All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest is Reza Marashi, research director at the National Iranian American Council.
Welcome back to the show.
Reza, how are you?
Thanks for having me.
I'm doing well.
Good, good.
Uh, so they had some big bonus, uh, bogus, why bonus?
Bonus bogus talks, actually.
I don't know why they even held them at all.
They had some talks.
They didn't go anywhere.
Uh, in Moscow, of course, the talks between the security council on one hand and Iran on the other.
Can you tell us what happened in any detail?
Uh, you know, which, uh, proposals each side was coming with and was willing to accept and the, the chances for a deal and why were they so scuttled and all that interesting stuff?
Sure.
Um, I think it's safe to say that the talks didn't go well.
Uh, I think it's also safe to say that what everybody knew going in that they very likely would not go well.
Uh, we're talking about untangling over three decades of institutionalized enmity between Iran and the United States, because really that's what this is, this is a negotiation between Iran and the United States and everybody else is just kind of watching from the sidelines because nothing can get done.
And that's both Iran and the United States agree.
For example, if everybody around the table, Iran and the other members of the security council, all agree on something and America doesn't agree to it, it can't happen just like everybody in the security council can't dictate to Iran, this will be the term.
If Iran says no, then it doesn't happen.
So, uh, this is, you know, the fourth meeting, um, and you can count the number of times that the Obama administration has spoken directly to Iran, uh, on one hand.
So, you know, this is actually part and parcel of, of, of a diplomatic process that is going to be sustained over a longer period of time.
This is typically how diplomacy works.
Um, a lot of neocons, a lot of naysayers will say, see, you can't talk to the Iranians or see the Iranians are very difficult to talk to.
And I would say, yeah, you're right.
They are very difficult to talk to.
And you know what, so are the Pakistanis and so are the Russians and so are the Israelis.
So the French, so this is a, this is a, is a good start to a process that inevitably was going to be difficult.
Uh, there was a breakdown in Moscow.
I think we should be honest about that.
Um, but you know, sometimes you do need a breakdown before you can reach a breakthrough.
The trouble is we're in a bit of a unique situation now where breakdown means that even though talks will continue at a lower level between technical experts, instead of the political experts, uh, there's going to be a lot of escalation going on by both sides that will move us closer to the precipice of war.
So, uh, it's a very dangerous gamble by both sides, Iran and the United States.
All right.
Well, so one of the confounding things, and I want to get to a little bit of the details of what they were, you know, what made it all so impossible other than just the, the number of different issues, because there are the main ones I think.
And then sort of the side issues that could be worked out much easier.
But, um, uh, I was going to ask about, uh, the irony to you of, or maybe you don't read it this way.
How do you read the amount of political capital expended by the Obama team since the time he came to power?
He's been getting beaten over the head constantly by the conservatives, by the Republican party and their entire media thing for being such an appeaser to Iran and, uh, selling out Israel and all this, and he has to do all this other stuff to try to make up for it.
He spent the whole first half of this year leaking articles straight to the front page of the New York times saying, calm down, they're not even making nukes, which is not the kind of thing Republican presidents like to do very often.
And he seems like he was really trying to set the political tone where he could go in there and he would really have a chance to say, look, you accept the additional protocol, I'll lift some sanctions, I'm obviously oversimplifying, but something reasonable like that.
And it's imaginable like that.
And instead, what does he do?
He goes in there and he has some sham negotiation that leads to nothing.
It's over now.
What's the deal?
Well, it's not over yet.
Um, but you raised some interesting points that, that we need to flesh out.
Uh, you know, the Obama administration did expend some political capital to try and create the political space that needed, uh, to make these negotiations succeed.
Um, and I think we should be honest about the fact that they were not successful in doing so because, um, election year considerations and considerations pertaining to Israel are probably the two biggest obstacles preventing Barack Obama from being able to take yes for an answer right now.
Uh, so as a result of that, uh, you know, this process needs to continue on for the next six months, seven months or so.
Uh, and, uh, and it should continue on for the next six, seven months, even if it's at a lower level, because this is diplomacy's great promise, you keep talking and you never know when a breakthrough might come, but inevitably it does as long as the negotiations continue.
