All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Our first guest today is John Glazer, assistant editor at antiwar.com.
You can find a great many things by him at antiwar.com/blog and at news.antiwar.com.
You know what?
That makes me think, is there a actual, uh, article archive of your opinion pieces at say, you know, antiwar.com/Glazer, that kind of thing or not?
Yes, but it's very small because, uh, I ended up just not writing, uh, original articles, I just put them on the, on the blog, even if they're, uh, Raimondo length, you know, 1200 words.
So, uh, most everything is up the blog, but I do have a few in the archives.
Oh, there you go.
So then that'd be original.antiwar.com/Glazer, right?
Correct.
Okay, cool.
Um, all right.
But anyway, yeah, news.antiwar.com.
Um, and also of course, uh, antiwar.com/blog.
And, uh, well, we're going to talk Syria and Iran.
Let's start with Syria here, John.
Uh, first of all, uh, what exactly is this peace deal that, uh, former secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan, uh, brokered, and is it even really a peace deal at all?
What's the status of who's killing who and what the hell's going on over there?
Do you know?
The basic outlines of the peace deal, as I understand it is, uh, for April 10th, which is tomorrow for, um, on that day, Syrian troops are supposed to withdraw from cities, uh, on April 12th.
Uh, a total ceasefire on all sides is supposed to occur.
Uh, after that, um, conditions are supposed to be set for humanitarian aid to reach people in need.
Uh, as I understand it, this is explicitly not aid to the opposition to fight with communications gear and weapons and things like this.
It's specifically for sort of a humanitarian aid to reach people that have, uh, have suffered, uh, through the violence.
Um, so this is basically the peace deal.
And from there, uh, Annan, Kofi Annan, the UN's envoy to Syria was supposed to continue brokering some sort of a deal in which, uh, violence could stop long-term, but for now, it's mainly a short-term deal to stop violence where negotiations should continue after that.
Um, but it doesn't seem like that is working.
Um, although, um, Annan sort of got props from non-interventionist because he basically told the West don't intervene.
Um, uh, you know, violence, more militarizing this conflict even more is not going to help anything.
Um, his, his plan doesn't seem to actually be coming through.
I mean, um, Syrian troops are, do not seem to be withdrawing from cities.
Um, and no one seems to be preparing for a ceasefire.
Fighting continues between, uh, from between the Syrian troops and opposition groups.
Um, there really is no centralized leadership of the rebels to, uh, to do any negotiating on behalf of the rest of them, right, is basically the problem here.
This is a deal between people who aren't necessarily representative of those with the rifles.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, as has been said a million times, the, the opposition is a mixture of groups that are locally based and they have no leadership, have no actually central organization or anything like that.
The free Syrian army, uh, which is, you know, questionable how you define what that is, but they supposedly have spokesmen, which, you know, come out publicly and say things like, uh, you know, we're preparing for, uh, honoring the ceasefire and so forth, but again, given the nature of the opposition, that can't be, uh, totally, uh, taken to heart.
Um, furthermore, the, the main problem is I see it as that this ceasefire very well might have been more respected.
And again, we have to see what happens tomorrow and on the 12th, but it might have been more respected if foreign intervention wasn't so rampant in Syria right now, I mean, not only Britain just decided to double its aid to the opposition, which apparently includes communications assistance for fighting, uh, Syrian troops, the U S is giving similar, uh, um, assistance to the opposition and on the other side, of course, you know, uh, Russia, uh, is the greatest, uh, uh, aid to the Syrian regime, which includes things like missile defense systems and tanks and, you know, heavy artillery and stuff like this and Iran continues to aid Syria as well.
So what we have here is a, there's a locus of activity from foreign intervention, the Gulf States are also giving aid to the opposition and all this stuff, which seems to be prolonging the conflict.
I mean, I got a question for you about some of this real quick here.
Um, remember after Iraq, I don't know, a year and a half or so, then it came out, the story, maybe, uh, Bob Woodward wrote about it or whatever.
And people started talking about the different, uh, well, in fact, really right from the very beginning, they're talking about the different CIA versus state department versus Pentagon plans for what all to do with the place once the invasion was over, that kind of thing.
Um, and how, you know, they had thrown out the state department plan, which supposedly would have been better than the, the neocon one, that kind of thing.
But I wonder they've had all these years to draw up all their different war games for a regime change in Syria.
Is this the best they can do?
Oh, what are they doing over here?
They're just losing.
Am I right?
I haven't seen a single article in a year that said to me that, wow, looks like the Assad regime might fall, right?
No, the Assad regime is, is pretty strong at the moment, despite early calls, early statements from Obama administration officials like Obama himself and Hillary Clinton saying, you know, the fall of the Assad regime is inevitable.
You know, this can't go on for much longer.
It seems he's in his last hour and stuff like this.
