08/02/12 – Stephen Elsberry – The Scott Horton Show

All right y'all welcome back to the show I'm Scott Horton Scott Horton org is the website keep all the archives there 2,500 or so interviews dating back to 2003 all right our next guest is Stephen Ellsbury or is it Ellsbury Ellsbury sorry regular contributor to the Yahoo network here the unlikely path to peace with Iran is the latest I believe and I think you're the most optimistic of all the Iran situation analysts I talked to on the show and I think I agree with you a lot of the time why don't you go ahead and tell us about this piece the unlikely path to peace with Iran okay I was inspired to write it when I came across this quote by Nikolai Petrushev Secretary of Russia's National Security Council and he said that we are trying to turn around an enemy into a supportive partner and to achieve this to change the current regime by whatever means and it was that term by whatever means that struck me I thought well we all assume that it means that we want to overthrow the mullahs in Tehran but what if it just means that we're looking to change their attitudes within the regime like keeping the people there but changing their policies that is a very Clintonite thing to do right just change the meaning of the phrase yeah and especially since why would we want to repeat 1953 all over again considering all the blowback that I brought about or 2003 right yeah most recent example well that makes sense although you know their strategy seems to be screw you no matter what you do we'll always lie about you will always threaten you will always crank up the sanctions and we'll never repeal them and there's nothing you could do to ever make nice to us so what would the ayatollah have to do other than blow his own brains out to appease these people yeah you're right about that because there was there was a piece by you stop but where he was analyzing the language of the sanctions and how they're basically designed to continue no matter even if this will do haha over the nuclear issue was resolved but I still think that we are seeking a deal over the nuclear program but but it doesn't mean that there would be an overall reproach wrong with Iran so we would still be hostile towards them over other issues like their treatment of dissidents human rights issues and their support for Hamas and Hezbollah well but even on the nuclear issue they asked the impossible closed down fordo forever although I guess you could argue that's just their bargaining position to start and that they really would after you know ten more meetings come to a more reasonable type agreement yeah I just read actually we read a piece recently by a Rafael our end from the Times of Israel where he's saying that yeah we won't find out what the actual real deal is going to be until after the fifth round of talks mm-hmm and that's just a typical Middle Eastern bargaining position and actually putting all that typical to Middle East just a bargaining position in general for everybody right well then we got a hope that they'll have that many meetings because they went into the first couple saying we'll never lift the sanctions no matter what you do which you know when they did that to Saddam Hussein he said all right well then what I do is going to be much more limited now that's how you're gonna do it you know which you know I worry that that's the point that really the policy hasn't changed from the Bush policy that the moderates over there are the enemy it must be marginalized that we want people who don't want to compromise with us to have the sway and the argument on their side so that eventually they can bring into a real conflict yeah I think we want we certainly want nationalist politicians over there like Akhmedinejad who is a loose cannon and will go off that you know the slightest reason pretext and that's if it does because then we can say oh look here's a threat in the Persian Gulf we have to keep staying there and make sure that the military budgets never cut because of that hmm all right well now NATO and the whole Empire have also bitten off I think already more than they can chew in Syria and they're going to have to see that thing through to the end because what are they going to do back down and that as the president told Jeffrey Goldberg yeah that's all about weakening Iran consequences of that particular intervention be damn we have to see it through yeah I see this all as part of a Cold War or a pseudo Cold War against Iran where we don't really want boots on the ground or occupation because look how that turned out already in Iraq and Afghanistan so it's just it's unthinkable and it's also unthinkable to have an internal revolt precipitated by the MEK and there's also the the prince the son of the Shah Pahlavi who recommended that he be supported to lead a revolt inside Iran and sort of form a native Persian Brigade and how could that possibly work considering how detested that both these two forces are yeah these are the leaders of the opposition this is all the Americans can come up with to be the leaders of the new regime is the son of the Shah or the MEK commie terror cult right this is that would be disastrous because they're just not popular at all I talked with Jeremiah Gulka who used to work for the