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All right, you guys.
Introducing our friend Reza Marashi.
He is from the National Iranian American Council.
That's NIAC.
It's niacouncil.org.niacouncil.org.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Reza?
Doing well.
Thanks for having me.
You used to be a State Department weenie of some description or another, Deputy Assistant Secretary of lying about stuff.
What was it?
Yeah.
I mean, I wish my title was that high.
No, I was a worker bee.
I was just a worker bee in the Office of Iranian Affairs.
But as a worker bee, which most people are in the State Department, for lack of a better term, you learn how the sausage gets made.
So I think my BS alarm can go off in a more acute fashion than perhaps some others who haven't served in government.
Yeah, hey, that's definitely a fair point.
And in the Office of Iranian Affairs specifically on topic, too.
That's good.
So you tell me then, Reza Mirashi, what's so good about the Iran deal anyway?
I think that it has many, many benefits, but three stand out to me above all else.
First and foremost, it verifiably ensures that even if Iran wanted to try and build a nuclear weapon, it wouldn't be able to do so without getting caught, because every single aspect of the supply chain in Iran's nuclear program is being monitored 24-7, 365.
And less nuclear weapons in the world is a good thing, again, if the Iranian government were to choose to pursue such weapons.
Step two that I think is really important about the deal is it helps avoid war.
It resolved one point of contention between the U.S. and Iran, regardless of which side you backed, the Iranian government side or the U.S. government side.
It helped avoid war.
It created an off-ramp.
It created a foundation for dialogue.
And then that segues into the third thing that I think is a really positive thing, or at least has been until Trump became president, was sustained U.S.-Iran dialogue on a variety of different issues that the two sides disagree on was truly happening from not just the time that the nuclear deal got done, but also during the time that the nuclear deal was being negotiated.
And I think one of the great tragedies of Trump's presidency is those channels of communication have almost entirely been eliminated for no reason whatsoever.
Yeah, well, and that's really the least of it.
So, now tell me, and we'll get back a little bit more details on the deal in a second, but tell me about the very latest on the Trump administration's position here.
I know they released some talking points late last night about their new strategy, and my understanding from what I read of it, I don't know what all the context and what the rest of the reporting is, but what I actually read in the thing was we're going to really strictly enforce the deal by demanding extra inspections at military sites where there's no evidence of anything going on, which is actually us violating the deal.
But anyway, it didn't sound like they were actually backing out of the deal.
It sounded like they were just going to try to be extra hard-asses and try to make it the Iranians' fault.
So, is that progress?
Did they actually back down from decertifying Iranian compliance in the deal, or they just haven't done that, we've got to wait until later today or next week, and then they're going to do that?
I think the president is scheduled to give a speech today in about an hour, hour and a half.
And all signs point to him decertifying Iran's compliance with the deal, even though all of the evidence is to the contrary.
His secretary of defense, all of his top military leaders, the intelligence community, all of our closest allies around the world say that Iran is, in fact, complying, and they've been working overtime to try and get the United States to stay as part of this deal.
Now, the compromise that the generals surrounding Trump, McMaster, Mattis, and then also Tillerson, who's not a general, but his secretary of state, the compromise that they've tried to work out is, okay, the president doesn't like having to say something nice about Iran every 90 days.
And according to legislation that's on the books, every 90 days the United States has to certify whether or not Iran is in compliance.
So what they're trying to do is decertify now, don't add any new sanctions that would be deal killers, and figure out a way to make it so that the president doesn't have to decertify.
The catch in all of this is that this morning there was a report in Politico that said that Senator Bob Corker and Senator Tom Cotton are working on new legislation to address what they perceive to be flaws in the nuclear deal.
So this idea of enforcing the hell out of it is extremely misleading for two reasons.
One, it implies that the Obama administration wasn't, which is ridiculous.
There's literally no evidence to support that claim.
Second, and I think perhaps even more importantly, the way that they want to quote-unquote police the hell out of it is insert poison pills into legislation that would violate a number of American commitments under the deal.
