feet on it because there are human rights issues associated with the camp.
Well, yeah, and somebody leaked to NBC that the Israelis have been using the MEK.
They're the ones behind the assassinations.
And so that's not helpful.
We're trying to get them delisted, huh?
Right, exactly.
I mean, there's, there's, there's all I mean, it's not necessarily the delisting, but specifically regarding their legitimacy.
I mean, the length that this group has gone to kind of to establish itself.
And by the way, the Rand Corporation had as described them as a cult, because they have very strange practices.
And, and, you know, again, there's been human rights abuses, allegations against them, by a report by Human Rights Watch.
And I had reported this last year for Al Jazeera.
Yeah, well, and the FBI says that they're planning terrorist attacks on their wiretaps up through 2005.
I think it was right, there was an FBI report, definitely.
So they what the MEK does is when you are critical of them, and I'm sure I'm going to get some blowback from this, they they tend to smear people and say that they're paid agents of the Iranian government, because obviously, the Iranian government does not like them.
Oh yeah, they've lurked in my comment sections before, believe me.
Yeah, so but then the idea is then the FBI was somehow implicated with the Iranian government or the this report that was sponsored by John McCain back in the 90s, about the MEK, that was somehow done with the Iranian government.
So it's a really ridiculous claim.
Just like when they implied anyway, nobody ever said it out loud, because it was so ridiculous, they would have never even tried to get away with it, I guess.
But they basically imply that Iran had some kind of secret agent inside the White House or something who just knew that Obama was about to announce that they had this secret facility at calm, when that was just an excuse that they made up after the fact for how it was, we're supposed to see them as busted for this when they had declared it four days earlier to the IAEA.
Right?
Yeah, I mean, yes, the intelligence that has reportedly come from them is definitely suspicious.
And, and we don't really know whether we should trust it.
I mean, any kind of intelligence coming from a foreign body, especially a body that has an agenda against the government should be taken with a grain of salt.
And it is, obviously.
So yeah, another myth that I was looking at was the idea that Iranians want another revolution.
Now, this is something that we should be careful about, because I'm not going to pretend to speak for all Iranians.
But the idea that was kind of spread during 2009, that the Iranians wanted to bring down their government, and that this was the beginning of the end for for the Islamic government.
It was it was what we saw there was basically the beginning of the civil rights movement in Iran, not the beginning, but sort of it made a big splash at that time, because there's widespread discontent inside Iran, among all classes and about the government about the society about the way things are going.
But the idea that Iranians are just waiting for something to happen so that they can bring down their government and this is used by people to suggest that we can support regime change.
Again, another one that will go back to the MEK or or any other kind of idea of intervention in Iran.
That one is a myth.
I mean, if you yeah, it's more like they would rather elect their equivalent of Obama versus the George Bush that they're sick of that kind of thing.
That's not the same as a revolution and a regime change in a new American backed puppet from either the MEK or the Shah's old family or some nonsense like that.
Exactly.
I mean, Iranian society is complex.
It's divided.
And it's very polarized.
So it's it's really hard to sort of pin down exactly that they want something.
But one thing that I had interviewed and an Iran analyst, Fahriyeh Fahriyeh, and she was saying when has a when have two revolutions happened so quickly together back to back?
I mean, the Iranians have been through so much in the last century in the last 30 years.
And the idea that that they're pushing for something like that it that might be exaggerated.
We don't know.
Well, they got a pretty bad police state, but they do have independence from the other major powers in the world or pretty much anyway.
And, you know, I guess, if they rely on the Russians, and the Russians have some influence over them, that kind of thing.
But they're independent from the other major power in the region, which is the United States.
And that's something I mean, think about how Americans rally around George Bush, for example, when we're faced with some kind of external threat.
Yeah, before that nobody could stand him at all.
The thing is, Iran is not a free society, it is an authoritarian state, and it has major human rights abuses attached to the government.
And definitely these things need to be condemned and dealt with in some way.
But that is another idea that if there is a external threat, or if there is an outside attack that that will bring the extreme extremist elements within the government to the forefront, and it would rally more people around the regime.
And right now, that's not what the pro-democracy movement in inside Iran is asking for.
They actually are adamantly against an attack.
And the Iranians are they're a proud, tough, persistent people, and they are going to they're going to bring about change by themselves, within their own means.
So they don't need outside assistance to do that.
All right, well, thanks very much for your time.
We're already over time.
But I really appreciate yours on the show today.
Jasmine Ramsey, everybody from loblog.com and alternate.org 10 myths about Iran.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