Um, no major breakthroughs are likely in the next six to seven months.
Uh, you know, before Obama's reelection bid comes to a close, whether it happens or not remains to be seen.
But, uh, it's not for lack of trying on his part, but the political forces that he's going up against combined with a risk averse strategy that I think any sitting president would have, right.
Because in addition to being risk averse and not wanting to take political risks that could potentially blow up in your face when it comes to foreign policy, which don't win or lose elections, generally speaking, he also has to protect the democratic brand.
Um, you know, he wants to try to regain a majority in the Congress or at least prevent, uh, the Republicans from continuing to steward the ship and in the house and the Senate, the same way that they have been since 2010.
Uh, the gift and the curse of this strategy is that sure that the Congress has been a do nothing Congress that just blocks stuff left and right, uh, to, to put it in plain English.
But in 2009 and 2010, when he had a democratic majority, they weren't much easier on him either.
So he's damned if he does, he's damned if he doesn't.
Uh, but again, I, I really think it's very important to emphasize the saving grace of all of this is that talks, even though they're going to be at a lower level will continue.
So even though a breakdown did occur, even though neither side really shifted from its maximalist stance, Iran did a little bit.
It's us that didn't as much.
Iran is so reactive, generally speaking, you know, they were going to react to whatever we came in with.
So it was our opening salvo and, um, you know, the, but the situation will, the diplomacy will continue.
Talks will continue.
Uh, reporting back to Washington and Tehran and their respective political masters after these talks that will continue.
And, you know, you can make progress in a very small and incremental way over a sustained period of time that in the future can facilitate a breakthrough.
Uh, so that's what we should be hoping for now, uh, because the alternative, uh, is, is a little too reminiscent of the Bush administration.
Yeah.
One way it sounds like what you're saying is hope that some mid-ranking state department, pencil pusher types can get past the political personalities and news headlines and whatever, and actually work out a deal that they can bring to their bosses that somehow miraculously the politicians are going to say, huh, all right then, I mean, cause really that's the calculation is why not just, uh, make a peace deal and declare victory and peacemaker.
I mean, here he tries to take credit for getting kicked the hell right out of Iraq and say, I brought peace to Iraq and whatever he's running on that.
So why not run on?
I bought, uh, brought peace to Iraq and I made a deal with the Iranians and there, there's no way they could build a nuclear bomb now or whatever.
He's got to say, it seems like that could be just as good a, you know, political campaign propaganda.
No, that's a great question.
You know, he, uh, I think Iraq and Iran are a little, are two different scenarios because of how they're viewed by the American public.
Uh, America, the American people wanted to get out of Iraq.
It didn't take very long after the invasion in 2003 before it was generally not supported.
And, uh, it was having our resources as a country and our ability to, uh, you know, have flexibility and maneuverability broadly conceived on foreign policy and national security issues, primarily on Iran.
So I think you're going to start to see, and you already are starting to see a lot of resources, time, energy, money, and elsewhere, uh, being dedicated to Iran, uh, in an effort to try and, you know, make sure that, uh, Obama doesn't look weak on national security.
The reason why he does not pursue, you know, a grand bargain, if you will, um, is because it, the grand bargain will require compromises from us.
A grand bargain means that neither side, neither the U S nor Iran gets everything they want.
It really makes you force what you want and, and distinguish that from what you need.
And, uh, you know, the other side has to do the same.
And Obama is not in a political position right now to give, and the Iranians are not going to enter into a situation where all they do is give.
Right.
All right.
I'm sorry.
We have to hold it right here.
Hard commercial break coming up.
It's Reza Mirashi, research director at NIAC, NIA council.org, the national Iranian American council.
And we'll be right back to finish this discussion and the show up after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Reza Mirashi from the national Iranian American council, NIA council.
Dot org should just, yeah, that confuses the hell out of me.
Sorry.
I'm an idiot.
Reza Mirashi.
It should be just NIAC.org or something simple.
Anyway, uh, NIA council.org, um, for the national Iranian American council.
Anyway, we're talking about the, uh, talks that didn't go anywhere.