The Assad regime is actually pretty strong, not only militarily speaking, but also in the sense that they have some remaining support that is, you know, rather robust in metropolitan cities like Damascus and among Alawite communities and things like this.
So it, the whole, it's not as if the whole country is against the regime and wants regime change and wants, wants Assad to step down.
Um, the, the opposition to the regime, whether it's armed or, you know, keeping quiet to yourself seems to be a minority.
Now, in a dictatorship like Syria, you have to take into account that people are scared of the regime and scared of what might, you know, the sectarianism in the country, they're scared of what might come after Assad and so on and so forth.
So there's lots of reasons why support continues.
It's not as if it's Assad, some great, you know, guy.
Uh, but the fact is that it's not a full country revolution.
Um, and secondly, yeah, he's very militarily powerful and his missile defense systems is one of the main reasons that the U S uh, it has been hesitant to actually just, you know, do a Libya style no fly zone and start, uh, aiming at regime change.
It would be much more costly than Libya.
It wouldn't be as easy.
Um, so that, that's, that's, that's what's basically going on now.
I still love the opinion that if, uh, the regime, the Assad regime was completely isolated and didn't get support from its allies, and if the opposition was completely isolated and didn't get support from its allies, who obviously want to, want regime change in Syria for, you know, other than humanitarian reasons, um, then this conflict would probably come to an end or at least a short term end, like a ceasefire much, much sooner.
Well, yeah.
And I mean, we, I guess when the secretary of state announces that Assad must go period at the end, then that means, you know, from her point of view, anyway, from the empire's point of view, there's no going back.
That just means, I mean, they're going to have to figure out something because if the Libya war took what, eight months to get to Tripoli, this thing's going to take six years.
This is a disaster from their point.
From the empire's point of view, this isn't working.
As you said, I guess they can only bomb with the highest flying heavy bombers, not their fighter bombers, because the fighter bombers could get shot down.
They don't fly high enough.
And the way Democrats wage war is they got to not lose a single guy and just kill you from 400 miles away.
That's right.
I think even the psychos in the halls of power in Washington recognize that any active military action against Syria is just going to make the humanitarian situation worse.
Well, of course, as Barack Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, this is all about Iran.
This has nothing to do with the people of Syria other than they're going to have to die for it.
But we'll be right back.
It's John Glazer, news.antiwar.com, antiwar.com/blog.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with John Glazer, assistant editor at antiwar.com.
You can find what he writes at news.antiwar.com and at antiwar.com/blog and watch him all the time on Russia Today.
It's not his show, but he's a frequent guest.
All right.
So obviously the big story is the topic of Justin Raimondo's article today at antiwar.com is this piece by David Sanger in the New York Times.
U.S. defines its demands for a new round of talks with Iran.
And I was so looking forward to the P5 plus one and maybe just maybe they were going to find a way to resolve their entirely trumped up controversy with Iran in a peaceful kind of way.
And it seems like the Obama administration is just determined to paint themselves into a corner.
And, you know, like the Rambo yay accords of 99 or something, just give the Iranians an offer that they cannot possibly accept or else.
And then, so at some point, I don't know, not this month, maybe before the election, like Justin thinks, maybe after, I don't know.
Uh, we got a bomb because what other choice do we have?
Especially, uh, if the Republicans are attacking the Democrats for being weak, you know, they only have one response to that.
It's never to defend peace.
It's always to just be worse and move further to the right.
So I don't know.
What do you think?
Well, yeah.
So first of all, the certain parties have, uh, released their demands, right?
Their, their positions on, uh, P five plus one talks with Iran, which began Friday, by the way, um, Washington, at least publicly, uh, says that Iran has to stop all 20% low enriched uranium and to close and dismantle the facility at Fordo, which is protected by reinforced concrete inside a mountain.
Um, this is, you know, despite the fact that Iran has full rights under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty to enrich LEU and that inspections can be regularly performed on Fordo.
In fact, it's been inspected more than 10 times since the October, 2009.
In January, just in, you know, just a couple of months ago in January, Iran announced that Fordo remains under the agencies, under the IEA's containment and surveillance.
So, you know, uh, the Obama administration demanding that Fordo be dismantled is not only harmful to the negotiations, it's also totally unnecessary because it can be inspected.
Paul Pillar just wrote recently.
He said that the Western message to Tehran seems pretty clear.
We might be willing to tolerate some sort of Iranian nuclear program, but it has to be, it has to consist of facilities that would suffer significant damage if we decide to bomb it.
Basically, we insist on holding Iran, uh, nuclear facilities hostage to armed attack.
So that is basically the position.
What Iran's position used to be up until today, that enrichment to 20% would continue and no fuel swap, which was the basis for previous negotiations in 2010.
Um, but Iran's nuclear chief today said that, uh, Iran would stop enriching to 20% after they've stockpiled enough for use in their medical research reactor.
