05/20/13 – Reza Marashi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Wharton.
This is the Scott Wharton Show.
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Full interview archives, more than 2,800 of them now, going back to 2003, are at ScottWharton.org.
And our next guest is Reza Marashi.
He is the co-author, well, first of all, he's at NIAC, the National Iranian American Council, and he's the co-author of this piece in the national interest called Back to the Future in Iran's Election.
Welcome back to the show, Reza.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me.
Well, you're very welcome.
I really appreciate you joining us today.
So, hey, this is an interesting article.
It turns out, and I can tell just sort of a little bit by osmosis from seeing some headlines and reading a little press, that this is a really big deal over there in Iran right now, that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, has now decided he is going to run to be president of Iran again.
So why don't you give us the lowdown?
What's the big deal?
Sure.
I would say that three things kind of stand out when we look at why a former president might be trying to reinsert himself into the race.
On the one hand, he's one of a handful of people that helped create the Islamic Republic as it exists today after the revolution that Iran had in 1979.
So he was pretty instrumental in that process.
And so him reinserting himself into the political scene in a way that he hasn't in quite some time now I think is noteworthy.
And the reason why I think it's noteworthy is point two, which is he has the ability to mobilize voters in Iran.
And that's a big deal because, A, after what happened in the 2009 election and the subsequent human rights abuses that have continued to this day, a lot of Iranians were disenchanted with the process broadly conceived.
So somebody such as Rafsanjani coming back into the race, people are either going to be motivated to vote for him or they're going to be motivated to vote against him.
He's a very polarizing figure in that sense.
And he's a very high-profile figure compared to the rest of the potential candidates in the race who don't have quite as high a profile.
The third and potentially the most important thing I would say about this is the other guy who is still around on the Iranian political scene that helped kind of usher in the Islamic Republic and make it into what it is today after the 1979 revolution is the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
And these two guys over the past 10 to 15 years probably haven't been getting along as well as they did in the beginning years of the revolution.
They've known each other for 50 years.
They've been friends for 50 years is what they oftentimes say about one another.
But their political differences and their differences of opinion about how the country is being run, both foreign policy and domestic policy, has grown year after year after year.
So with Rafsanjani being somebody who can mobilize voters, being somebody who is very high-profile, entering himself into the race, it's his way of trying to create some kind of bargaining process or back and forth with the supreme leader on the direction of the country because one of three things can happen.
He can either stay in the race and try to win it, or he can stay in the race and negotiate his withdrawal from the race in return for political concession, or the regime can try to disqualify him because they vet all candidates before the official list of candidates is announced.
That would be a very controversial decision, and this regime is trying to keep it as risk-free as possible after what happened four years ago.
So it's a very interesting development, and nobody really knows how it's going to shake out.
All right, now one of the things about – I think maybe this is conventional wisdom among foreign policy wonky people other than the very worst Bolton types or something like that is that, geez, we should have made a deal with Iran back in the days of Rafsanjani or Khatami.
Those guys, they get confused in my own head, too, I admit, even though I know that they're both very different from each other.
But what they have in common with each other is that for whatever reason, people in New York City seem to think that they were all right, and so maybe there could have been some sort of progress there.
Then you get fire-breather type – which, of course, there never really was – but then you get fire-breather types like Ahmadinejad in there, and he makes the perfect poster boy for, oh, geez, they're so crazy over there that we couldn't possibly – you couldn't possibly expect us to really cut a deal with them and all that kind of stuff.
And I just wonder whether you assent to that sort of conventional wisdom at all, or what do you think about that?
I think one of the great tragedies of U.S.
-Iran relations or lack thereof over the past 35 years has been when one side has been ready to dance, the other side hasn't.
So you're absolutely right in pointing out that people like Rafsanjani and Khatami, who was the president after Rafsanjani and before Ahmadinejad, these guys were willing to sit down and see if some kind of diplomatic arrangement could be worked out.