They were held earlier this week in Moscow between, uh, basically the UN security council on one side and Iran on the other, as we're talking about, about their nuclear program.
And now here's the thing.
It came up a minute ago in my question about, um, the political capital expended on setting this whole thing up in the first place.
And that was that, uh, the Obama team clearly had it put right there on the front of the New York times by way of, uh, James Risen, uh, instead of David Sanger on the issue, um, that actually they're not making nuclear weapons and the only nuclear program that anyone who's responsible even believes in existing in Iran is the one we all know about it's completely above board and safeguarded and it's their civilian electricity program.
And they're enriching for a little bit higher than that for fuel for their medical isotope reactor that the Americans built them back in the seventies when their dictator was our sock puppet still, and that the whole thing is a pretext so that we can have a regime change so we can have a sock puppet dictatorship there again, every while that part wasn't in the rising article, but that was the part that was obvious.
The whole thing is whole time has been a pretext.
10 million words have been written, scaremongering about the Iranian nuclear issue.
And yet when it comes down to it, they admit they have no evidence that they even want to make nuclear weapons at all.
So where does that leave us when they're going to sit here and pretend it's about nukes and have this intractable, uh, you know, endless series of threats back and forth for a war that I don't, in fact, this is another one of the leaks, right, is that the war call or the, the Pentagon did a war game.
And so we don't want to have this war because it's not going to work out.
Well, it's going to escalate into a regional conglomerate, uh, one of them big words, conflagration.
So, so what in the hell are they even doing?
They can't make a deal.
They can't have a war.
They're just, you know, being a pain in my ass.
Well, you know, this is a, you're really hitting it on the head here.
Neither side trust the other.
You know, so we've come out with information that's been leaked from the administration that running government has not made the political decision to weaponize this nuclear program and that suspect weaponization aspects of their program, if they in fact exist, stopped in 2003.
Nevertheless, because we don't understand the Iranians, we don't know the Iranians and thus we don't trust the Iranians.
Uh, you know, we must make the cost too high for them to pursue that path that maybe they could potentially pursue if they made the political decision to do so because the technology involved with nuclear programs within the non proliferation treaty does provide that kind of wiggle room.
Now the Iranians on the flip side say, you know, for 30 years, we think that you've been trying to get rid of our regime.
We don't trust you either.
And you should take the first step because you're the superpower.
I mean, I'm really boiling it down here to the essence.
There's, there's a lot more going on, but this is the essence of it.
So neither side wants to be the first to take risks for peace.
Neither side wants to be, to look like they're the first one compromising.
And, and that's what makes it dangerous because inevitably somebody has to be the first.
Otherwise, you know, the cycle of escalation eventually crosses the precipice, uh, and you, you're in an open conflict.
I think that, uh, despite the Obama administration's best efforts, the political realities, the domestic political realities in the United States got the best of them and limited their ability, which is actually kind of tragic if you think about it, because the Iranian government has spent the last three months trying to put itself in a position, uh, to make some kind of a compromise deal.
The devil would be in the details.
It would have to be negotiated.
But, uh, you know, the Obama administration, because it does not have political space as a result of the election and pressure from the went into first Baghdad and now Moscow and moved the goalposts, uh, for, for what success would look like, for what a compromise deal, short-term, not even a grand bargain, but a short-term compromise deal could look like.
Uh, so it becomes, uh, the latest example of, of really what's tragic, tragic in the last three decades of US-Iran relations, where one side's ready to dance and the other isn't.
Well, and you know, Flint Leverett and, uh, Hilary Mann Leverett, his wife over there at raceforiran.com.
They're constantly pointing out that, you know, Persia exists over there and it's going to be a powerful player in the region just because of their size compared and, you know, population wise and geographically compared to their neighbors, uh, the amount of natural resources in their country and how they can be produced and sold and, and, uh, whatever that for what it's worth, I mean, in comparison to the kingdoms of the Arabian peninsula, for example, and especially after America handed them at least, you know, two thirds or so of Iraq on a silver platter in the last few years, um, they're just a powerful player and the Americans just absolutely refuse to accept them as anything like, you know, an adult at the table, the way Hillary Clinton probably would say it, something like that.