Rand Corporation who went and visited Camp Ashraf in Iraq recently and he talked about when he went there they weren't allowed to talk without raising their hand and getting permission like their entire life was spent in a third grade class and you know very regimented sleeping and permission for every little thing and a very you know the kind of cult that you'd see in a Fox cartoon or something basically cookie cutter like how they do it I guess it was king of the hill is what I was thinking of but I couldn't figure out whether it was family guy but they wouldn't have done a thing like that yeah it was king of the hill where they joined the cult and no protein and no sleep and you must obey or else no one will like you and gets pretty bad yeah there was also a Simpsons episode like that where they they joined the cult the leader right you just use a gigantic swindler and and Homer was the only one who had any resistance to his propaganda yeah good times all right anyway so sorry to take us all off on a cartoon tangent there but the MEK cult they really are a sinister little cult of weirdo traitors who I believe it's a ninety nine point nine nine nine percent unanimous opinion by all factions inside Iran that they are hated and detested as traitors because they fought on America and Saddam Hussein side against Iran in the 1980s yeah and if they gain power it's not like a liberal democracy is going to flower there whatsoever there's just no chance of that happening so it's so it's not really a matter of the fact that there's a an authoritarian regime in Iran because why do we care if we're promoting one right yeah that certainly isn't the problem all right so now do you have an opinion about whether you know before or after the election you think Obama's really going to try to make a move to solve this thing Richard Dreyfuss said in 2013 definitely after the election all right well Richard Gardner said that is that he said said it anyway hold it right there we'll be right back okay Stephen Ellsbury all right y'all welcome back to the show I'm Scott Horton Scott Horton org is the website where I keep all my archives talking with Stephen Ellsbury he's a contributor over at yahoo.com most recently he's written the unlikely path to peace with Iran and I was hoping you could talk to us a little bit about the sanctions old sanctions new sanctions sanctions by executive orders sanctions in the Congress sanctions all around what effect are these sanctions having on well what's the structure of them if you could really explain how it is that they work maybe who's exempt from them and for how long and how that works and and what the effect of these sanctions are on the Iranian people Steve okay well the sanctions thus far are really designed for well they're supposed to be designed for punishing the regime over their non-nuclear weapons program but actually they're affecting the private sector and so this is really promoting all the state-run businesses it's pretty ironic actually as for exemptions and waivers that just goes to show how we're kind of not totally serious about this whole sanctioning strategy because if we were really serious about it we'd be we'd be enraging a lot of people a lot of the nations like China and India who and also the Europeans too who are heavily reliant on Iranian oil and that's why they're getting these exemptions for China's for six months and even the Wall Street Journal recognized how this is all like smoke and mirrors he called it voodoo sanctions something to that effect mm-hmm but now so does that mean that they're not having that much of effect inside the country since it's really all just you know one-sided but with the back door wide open for continued trade yeah they are having a pretty bad effect but at the same time Iran does the itself is having like a way out like they're not completely debarred from trading with China or with these other nations that have been granted waivers and that's why they're they're not going to act on their for us the close trade of hormones mm-hmm but so long as they they're back that they don't see their backs against the wall and if they see that there's a way out they'll be much more inclined to just stay the course and not escalate you ever wonder whether the politicians on both sides do a lot of this saber-rattling just to jack up the oil price and make things you know destabilize things a little bit so that their political friends can make some money that kind of thing yeah because at the start of the summer they haven't fallen for a while there and I think after the failure of the most recent of the high-level talks to go anywhere that actually contributed to the increase in prices like when they they should be falling right I mean hey I was pleased to see that it was in the media was I guess too obvious to ignore and they were saying that hey you know all this attention with Iran is driving up the price of oil I mean you know they always want to say something is what's causing the market to do this or that today and in this case it was just too clear what that something was you know yeah it's true that the tensions are contributing to the rise in price even though the media would be most apt to blame speculators and that's the easy scapegoat for them I think