There were people inside the Iranian system at the time, and there were people in the United States at those times that maybe weren't as willing to explore that process, to explore the possibility, and vice versa.
There have been times when folks in the United States have been willing to give it a go and folks on the Iranian side have not been.
So I think as the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated, it's really sharpened the focus of folks on both sides of the spectrum and in both countries to say, if this thing gets much worse, it could really spiral out of control.
So they're looking for ways to maybe prevent that military conflict that I think both sides would independently seek to avoid while figuring out a way to maybe build trust and build confidence because there's zero of both on both ends.
So we've talked in the past about – well, I'll save the nuclear talks.
I always want to talk about the nuclear talks, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
How many other people are running for this thing and how strong of a chance does Rafsanjani even have at this point?
I think I read he's 78 years old, right?
That's right.
Well, 686 people registered to run in Iran, and then they have what's called the Guardian Council, which is a group of regime insiders who vet all 686 candidates and narrow it down to just a handful who are officially approved to quote-unquote to run.
We don't know – yeah, that's a fair way of putting it.
And we don't really have that list yet.
Tomorrow is actually supposed to be the day, May 23rd.
So yeah, tomorrow is supposed to be – Wednesday, excuse me, or Thursday is supposed to be the day, May 23rd.
That's Thursday if I'm not mistaken.
It's supposed to be the day when they announce the list of candidates who are allowed to run.
So between the time when registration ends, which was last week, and May 23rd when the final list is announced, there's a lot of political backroom dealing, horse training going on about who's allowed to run, who's not.
And sometimes when candidates are disqualified by this group of people that decide who gets to run and who doesn't, then the Supreme Leader can step in and say, oh, this person's been disqualified, but I think it would be more just if they were allowed to run.
So this is the kind of leverage that they have over different candidates, and the Supreme Leader is the one who makes that call.
And his old friend Mr. Axanjani is attempting to run, and there's going to be a lot of backroom dealing and political back-and-forth going on.
But we don't know what the final list is going to be, and everybody is waiting to see.
The rumor mill is turning pretty rapidly.
Well, now, I mean, he's got a high enough profile.
They can't exclude him just through the Guardian Council process, right?
They've got to figure out a way to beat him if he's really insisting on running, don't they?
Yeah, I mean it's not going to be easy to disqualify him from the race.
Again, like we were talking about before, this is the guy that helped create this system that exists in Iran today.
So even though they've marginalized him increasingly in recent years, the optic of disqualifying somebody who helped build this thing is pretty bad.
And they like to keep it as risk-averse and risk-free as possible.
So letting him run and then figuring out a way to pull the rug out from under him during the race, vote-rigging and things of that nature, is entirely within the realm of possibility.
I mean, one of the things that a lot of folks like to say about Iran, which is unfortunately true, is Iranian elections are not free, and they're not fair, but they're also not predictable.
And year after year – the elections are all around every four years, I should say – people venture to make a guess about who's going to win or what the process is going to look like, and most people end up being wrong, myself included.
So this year I'm saying, instead of venturing a guess on who's going to win or what's going to happen in the race, I'm saying right now it's way too early, and we need to look at this thing literally one to two weeks before the actual vote takes place and see where the regime is at.
Because I don't think they know yet what they're going to do, because Rafsanjani entering the race was really a curveball, and it doesn't allow the regime insiders now to have this neatly managed, smooth election process.
Now they actually have to get into substance, and there's going to be more serious political horse trading in these backroom dealings and things like that that maybe wouldn't have existed before.
So it remains to be seen how it all shakes out.
Would it be an okay comparison if, say, without Hillary in the equation, if Bill Clinton came and decided he was running for president again for the next time, that kind of thing?
Pretty unprecedented.
I mean I know he can't, but I'm just saying it's that sort of a thing, right?
An ex-president coming out of retirement to fix what you young whippersnappers have screwed up lately, that kind of thing?