I actually looked at the JCPOA, the actual text of the deal, after I read this Politico report, and I counted four, five, six, seven, eight, almost 30 violations at a cursory glance of reading the deal after I read this report about what's in the Corker-Cotton legislation.
So it's not a way to enforce the hell out of the deal.
It is an extremely disingenuous, ill-conceived plan to placate the ego of the man-baby who is sitting in the White House.
And then to destroy a deal that the vast majority of the international community, with the exception of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, supports.
But for all intents and purposes, looking ahead, the process that is in all likelihood going to be laid out when Trump gives his big speech in about an hour is not going to be one in terms of improving the deal.
It's not going to be one in terms of, you know, maintaining the kind of positive, functional working relationships with our traditional allies in Europe.
This is going to be the United States staking out a position that the rest of the world is diametrically opposed to, and it's going to isolate us.
It's going to give Iran a lot more brownie points with the rest of the world.
It's going to empower countries like Russia and China.
And regardless of whether or not you think that's a good thing, at the end of the day, other countries benefiting doesn't need to have to come at the expense of the United States.
Right?
So nothing good is going to come from this at the end of the day.
All it does is set us towards a trajectory of conflict.
It sets us on a trajectory of conflict, excuse me, with not just Iran, but with everybody that's not named Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and that's not a good place to be.
Yeah.
Well, and I guess, you know, when the neoconservatives, Tom Cotton, I guess he's not necessarily a neocon, but he's very close with them.
And then the Saudi point of view, there's this consensus that, oh, the expanding Persian Empire and the Shiite Crescent and all of this, and they completely blow Iranian influence in Yemen out of proportion, like beyond anything like the truth, honestly.
They completely ignore the fact that every one of Iran's gains in Iraq War II and in Iraq War III were because of the United States and what the USA was doing for them.
And you can't really hold that against them, not too bad, anyway.
And, you know, they're pretending like, oh, my God, this land bridge to Lebanon now, it's Shiite stand, it's this empire.
It's so wrong and so simple that it's perfect for Donald Trump to say, yes, exactly, what a great explanation of what's going on here.
It's the rise of the new Persian Empire.
We've got to roll it back.
That's exactly the kind of BS that's almost tailor-made for him.
Yeah, and I think more importantly, you have countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel.
And I think to a lesser extent Israel, but you do have some of his biggest donors, Donald Trump's biggest financial backers when he was running for president, also being massive financial supporters of the Netanyahu government in Israel.
You have all three of these that are investing in Donald Trump's business interests.
At the end of the day, it could be any country that will come and say, look, we'll buy up your debt.
Look, we'll go into business with you.
And then Donald Trump's position can change overnight.
Well, I wish Iran would do that.
The Taliban should take a note too.
Man, they got Saudi money.
Come on, guys.
Get it together.
It's not the way the country is supposed to be run, but for all intents and purposes, that appears to be the case.
Sure it is.
Usually it's a little more indirect.
You go and give a nice speech to J.P. Morgan when you're out.
But anyway, yeah.
We're not looking good on the Iran front.
Things are getting a lot worse very, very quickly.
And this is all a choice that the president of the United States has made.
And if you don't believe me, go listen to what his national security advisor and his secretary of defense and his secretary of state and all of his top military advisors, the intelligence community, they've all come out and said that Iran is complying with its obligations and commitments under the deal and that moving forward in such a fashion that would, you know, destabilize the deal, weaken it, or kill it, would adversely affect American interests.
And this president is choosing to pursue that path regardless.
All right.
Hang on just one second.
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All right.
Now, so I want to go back a little bit because, you know, I think it's important to note that they never were making nuclear weapons.
There never was a nuclear weapons program in Iran.
It doesn't matter if we heard on the top of the hour news 10,000 times that they were.
They were not either.
It just isn't true.
It's totally debunked.
And even when the CIA says, well, up until 2003, they had some research into nuclear weapons, but then they call that off after America got rid of Saddam Hussein for them, that that's not even true either.