one article did admit yeah it's the sanctions doing everything so do you really think that that the American policy is or you're just saying you think it could be to redefine regime change in to make friends with the ayatollah and pretend we don't mind him so much and that he's gonna do what we say at least somewhat from now on or something yeah it very well could be I kind of see it like like how Iran has its nuclear ambiguity like will we or won't we decide to build a bomb and that's sort of like a sport hanging over our head but we're doing kind of the same thing towards them with this uh I guess I could call it regime change ambiguity like will we or won't we try to topple you guys and it just is designed to cause this nationalist reaction over there just like how the the new strategy in the Pacific is designed to rile up China well now so in your view is Benjamin Netanyahu a wild card and all this or he'll basically go along with the Empire and then what it decides I actually do wonder if if Israel would prefer regime change in Iran because that would mean that they could potentially become our new favorites in the region knocking them off to you know the closest ally spot if the same relationship we've got like a similar relationship with with Iran as we have with the Shah back in the 70s and they were the grenadier of the Gulf or no gendarmes of the Gulf they were called well of course the Israelis had a relationship with post-revolution Iran with that government for quite a long time of course selling them weapons for Ronald Reagan and all that yep also going back to the the potentiality of this being just a change within the regime there's this there's a post by this guy Thomas P.M.
Bartonet and I don't think he's a neocon but sounds a bit hawkish just because of the way he terms of this possible change he calls it the soft kill option where it would be once we recognize the Iranian regime and we open up ties says that admit the regime is a valid blow off the new pursuit which grants are on nothing in terms of leverage for anybody and let the connectivity of the results do the rest in terms of regime illegitimizing from within leading to eventual democratization and I and I think what when he felt of this he you know assume that yeah it'll be an internal revolt and will be overthrown but I say we should just go for for this policy anyway because the time would be the best path to take and because also the Hawks plans always seem to backfire on them and that's not what happened well you know it seems to me that if they were serious they would have said this very first meeting all right look we have to have six meetings or whatever the number is before we're allowed to make a deal so then at that meeting we'll make the deal but here's gonna be the deal we promise not to bomb you you promise to stay within your safeguards agreement and just make sure that you keep your you know plenty of inspectors and plenty of access to Fordo and a ton to make sure you keep all your enrichment under 20% I guess it'd be a bonus if we could get them to do all their up to 20% enrichment done in a foreign place but I don't really see the need doesn't matter it's not weapons grade at 20% by a long shot so you just stay within the safeguards agreement maybe adopt the additional protocol the safeguards agreement something like that and we'll promise not to bomb you we'll lift the sanctions and then we'll be friends and that's it yeah or maybe at least lift certain sanctions we've the ones pertaining specifically to their nuclear program but I don't see certain other sanctions being lifted even though that we could reach a deal over the nuclear issue yeah that's overkill politically I understand yeah and that's kind of also the reason why there has been a lot of progress was because the Iranians would like to also address just the overall issue of relations with the u.s. they'd like a rapprochement they'd like reconciliation and we're not just ready we're not ready for that quite yet and they're trying to insinuate that into the nuclear dispute and they want to include it and so that's kind of why we're we're hedging sweet don't want totally good terms quite yet yeah and all this going on while we're waging a covert war an overt covert war I guess against their allies in Syria they're supposed to just pretend not to notice that and that it's all about them and that they know it and we know they know it and everybody knows it and also all the stalling could be about arming the Gulf States which are just getting billions of dollars worth of weapons and and arms and fighter jets yeah suppose the defensive missiles yeah yeah so about building them up to so we're gonna wait until like they're sufficiently stocked and then we might pivot away from the Middle East to the Pacific like the administration wants to do you know and yet as you're saying they still don't have in anybody but probably even John McCain's fantasy they can't invade the place with troops all they can do is carpet bomb and still not get their way so I guess we have that going for us that it's so horrible and stupid that maybe they won't do it anyway we're all out of time thank you very much for your time Stephen Ellsbury everybody find him at Yahoo.com appreciate all right thanks