Yeah, I think that's definitely a public component of it, and an equally important component of it, in addition to what you just said, is an old guy who has really just one official post left in the system, if you will, but it's not really a serious position compared to what some of the other positions are in the system itself.
So this guy comes back into the fold.
It's also a challenge to the supreme leader, because they have pretty serious differences on foreign and domestic policy issues.
Well, what are those differences?
I mean, is this really a personal thing, or do they really have wide and varying differences of vision for their country?
Because we hear a lot of talk like that out of Republicans and Democrats, but we all know they don't really mean it.
Sure, it's a fair question.
I mean, at the end of the day, it's hard to judge whether or not the personal relationship is irreparable or not, because we know that they used to be close as a result of what they built together and the revolution that they experienced together, right?
But what is real, and it's very real, is their political differences.
I mean, Mr. Rafsanjani, for example, was at the forefront of criticizing the regime for the way that they responded to the 2009 elections crisis.
And he's been at the forefront of saying that these political prisoners should be freed.
Some of the opposition leaders should be freed.
And pretty much everybody else, with the exception of a handful of people, who have been saying these kinds of things inside of Iran over the last four years have been forced to leave.
They've been imprisoned.
They've been interrogated.
They've been marginalized.
And he hasn't, because he is an elder statesman.
And also, as a regime insider, irrespective of what your differences or similarities are with the supreme leader, I think it's fair to say that this is a guy who knows too much.
He knows everything.
He knows all the dirty laundry.
He knows all the dirty secrets.
And on his end, I mean, this is something that he helped create, so I think he actually does care in the sense that maybe he has a nationalist streak, if you will.
He wants his country to be a powerful country.
He wants it to be ethnically healthy relative to where it stands today.
And sure, it's fair to say that he's got a pretty checkered political past.
There's no doubt about that.
But then it's also fair to say that inside the country there are some people who say we understand he has a checkered past, but given the very limited choices that we have in front of us right now, maybe he's the least bad option.
So is it democratic?
Not at all.
But are Iranians trying to figure out a way to move their country forward in a more positive direction without shedding blood?
I think that's certainly part of it.
All right.
Now, I guess as far as relations with the United States are concerned, the nuclear issue is the permanent big red herring, the unresolvable demand kind of thing.
You must entirely suspend all enrichment and whatever these demands, these U.N. Security Council, really National Security Council demands, right, that the Iranians are never going to give in to under any combination of presidents and ayatollahs.
In 100 years they're going to give in to that.
And the Americans will not seem to settle for, OK, just ship your 20 percent.
And they keep saying that they're willing to settle for the position that we all know is the easy one, right, just keep your enrichment at 3.6 percent, not 20.
Any 20 percent enriched U-235 you need, get it from the Russians or from the Turks or from somebody.
And then maybe sign the additional protocol or your safeguards agreement again and make it a little more expansive inspections.
And then we'll lift some sanctions and maybe promise not to invade, although that may be a little much.
I mean, the basis for the deal is there for anyone to see.
It's obvious.
And yet people just I don't know how bad it is on their side.
On this side, it seems like they talk a lot, but they don't really want to solve the issue at all to me.
Do you think there's a possibility of progress here?
Do you think the election or non-election of Rafsanjani is going to make much of a difference either way on the nuclear issue as far as the controversy with the Americans?
It's a great question.
I think that a new president in Iran isn't going to change the strategy of the Iranian government.
But I do think that it can change the tactics and it can change some of the players that are involved in the decision-making process.
And that can open up the possibility for new ways to build trust.
And you have to remember Ahmadinejad is somebody who is politically toxic in the United States, especially, but also in Europe after everything he said about Israel, the Holocaust.
And just generally speaking, like being seen as talking to this guy, it just doesn't play in a way that you can't really apply to any other Iranian official, at least not at the same level.
So a new face, whoever that new face might be, does open up opportunities, but we shouldn't exaggerate what those opportunities are.
And I think some people do, not you, not me, but some people certainly do.
A new president means a new beginning, well, to a certain extent.