That that's based on, and Gareth Porter shows this quite conclusively in his book, Manufactured Crisis, that those were based on almost entirely on these teletypes about orders for dual use technology that later on every single one of those parts was accounted for in the benign side of the dual use.
Here's that expensive magnet, and it's just part of some balancing machine on a counter at a university.
It's not part of a nuclear weapons anything.
It was only if you're David Albright and trying to twist and take, you know, the very worst case scenario interpretation of a bunch of equipment that they bought to try to make it into a research project and all this, but it just wasn't true.
And the rest of it was based on the completely phony, obviously Israeli-forged, so-called smoking laptop about the Green Salt Project and all of this.
But none of that was true either.
There was no Iranian scientists.
There was no laptop.
They actually even admitted it was a CIA laptop.
There was no laptop.
And anyway, so all that was a lie, and this was always a fake crisis all along.
It was the, oh my God, Iran is making nuclear weapons was the biggest outstanding fake issue, but outstanding issue nonetheless between America and Iran that we just can't get together with them, and they must be considered the aggressor in all the terror and all the problem in the Middle East because of their secret nuclear weapons program that must be confronted, etc., etc.
So then, as you said, the first thing that you said here was that, or the second thing on your list, was that this helped ratchet down that tension when we were on a path to war over a total fake costus belli, no different than the fake weapons and Saddam's pretended Manhattan Project that didn't exist either, right?
And so, you know, I guess this really raises the question.
If this deal falls apart, at least American participation in the deal falls apart.
I wonder, you know, what worst case scenario, do you think it really could lead back to war based on the fake premise?
Again, we'll just go back to 2006 where everybody just pretends to believe that they're making nuclear bombs over there, or what?
Well, regardless of what you believed prior to the nuclear deal being agreed to, the nuclear deal itself contained a variety of provisions that dealt with all of the suspicions that Western countries had with regard to Iran potentially building a nuclear weapon.
So even if you believe somebody like David Albright, even if you believe somebody that was dead set in the belief that Iran was building nuclear weapons, it didn't matter anymore because there was a clear plan put in place to account for the past, acknowledge it, but more importantly, focus on the future, right?
So regardless of what happened in the past, here's a mutually agreed upon process to close the book on that and look forward.
And now that whole process is in all likelihood going to be up in smoke because, again, there's a group of extremely ideological individuals and organizations in the United States, both inside and outside of government, that just can't accept the fact that the U.S. and Iran don't have to be permanent enemies.
So talk about that process a little bit more because actually when I describe the nuclear deal to people, I actually leave this out or give this short shrift, I think.
I need to remember to make more of a point about this, that it's not just that they poured a bunch of concrete into their heavy water reactor, rendering it inoperable for all time.
It's not just that they shipped out 98% of their low-enriched uranium stockpile that theoretically could have been enriched further.
And it's not just that they expanded inspections all over the place under the additional protocol, even to their centrifuge facilities and their uranium mines and all these things that were previously outside of the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
But in fact, they established a process for if you have a problem because the MEK came up with some new accusations or something, then here is a way that we can resolve this that's already completely set up.
John Kerry and what's his name over there?
I forget off the top of my head.
They worked this out already.
So if you want to investigate a military site, well, here's exactly the process.
You claim there's a thing.
We already have a system.
And so that's what Trump is threatening to do, right, is to vigorously enforce that part of it, demand inspections in places that are really outside the deal.
But that's pretty transparent when, as you say, the system's already set up.
Can you talk a little bit more about how that's supposed to work?
So that what if MEK did come up with something that looked like maybe it's something, Reza?
Yeah, so I mean, I don't think we have enough time to outline all of the detail that goes into how inspections work.
But the reality of the situation is that if the international community believes that there's suspicious activity going on in any of Iran's nuclear facilities, then they have the ability to inspect said facility.
Right.
There's a process that's lined out for it.
And now what?
But wait, so what if the Iranians say, no, man, this is a military site.
It's all top secret stuff, has nothing to do with anything nuclear.
We know you know that.
So piss off.
Well, that's the thing.
The evidence has to be presented and there has to be a unanimous decision within what's called the Joint Commission, which all parties to the nuclear agreement are party to.