You know what I mean?
They have to be treated like their very existence is illegitimate when they're just politicians, the same as any of the rest of them.
Yeah.
You know, the leverage to take it probably a little bit further than I would, um, I would say that, you know, look, the American government really since the end of world war two.
Well, and I'm probably unfairly paraphrasing the leverage there.
That was my own spin on their thing, but they're just saying, Hey, Iran's a regional power deal with them and deal with that reality instead of just stamping your feet about it.
Yeah.
And that's an argument that a lot of folks make.
Um, I would say that it runs a little bit deeper than that.
And the reason why is because if you look even to world war two, right?
Uh, the British say we can no longer run the middle East and still under the power vacuum.
America, you know, picks up the mantle and runs with it.
And since then the regional security framework in the middle East hasn't been set up and run by us.
And that's why you see countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others.
These are client regimes.
You know, we say jump, they say how high, you know, my Saudi, Jordan and Egyptian friends probably ain't gonna like hearing that, but that's the unfortunate reality, uh, for them.
Now, the Iranians refused to enter into that kind of relationship with the United States.
That's one of the core, one of the many core tenants of what their revolution in 1979 was back then.
What it was back then.
And what's become two very different things.
I'll be able to admit that, but an aversion to a foreign domination or foreign influence using the Iranians own word, uh, is something that, uh, if they're, they're just, it's not only an aversion, they're opposed to it.
So the United States says we won't change the regional security framework to accommodate Iran.
Iran says we won't enter into the framework as it exists.
Now, is there room for compromise?
Is there a middle ground?
The only way to find out is to continue these kinds of talks and, and expand them to issues beyond just the nuclear program, but we focus only on the nuclear program, then we're guaranteed to fail.
Uh, as long as both sides approach the relationship with one another as a zero sum game, where if they're winning, I must be losing, then that's what pushes us closer and closer to war.
There has to be a middle ground.
There has to be a compromise solution.
And oftentimes when you remove the political pressures from the equation, which is the hardest thing to do, and I admit that, but when you remove the political pressures away from the situation, things have a funny way of working themselves out relatively quickly.
Might I add?
Well, you know, for me, and I can't get over it.
Uh, I had this whole counter narrative, uh, in my imagination of, uh, Ron Paul winning the election last time and being inaugurated in 2009 and saying, Iran, do what you want.
Don't care.
Military's coming home.
We have nothing to even work out with you.
Have your own policy.
And, uh, our state department isn't even going to bother you.
You know, we'll, we might have our, uh, ambassadors show up, uh, simply to work out a page long free trade agreement with you or something like that.
But otherwise, uh, none of our damn business nuclear, this, that, or the other thing, I guess we'd appreciate it if you'd stay within the treaty and not make nukes, but Hey.
And I don't think we'd even have a problem at all.
I don't think they'd be making nukes.
And I don't think this would even be an issue if the president of the United States just simply said, Hey, look at me, I'm leading.
Uh, I'm making this no longer an issue and just get over it and let it be.
Well, I think we know that what we're doing now isn't working.
And then we have to ask ourselves, what are the alternatives to the status quo?
That's one alternative.
Uh, another alternative is to, uh, move the situation more towards conflict and escalate through threats and pressure.
Well, that's kind of what we did during the Bush administration, a higher degree of what we're doing now is the Bush administration and that didn't work either.
Uh, so the only thing we haven't tried at this point is actually, and unfortunately the least likely thing that we'll try, which is removing threats from the equation and pursuing a true, pure engagement strategy that's predicated on sustained diplomacy, sustained negotiations, because when you remove the threats away from equation, then you're actually able to get to the heart of the matter.
Yep.
Uh, very good point to end it with.
Thank you very much for your time on the show.
Reza.
Appreciate it.
Always a pleasure.
Uh, Zoe, thank you very much for covering for me while I was gone.
It was my pleasure, man.
Everybody.
I'll see you next week and or tonight on KPFK in Los Angeles.
Have a good weekend.
See you Monday.