But you also have a lot of unelected officials inside of Iran, and they're part of this decision-making process too.
So a diplomatic process, you're absolutely right.
Everybody kind of knows what the contours of a deal is going to look like.
But it's going to take some political will, and it's going to take some political space, both in Washington and in Tehran, to really stick with this diplomatic process and not have a meeting once every two months, three months.
It's got to be continuous.
There's going to have to be a willingness to figure out what your bottom line is, what your preferred endgame is.
And that way you get a better idea of what you're willing to negotiate away and how flexible you can be on different points.
That's really what we haven't seen yet.
It took this long to get to the table and have irregular conversations.
It took this long to figure out what the confines or the contours, excuse me, of a confidence-building measure, a broader arrangement might look like.
Now it's time to invest the political capital to make the abstract ideas that we see on paper into a reality.
Well, you used to work in the State Department, right?
Mm-hmm.
And now can you tell me, honestly, it's okay if it's classified.
You don't have to answer or whatever, but isn't the policy let's generate a lot of smoke this direction or that, but really what we want is the status quo until at least the end of the Obama administration?
I think that there certainly are people inside the U.S. government, both the State Department and elsewhere, that think along those lines.
But I also know that there are people inside the State Department that don't think along those lines.
It's not a monolithic entity in terms of what the thought process is, but I think more to your point, what we're seeing now is a particular policy trajectory wins out.
And a group of people who are debating another group of people or another couple groups of people inside the U.S. government, the debate is being won by people who maybe are a bit more risk-averse, that don't want to take those risks for peace for whatever reason.
And that's unfortunate, because it doesn't solve the problem.
It does kick the can down the road.
And innocent people, increasingly in Iran, but also on our end and in other countries as well, end up paying the price for this.
So leaders have to be willing to take risks for peace, and that's one thing that we've not really seen from the Obama administration so far.
We've seen a change in language for a time.
We've seen a change in tactics.
We have not seen a change in strategy.
And that's unfortunate, because he had a unique opportunity to do so.
That's not to say that the Iranian government has just been sitting and waiting with a smile on its face to solve this thing peacefully.
They certainly poisoned the well to a fair degree as well.
But what are we really talking about here?
On the one hand, we have an authoritarian regime in Iran that's increasingly popular with its own people.
On the other side of the table, we have the leader of the free world.
So asking ourselves who should probably be taking the risks for peace first, who should make the opening gambit, I'd argue it would be the United States, the global superpower, and the president of the United States, the man who can and should be willing to take risks for peace.
Especially when we have nothing to lose.
I mean, unless – I don't know, I don't mean to speak for you.
Maybe there are some interests that you could identify that may be put in jeopardy were we to come to an understanding with the Iranians.
But as far as I can tell, look, they're not stupid.
The Ayatollah and whoever's the next Ayatollah to, they know that they can't make a nuke faster than we can bomb their nuke-making factories.
And that's exactly what the Americans and or the Israelis would do if they ever really tried to make a nuke.
You know, Seymour Hersh says the JSOC guys believe that they quit even considering a nuke in 2003 because that was when America got rid of Saddam for them.
And he was the only reason that they ever considered making a nuke in the first place, which is pretty much all they ever did was consider it.
And so they're not making nukes.
And everybody knows they're not making nukes.
And it's the official position of the U.S. government that they're not making nukes.
So it seems like a pretty easy deal to just say, hey, you keep not making nukes and we can be friends.
And then what does America have to lose in that other than the Republicans are going to call me names or something?
I think that's the million-dollar question.
At the end of the day, I argue and a lot of people in Washington and even more people outside of Washington argue that the conflict between Iran and the United States has never been about the nuclear program.
In fact, the conflict far predates Iran spinning a single centrifuge in its nuclear program.
I think the conflict is geopolitical, meaning that after World War II, the United States set up an architecture or a framework for Middle Eastern security.
And we run it, and we have run it since that time.