So Iran can say no.
But if everybody else says yes and compelling evidence is presented and then Iran continues to stonewall, then we have a crisis that could snap back all of the sanctions into place.
Obviously, Iran doesn't want that.
Why would Iran try and do that when it's made all of these commitments that it's made and it's fulfilled all of those commitments to date?
Verifiably.
Right.
So if the Trump administration is coming out and saying we need to be able to inspect any military site anywhere, it's an extremely disingenuous argument because that's not what was agreed to.
And if you don't have suspicion about specific nuclear weapons related activities taking place in a military facility, then suggesting that you want to inspect any military facility anytime is not only infringement of sovereignty.
It's not only needless, but it's also very blatantly and transparently a disingenuous, dishonest way to destroy the deal for no real reason whatsoever.
Right.
Well, so I don't know, man.
Not that I have too much faith in politics and process, but I know you do.
So in a way.
So, yeah.
What about the fact that this is if George Bush, the clown, was tragedy, then this is farce, right?
It's so transparent.
Anybody in the world can see right through it, including Republicans, including, as you say, the generals.
Everybody are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there, Mr. Commander in Chief, if you could, please.
So they can't really destroy the damn deal based on, come on, they pour concrete into the reactor, dude.
You know, I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, but I mean, these are rational arguments that you're making that Trump's top national security people have made and the president's just not listening.
Yeah.
For whatever reason, he's got his mind made up to pursue a particular course of action.
And it's a very destructive course of action.
It's a very unnecessary course of action.
And looking ahead, given the way that the Iraq War played out, not only in terms of how it was operationalized, but also in terms of how it was queued up and sold.
Forgive me for not having the confidence that something that disingenuous can't be repeated.
Because there's been no mea culpa.
There's been no consequences.
There's been no accountability for the people that sold that bunch of nonsense to us.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, OK.
But one thing is, though, and I don't know, because worse things have happened.
I don't mean to be alarmist.
But then again, we've had some pretty ugly wars in the past before, too.
But it seems obvious.
And this was part of the argument exactly right around 10 years ago.
Well, 10 and a half about attacking Iran then was all our guys at Bagram Air Base, et cetera, in Afghanistan, down in Helmand province, too.
And all our guys in Iraq, and now they're back in Iraq again, that they're all virtually hostages of Iranian-allied Shiite forces there.
And only because we're on their side, fighting on their side against the Islamic State, which only grew up with American help in order to check Iranian power in Syria.
As Obama said in 2012 in The Atlantic to Jeffrey Goldberg, that, yeah, we're trying to take Iran down a peg by weakening Assad.
Hardy har har.
So, anyway, this is a real problem.
I mean, we got, I don't know if Iranian Quds Force guys in Syria have access to American special operations forces there.
Maybe they're not too far away.
But certainly in Iraq and certainly in Afghanistan, our guys are within range.
And, of course, in Kuwait and all across the Gulf, all our bases there, the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and the bases in Qatar and in Saudi, the oil refineries and everything, all that's within missile range of the Iranians.
So any war against Iran, even short of an invasion, but just like an air war and a skirmish and an attack and a pretty kind of ugly thing, would lead to mass casualties on the U.S. side and our allies' sides as well.
Yeah, I mean, I agree that war would be an awful, awful thing to pursue for all of those reasons, blood, treasure, and just the overall well-being of innocent people, both in the United States and abroad.
And, you know, they say Mattis hates Iran, but he knows what I just said is right, too, right?
So he's telling Trump, like, hey, we're not going to go that far, right, boss?
I certainly hope so.
I mean, he almost started a war with Iran over Yemen in February.
That's true.
You know, I don't think we can— Wait, remind us about that real quick.
Long story short, this administration believes that Iran has more influence in Yemen than it does.
Not to say that Iran isn't doing things in Yemen that we don't like, but, you know, we're doing things in Yemen that much of the international community don't like on behalf of the Saudis.
So that being said, one of the plans that Mattis had was to violently interdict an Iranian ship that was headed towards Yemen.