Uh, he said the jobs being carried out based on need when that need is met will be, will decrease production.
And even if it's possible, we might even reverse only to 3.5%.
Um, so that, that's the first compromise in this, in this sort of, uh, back and forth, but at this point I'm inclined to, you know, even though I, the cynic in me says, obviously Washington is going to demand things that will not be accepted so that the, uh, negotiations will fail.
And that at which point the law administration can claim, you know, Iran is just, you know, not willing to compromise it being so terrible and evil.
And then we'll bomb it.
That'll give us justification to bomb.
At this point, I'm inclined to assume though, that Washington will alter its demand and make compromises once talks start.
I mean, as much as I hate you about administration, it did actually waste a lot of political capital resisting bombing Iran in the past year.
Uh, it went to loggerheads with the Israelis.
Um, and not to mention the fact that military advisors, including present and former military leaders have said repeatedly that a war with Iran would be terrible.
It would be counterproductive.
It would not even get us to the point that we want or that, that Washington wants, which is no nuclear, no nuclear weapons program.
It would actually speed up that process because Iran would say, well, we'll sit.
I have no choice.
I'm going to get a, you know, regime change.
And so I have to actually have a deterrent.
Um, that would be probably what would, what would happen.
Uh, I, I have trouble believing that Washington and the Obama administration specifically would have wasted all this time resisting war just to legitimize it through, uh, failed negotiations, which it concocted.
So I don't know, we have to wait and see what happens Friday and the following week, because, uh, I, I have to think that, that a compromise will be reached.
Well, you know, one thing that is hopeful is the, uh, all the high profile leaks, of course, three James Risen stories in a row at the New York times about how the American spies believe that the Iranians are not making nuclear weapons, uh, that agree with the Israeli spies about that as well as how rats has reported.
Now, I don't know, really, that's made much of a difference on, you know, talk radio or top of the hour news or wherever Americans, uh, get their information from on a mass level, but, um, I like to think it's changed the terms of the debate a little bit in DC that, you know, like, I don't know what their dinner parties and crap, it's now like, okay to admit that we all know that they're not really making nukes where before they were all pretending to believe that they were, you know what I mean?
Something changed there at all, you think?
This is part of what I was talking about.
The Obama administration, I think was integral.
I mean, it's officials were the ones saying repeatedly at that in Congress, Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and it has not even demonstrated any intention to do so.
It made, it had made no decision to start up any sort of program.
Not to mention the fact that, you know, here in DC, there's all these events with the, you know, present and former officials.
There was one at the, uh, it was a CSIS panel that included a former CENTCOM commander.
So the former commander of the entire like Middle East region, uh, William, yeah, uh, he, he went as far as to basically say that the debate on Iran so far has been just warmongering.
Uh, him and a number of other people, which included, uh, general James Cartwright, and, uh, they, they reiterated and echoed, uh, chairman of joint chief of staff, general Martin Dempsey statements that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and attack would be not prudent, dangerous, counterproductive, all this stuff.
I mean, the Obama administration, it must've been a part of this sort of public relations campaign to get it, make it clear that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.
Um, and so I don't know why they would just, uh, intentionally make the negotiations fail.
Well, and you know, also, especially the fact that the, the basis for negotiations for a permanent deal, uh, you know, workable for everybody, beneficial for both sides and whatever, you know, from the point of view of both governments, uh, is right there.
Look, we'll give you a security guarantee.
If you just adopt the additional protocol.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
I mean, come on.
You know, this all said, we should, it should be reiterated that I have no, I have, I have, I have a strong belief anyways, that even the ones who don't want war in the Obama administration and in the rest of Washington, uh, very much want regime change.
And if it, you know, they are willing to make a compromise that is not going to happen in the next five years, you know, maybe on year six or something, maybe, uh, maybe a year three, they just know it's not right now.
Uh, but you know, a, uh, Trita Parsi just wrote something for the Huffington post.
He said that, uh, a world, a diplomat that he would not name, he predicted his, uh, his, his identity said that without a compromise from the Obama administration, um, this will head towards quote unquote total war.
So that's an ominous statement as well.
So we should keep in mind Washington's intentions here, which even among the so-called doves are regime change in Iran.
Uh, and it very could very well could be that I'm stupid and overly optimistic and, um, they are intending to have these negotiations fail, which would legitimize some sort of attack.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I don't know.
It's, it all just depends on who gets the upper hand.
I, I pretty much agree with your take on the thing.
Obviously there's a million reasons why not to do this.
Uh, so, uh, maybe cooler heads can prevail after all.
Uh, it worries me with, you know, the kind of the characters in charge that we have, but it is what it is.
Um, okay.
Well, thanks very much for your time, for your coverage and your insight on the show today.
John, appreciate it as always.
Thanks Scott.
John Glaser, everybody.
Assistant editor at antiwar.com, news.antiwar.com and antiwar.com/blog.