And if you're not a part of the system that we run, we actively seek to make you a part of the system that we run.
We don't change the system to accommodate your preferences.
And Iran refuses to enter into the system that we run because they don't want to be a compliant U.S. client state like Mubarak's Egypt was or like all of the Persian Gulf countries are.
I mean, really… Like Pahlavi's Iran was.
Yeah, exactly.
And they don't want to enter into that kind of relationship.
Irrespective of who you agree with in this conflict, whether you think the United States is in the right or Iran is in the right, this doesn't have to be a zero-sum game because there really hasn't been an effort to talk through these issues over the past 34 years.
Both sides have missed opportunities to do so.
So at the end of the day, if Iran gave up its nuclear program tomorrow and they shut everything down, the problem wouldn't go away because it's far bigger than the nuclear program.
So they really need to sit down and talk about more than just the nuclear program.
And this is where I criticize the Obama administration because to date, with the exception of one meeting in 2009, the first meeting that Obama had with the Iranians, we haven't been willing to really talk to them about anything except the nuclear program.
And the Iranians, for their part, over the past year, year and a half, have refused to sit down on the sidelines of their broader international meetings with members of the Security Council plus Germany.
They've refused to sit down with the United States one-on-one and talk.
So both sides share some of the blame here, but until they do sit down and talk one-on-one, and until those one-on-one conversations are about more than just Iran's nuclear program, it's going to be really tough to crack this nut.
Well now, the leverets have this argument that what we need is for the president to be brave enough to just go over there and say, you know what, forget all the yelling and screaming on TV, back at home, I'll deal with that when I get home.
But right now I'm here, let's make a broad-based deal that says we're friends again and we'll work out the details later.
That's what Nixon did with Mao Zedong.
The problem there is, of course, and it's basically the same dynamic, is that Obama's a Democrat and Nixon was a Republican and he was also a demagogue on the domestic American communist issue.
And so it was okay for him to go shake hands with Mao Zedong because no one was going to call him a commie, he was Richard Nixon.
And apparently he just thought that this was the best thing for America and never mind what's good for China, he's Nixon.
And so he was able to get away with what was absolutely unthinkable right before he did it.
But on the other hand, though, it seems like if it's Obama or any president, Democrat or Republican, if they really just were willing to send their version of Kissinger over there, just go themselves and shake hands and make a deal and start warming up relations on the big level first and then work out the details later, that really, that would be undoable, right?
If he was able to go over there, even Obama was able to go over there and have a meeting with the Ayatollah and everything goes fine, right?
You can't, you know, people can yell and scream back home all they want, but the deed is done and now we're friends and now we can work out the details, right?
I mean, that's the way I see it.
I don't know what the Republicans could possibly do about it.
Make enemies out of him again like it's 79 all over again when it's not, you know?
Sure.
I mean, I think you brought up a couple of important things.
I mean, let's unpack this.
I mean, first and foremost, the Republican Party of Richard Nixon's era is dead.
I mean, neoconservative control Republican foreign policy now.
And that's wildly different than what Nixon had in mind.
So no Republicans can do this.
Yeah, not today.
Not this Republican Party.
You know, Ronald Reagan's are the first George W. Bush.
Maybe they would have considered it.
In fact, they did have conversations about it, as you know, from Iran contra under under Ronald Reagan.
And then there was also conversations about this under George W.
Bush that information about it didn't come out until much later.
Those days are over.
Neoconservatives control Republican foreign policy now, and their views on Iran are quite clear.
But more to your point about Obama.
I mean, I mean, the leverage say things that I disagree with on Iran more broadly.
But one thing that we do agree with is that Obama is going to need to take risks for peace.
We might have some differences.
The leverage on on what the details of those risks should be, who should do what, when, et cetera, et cetera.
And I don't want to speak for them, but I do think that we both say that Obama should make the opening gambit.
And it's going to need to be more than what he's done so far.
We have differences of opinion, the leverage on how their audience might react.