And it would be in international waters, and that's a blatant violation of international law.
And you better believe the Iranians would have responded to that kind of aggression, and that would have been a unilateral declaration of war.
Not the wisest thing in the world to do, and if The New York Times is to be believed, the only reason why it didn't go forward was because the story and the plan got leaked before Mattis had an opportunity to make it so.
So, again, Trump isn't the only person that has some reckless ideas in this White House, and I think it's important to be mindful of that.
All right, now, I'll let you go in just a sec, but one more thing, man.
So the Hawks say that, and maybe there's some substance to this, Reza, I don't know, I'm trying to be devil's advocate.
Frank Gaffney or one of them, if you got him sober for a minute, would say that, look, there are all these sunsets on the deal.
And in fact, yeah, they quit enriching uranium at the comm facility, but now they have the right to move up to the very latest generation supersonic centrifuges that can really enrich at a much greater pace.
And that, you know, 10 or 15 years, the sun sets in here.
That's a blink of an eye, and we're basically setting them up to have a perfect turnkey nuclear weapons program when it comes to it then.
Maybe they needed more time to perfect their missiles and things, and so it's perfectly within their time frame to advance their nuclear weapons program, even under the guise of cooperating with this deal.
Something like that.
I'm trying to portray the Hawks' point of view from what would be like an honest misunderstanding or what have you of the situation.
So what do you say to that?
I would say two things.
I would say one.
At the end of the day, when you have a lot of these provisions that are in place from anywhere between 10 to 25 years and the vast majority of these provisions never expire.
If you want to focus on the ones that eventually do expire at some point in time, you're giving yourself at least a decade, if not longer, to use the nuclear deal as a foundation from which additional points of dialogue can grow.
If you lessen tensions, then it de-incentivizes Iran to pursue its nuclear program in ways that the United States or other countries in the world might find troubling.
If the relationship between the two countries remains confrontational and aggressive and Iran feels under threat, doesn't that seem like it's more likely that Iran would pursue things that we don't like after some of those provisions expire?
So that's one.
And two, and I think perhaps even more importantly than the disingenuous argument about things eventually expire, is at no point were Democrats and at no point would Republicans be willing to accept an unfettered Iranian nuclear program.
All this was was opportunity to buy time to see if positive trajectory and positive momentum in U.S.-Iran relations could sustain itself in such a way that the nuclear program could be permanently kept under a lid.
If Iran started to pursue things with regard to its nuclear program after various provisions expired that the United States didn't like or that other members of the international community didn't like, then you better believe that there would be another crisis about the United States saying, well, we just don't know and then we try to rally the rest of the world to sanction and isolate Iran.
We were never going to accept an unfettered Iranian nuclear program.
It was never in the cards.
And I know this because I've had U.S. officials admit it to me.
That was the same plan with North Korea.
But by an unfettered, you still mean under the nonproliferation treaty and within their safeguards agreement that they had previously.
So it's not quite unfettered.
It's not unfettered in a sense that they're developing nuclear weapons in any sense.
No, I don't mean unfettered in terms of developing nuclear weapons.
I just mean unfettered.
I want to make sure the audience understands what you mean.
Sure.
Because they did have a safeguards agreement previously under the nonproliferation treaty before this new deal.
Everything that you're referring to is those provisions of the deal that never expire.
Right.
All right.
Well, listen, man, I think you guys are doing great work and it's a shame to see it being undone like this.
But you certainly have truth on your side and peace on your side.
So, you know, keep it up.
Okay.
I appreciate the kind words.
Thank you.
All right, you guys, that's Reza Marashi.
He's at the National Iranian American Council, niacouncil.org, niacouncil.org.
And it's Trita Parsi and Tyler Cullis and Reza Marashi and others over there doing good work for you.
All right, y'all, and I'm Scott Horton, scotthorton.org for all the archives, 4,500 something interviews for you.
And of course, the Libertarian Institute.org, twitter.com/Scott Horton show and foolserend.us for my book, Fools Erend, Time to End the War in Afghanistan.