And, you know, the degree to which things are problematic in Tehran, so on and so forth.
But the point is a fair one.
You know, they make the argument that, you know, Obama needs to do a little bit more.
And that specific point that Obama needs to do a little bit more.
Sure, I agree with.
Well, I mean, their argument there.
I don't want to speak for him, you know, 100 percent or whatever.
Basically, what they're saying is that the challenge that assuming Obama meant to really work on this thing and solve it in the next couple of years or whatever, the challenge is that the political opposition in both parties and on Capitol Hill can nitpick to death any particular deal on any particular issue.
What they can't undo is a grand gesture like a Nixon goes to China thing that says, that's it.
Relations are warmed over.
And now you're going to have much more trouble derailing any particular negotiation that we're working on.
Whereas as it stands, I think what they're saying is he doesn't really have a prayer of solving the nuclear issue here or whatever issue there, you know, as a separate independent thing.
Because it'll just get knocked right back down.
Because it's sort of like in Peter Jenkins' article here at Loblog about the way the Obama administration is framing everything.
They've got the Iranians such outlaws that how could they be expected to negotiate any particular point with them?
You understand what I mean?
Yeah, I do.
And, you know, I read Ambassador Jenkins' piece, and I thought it was a good one.
And, you know, the point that the levers make about, you know, needing to do something bold, I think that's a fair point.
And I don't disagree with that point.
The Nixon goes to China analogy I disagree with a little bit, and here's why.
It's not because in principle it's a bad idea, but as always, the devil is in the details.
So let's say, for example, that Obama got on a plane and went to Tehran to meet with the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
And the conversation would inevitably go to, all right, well, how are you going to undo the sanctions?
And Obama can't undo the sanctions because Congress has to do that, and he can't force Congress to do it.
And there's such a huge schism between Congress and the Obama administration now just on very subtle details that the likelihood of being able to deliver on a grand bargain premise is very low.
In other words, they can undermine a grand bargain just as well as any old offer, too.
Exactly.
And that doesn't mean that Obama shouldn't be bold.
It just means that the principle of being able to fly there, sit down and say, I'm going to change the trajectory, isn't easy because then the Iranians are going to say, okay, actions speak louder than words.
And it's going to be much more difficult for us in any kind of rapid way to show that our actions are meeting our words if the words were to say we want the grand bargain, etc., etc.
So again, the premise at face value is absolutely correct.
I think it gets a bit more complicated in the details.
And again, I don't want to speak for the levers.
I haven't read their book, so I can't say that this specific detail of the Nixon goes to China argument is wrong or right.
I just think that if I understand the Iranian regime to the degree that I think I do, they're going to say, okay, prove it.
And that's where it's going to get tough for us.
And then we're going to say to them, okay, prove it.
And that's where it's going to get tough for them.
All right, we've got to go.
Thanks so much for your time, Reza.
Sure, no problem.
All right, everybody, that's Reza Mirashi from NIAC, the National Iranian American Council.
That's niacouncil.org.
See you tomorrow.
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Stand there.
Me?
I am standing here.
Come here.
Okay.
Hands up.
Turn around.
Whoa, easy.
Into the scanner.
Ooh, what's this in your pants?
Hey, slow down.
It's just my...
Hold it right there.
Your wallet has tripped the metal detector.
What's this?
The Bill of Rights.
That's right.
It's just a harmless stainless steel business card-sized copy of the Bill of Rights from securityedition.com.
There for exposing the TSA as a bunch of liberty-destroying goons who've never protected anyone from anything.
Sir, now give me back my wallet and get out of my way.
Got a plane to catch.
Have a nice day.
Play a leading role in the security theater with the Bill of Rights Security Edition from securityedition.com.
It's the size of a business card, so it fits right in your wallet.
And it's guaranteed to trip the metal detectors wherever the police state goes.
That's securityedition.com.
And don't forget their great Fourth Amendment socks.
Hey guys, I got his laptop.